[good grief]

I mostly drop a shortcut to assorted sites on my desktop and then put them in a folder in documents. I have a shortcut to that folder on my desktop and the ones I use most often are in there available as soon as I click on the shortcut, along with the less used ones which are in (sometimes nested) folders. To save me looking through all the folders, I generally just type in a keyword in the search box under the start menu (this is in Vista and 7), and up it comes. This method works well for me.

In Windows 8 however, I first have to find settings, then click on Search, and then Files. And when I search this way, it tells me nothing is found. Now I know the shortcuts are there, because I imported the folder using Dropbox (which I like better than their Skydrive by the way, since I can't do anything with whatever I put in there--no right click) and I can find the folder in Documents in 8.

So my first question is, what am I doing wrong? Am I not searching in the right place? Am I not holding my mouth the right way when I hit Enter? Surely Documents is in the Search Index? I don't want to have pages of blocks to search through, so I won't even consider adding the majority of them to the Metro screen. How do I make Search in 8 work for me? I'm not looking to add the classic menu at this stage, although I plan to dual-boot 8 with 7, and so may reconsider at that point (and assuming some kind person posts a step-by-step for dummies on how-to on install 8 as a dual-boot in the near future...).

Secondly, what's happened to Hibernate? Is this not going to be in the release version of 8? Does anyone know?

Thirdly, I haven't been able to find out much about Windows Live Mail for 8, so does anyone know whether there will still be a Feeds option in it? I prefer getting my feeds through there.

Any information and assistance gratefully received.

I'm running Windows 8 in a virtual box at present (and thanks to DoubleHelix for that), just FYI. And does anyone else feel like they're facing a wall with the Metro? It's just a solid block in front of me. I feel almost claustrophobic with it.

Thanks in advance.

[TerryNet]

I had very little luck with Windows 8 in VirtualBox on two hosts, so won't be trying the search issue until I feel like booting Windows 8 again. If you dual booted Vista or Windows 7 with XP, or Windows 7 with Vista, dual booting Windows 8 with Windows 7 is the same process. Although I am getting some "weirdness" with my dual boot, which is why I'm sticking mostly with Windows 7.

Have you looked through this thread for some ideas on how to handle Metro (the Start screen)? I am impressed with davehc's post # 2 attachment, but haven't tried to copy it yet.

I doubt that anything special will be done with Windows Live Mail for Windows 8 because the OS includes a Metro email client and because Microsoft is abandoning the use of the confusing "Live" term.

[good grief]

Hi TerryNet, and thanks for the reply.

8 lags in the virtual box (so does Ubuntu for that matter), but for some reason, less than it did a few days ago. I haven't dual booted before, so I'll wait until people more skilled than myself (which is just about anyone) have tried it and worked out any issues. What do you mean by weirdness?

Yes, I've been through that thread, but I haven't tried the attachments yet, although I'm beginning to give it serious consideration. I do want to know how Davehc got the shutdown button onto the metro screen if nothing else. It took me an hour and a half to find it when I first booted 8 up, and I didn't find out how to close apps until I watched a video on You Tube. I had to shut them down with the task manager instead. Still wondering what's so "intuitive" about hiding the shutdown button in settings.

I can't even get the Metro email to work. It told me it was preparing everything, and then it just sat there with a white screen. I won't be using it on the release version of 8 either, until they get themselves moving, and make it able to handle POP3. I won't be using it at all if it doesn't include Feeds.

As for the search issue, maybe I'll mosey on over to MS Answers forum again and see what's there...

[TerryNet]

What do you mean by weirdness?

Three that I remember off-hand ...

a. Normally when I power on I get the same kind of (text only) dual boot screen I've always seen with any combination of XP, Vista, Windows 7. After booting into Windows 8 and shutting down the next power on gives what appears to be a "Metro style" dual boot screen. No problem with that, but I have no idea why I don't always get the same dual-boot screen.

b. In Windows 7 I run a disk check weekly on my Windows 7, Data and Windows 8 partitions. The Windows 8 partition now has tons of "EA" (I think that's Extended Attribute) records to evaluate, and takes a lot longer than the larger Windows 7 partition. I have not tried to find out if all those EA records are a new "feature" of Windows 8.

c. After I have booted to Windows 8 and shut down normally then before booting to Windows 8 the system wants to run a disk check on each partition because of "disk errors."

[good grief]

So let me see, a) Windows 8 takes control of the boot after it's been running, b) it's dumping metadata it doesn't know how to associate, and c) it's conflicting somehow with the hardware?

Let's hope this is all happening because it only has limited functionality, and the bugs haven't been ironed out yet. They seem to be pushing it out pretty fast at this stage though, so I'm not altogether convinced they have enough time to fix the problems before release. Nor am I convinced some of the apps will be safe to run, since they've shaved another ten days off the time companies have to prepare their wares before release date.

There's no way on earth I'm running this thing outside of a virtual box right now. In fact, I'm not at all sure I'm not going to delete the file altogether. After I shut 8 down today, Windows told me it was applying compatibility settings for the next time it runs. I have no idea whether its 8 or Oracle that's causing the problem, but I knew there was one, because booting up and shutting down are lagging. Not much, but I noticed it, and I've been waiting to see what happens.

[TerryNet]

So let me see, a) Windows 8 takes control of the boot after it's been running, b) it's dumping metadata it doesn't know how to associate, and c) it's conflicting somehow with the hardware?

Could be. With the Customer Preview I had poor results (stuff not working, lag that deserves more than a three letter word) and with the Release Preview I had essentially an unusable system. Both of these were in VirtualBox on two different machines (the problems were different depending on the host). And now the above "weird" results with a dual boot. I tried multiple ways, but was unable to install it on my old (2004) Dell.

From my experiences I think that Windows 8 and the hardware are highly interdependent. Probably work OK on a machine designed for it and tested with it, but think it will be crap shoot when people start "upgrading" their current machines.

[good grief]

A message I had yesterday from within 8 had me questioning the hardware compatibility (I don't remember what it was now--memory like a sieve), so I think my best option is to get rid of the thing off my system. Windows wanted to check the WD My Book this morning, yesterday being the first time I tried to get 8 to recognise it, so I'm even less happy with it. It seems too much of a coincidence, and I'm not risking everything any further.

I think I'll mark this thread solved, my solution to the problems being to dismount the Windows 8 ISO, and uninstall Oracle. Thanks for the responses TerryNet. I think you're right about the touch tablets being the ones to run it on. My PC isn't a phone, and it's just not working well for me.