Quote from: eddiethegun on January 01, 2013, 09:38 pmQuote from: Flush on January 01, 2013, 01:52 pmI recently purchased a laptop with windows 8 truecrypt doesnt work with it yet, not does the ubuntu dual boot program. Im taking it back ASAP going to buy a windows 7 laptop fromm the interweb, i can still find them shipping with windows 7... every program that I tried to install wouldnt work with 8... Maybe they do now, but not 2 weeks ago... I still use xp on my desktop, but windows 7 ive heard is okay too... but windows 8, good hell, maybe it wont be so bad once the software will work with it..Ill look at it again in a few months or a year from now, but so far, Im not liking it...~FlushTrueCrypt works fine on Windows 8 for me. Tor and GPG4Win/Kleopatra also work fine.Anyone using Win8 would be advised to disable SmartScreen and utilize some basic egress filtering.You would also be well advised to disable fast startup. Here is an article you might find of interest: LANGALIST PLUSWith Windows 8, "off" isn't really offBy Fred LangaWin8's default shutoff and startup processes are unlike those of any previous Windows version.Completely shutting Win8 down  or doing a truly cold boot  requires a few extra steps!Why Win8 doesn't fully power down by defaultReader Pete was surprised he couldn't access the BIOS in his new Win8 notebook by restarting the machine."I just bought a new laptop with Windows 8 on it and ran into quite an interesting problem that I thought Fred (and the rest of the Windows Secrets gang) might find interesting. The machine in question is an Acer V5 Aspire laptop."I wanted to get into the BIOS. The instructions and posts on the Acer forums both said to tap the F2 key repeatedly when the Acer logo screen appears during power-up. No matter how quickly I began tapping the F2 key after a cold restart, I could never get into the BIOS. I called Acer tech support and they described how I could boot to the BIOS from within Windows. Although this worked, it didn't solve the problem of getting into the BIOS at power-up. I then spoke with a Level 2 technician who was quite knowledgeable."Acer's shutdown icon lets you select Sleep, Hibernate, Restart, or Shutdown. According to the tech, you must hold down the Shift key while clicking the shutdown icon  and continue to hold Shift until the machine fully powers off. I was then able to enter the BIOS during system startup."The tech stated that Windows 8 doesn't really shut down when you click the shutdown icon (or go to Power via the Charms bar/Settings). Instead, Win8 goes into a sort of 'deep sleep' mode, similar to hibernate. This is one of the techniques the OS uses for fast boots. However, when booting from this 'deep sleep' mode, you can't enter the BIOS via F2. You can get into the BIOS only after a 'hard' shutdown (for lack of a better term)."I then tried the shutdown command Fred used to create a custom shutdown tile [Nov. 1, 2012, item]. That command also performed the necessary 'hard' power-down needed to access the BIOS."Have you heard of this power-down mechanism  where power-down is really just a form of hibernate/deep sleep? Do you suppose this is something unique to Acer machines or common to all Windows 8 machines?"It's normal behavior for Win8, Pete. By default, that operating system's core never shuts down all the way! It's part of a new feature  fast startup.When you issue a standard power-down command to Win8, it carries out a hybrid shutdown. Win8 first closes and terminates all user sessions in the expected way. Next, it copies what's still running in RAM (primarily, the live core of the operating system  the system kernel) onto the hard drive. It then turns off the system hardware.When Win8 starts up after a hybrid shutdown, it performs a hybrid boot. As soon as the hardware's ready, the core of the OS reloads from the hard drive; Win8 then picks up right from where it left off. Thus, the OS itself is up and ready to go in a flash. You still have to reload your apps and data the normal way, from scratch.For more info on Win8's Fast Startup hybrid shutdown/hybrid boot, see the MSDN blog post, "Delivering fast boot times in Windows 8."That's how it works on most current hardware. However, on some of the newest systems, Win8 can employ an even faster option via a new kind of low-level firmware  Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI; Wikipedia info). The UEFI replaces the traditional BIOS that's been a part of every PC since the first IBM PC shipped in 1981.Simply put, the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) boots and runs the PC until an operating system (Windows, Linux, etc.) wakes up and takes over. The BIOS has worked well for over 30 years, but with new hardware and software, it's showing its limitations.UEFI acts like a BIOS for operating systems that expect to see a BIOS, but it also adds new functions for UEFI-aware OSes, such as Win8.On a UEFI-equipped PC, Windows 8 can have astonishingly fast startups  especially if the system is also equipped with a solid-state hard drive. How fast? Check out this YouTube Microsoft video, which shows a Win8 laptop booting from dead-off to Start Screen in about seven seconds!(For a more detailed explanation of Win8/UEFI technology, see the MSDN blog post, "Designing for PCs that boot faster than ever before.")As you discovered, Pete, you need to take an extra step to fully shut down Windows 8. There are actually several ways to do so:To bypass the hybrid shutdown/boot process, do a command-line shutdown (e.g., shutdown.exe /s /f /t 00). Or embed the command in a custom tile, as I describe step by step in the Nov. 1, 2012, LangaList Plus item, "Add custom tiles to the Win8 start screen."Use Acer's Shift-key trick  other vendors probably provide something similar to trigger a complete shutdown.Disable fast startup via the Shutdown settings in Win8's Power Options menu. Open the Win8 Control Panel and click Hardware and Sound/Power Options/System Settings. Scroll to the bottom of the dialog box and deselect Turn on fast startup (highlighted in Figure 1).Figure 1. Disabling Win8's fast-startup option will let the OS shut down completely.New technologies often require some rethinking and/or relearning of the traditional ways of doing things. You're among the first to run into this, Pete, but many of us are right behind you!