[Elecraft] (Goes OT) Any report on compatibility of Win8 and the utilities?

[Joel Black]

Chuck,

I downloaded and have installed Win8 on a second partition.

Thus far, all of the Elecraft utilities have worked with a caveat - I 
installed the K3 utility and it worked fine.  I installed the P3 utility 
and could not talk to the P3.  At that point, I installed Fldigi and 
Flrig.  Neither would talk to the K3 on the correct port (well, neither 
Fldigi nor Flrig saw *any* com port).  I restarted Win8 and the problem 
was resolved.  For whatever reason, once the K3 utility started, it 
didn't want to release the com port.  After a restart, Flrig talked to 
the K3 through the P3 and also controlled Flidigi as it should.  I have 
not noticed this problem again.  I did not take the default install 
location and changed it to C:\Elecraft\...  I have *not* been able to 
turn off UAC in Win8 as I have in Win7.  Even though it should be off, I 
still get warnings. Oh, I almost forgot, when I installed the K3 
utility, I got a Win8 warning.  I do not remember the verbage, but I hit 
"More Info" and then "Run Anyway" (or something similar).  I did not get 
this warning with either the P3 or KX3 utilities.  I also got this 
warning upon installation of either Flrig or Fldigi but I don't remember 
which (it was not both).

I also have a KX3 and I downloaded and installed the KX3 utility.  I 
even updated the firmware on the KX3 with no issues.

I will say that I hate/love the Win8 interface.  If you've ever used 
Ubuntu Linux and gone from Gnome to Unity, it's a similar change. 
However, I think the new Windows interface is slightly (I mean slightly) 
more intuitive than Unity.  I am slowly installing stuff on the Win8 
partition.  I may just buy a second SSD and install Win8 and Win7 
side-by-side albeit on separate hard drives.

There are actually two interfaces:

1) Metro UI - this is geared toward the tablet / touchscreen crowd, but 
it works okay with a mouse.  To close an open "app," you drag it to the 
bottom of the screen.  I searched for a long time on how to do this.  I 
never could find a "close" button.  Also, in the Metro UI, all the apps 
pop up full screen.  There is no way to resize a window in Metro that I 
have found.  Again, think tablet.

2) Desktop - this is what most Windows users are familiar with.  It 
works just as the previous versions' desktops except there is no "Start" 
button.

Programs that are installed (if you choose to install a shortcut to the 
desktop) will give you an icon on both Metro and the desktop.

I stated more than you asked and apologize for taking this OT.

73,
Joel - W4JBB


On 10/28/2012 10:51 AM, hawley, charles j jr wrote:
> Has anyone found any difficulties running Win8 in regard to using the Elecraft utilities for upgrade, etc?
>
> Chuck, KE9UW