This intrigued me. I decided to see what would happen if you plug a Windows Phone 7.5 device – my HTC HD7 in this case – into a Windows 8 machine (the release preview). The answer? Nothing happens. If you combine Microsoft’s prime desktop operating system and prime mobile offering, nothing happens. No dialogs, no sync options, no check for updates, no backups, no audio/video transfer, not even a mount or a dialog to download Zune. They’ve got only a few months to address this.
They will launch a Metro Style sync app which will work with WP7 and WP8. I expect this to be addressed before the summer ends.
I used to have Windows 8 on my laptop for a while. After I had the Zune software installed, it would launch automatically when I plugged my Windows Phone.
Edited 2012-06-22 02:24 UTC
That’s a behaviour of the Zune app. It’s in Settings/General/Startup View and works regardless of the OS.
I was disappointed by the lack of awareness that windows 8 showed when I plugged in my HD7 too. I expected it to at least show up under Portable Devices in My Computer like my Android phone does.
Thankfully, Windows Phone 8 won’t require the Zune software.
Windows 7 searches for drivers for a freakin’ USB mouse, what did you expect?
I would expect it to search for a driver, and then actually find one and do something useful. I don’t think this sounds unreasonable.
Yep, it should search for a driver, install it and start using it. All of which should take a fraction of a second, not several seconds and apparently a lot of effort as Windows makes out. On my Mac or Linux machines, I plug in a mouse and it’s responsive by the time my hand moves from the USB plug to the mouse. On my Windows machine I get several notifications popping up, searching for drivers and all that, and then it works. Not a big deal really, but since all three OSes are doing the same thing, I think it’s reasonable to expect a similar response time.
it takes time because it searches for it online to get the latest version, it’s a little price to pay but it works quite well since vista/7
The difference is that Windows by default also searches online for drivers, Linux doesn’t. (Though I’ve actually several times said that it should!) I don’t know if Mac searches online for drivers. Though, I agree that it does take longer than it should, and a more sensible approach would be to use the included drivers first, then perform the search in the background and switch over to the new drivers if any were found; such an approach would solve the annoying delay quite neatly.
I think what was missed here is that Linux tends to install multiple drivers for a particular device (e.g. a mouse in this case) when the OS is installed and then detects which one to use during the boot sequence (or X startup or wherever).
It’s why it’s much easier to clone a Linux install from one machine to another (which has different hardware) than it is to do the same for Windows. In fact, Windows is so poor at being cloned to another PC with different hardware, that I just backup the data I need and do a fresh install on the dest machine instead, then restore the data.
Off-topic: from where does your avatar come from, goldfire? I sort of remember, but can’t quite pinpoint it…
The avatar and the name are both taken from the villain of the game Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, which was the first FPS, and one of the first games, that I ever played.
Thank you.
Strangely, I’m fairly certain I’ve never played or even really heard about it… (my best guess is, this or similar head was used as some motif by my local gaming magazine in mid-90s, or TV programme – but almost certainly not a review)
Oh well, I might check it out – for me, the first FPS was Wolf3D IIRC, and Blake Stone seems to be a sort of continuation.
Edited 2012-06-29 23:37 UTC
I just _love_ staring at the Windows login screen for three minutes whilst it installs the keyboard and mouse drivers in the background.
What archaic computers are you using? Takes a second.
Edited 2012-06-22 08:27 UTC
windows xp takes ages to install usb keyboard/mouse drivers
XP is on the verge of retirement.
Walmart.com stocks over 1,000 flavors of the Windows keyboard, mouse and joystick.
http://www.walmart.com/browse/computer-accessories/keyboards,-mice-…
Press the TAB key until you highlight the user account you want to login with and press Spacebar. Then type your password and press ENTER.
It really isn’t that hard to log in via the keyboard. Why would you wait for a mouse driver to be installed before logging in?
Not all USB-mice are made from the same mold, some of them include features the rest don’t. As such it actually *does* make sense to search if there is a driver available for it that allows one to use these features.
That is to say, yes, I actually expect Windows to search for drivers for a “freakin’ USB mouse” and then use the default ones if there are no advanced drivers available.
Yeah, but it would be nice if it actually found anything at all. Never happened to me.
Does 7 still have that hilarious behavior where it needs to install the driver AGAIN every time you plug your mouse/keyboard/whatever into a different USB port?
I’ve said the same thing before with regards to nothing happening when i plugged my LG E900 in to the PC running Win8.
Now, I can only assume Windows 8 will only native support Windows Phone 8 devices.
Personally I was expecting at least a zune metro app… to say I was disappointed by the lack of apps in metro, you know the thing we’re all supposed to get excited about, is kind of an understatement. i raged.
You were upset by the lack of metro apps in a preview install?
Why would they support a legacy device like Windows Phone 7?
It’s not like anyone they care about depends on WP7 phones looking good.
Why do you want that…
Meanwhile, the drama is just about non-issue of non-final OS. And WP7 will very much live on, on lower-cost devices (with continued support, just not by some complex native games essentially – which wouldn’t really run on their basic hardware, anyway)
I had forgotten that Win7 prompts you to download the Zune software when you plug in a phone. That is actually really good design.
Isn’t Microsoft ditching the Zune branding? If so, it’d make sense that the current edition of Windows 8 doesn’t do that, while they prep something else to take it’s place.
Perhaps a version of Windows Media Player that competes with iTunes v4.9; here’s hoping.
Now, if only Apple would release a version of iTunes that could compete with iTunes 4.9.
Actually, I have a Windows7 VM that exists just to run iTunes for my iPod Touch. That’s as close as that abortion of an application gets to my actual desktop.
The way windows8 is handling the windows phone is a little funky because it’s still a preview. However, if you look closely, on a fresh install, plug your phone in and go to the new devices screen in the new control panel, and it says something like.. “Further action required to continue.” When you click the message, the dialog to install the zune software comes up. According to Paul Thurrot, there will be a dedicated app for syncing with your windows phoneI’m guessing it was not released with the preview because it is still being finished along with wp7.8+wp8. Anyways, long story short… as with all Microsoft software, be patient, it will get sorted eventually.
Now the real issue you should be concerned about is why the Release Preview is the first windows version since 3.1, beta or not, to not include a game of solitaire, minesweeper or FreeCell. Something is seriously wrong with that!
The Microsoft has been driving and pushing their cloud-based services pretty aggressively for quite a long time now. And I think they wouldn’t even try creating a client side sync application for Windows Phone devices. I don’t like it but that’s their grand plan.
You sync your stuff to the cloud from Windows 8 where it is synced to your Windows Phone devices and back to Windows 8. I tried to figure out if there was a ability in Windows Phone for a local non-cloud-based sync but it just isn’t feasible under current version.
Zune doesn’t sync your contacts or messages to my knowledge. Zune only syncs your music and pictures. Try make it sync some other things locally and you’d find it ridiculously painful. I think the only feasible way to do it is to run your own Exchange server and make it happen that way.
So the question here isn’t “why nothing happens?” when you plug your Windows Phone device to Windows 8 device. The Correct question is “Should anything happen?” at all when you plug your device. Microsoft would answer to you that “No, nothing should happen.” since you’re supposed to use their cloud services.
Microsoft is pretty ruthless again and show signs of wanting to become like Google but with clear intent of misusing that power. I don’t want to give them my address book or pictures, or any other personal data. So I am not going to get a Windows Phone device either.
Windows 8 Doesnt have a management system for what you do/dont want to sync but it Does find all the data on the device (photos for example). To be honest I dont expect music sync until XBox Music is launched.
It also charges the phone happily so thats all I really want it to do, contacts and things are all sync’d wirelessly with the linked accounts (linkedin + hotmail + gmail)