Windows 8

[dZeus]

The consumer preview has been released yesterday. Anyone else tried it yet? (I assume Jammrock has since he works for MS).

I'm installing it onto a 16GB iSCSI partition right now to test it with my IBM Thinkpad T43 (which runs Windows Vista normally).

P.S. I noticed that Windows installer routes my iSCSI target through my gateway, although it is on the same subnet. Had to relax openwrt firewall rules to allow it to see the iSCSI target.

[dZeus]

Installation went uneventfull. Been poking around a bit, and in the desktop mode it looks a lot like Win 7 minus the start button.

Windows 8 supports my hardware except for the display device (ATI mobility X300). I've installed the Windows 7 driver (9ex DDI) from catalog.update.microsoft.com instead of using the default un-accelerated driver.

The interface looks very slick. Leaves a good first impression. Congrats to Microsoft! I really like the virtual desktops implementation. Allows you to very quickly switch between many different virtual desktops.

I'll be testing a bit more in the near future... for example, I wonder what happens if I boot the same iSCSI image from my workstation which has substantially different hardware.

Some funny things:
- Region is set to Dutch, yet temperatures for the Weather app are reported in Fahrenheit. Temperature format doesn't seem to be linked to region right now (take note, MS)
- Bottom left corner shows the metro tile that you can click to switch to (when another application is full screen), top left shows list of other applications (I call them virtual desktops). However, you cannot really move your mouse over the thumbnail, as the thumbnail will disappear again when moving more than, say, 15 pixels from the screen corner. This is a bit counter-intuitive as the thumbnail suggests to me that I can hover above it.

After about an hour of playing around, I'd say that they really need to tweak small things in the interface before it's ready for deployment. I think it shows quite a bit of potential though.

[Jammrock]

I have it on my junk laptop at the moment. I'll hold off on the comentary since my opinion will be obviously biased

The CP is so much better than the Dev Preview. I'm glad the mouse support is much improved over the DP, which was unusable on a desktop, IMO. But then it was designed for the Dev's who got the fancy new tablet for free.

If you do play with the Win8 CP please note that it is a beta product. The powers that be decided against using the word beta in the client version for some PR reason, but that's really what it is. The final code is still 4-6 months out.

I would highly recommend checking out the demo video. It has details on how to use Win8 with a mouse and keyboard. That sounds odd without using it, but you'll understand why once you play with Win8.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Windows-Blog/Windows-8-Consumer-Preview-Demo

And here is a list of keyboard shortcuts, old and new.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/251022/windows_8_consumer_preview_keyboard_shortcuts.html

There are AMD Win8 CP drivers, but I don't think your card is supported by it.

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Windows8ConsumerPreviewDrivers.aspx

And finally, if you want to download and play you can get the files here:

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Windows8ConsumerPreviewDrivers.aspx

I just ordered a 32GB USB 3.0 drive. Going to load up Windows To Go there to play with that, and have a Win8 partition sectioned off at home to play with it. Will load that up tonight on the desktop and dual boot.

[GT98]

I'd like to try this out on a tablet to see how it works vs my iPad 2

[paulw]

I'm going to try it next week but is there a way to disable the Metro UI in this build.?? In the Dev build I had to use a 3rd party app to do this..

[Jammrock]

I'd like to try this out on a tablet to see how it works vs my iPad 2

There are some tablets that can run Win8CP, but they are Intel Core (x86) based so they will be heavier with poor battery life. You can play with the OS on them though.

ASUS and Samsung make some good Intel Core tablets. There will also be some good updated Atom based tablets later this year.

To get a proper comparison you'll have to wait until Win8 is fully released. The SoC/ARM devices will not have a preview release. They will be out after the code goes final.

[Jammrock]

I'm going to try it next week but is there a way to disable the Metro UI in this build.?? In the Dev build I had to use a 3rd party app to do this..

Not that I am aware of. This build has no start button on the desktop and from what I read the old reg hacks don't work anymore.

The mouse features are enabled now so navigation seems pretty easy without the start button. Though I'm sure I'll be using keyboard shortcuts more than mouse corners. I already use the keyboard more than the mouse to navigate Win7.

[UtwigMU]

How powerful rig do you need to run this? RAM, CPU, Video?

Is it only 64-bit? My best 64 comp is worse than my best 32 comp.


EDIT looks like not much. I guess If I find a spare drive I could put it on the X61 tablet.

[Jammrock]

How powerful rig do you need to run this? RAM, CPU, Video?

Is it only 64-bit? My best 64 comp is worse than my best 32 comp.


EDIT looks like not much. I guess If I find a spare drive I could put it on the X61 tablet.

The mantra is, if it can run Windows 7 it can run Windows 8.

There are both 32 and 64 bit clients. In server there is only 64-bit.

[Jessterw]

Overall, I like Windows 8 and the concepts MS is trying to push. It's a big gamble for them to radically alter the UI for their OS in a way they really haven't since the move from 3.1 to 95. I'm not sure yet I agree with their approach in a single, unified UI for tablets and more traditional computers, as I feel there is still room and reason for "desktop" operating systems to behave and look a bit different than their tablet counterparts. That said, it's definitely a forward looking transition (if not a bit of a knee-jerk reaction) to how MS and others feel we will be interfacing with computing devices in the relatively near future.

MS is being innovative again (as they were with Windows Phone and even the Xbox 360), which I'm really happy to see.

Edit: Forgot to mention that, yes, I have been using the preview release and actually an earlier version as well. In some ways it and Windows Phone have tempted a move back from OS X and Android.

[VJ]

From the screenshots, the Metro interface looks interesting on a touch screen. I'm just a bit worried that the applications might not offer a similar user experience, which in turn would make the whole system a bit messy (compare it now to having applications that use the ribbon, and those that don't). Also, I wonder if it might not distract too much to do serious work. Somehow, it feels more like a "consumer at home" interface rather than a "business environment" interface.

I would love to put it on my laptop, which has a touch screen, but the resolution is only 1024x600, so the Metro interface would not work at this resolution. The laptop is not really used for bit work (too small), so it would be interesting to have a touch optimized OS on it.

Interesting to me is this is again an OS that does not require a more powerful computer. My laptop came with XP, I never tried Vista on it and is now running Windows 7 and meets the requirements for Windows 8... Could it be we have reached some (temporary) ceiling in computerspeed for normal use?

[Umfriend]

Ribbon.....hate........W8.....fear.

[Jammrock]

From the screenshots, the Metro interface looks interesting on a touch screen. I'm just a bit worried that the applications might not offer a similar user experience, which in turn would make the whole system a bit messy (compare it now to having applications that use the ribbon, and those that don't). Also, I wonder if it might not distract too much to do serious work. Somehow, it feels more like a "consumer at home" interface rather than a "business environment" interface.
...
Interesting to me is this is again an OS that does not require a more powerful computer. My laptop came with XP, I never tried Vista on it and is now running Windows 7 and meets the requirements for Windows 8... Could it be we have reached some (temporary) ceiling in computerspeed for normal use?

That was actually my initial feeling toward Windows 8 when they announced it, and after the Dev Preview came out. I spent a couple of hours playing with the Consumer Preview last night on a laptop with a mouse and I like it. Not quite used to it, but it's easy to use.

My worry with the Win8 is multi-monitor support. Supposedly they have some really nice multi-monitor features but I haven't put it on a desktop yet to check. I'm used to running lots of apps that I can glance at without flipping through programs, especially at work. I'll have a browser open with research up, a trace open with data, a VM Window where I'm testing something, IM, email and usually a PowerShell in view. Most of the people around here run 3-4 monitors because of all the crap we have constantly open and access. My hope is that multi-monitor can show persistent classic desktops and metro will only show up on one screen. I'm loading Win8 on my two monitor setup at home so I will know soon enough.

On an interesting note, Windows Server '8' does NOT have Metro. My guess is someone will figure out how to rig the server UI into the client OS and bypass Metro. Or people will just use Server '8' as a workstation OS for devs and IT like people.

[Jammrock]

Ribbon.....hate........W8.....fear.

LOL... Ribbons are more fun now that you can customize them. At least you can in Office 2010, I don't think you can in Win8. Yet.

[Jammrock]

By the way, the Win + X keyboard shortcut is very handy for old school power users. It's a simple pop-up menu down where the start button used to be.

Has a list of common system tools - Programs and Features, Network, Power, Event Viewer, Device Mangler, etc. - Search, Run, Desktop, and more. It's not pretty, but it's functional.