Why Do MS Metro Apps Crash So Much?

[JohnF]

Can you point me to an unbiased site that shows what the "norm" is. You seem to be pretty sure what's normal so I assume you're getting this information somewhere? I'm not seeing it. My experience on every Windows 8 box has been great so that seems normal to me. I must be missing a forum or some other site that shows differently and would like to read up on it.

 

[oion]

Can you point me to an unbiased site that shows what the "norm" is. You seem to be pretty sure what's normal so I assume you're getting this information somewhere? I'm not seeing it. My experience on every Windows 8 box has been great so that seems normal to me. I must be missing a forum or some other site that shows differently and would like to read up on it.

Sure.

Norms for Microsoft Surface Pro 64GB:

Staples.com: 31 reviews, 4.5/5 stars
Bestbuy.com: 232 reviews, 4.5/5 stars
Amazon.com: 36 reviews, 4.5/5 stars
CNet.com: 25 reviews, 4.5/5 stars

 

[jnjroach]

Remember that the Tech Press uses Wordpress for most of their uploading into their sites, which is incompatible with Unicode Word Processors (Word). So they use ASCII based text editors for their writing which lends its self to the being able to use iPads and Android Tablets for their work flow, next they want email and most use Google Services, also there is an underlying resentment towards Microsoft by the tech press that dates back almost 30 years and the Hippster Social Journalists (millennials and younger GenX) are squarely in the Apple or Galaxy camps.


Most people who actually spend more than a few hours with RT find it to far exceed their expectations.

 

[mtalinm]

oh, it's my fault. lovely. all I've ever done is the scheduled updates, no mucking with drivers or anything. keep reading and you'll see I'm not alone.

Way to dismiss the majority of respondents. If your core apps are crashing constantly, you've jacked it up. The reason why MS tells you to reset your device is because out of the box, everything works. It's the known good state. This is debugging 101. The surface hardware is a known constant. This is not like PCs with infinitely variable combinations of hardware that have never been tested together. MS spent thousands of hours testing this specific hardware and apps and they work just fine. If yours don't, you've done something to it to mess it up or you have actual hardware failure.

Most people don't HATE metro. It's just different. Give people the option to learn something new or keep the old and they will usually prefer the old just because their lazy. I call BS on your secondhand story on some neighbors father. If he's smart enough to be a hospital admin and savvy enough to follow technology and grab the update at launch to install manually on his machines, he'd be smart enough to understand what it was, how it was different, and how to work around issues he was having. He'd also be smart enough to see that Win 8 performance is better than 7 in almost every way and that benefit alone would far out way any inconvenience caused by a different start menu. If anyone truly can no longer operate a computer because the start menu changed, they have mental issues. All the hate for Win 8 comes from people that spend little to no time with it and are pissed because it's different. I've never read ANY reviews from credible people that put in the effort to learn it and then decided they hate it.

 

[oion]

oh, it's my fault. lovely. all I've ever done is the scheduled updates, no mucking with drivers or anything. keep reading and you'll see I'm not alone.

You're not, but does a reset fix it? Was it ALWAYS unstable? Because if it was, maybe it was a faulty unit. You're definitely in a small minority about this, though, because if more users experienced that much instability, you'd better believe the aggregated user ratings would be a lot lower. Judging by what little information you gave, it sounds like your unit always had problems. Think about that.... and call Microsoft for troubleshooting and/or a potential warranty replacement.

 

[Ruffles]

oh, it's my fault. lovely. all I've ever done is the scheduled updates, no mucking with drivers or anything. keep reading and you'll see I'm not alone.

Off course it's your fault. I'm not saying that to be mean. If we both have the same tablet with the same hardware running the same core apps and mine (and others) works and yours doesn't, that means something else is different on your system that is causing the problem. Maybe some app you have is poorly written and leaking memory. Maybe the battery died during an update or it was corrupted during download or something. Maybe you have bad sectors on your SSD and have corrupt files (have you tried running sfc /scannow from a command prompt?). Who knows what is different about your particular situation.

Speaking from a software engineer point of view, if it works in a base state, you have to figure out what is causing the problem. Is it a pain in the ass to do? Off course. The only way to do it is ether connect it to a debugger and get a stack trace and TRY to work backwards and figure out what caused it to get in that state. To do this, you'd need source code for the OS and the Apps as well as debugging symbols. The other way is to wipe it clean and use it stock for a while to verify it works. Then install only one program at a time and use it in between to verify it is still working until you find the problem app that is somehow managing to jack things up.

I feel for your frustration. I've been there. You have to admit though that you have a corner case. If EVERYONES computer behaved like yours, MS couldn't sell a single one. I've worked for MS (developed video drivers for W2k thru Vista). They take testing seriously and spend thousands of hours making sure things work.

 

[machistmo]

Sure.

Norms for Microsoft Surface Pro 64GB:

Staples.com: 31 reviews, 4.5/5 stars
Bestbuy.com: 232 reviews, 4.5/5 stars
Amazon.com: 36 reviews, 4.5/5 stars
CNet.com: 25 reviews, 4.5/5 stars

Windows 8 review on Amazon.com

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Microsoft Windows 8 Pro - Upgrade

Microsoft Windows 8 Pro User Reviews (Upgrade) - Windows - CNET Reviews

I am shocked that people deciding to buy the Pro end up loving it, really, honestly. I mean you have to be pretty heavily in the MS camp already to even consider the device in the first place, so none of those is unbiased. Presenting those as such is just ridiculous. I wanted to love my pro but just couldn't. I remain hopeful for the next set of devices. I question the integrity of all of the reviews posted when none takes off AT LEAST one WHOLE star for the freaking short battery life on a MOBILE device. Seriously. Not bashing but honestly, the battery life on the Pro is bad and makes the device a 4 of 5 at best. AT BEST. Lets just get our heads out of the gas.

 

[Deryl McCarty]

While I admit that I did not care for the Metro (ie Modern) UI apps, they did not crash for me. The UI is growing on me, but still prefer to boot into desktop and use those, more familiar apps. But in neither case do they fail (with two exceptions): Spellit and occasionally IE11. In the case of Spellit, I have tested it enough to determine that Spellit does something to the Marvell350n drivers, forcing that app and the machine to drop connection. It is better in W8 as updated than 8.1 pro, enterprise or RTM (I have a legal RTM). IE11 is a bit trickier in that only certain pages fail, which in turn fails the IE app, but its spotty and I suspect that the target website has some HTML5 or CSS issues that are driving that train. Other than that, my SP128 is pretty darned stable in both 8 and 8.1 RTM. (The two Betas were less predictable.) Note: use of invective (calling a guy or gal stupid, for example) incites the flame war of yesteryear and doesn't get MS or us to the bottom of any issues. Best if we discuss what is failing, failure modes, circumstances and any workarounds anyone has come up with. Cheers