Windows 8 Woes

Today, rather than spending my usually productive morning getting things done, I have to waste this time installing Windows 7 back on to my PC.

Actually, what I meant is reinstalling Windows 7 after my Windows 8 RTM upgrade suffered some kind of horrendous crash, and failed miserably to recover, leaving me helpless, and worse, computerless...

WTF Happened?

I turn on my PC last night and instead of booting into my regular Windows 8 environment, I'm greeted with a black screen with the message Preparing Automatic Repair.

Seems innocent enough; I guess something when wrong and Windows needs to fix it. I guess? Would be nice to, I don't know, show some information or something useful other than this cryptic, unexpected message. But whatever, I'll let it do it's thing.

So I do. For twelve freaking hours.

It was taking forever so I figured I'd was gonna be one of those things, and left it running overnight. I mean it's not like it gave me any options, or at least some kind of freaking indicator that something was actually happening . What else could I really do?

I wake up this morning, and (as deep down, I already expected) nothing happened. The "Preparing Automatic Repair" message is still there. For all I know it's in there, preparing. But that doesn't help me.

Help?

So what do I do now? Searching the web revealed a few fruitless suggestions, all of which failed miserably.

Attempting to repair the PC from the Windows 8 DVD was a total bust.

Attempt 0: WTF Happened to Safe Mode?

This one was a real slap in the face. Where previously I would see a menu allowing me to boot to safe mode, I have to discover that this feature is apparently disabled in Windows 8 by default! From what I understand, you have to enable it inside of Windows.

Which is obviously USELESS if I can't get into it in the first freaking place!

Attempt 1: Automatic Repair Fails

First I tried the Advanced Options and ran "Automatic Repair", which claims to "fix problems that keep Windows from loading." This takes me back to the black screen with a different message "Diagnosing your PC" and proceeds to say it is repairing disc errors, which can take over an hour.

It does this for about 10 seconds then stops and says "Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC", telling me to try other options, one of which is "shut down".

Below that is text that reads "Log file:" but alas, there is no log. Helpful!

Attempt 2: System Restore Fails

So I move on to try the other options in the troubleshooter. This time I select the trusty System Restore. This thing always works, right?

I'm immediately presented with this message: "To use System Restore, you must specify which Windows installation to restore. Restart this computer, select an operating system, and then select System Restore."

Ummm, what? Select an operating system? During which step of the zero steps that give me this option am I supposed to choose an operating system?

Moving on...

Attempt 3: Refresh Your PC Fails

Now I'm getting desperate, and though I didn't want to try a Refresh since it removes all your programs (a theoretically useful but certainly inconvenient option), I just want to get back to my desktop so, what the hell, let's do it.

Except this fails too, and I'm presented with an error message telling me "The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again."

Wonderful, an actual error message, and it even has a suggestion of what to do next! You know what might be even more helpful? Actually TELLING me how to do this! Unlock the drive? HOW?!

Attempt 4: Reset Your PC Fails

At this point, I'm ready to say "screw it, just dump the whole thing" and proceed to choose the option to Reset Your PC. I've got my data backed up (more on this later too) so fine, let's just flush it all and move on.

Except, of course, that doesn't work either. This time it's because "A required drive partition is missing."

Finally, something specific I can use to figure out just what the hell is going on! Maybe my hard drive failed. I can live with that, despite the fact that I just freaking bought the thing two months ago (but that's another rant for another day I guess)...

Final Attempts and Giving Up

I found a few threads online that suggested things like CHKDSK (which completed without errors) and DISKPART (which showed me all the partitions, so I'm not sure why Windows can't see it) but at this point, it's just not worth it. Why would I want to recover from such a miserable failure? I figure even if I managed to get one of these convoluted troubleshooting steps to work, it would be the equivalent of putting duct tape on a broken leg; the damage is already done, and likely in this case irreversable...

So here I am this morning, reverting to my now three-year old OS, taking three steps backward just to get back to where I originally was...

This does not bode well

More than anyone I know or have ever met (which admittedly, isn't a lot of people, but still), I am the biggest Microsoft fan and supporter. I think they have a fantastic ecosystem, especially when it comes to developers. Ever since I picked up a book on C# back in 2004 and fired up Visual Studio for the first time, I knew this was my home.

With the advent of Windows 7 and of course my beloved Windows Phone (even though HTC can suck it!), I saw Microsoft on track towards a new golden age of computing and development.

Then came Windows 8.

I wanted to love this so badly. I mean, what's not to love? A unified environment for Desktop, Mobile, and Web? I believe that's called a trifecta, and it's the dream of every not only every end user, but the developer supporting these environments.

But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and no matter how good your "plans" are, it doesn't mean jack if the god damned thing doesn't work!

I'm not asking a lot

If this was the CTP or Release Preview or beta or whatever, I don't think I'd be complaining. I would've just said to myself "this is what you get for playing with pre-release bits," and moved on without a word of dissent.

But this is the RTM. This is the same bits that will be in the hands of the general public in less than a month. Whether this failure happened today or 30 days from now, the damage is done and now I'm stuck with only my regret.

CrashPlan: My Hero

There is one positive that came out of all of this. My CrashPlan+ subscription ensured that I lost ZERO data, and I'll be able to get right back to work, right where I left off, having lost nothing but my time, patience, and as I said before, quite a bit of love for Microsoft.

This is not the first time CrashPlan has saved me from total failure, and with the apparent instability of this new Windows world, I cannot recommend it enough.

If you do not have a decent backup plan, do not hesitate: BUY CRASHPLAN TODAY!

Moving On, Carefully

The failure itself wasn't really the problem. It's just how BADLY Windows "failed at failing" by removing things like Safe mode, not providing any real help or error messages, and ultimately giving me ZERO options other than just junking the whole thing and starting over.

Which, of course, I will.

I'm not giving up on the Microsoft stack. Like I said, this is my home. I'm not one of those people that's going to run to Apple and pretend like this solves all my problems (though I may look at picking up their hardware to run Windows someday).

But man, credibility is a tough thing to repair.

I really did and still do want to love this new OS. The few weeks I spent with it showed real promise, and I have no doubt that, when all the dust settles, I will find myself right at home inside it.

Until then, I'll think the stability, familiarity, and reliability of Windows 7 is going to have to last just a little bit longer.