On 5/7/2014 8:43 AM, F*O*A*D wrote:
I was sitting in a coffee shop last evening, waiting for my wife and
working on a news release for a client, when a guy at the next table
with a new Dell laptop running Win 8 came over and asked me if I could
get the shop's wi-fi running on his machine.

He kept getting the error message "limited wi-fi capability," or
something like that.

We rebooted his machine and I tried to get the wi-fi searcher going so
it could find the signal in the shop. Even that wasn't easy...the
machine just would not find the local signal. He needed to check his
email to find out where he needed to report for work that evening (he
works for a utility company and his workplace varies a lot during the
week), so I just let him use my Macbook Air.

He really was ****ed at Win 8 and his Dell when he left, and muttered
that he was going to give the machine to his son and get himself "an
Apple."

I never did figure out what was wrong with his setup. Anyone have a
clue? I don't have a way to check it out because I don't have a Windoze
computer.


I assume by inference that you were happily working away on your Mac,
connected to the coffee shop's wi-fi. You didn't exactly say that
however ... you may have been "working" off-line.

The error message may have nothing to do with his computer. It could be
the coffee shop's wi-fi router or even no internet access by the server.
When Comcast goes down occasionally I'll get a report of "limited
access" or "local only" meaning the computer is talking to the router
but the router isn't talking to the internet.

We have a Win8 laptop at the guitar shop and I've been using it for the
past couple of weeks while my buddy is off on his cruise. I don't have
any major complaints about Win8 but prefer to use my Win7 laptop.

There are some new features in Win8 however that I wish Win7 had. One
is a video stabilizer as part of Windows Movie Maker. It's great for
making amateur videos more viewable. The stabilization feature will
only work on Win8 machines however.