Windows 8 Mouse
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I got a new windows 8 laptop (that's probably your wtf quote right there) because I couldn't get windows 7 (omg! you quoted too soon). One of the first things I find is that the mouse pointer freezes.
I think I found a solution that reveals two whole levels of stupidity beyond my comprehension: there is a button for disabling the mouse pad. Not only that, the button is F5. I have to hold the function key to refresh my browser, which, between modern software and my line of work, is all the time.
I get the impression the functionality was written by Ricky Gervais as a joke, and he didn't expect somebody to actually implement it. Then some humourless vacuum brain actually did it.
This is the lovecraftian depths of horror, right here. The infinite void of unprecedented stupidity one can never foresee.
Someone once asked me how people could stay sane in a world without science, I insisted that there was no such as a world without science.
Well, I was wrong. I am staring into the screaming, laughing madness right now, and I am certain it is staring back and asking me what I'm looking at.
Maybe it's just late and I need my cocktail of uppers, downers and middlers to make the voices go away.
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F5 on my laptop does not disable the touchpad. What laptop model do you have?
I used to have the same problem with laptops that had a physical switch to turn off wifi, as if anybody ever wanted to do that. But it happened by accident all the freakin', and hello unnecessary support calls!
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Toshiba Satellite. Presumably it's called the satellite because it orbits the black hole of sanity. I like melodrama.
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We one single Windows 8 device at work, a Lenovo piece-of-laptopshit, and it too is truly awful. I blame Windows 8. We use it as a threat, as in "if you don't return that laptop which doesn't suck you get this one next time".
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Toshiba Satellite.
Can this not be changed in HW Setup like on other Toshibas? Can switch some how between the F1-12 keys behaving as you expect them to or how they would on a normal laptop with Fn held.I don't have any real issues with Windows 8/8.1 once ClassicShell is installed and Metro and the various hot corners and "charms" bars are disabled.
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there is a button for disabling the mouse pad
Back in my days, a mouse pad just lay on the desk with no need to be enabled. Man, technology does march on...
Also, TRWTF as always is the Microsoft guy's answer. I have yet to see a question on Microsoft's Q&A site where a Microsoftie actually gave an useful answer...
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Leave an instance of Notepad open at all times.
When your touchpad freezes, go to this window, hit F5, and you will have a timestamp entered there.
Save your document, and at various points throughout the day, reminisce about the times (literally) that your touchpad has frozen.
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Also, TRWTF as always is the Microsoft guy's answer. I have yet to see a question on Microsoft's Q&A site where a Microsoftie actually gave an useful answer...
Reminds me of a good joke along these lines (found here & re-quoted for your convenience):
A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communications equipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position and course to fly to the airport. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopter's window. The pilot's sign said "WHERE AM I?" in large letters. People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign and held it in a building window. Their sign read: "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER." The pilot smiled, waved, looked at her map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position. The pilot responded "I knew that had to be the Microsoft building because, like their technical support, online help and product documentation, the response they gave me was technically correct, but completely useless."
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Toshiba Satellite. Presumably it's called the satellite because it orbits the black hole of sanity. I like melodrama.
I've owned two different models of Toshiba Satellite. Bought the first one myself, and my wife brought the second one along when we got married. Both had issues with the power port breaking. The first one, the port would regularly detach from the motherboard, so I'd have to go in an solder it back on. The second, the peg in the port snapped, so I had to replace the port. Twice. From what I found, these were common issues with Toshiba laptops. You'll never see me get one again.
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Old joke, but still good.
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Toshiba laptops. You'll never see me get one again.
I'm in the market for a new laptop. Stuff like this is useful information; thanks.
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Oh, I had a samsung Laptop that had the same problem (among many others.... but it still works until it overheats and the glue that holds the monitor together starts to liquify....)
I currently have one of these Satellite-Laptops, too. Was a real hassle to get it to update to 8.1. Would probably almost make a good sidebar story... but I never wrote any of those and am too scared to actually try.
On Topic:
As @loopback0 said, it can be changed easily once you google-search for ~2 seconds.I also never understood why laptop manufactures suddenly started to value the function-keys over the f-keys (yeah, be pedantic and tell me what the f stands for... you know what I mean anyway!) It's been a trend I have been observing on multiple laptops so far. I blame the "everything has to be casual"-idea.
Filed Under: Also everything is a phone.... but that doesn't really apply here so it goes in the Filed Under-Section | I have also not seen a laptop without the ability to disable your mousepad per button-press in the last 7 years or more.... It has 'always' been there and it has it's use for people who write a lot or something
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The death of function keys isn't just a laptop thing, it's been afflicting desktop keyboards for a few years too. Microsoft started this stupid trend back in 2001, and even Logitech has given into it. Probably because that's how Apple does it. (AFICT OS X doesn't even let mere applications respond to the function keys.)
Filed Under: Remember when you had to do stupid Xorg hacks to use a Microsoft keyboard with Linux? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
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Fn+F5 on mine. I usually keep it off - it's annoying if you touch it accidentally. I only use it during demos, when I don't have keyboard/mouse attached.
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No one mentioned this, but I actually use Ctrl-R to refresh pages. Firstly because F5 is not as convenient to use as you would think, and secondly because of this whole Fn-"features" nightmare.
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OS X doesn't even let mere applications respond to the function keys
Yes, it does. It’s just that most function keys are mapped to system functions such as screen brightness, Exposé, play/pause, sound volume, etc. and so (I suspect) might never reach an application that’s waiting for those keys to be pressed.Mac applications hardly ever use the function keys for anything, even before Apple claimed most of them, making this mainly a pain in the ass with applications from other OSes that have been ported and expect to be able to respond to the function keys. For example, I’ve been using [url=http://www.openscad.org]OpenSCAD[/url] lately, and its use of function keys for various things is mildly annoying — it makes sense for Windows users who prefer IE, I suppose, because F5 renders the drawing, which I’d say is analogous to reloading a web page, and I suspect they stuck other functions under the function keys for that reason. Mac users can’t access some of those via the keyboard at all, though, because pressing (say) F10, which is mapped to showing “CGAL Surfaces Only”, will mute the system volume, or if tried as Fn+F10, will show all windows for the current application. Still, compared to some of the features of the language used to create drawings, these are not that big WTFs.
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Filed Under: Remember when you had to do stupid Xorg hacks to use a Microsoft keyboard with Linux? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I had a MS keyboard that required drivers to get all the extra keys working on Windows, but worked out of the box on Linux. YMMV I guess.
I found that mildly amusing at the time.
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Can this not be changed in HW Setup?
I'll have to give it a try when I'm in front of my laptop again. In the meantime I'm casually ignoring the fact that this is default functionality to be switched off, rather than buttons you can custom assign like you could in classic operating systems such as quake.
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MiffTheFox said:
OS X doesn't even let mere applications respond to the function keysYes, it does. It’s just that most function keys are mapped to system functions such as screen brightness, Exposé, play/pause, sound volume, etc. and so (I suspect) might never reach an application that’s waiting for those keys to be pressed.
Not really. You can actually configure the system, whether to use the function keys for system controls by default and for applications using a modifier key, or the other way round. Also there are some "good old" work horse applications, like XPress, making extensive use of function keys. This is actually not an Apple thing, but a trend with "smart" UI designers. (Compare: There's still a button left in the browser UI, let's get rid of it; and, no, there shouldn't be any menus in a GUI application ...)
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ou can actually configure the system, whether to use the function keys for system controls by default and for applications using a modifier key, or the other way round.
Are you sure? That sort of thing is usually somewhere in the BIOS setup or whatever.
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noland said:ou can actually configure the system, whether to use the function keys for system controls by default and for applications using a modifier key, or the other way round.
OS level: System preferences -> Keyboard -> Use F1, F2, etc as standard function keysAre you sure? That sort of thing is usually somewhere in the BIOS setup or whatever.
Edit: Please note that you may also activate/deactivate or customize any OS-wide and even some application shortcuts on Mac OS. (Also in System preferences -> keyboard.) This is quite a different approach to shortcuts on a technical level.
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I also never understood why laptop manufactures suddenly started to value the function-keys over the f-keys (yeah, be pedantic and tell me what the f stands for... you know what I mean anyway!)
It's less my tendency to be pedantic than it is my amusement at how different people think of things, but...were I trying to distinguish between the two, I would have used the terms exactly the other way around. But that's because the special toggle button for which thing those keys (and some others on the board, I think) would do was labeled F. Well, specifically, F inside a rhombus, I think.
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OS level: System preferences -> Keyboard -> Use F1, F2, etc as standard function keys
Oh, sorry, I was thinking about the hardware fn crap vs F1.
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there is a button for disabling the mouse pad
As someone who's never had a laptop without a button to turn off the mousepad (in some a dedicated hardware button, in others an F-key combined with Fn), I have no idea why you think this is an unprecedented stupidity.It's extremely useful if you want to use your laptop with a seperate mouse and don't want to move your cursor as you rest your hands over the mousepad.
Using plain F5 for it however, is extremely stupid.
On a very tangential note, I miss the hardware volume wheel my first laptop had.
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Oh, sorry, I was thinking about the hardware fn crap vs F1.
It's actually about the fn-key, but it's handled on the OS level.
(You won't enter the BIOS/UEFI ever on Mac OS, all the mappings are done by the OS.)
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It's actually about the fn-key, but it's handled on the OS level.(You won't enter the BIOS/UEFI ever on Mac OS, all the mappings are done by the OS.)
No, I won't ever use that because I won't be using a Mac.
Filed Under: Ba-dum-ching
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No, I won't ever use that because I won't be using a Mac.
If Windows ever manages to roll back to DEC-standards of OS sanity, I'll give it an extensive try ...
(No, this is not a an OS flame war, but commemorating the origins of Win NT in what was to be the next VAX OS and the famous qualities of DEC OSs, especially TOPS 10/20 is remembered by those who used it as the best OS ever.)
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I used to have the same problem with laptops that had a physical switch to turn off wifi, as if anybody ever wanted to do that.
I actually require that in my work. Windows seems to default to wireless connection and only uses a wired connection when there is no wireless available. I need to force connection to the wired network. The easiest way by far is to just flip the switch. I know a lot of people that do so.
You speak in absolutes a lot.
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@Intercourse said:
I actually require that in my work. Windows seems to default to wireless connection and only uses a wired connection when there is no wireless available. I need to force connection to the wired network. The easiest way by far is to just flip the switch. I know a lot of people that do so.
Windows hasn't done that in like a decade.
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(You won't enter the BIOS/UEFI ever on Mac OS, all the mappings are done by the OS.)
Is Dickwood an ex-Jobs protege? That sounds like some Doing It Wrong™ bullshit right there.
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Windows hasn't done that in like a decade.
No, it does. I run in to it all the time.
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Then you're either running a decade-old computer, or your admin really fucked something up somewhere. (You do have to do some "stuff" to tell Windows the wifi network is the same domain as the wired one.)
Despite all that, a physical switch is still fucking stupid because you can disconnect from wifi in two mouse clicks. Meanwhile, the switch gets hit by accident ALL THE TIME and every time it's hit by accident it makes the computer look broken and your poor IT department is wasting shitloads of their time on it.
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It's extremely useful if you want to use your laptop with a seperate mouse and don't want to move your cursor as you rest your hands over the mousepad.
I prefer laptops that have a setting to disable the mousepad as soon as you plug in a mouse, but yes. I do the same thing. Especially since laptop manufacturers have started a competition to see who can put the largest mousepad on their laptop. I have a 15.6" Dell where it is entirely too large. I constantly move my insertion point if I do not hold my hands just right.
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Then you're either running a decade-old computer, or your admin really fucked something up somewhere. (You do have to do some "stuff" to tell Windows the wifi network is the same domain as the wired one.)
Nope. They are all less than a year old. (I have three laptops I use for different things)
You keep saying that, but I do not think you know what you are talking about. I own an IT consultancy that among other things provides helpdesk support for SMBs. We run in to it all the fucking time. Lots of organizations isolate their wifi network. Several times a month we have someone call in that has a laptop that they rarely take home. They come in, turn on the laptop, it connects to the wifi and is also plugged in to the wired network and then they call us because they "cannot reach the server". Shut off wifi or disconnect from wireless and they are good to go.
I also run in to it all the time for the same reason. Typically if I am at a client's location I just need internet access, so I run off of wifi. If I need to RDP/SSH to a server, or manage some VMs through XenCenter or Hyper-V, then I have to plug in to the switch and turn off wifi.
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Good job reading the first half of my post and ignoring the second. It's really great to talk to people like you who don't read anything, because it means I can repeat myself over and over and fucking over again.
Unfortunately, I have to hit the road right now, so in lieu of repeating myself, I hope you will scroll up and FUCKING READ THE POST YOU ARE RESPONDING TO YOU ASSHOLE. Thank you.
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Good job reading the first half of my post and ignoring the second.
So what? They were two distinct points.
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So what? They were two distinct points.
But... but... I was just about to move these damned goalposts back where they were. Should I leave them where they are then?
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Despite all that, a physical switch is still fucking stupid because you can disconnect from wifi in two mouse clicks. Meanwhile, the switch gets hit by accident ALL THE TIME and every time it's hit by accident it makes the computer look broken and your poor IT department is wasting shitloads of their time on it.
No, you fucking dipshit, I read your fucking post. It is actually three mouse clicks and a lot of moving the mouse. I have never hit it on accident, because it is either at the front or side of the laptop and guarded. I am also apparently smarter than you as on the rare occasion that it does happen I do not call tech support. I think to myself, "It must have the wireless shut off" and I flip the switch back. I do not call tech support.
You also did not read my post, or you would realize that we ARE THE IT DEPARTMENT.
My god, you are a fucking prick. You speak in absolutes and then when someone disagrees with you or proves you wrong you go off on a fucking rant like a small child.
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I don't really care, so long as you don't pull some sort of moving-the-posts-to-a-new-thread bullshit.
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It's extremely useful if you want to use your laptop with a seperate mouse and don't want to move your cursor as you rest your hands over the mousepad.
My laptop is smart enough to disable the touchpad when an external mouse is attached.
Filed under: Of course someone already said that. Damn it.
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Then you're either running a decade-old computer, or your admin really fucked something up somewhere
Yeah, no, Windows will still prefer the wireless over wired. On a laptop less than a month old that I am the admin for. And I've changed sweet FA w.r.t. defaulting to wireless.Also got to love how people blame Windows for shitty drivers. It's Vista all over again...
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@Intercourse said:
I am also apparently smarter than you as on the rare occasion that it does happen I do not call tech support. I think to myself, "It must have the wireless shut off" and I flip the switch back. I do not call tech support.
And since you are the only person in the universe, it's a non-issue! Yay!!!
@Intercourse said:
You also did not read my post, or you would realize that we ARE THE IT DEPARTMENT.
I did my stint in IT. I got a lot of calls on "my wifi won't work". About 90% of them were due to people turning it off with the physical switch by accident when putting the laptop in a bag, brushing against it, etc.
BTW, I also have similar complaints about numlock, insert, and scroll lock. Those shitty useless keys are hit by accident about 600 times more than they're hit on purpose, and all of them make your computer appear broken.
@Intercourse said:
My god, you are a fucking prick. You speak in absolutes and then when someone disagrees with you or proves you wrong you go off on a fucking rant like a small child.
I know you are but what am I?
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My Windows 7 laptop will connect over slow wifi and ignore the fast wired network it's docked into. Every damn time.
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How do you guys do that? I never changed a setting like that on my laptop and it sure as hell knows when I plug in a network-cable it's supposed to use it.
Using the wireless as default seems backwards to me. "Hey, there is this signal that could be instable and this cable that will probably either deliver a stable connection OR will be disconnected (faulty cables don't count :D). Why would any system choose the first as default?
Filed Under: everything is a phone and phones do things wireless!
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The death of function keys isn't just a laptop thing, it's been afflicting desktop keyboards for a few years too. Microsoft started this stupid trend back in 2001, and even Logitech has given into it. Probably because that's how Apple does it. (AFICT OS X doesn't even let mere applications respond to the function keys.)
My Microsoft Natural 4K is the best keyboard ever made (after the IBM Model M, of course), but yeah, sometimes the F-Lock turns off on it's own, turning F5 into "Open", etc.
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How do you guys do that? I never changed a setting like that on my laptop and it sure as hell knows when I plug in a network-cable it's supposed to use it.
The issue is Windows doesn't know whether the wifi and wired connection are the same network. There's a way to configure your network equipment to "hint" to Windows that they are the same, but I guess from this thread, most companies are too lazy to do that properly?
Imagine the bitching if Windows automatically switched from a wifi for a company that follows HIPAA rules, to the wired connection of the coffeeshop, milliseconds before the user tried to submit a form with confidential medical information.
I also haven't seen this problem since Windows XP days, but now I'm thinking it's the network admins who are incompetent idiots and not Windows itself.
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And since you are the only person in the universe, it's a non-issue! Yay!!!
You are the smartest man in the universe, and anyone who does not believe so just needs to ask you.
BTW, I also have similar complaints about numlock, insert, and scroll lock. Those shitty useless keys are hit by accident about 600 times more than they're hit on purpose, and all of them make your computer appear broken.
Most computer users would say the same thing about the Home and End keys, that they are useless and they do not know why they are there. People who code use them constantly though. (depending upon the language) You on the other hand think that because YOU do not use them that they are just vestigial organs that can be removed without consequence. You have a very narrow worldview and it is to your disservice.
I know you are but what am I?
Actually, I rarely speak in absolutes. My wife and close friends refer to me as being an eternal devils-advocate. I try my best to think outside of my own worldview and look at things from other perspectives. I am not always successful, but at least I try. You are like an impudent child though. When you do not get your way, or you do not like something, you bitch and rant. You do this so much that everyone knows it as a Blakeyrant. Then, if you really do not get your way, you rage quit. That is what children do, they pack up their toys and go home. Then, after a while, you just come back like nothing ever happened. To each their own though.
Yes, I am aware that there are settings you can change. From my own experience, which is purely anecdotal, Windows does not always follow that. You can set priorities for network interfaces, but it appears to only work on reboot. If you are on wireless, and then switch to wired, it still defaults to wireless. At other times, it does not follow it for who fucking knows what reason. There are other people in this
threadtopic who have noticed the exact same behavior. But apparently we are all idiots and you are the only one who has it figured out?
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Using the wireless as default seems backwards to me.
I agree completely, but that is the behavior I have noticed even though I have changed the priorities of interfaces. Now I just do not mess with it anymore. I just turn off wireless through my handy-dandy switch that never fails me, even though @blakeyrat thinks it is useless. ;)
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@Intercourse said:
You are the smartest man in the universe, and anyone who does not believe so just needs to ask you.
Correct.
@Intercourse said:
Most computer users would say the same thing about the Home and End keys, that they are useless and they do not know why they are there.
But Home and End don't make the computer appear broken. Therefore, they are not on my list.
@Intercourse said:
You on the other hand think that because YOU do not use them that they are just vestigial organs that can be removed without consequence.
I never called for removing Home and End, and I use those keys all the freakin' time. In fact the very first bug that had me calling for Discourse to be removed from this site was that Home and End didn't work.
Unless you're trying to tell me that there are people who use Scroll Lock, Insert, and Num Lock constantly, in which case that's a gigantic [citation needed] on my part. I don't think I've ever seen anybody intentionally use Scroll Lock or Insert, and the only time people hit Num Lock is when their computer is apparently broken. (i.e. Num Lock got turned off somehow.)
@Intercourse said:
Actually, I rarely speak in absolutes. My wife and close friends refer to me as being an eternal devils-advocate.
Yeah, that's what she told me last night.
@Intercourse said:
You are like an impudent child though. When you do not get your way, or you do not like something, you bitch and rant.
That's because it's funny.
@Intercourse said:
You do this so much that everyone knows it as a Blakeyrant. Then, if you really do not get your way, you rage quit.
I quit when I didn't have a boring-ass job I needed to distract myself from by posting stuff here. Now I took another boring-ass job and so I'm back.
@Intercourse said:
That is what children do, they pack up their toys and go home. Then, after a while, you just come back like nothing ever happened.
Nothing did happen. What do you think should happen when someone stops posting on a forum and then comes back? A ticker-tape parade? Maybe we should launch them to the ISS? Maybe their face should be on TV?
@Intercourse said:
You can set priorities for network interfaces, but it appears to only work on reboot. If you are on wireless, and then switch to wired, it still defaults to wireless.
Like I posted above, Windows will only automatically roam from wireless to wired (and vice versa) if it knows the two networks are the same network. Because otherwise that would a huge bug, and a big security hole.
I think that you're attributing the problem to Windows, when the problem is the network is set up incorrectly.
@Intercourse said:
There are other people in this thread topic who have noticed the exact same behavior. But apparently we are all idiots and you are the only one who has it figured out?
I think so far we have 2 anecdotes on either side. Let's get into the octogon and fight it out!!!
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@Intercourse said:
I just turn off wireless through my handy-dandy switch that never fails me, even though @blakeyrat thinks it is useless.
I gotta admit, that I also always found them weird. Your workflow seems to have accepted them perfectly fine but I never had much reason to use the "turn wireless of"-function and the option of pressing two buttons (Fn + Whatever button it is (currently F12 for my laptop) ) seemed to be good enough.
Not sure why you guys need to attack each other that much over it, though. If you like your switch, then more power to you. I do think that these switches are less and less common, though
Filed Under: Leave it to me to disagree to another post of somebody who openly agreed with me
