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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Is there something we users should know about using BIAB in Windows 8? Inquiring minds would like to know. 
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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There have been several posts that BIAB runs in Windows 8 with no problem.
The thing that will stop some folks (like me) from upgrading now is that there may not be Windows 8 driver support for some audio hardware yet.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Dec 2011
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Apprentice
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Quote:
There have been several posts that BIAB runs in Windows 8 with no problem.
Well, this is good to know. An acquiantance of mine has reported some improvements with Sonar, even working without enhanced coding for the new platform. He was pleasently surprised.
Quote:
The thing that will stop some folks (like me) from upgrading now is that there may not be Windows 8 driver support for some audio hardware yet.
Yeah, this has happened in the past... let's see how "bad" it actually is. Win 7 drivers SHOULD work OK in Win 8, just the Win 8 drivers SHOULD be "better", or at least so I've heard.
I guess some VST plug-ins would be problematic, specially free, old 32-bit ones.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Well, I have read that 32-bit is more likely to work, and that drivers for 64-bit Windows will be more of a concern.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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With what little I have tried running biab and rb in windows 8 32 bit so far it seems ok.
BUT
As regards windows 8 itself I am not sure what advantage if any it has over windows 7 and maybe overall a huge disadvantage.
Like.
The new start page with ability to run apps etc.
Dislike
No start menu with scrooling program list. That is almost essential to me because when I install a program I can go to program folder in start menu in windows 7 click on the program and view what options are there and then send a particular shortcut option to the desktop.
A very long winded workaround in windows 8 where I have to go into the disk, open program files are go through the program directory and its sub folders to get what I want.
Sure a lot of these items are pinned to the start menu page in windows 8 but its very cluttered and I find I have to go through the time consumming event of deleting most of them.
I have heard of a third party utility to bring back the start menu to windows 8 but we shouldn't have to do that.
For the time being anyways window 7 is a far easier OS to work with, but will continue to build up my windows 8 installation.
Musiclover
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Perhaps you meant to say, a utility that would bring back the Start menu to Windows 8? I know of at least two, and I'm using one. I boot directly into the desktop. Look up: http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/features.aspor http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/ EDIT: I see you did mean Windows 8 and fixed the post. Yes, try one of those two links.
Last edited by Matt Finley; 11/03/12 01:05 PM.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Matt, which one of the start menu programs do you use? I'm getting ready to install Win8 on at least one of my computers (I figure I can always go back to Win7). Start menu is important to me, as I have many apps installed, but don't necessarily want all of them visible on the start page (especially for utilities I only use occasionally).
And from what I've seen, it seems to me that running Windows 8 apps (formerly metro apps) in full screen only kinds of defeats the whole purpose of why Windows came about in the first place. Just sayin'...
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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John, I don't think there is any pro musical use of the Windows 8 interface at this time, so I just bypass it.
I use Classic Shell, but I think the Stardock product that I found later might be better. The problem I have with Stardock is that you get too many emails from them.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks Matt for those links. Somehow I have managed to get rid of the internet explorer app in the Metro start screen if I remember correctly there is one there where it opens full screen. I have right clicked IE on desktop and ticked pin to start which brings it back on start screen, but if I click it there, it just takes me to IE on desktop again. Just wondering is there a way to get it back on start Metro screen? Overall I get the feeling though I could be wrong Windows 8 is going to be very confusing for a lot of people. Just done a search and maybe something to do with this. http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-8/ie-10-tile-on-start-screen-opening-desktop-instead-of-metro-ie/Musiclover
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Confusing? Yep, at first.
IE on the new Start Screen? Yes, it was.
How to get it back? I don't know, and I don't want to experiment to find out, sorry. However, I would first try creating a new shortcut, which is done as it was in earlier Windows version (right-click on the Start Screen). If that failed, I suppose you can download IE and install it again?
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I wish you could do a count on people still on XP. There's probably a boatload of them. The only experience I've had with VISTA, was on the laptop I bought.
I went from XP to Win 7 Ultimate and have had no issues. I am not to change that anytime soon. Win 8 can wait... probably until I am no longer around.
Don't fix what's not broken. Keep using what works for you. No need for change where change isn't needed.
IMHO, anyway.
Cheers,
Mike
Last edited by MikeK; 11/03/12 09:05 PM.
Cheers, Mike My Music * Asus ROG Strix G15CF 32 GB DDR4 4TB HDD + 1 TB SSD NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 8GB Win 11 AKAI EIE PRO Sound Interface. BIAB/RB 2024 UltraPak Build - Latest
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Journeyman
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Journeyman
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I haven't been able to come to grips with any particular advantages to 8 vs 7...not even the touchscreen implementaion. Most of the jocks I've spoken to say they can use the mouse and/or keystroke commands before they could ever got their fingers to the screen!
History shows it pays to be a VERY LATE adopter of SOFTY's new OSs.
I'm just sayin'.
(-:
JIm
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Cheers, Mike My Music * Asus ROG Strix G15CF 32 GB DDR4 4TB HDD + 1 TB SSD NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 8GB Win 11 AKAI EIE PRO Sound Interface. BIAB/RB 2024 UltraPak Build - Latest
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Did... thanks, Matt!
Not changing here... Win 7 Ultimate is working fantastic with not only my DAW, BIAB and other software, but it also works fantastic with my radio broadcasting software. I'm not going to put a good thing to bed as of yet.
Cheers,
Mike
Cheers, Mike My Music * Asus ROG Strix G15CF 32 GB DDR4 4TB HDD + 1 TB SSD NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 8GB Win 11 AKAI EIE PRO Sound Interface. BIAB/RB 2024 UltraPak Build - Latest
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Figures, here's yet another one that gives you back the Start button for Windows 8. This link was posted by a SONAR user on that forum. http://windows8startbutton.com/
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Expert
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I foolishly loaded Win 8 on my Acer Aspire OOne 270. I took a chance. The compatibility app wanred me that the resolution was too low to run apps but, I went ahead.
I found a tweak to the registry that improved the res, but unfortunately not enough. Ater upping the res I found that Win 8 cycled between boot and crash. I had to restore win 7 (starter) on the machine. I believe its possible to use your copy of Win 8 on another machinev providing you wipe the hard drive AND you keep thev email wityh the link.
I checked my music machine and the graphics card does not do high enough resolution nor my monitors for that machine. So, if I use Win 8 on my music PC its two widescreen monitors to buy and a graphics machine. I prefer 4/3 aspect monitors but they are rare addn resolution is old school. I also wonder about getting a decent fanless dual monitor dual digital port grpahpics card. Fanless for noise reasons. In short its not going to be easy.
Iriefly checked my HP pavilion DV7 quad core laptop and that seems to have teh same resolution issues
Maybe there is some woraroundsa but I have not fund trhem yet
Zero
Win 11 64, Asus Rog Strix z390 mobo, 64 gig RAM, 8700k
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Journeyman
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Thanks Matt. About the article you provided a link to, you offered the following summary...
"The bottom line is that there are two modes in Windows 8, Metro apps and the 'regular' desktop programs, and for the desktop programs Windows 8 provides an improvement for audio. The Metro apps interface will be a problem for several reasons he mentions, at least as Microsoft has implemented it up to now."
My remark was more oriented to Win OS conversions in general...not music specific applications.
But your remarks suggest that even for music-related uses, Win 8 is sort of a mixed bag.
Across the board...there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of incentive to migrate and as I said...the jury is still WAY out on whether many people will care about touchscreen implementation on destops or laptops.
Then again....maybe the jury is already in. In a Computerworld artice a few days ago, it suggests that the Win 8 adoption rate lags Win 7's by a 5-1 margin.*
I just bought a new rig and intentionally specfied Win 7. Seems like I'm not the only one doing that.
(-:
Jim
*In fairness, I hasten to add that the 5-1 adoption rate is VERY EARLY data..counting only sereral days after the respective launches. On the other hand, the economy was a WHOLE LOT worse during the early stages of the 7 launch (October, 2009) so any lag vs. those days is pretty disappointing for SOFTY fans. On the other hand....there is no other hand!!! (There may be other views...but no other hands)(-:
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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All I can offer in addition to the tech article from someone who should know and who says Windows 8 is better for music apps (real ones, from the desktop) is that in the last week, there have been several comments from SONAR users that they see a substantial improvement from Windows 8. SONAR in Windows 8 can support more tracks, effects, and/or other processes than under Windows 7 on the same hardware.
Seems pretty clear to me. I am running Windows 8 on a test machine. I skip the [formerly called] Metro stuff. I would upgrade my desktop production machine if I knew my older Tascam equipment would work.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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