Download: Windows 8.1 Preview - now live!

zigzag3143

zigzag3143

Contributor, Sysnative Staff Emeritus
Joined
Mar 27, 2012
Posts
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Later today, Microsoft will release Windows 8.1 preview at its BUILD conference in San Francisco. While Microsoft has yet to put up the download, we have the link that you will need to get your hands on the build.
Click to expand...

Download: Windows 8.1 Preview - now live! - Neowin

Download Windows 8.1 Preview - Microsoft Windows

The ramifications of installing RP can be found here
Windows 8.1 Preview Links and best practices - Microsoft Community

EDIT: The links (and DL are now live) but a bit overwhelmed.

Install is straight forward even on dual boots.
 
It took a while to finish, but I'm now using 8.1. I like the idea of using the background as the start menu background, and they brought back a start button that leads to that menu. It looks pretty ugly though now that they've changed the coloring of all of the program tiles to match the significant icon pixel color... Nonetheless, I think this is an improvement, so I'm not complaining, it's cool :)
 
Okay... A few things, in which I may or may not like. 8.1 changes more than expected, and I don't know how I feel about this currently, but I'm going to point these out very clearly.

A few things so far, aside from the possibility of many other things I have yet to discover:

1. It seems various Environment variables have been changed: %USER% for instance, does no longer exist. %Sysnative% appears to have been neglected and no longer exists.
2. The start button is back, but the power menu no longer has the command prompt options, and they have been replaced by Windows Powershell, and the Administrative version of the Powershell console too.

Does this hint at some soon to be obsolete "things" for the future of Windows? I guess this means bye bye Batch after all this time, and hello to it's replacement, Powershell.
 
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AceInfinity said:
1. It seems various Environment variables have been changed: %USER% for instance, does no longer exist. %Sysnative% appears to have been neglected and no longer exists
Click to expand...

I don't have either of those Environment Variables on my system anyway... I'm running W7, were they new in 8? Or am I misunderstanding you?

From the set command:

Code: 
ALLUSERSPROFILE=C:\ProgramData
APPDATA=C:\Users\Stephen\AppData\Roaming
asl.log=Destination=file
CLASSPATH=.;C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime\QTSystem\QTJava.zip
CommonProgramFiles=C:\Program Files\Common Files
CommonProgramFiles(x86)=C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files
CommonProgramW6432=C:\Program Files\Common Files
COMPUTERNAME=STEPHEN-PC
ComSpec=C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe
devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
FP_NO_HOST_CHECK=NO
HOMEDRIVE=C:
HOMEPATH=\Users\Stephen
LOCALAPPDATA=C:\Users\Stephen\AppData\Local
LOGONSERVER=\\STEPHEN-PC
NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS=8
OS=Windows_NT
Path=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Roxio Shared\OEM\DLLShared\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Roxio Shared\OEM\DLLShared\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Roxio Shared\OEM\12.0\DLLShared\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Roxio\OEM\AudioCore\;C:\Program Files\Intel\WiFi\bin\;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intel\WirelessCommon\;C:\Program Files (x86)\WinMerge;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Windows Performance Toolkit\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime\QTSystem\;C:\Program Files (x86)\IVI Foundation\VISA\WinNT\Bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Debuggers\x64\;C:\Program Files\Intel\WiFi\bin\;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intel\WirelessCommon\
PATHEXT=.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE=AMD64
PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER=Intel64 Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7, GenuineIntel
PROCESSOR_LEVEL=6
PROCESSOR_REVISION=2a07
ProgramData=C:\ProgramData
ProgramFiles=C:\Program Files
ProgramFiles(x86)=C:\Program Files (x86)
ProgramW6432=C:\Program Files
PROMPT=$P$G
PSModulePath=C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\
PUBLIC=C:\Users\Public
QTJAVA=C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime\QTSystem\QTJava.zip
SESSIONNAME=Console
SystemDrive=C:
SystemRoot=C:\Windows
TEMP=C:\Users\Stephen\AppData\Local\Temp
TMP=C:\Users\Stephen\AppData\Local\Temp
USERDOMAIN=Stephen-PC
USERNAME=Stephen
USERPROFILE=C:\Users\Stephen
VS110COMNTOOLS=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\Tools\
VXIPNPPATH=C:\Program Files (x86)\IVI Foundation\VISA\
windir=C:\Windows
windows_tracing_flags=3
windows_tracing_logfile=C:\BVTBin\Tests\installpackage\csilogfile.log
 
Ahhh.... AceInfinity... :banghead:

Ignore what I just said about %user%. It is wrong. Is today actually Monday or something in disguise? lol :r1: I meant %username%, not %user%, so it does exist

edit; %WinDir%\Sysnative still doesn't exist in 8.1 though

File System Redirector (Windows)

Note: This is the binary from SysWOW64, the 32 bit version of explorer on my 64 bit OS. I tested with the regular explorer too, just for the heck of it, and neither recognize the Sysnative virtual directory. This means that things were changed inside the FSR. The 32 bit version of explorer should have redirected... And it did on regular Windows 8/8 Pro.
 

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jcgriff2 said:
AceInfinity said:
. . . .
%Sysnative% appears to have been neglected and no longer exists...
Click to expand...

Neglected & no longer exists...? :lol:

We are alive & growing!!

(sorry. . . could not resist!)
Click to expand...

I made a big mistake there, I meant to say %WinDir%\Sysnative, but it appears that in Windows 8.1, it's not recognized by the FileSystem Redirector. Can anybody else confirm this? :huh:
 
jcgriff2 said:
No 8.1 here yet. . .

Can you do a DIR on %WinDir%\Sysnative w/ x86 CMD?
Click to expand...

x.png

:huh:... :confused2:

Now I'm just very very confused. Is this an issue with the 32 bit version of explorer.exe or? (I was sure this worked on Windows 8, if someone can confirm this for me that would be good.)

32 bit cmd.exe from SysWOW64 worked...
32 bit explorer.exe from SysWOW64 did not work.

edit: From 32 bit command prompt from SysWOW64, invoking the 32 bit version of explorer within that same directory with the location, it didn't find it...
x2.png
 
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Not with Explorer. . . just x86 CMD itself.

Code: 
dir %WinDir%\Sysnative

Windows 7 -
Read More:


Note the top says syswow64, yet cmd line says system32, but it is of course syswow64

07-02-2013_cmdX86.png
​
 
I did that test, and it worked, but with explorer.exe (32 bit from SysWOW64) it did not... Not even by invoking explorer.exe (32 bit) with argument %1 as the path %WinDir%\Sysnative. I even tried directly in the address bar of 32 bit explorer but no avail. Tomorrow after work, I think i'll use Hyper-V to test back on my regular Windows 8. I think more testing needs to be done before making conclusions, but as speculation goes so far, It would appear something is up with 32 bit explorer... :huh: Very embarrassingly, this initially lead me to believe that the FSR was changed in some way. :o
 
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What would be the reason for Explorer x86 to access \sysnative since it is x64 virtual copy of \system32?

If it's an app you're writing, did you check Process Explorer to assure Explorer x86 was indeed running?

I've only seen \sysnative referenced in non-Windows x86 apps.
 
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jcgriff2 said:
I've only seen \sysnative referenced in non-Windows x86 apps.
Click to expand...

You're confusing me now jcgriff lol. I'm probably far off base though with this whole thing. Sysnative won't be recognized by 64 bit programs, so having Sysnative referenced in a 64 bit program and not a 32 bit one like you say, wouldn't do much good. I only verified that the binary was 32 bit with CFF explorer. It could be that it's invoking the 64 bit version to run regardless though... Aside from that read this:

File System Redirector (Windows)
Note that 64-bit applications cannot use the Sysnative alias as it is a virtual directory not a real one.
Click to expand...

chair.gif


I feel like the one getting hit with the chair right now shamefully.
 
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I meant that I've only seen 3rd party x86 apps use \sysnative -- usually security related ones.

As you mentioned, there is no need for x64 to reference \sysnative as it is a virtual copy of \system32
 
jcgriff2 said:
I meant that I've only seen 3rd party x86 apps use \sysnative -- usually security related ones.

As you mentioned, there is no need for x64 to reference \sysnative as it is a virtual copy of \system32
Click to expand...

Ah, I thought you meant non-x86 apps. Sorry :)
 

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