Windows 8

[ChrisWiegman]

Anyone else tried one of the Windows 8 previews yet? Thought?

Personally, I don't care for it. It feels like they've tried to hard for a UI that is different instead of a UI that is functional. I've put in about 20 hours or so with it and its just sloppy.

 

[paul1149]

I've been on the development version. There are some nice improvements under the hood, such as more switches for chkdsk. But the Metro thing is a disaster. Not that it's bad to have larger boxes to find frequently used apps, but there is absolutely no place to find "all programs". The lack of a Start Menu is absurd. That's probably been corrected already in the consumer preview.

Also, I can't even find how to turn the thing off - something I'm absolutely sure has been corrected. I put some shortcuts on the desktop for shutdown and restart.

And then there's "control" panel - a dumbed down cartoonish interface that you have to go through to get to the real thing. Absolutely brilliant.... Might be appropriate for a tablet, but not for a full machine.

Essentially, I've found that the meme that the OS is a two-tier system for tabs and full machines to be untrue. The priorities here seem to be to send the desktop/laptop user to the back of the bus. MS seems to have decided that we all need to miniaturize.

 

[C-Man]

It seems like MS has decided that they really don't need to make any more money by selling operating systems. Maybe they should sell lawnmowers instead.

 

[NiobiumTragedy]

Metro has its place on portable computing which is one of the things that make 8 a good OS because it can share the OS with all forms of computing devices. I personally won't use metro on the computer. I'll be using the standard taskbar view. I'm more interested in the under the hood changes they are making. I hear that it runs better than Windows 7 which in itself is impressive.

 

[cweinstein]

I've been on the development version. There are some nice improvements under the hood, such as more switches for chkdsk. But the Metro thing is a disaster. Not that it's bad to have larger boxes to find frequently used apps, but there is absolutely no place to find "all programs". The lack of a Start Menu is absurd. That's probably been corrected already in the consumer preview.

Also, I can't even find how to turn the thing off - something I'm absolutely sure has been corrected. I put some shortcuts on the desktop for shutdown and restart.

And then there's "control" panel - a dumbed down cartoonish interface that you have to go through to get to the real thing. Absolutely brilliant.... Might be appropriate for a tablet, but not for a full machine.

Essentially, I've found that the meme that the OS is a two-tier system for tabs and full machines to be untrue. The priorities here seem to be to send the desktop/laptop user to the back of the bus. MS seems to have decided that we all need to miniaturize.

There is a way to find "all programs" in Metro, right click on an empty spot in the start screen and the "all apps" button will appear at the bottom, click on it and you'll see all apps and programs installed.

What concerns me the most is "Refresh PC" and "Reset PC". Both of those will reinstall Windows and wipe out installed programs. Reset PC will go as far as wiping out everything and reinstalling Windows from scratch. Refresh PC will wipe out third-party apps and programs, but will keep apps installed from the Store and personal settings.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

It seems like MS has decided that they really don't need to make any more money by selling operating systems. Maybe they should sell lawnmowers instead.

Lawnmowers that take about two minutes to start up and then fail when you least want them to - no thanks

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Anyone else tried one of the Windows 8 previews yet? Thought?

Personally, I don't care for it. It feels like they've tried to hard for a UI that is different instead of a UI that is functional. I've put in about 20 hours or so with it and its just sloppy.

The Linux world has been there twice lately with Gnome Shell and Unity - it won't be a pretty sight for a lot of seasoned Windows users either I would imagine.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Essentially, I've found that the meme that the OS is a two-tier system for tabs and full machines to be untrue. The priorities here seem to be to send the desktop/laptop user to the back of the bus. MS seems to have decided that we all need to miniaturize.

MS seem to have forgotten just how many desktop users they serve in the corporate sector - but as they say, thats progress...

 

[ChrisWiegman]

Mostly true, there are still alternatives that can be [relatively] easy to implement in Linux. Not so in Windows.

 

[Perhaps Today]

I haven't tried it yet. I need to see if I can run it on VMWare Player. My processor is an AMD 64-Bit Dual Core @1.66Ghz with 4GB DDR2 RAM. Of course with a download speed of 1Mbps it might take too long to get it.

From what I've seen though, I have a feeling I may not like it very much. And that was even before watching the video EphesiaNZ posted earlier.

 

[whitetiger1]

It seems like MS has decided that they really don't need to make any more money by selling operating systems. Maybe they should sell lawnmowers instead.

They wouldn't work unless you had a tablet lawn

 

[EphesiaNZ]

From what I've seen though, I have a feeling I may not like it very much. And that was even before watching the video EphesiaNZ posted earlier.

I downloaded the Win 8 preview on the day it came out and I was so enthused that I haven't got around to installing it yet. I may try it before Windows 9...

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Right, I installed Windows 8 on my laptop

The setup was pretty easy and pretty much on par with a Ubuntu install. Speed of install was quite good except for the fact that I did not receive a serial number/key when I originally downloaded the preview DVD - hence, had to Google it but managed to get it easy enough

Thats where the mostly good part finished for me. Once the main setup phase completed I was prompted to enter my wireless password to get on the internet (done quite well) then it wanted me to create a user account and setup my email via a valid windowslive account - what! No, I just want to create a local login account - i don't want to identify myself immediately when I install an OS (this could be a good anti-pirate system). Luckily I was given an option to create a local login account as per previous versions.

As some YouTube videos have already pointed out, the interface is not intuitive - we have become accustomed to a certain way of working a PC and this takes an average user out of his/her depths. Those YouTube videos prompted me to do an impromptu test with my family, my wife took the first test seat with Windows 8. She managed to get through to the Start screen and go exploring the OS and selected the Store icon. My wife started to smile as she navigated her way through the store but then could not find how to close it and get back to the Start Menu. It was then the anger and frustration showed as she started to bang her fist on the table!

Score: Windows Eight 0 - Linux 1

My eldest daughter really likes the simple way of doing things so once the bling and bright colors faded, it became an over complex way to do stuff she could do in a couple of clicks in say Ubuntu.

Score: Windows Eight 0 - Linux 2

My youngest daughter, who is quite tech savvy, lit up when she saw the bright new OS. She is more Ipad/Windows 7 than Linux so she adapted with relative ease but still had problems with using Win 8 and became bored after a while. She spends a lot of time on Facebook (like kids do) so Windows XP/Vista/7 would do just as well (even Linux too)! She actually just told me Windows 8 was cool but could not give me a reason why...

Score: Windows Eight 0.5 - Linux 2.5

Personally I think MS will make a bag of cash from it but I only hope Windows 9 is better. Right, back to my trusted penguin

 

[paul1149]

The question I have is why they felt compelled to develop a composite system trying to serve widely divergent machine types, when Windows Mobile could have been tapped to cover what Win8 is trying to do on the small screen. Win7 has smartly eclipsed XP as the most popular OS, and is showing absolutely zero signs of abating. It's still in its prime.

So they come out with an OS that is going to compete badly with their own cash cow?

This seeming anomaly is why some believe the strategy is to force a full version of Windows - and the increased licensing fees it brings - out to mobile devices. This wouldn't be the first time MS has been accused of manipulating the market. (See the DRDOS episode, withholding the full Windows API from rival Office developers early-on, and claiming that IE was an integral part of the OS for other alleged examples.)

And so we have the necessity of blurring the lines between the two modalities. But as long as Win7, which has proven to be mature, rock-solid, and straightforward for most people, is available, I don't see Win8 being a big hit on the desktop or laptop.

The tab/smartphone market? I don't know.

Caution: when reading my prognostications, understand that I'm the guy who looked at an early Tandy in a Radio Shack window, and thought: nice toy, but what can you do with it?

 

[cweinstein]

I had Windows 8 Preview on my laptop. Setup was easy enough. The Metro start screen takes some getting used to. found myself trying to go to the bottom left hand corner of the screen to click the start button which does not exist in Windows 8, out of habit.
Metro IE has no plugins at all, therefore, no youtube, no netflix, nothing that uses flash, silverlight, or any plugin.
One program I had to run in compatibility mode with Windows 7 because it would not work with Win 8 preview.
Metro apps need wrinkles ironed out, as does all of Windows 8.
I have since gone back to Win 7 on my laptop, and it took a clean install using the Windows disk to put 7 back. Not hard to do either, but a pain in the behind because then everything had to be reinstalled again.

 

[warnerbob18]

Its quite hectic to use window 8 as it is not for professional users.
it seems to be made for gamers as it looks like too much graphical in nature.

 

[PraiseToAslan]

And then there's "control" panel - a dumbed down cartoonish interface that you have to go through to get to the real thing. Absolutely brilliant.... Might be appropriate for a tablet, but not for a full machine.

Microsoft Bob - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ?

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Another glowing erm..., maybe not, review of Win8 Customer Preview

[Phoronix] Microsoft Windows 8: Mostly A Crap Wreck

 

[Protoevangel]

Been testing networking on Win8 and ServerNext (2012) for quite a while now.

Yea, Metro is a pain... Especially on Server. I actually Ctrl-R and type the command for anything I want to run. Unfortunately a lot of what I have to test needs the GUI, so Server Core isn't an option. If I were a Server Admin again, I'd be pushing hard to move as much as possible to Linux... Well, I always did that anyway.

 

[EphesiaNZ]

Been testing networking on Win8 and ServerNext (2012) for quite a while now.

Yea, Metro is a pain... Especially on Server.

I'd never even considered the server platform would get Metro. I bet you won't have to push for Linux servers so hard in the future...

Microsoft (IMHO) seem to be playing Russian roulette at the moment, one of those chambers has a bullet in it...