http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/13/windows-8-developer-preview-when-and-where-to-download/
I haven't made up my mind if I am going to throw it on one of my laptops that I don't use regularly.
I am just curious if Windows 8 is really needed this "early". And if it is better than Win 7 in a way that Win 7 was better than Vista... or if it will feel like a step back like going from Win XP to Vista.
If you do this and have opinions on the OS, please feel free to share your likes and/or dislikes.
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eh...looks more like a tablet/iphone kind of interface than a PC. Making things work from a touchscreen opens a lot of potential if they can be made to work in parallel to a mouse in some games. In general, it's probly gonna be frought with lots of hiccups though--typical when MS release a new OS.
Guess the sooner people can get on it to find what it breaks, the better off we will be for getting things fixed before RTM.
Guess the sooner people can get on it to find what it breaks, the better off we will be for getting things fixed before RTM.
Early indications are that there is a "windows 7ish" view in there as well, we just aren't seeing it yet. The task manager and Explorer enhancements look promising. The interface changes and ribbon everywhere, not so much. Hell, at my other job we're still waiting for application compatability with windows 7 for a few key applications before we move. In an unrelated note, Oracle / Primavera software is the devil.
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Downloading this and going to toss it on a partition on my XP machine. Unfortunately, everyone else is also downloading it right this minute, so Microsoft says I have 2 hours left for a four gigabyte file.
It's goofy looking. There are some nice improvements to a few windows 7 components buried inside, but the blazingly stupid windows mobile interface forced over the top as your primary start menu interface sucks. I realize this is a development preview build, but still. I can see it maybe being useful in a tablet environment, but as it stands now, I wouldn't install it on a production machine. We've dubbed it "Windows: New coke edition" or "Windows ME2" or "Windows Edsil edition.
Seriously though. It's a horrible concept, and given recent history this means they are going to run with it and it will be the production version. It's also the first OS that I've thought had a very realistic chance of killing Microsoft as a company.
Seriously though. It's a horrible concept, and given recent history this means they are going to run with it and it will be the production version. It's also the first OS that I've thought had a very realistic chance of killing Microsoft as a company.
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The UI deal is because it's meant to run on both tablets and PCs together, it's going to be the same OS on two very different environments. If they don't run two different UI setup's, they're going to ***** themselves.
What would be the smart thing to do would be to have a page as part of the setup that ASKS you: "Are you going to be running this on a tablet or a desktop computer?" and chooses the default, initial interface accordingly. You can still switch back and forth, but desktop PCs really don't need a tablet interface as the default.
Got it running on my media center PC, but I've had to do some clever sneaking around the failsafes hardware manufacturers build in to get my older stuff running.
So far I have:
- Forced Win8 to recognize my ancient wireless dongle by telling it to use the base chipset manufacturer's XP 64 driver
- Forced EVGA to install its Windows Vista 64 bit driver onto Win8 by installing it as Windows Vista SP2 compatibility mode. Look at that, it worked, and now I have 1080P.
- Forced a few other drivers to SUCK IT UP AND PRETEND ITS WIN7 YOU CRYBABIES
Runs pretty nicely on a 4 year old machine with a middling video card. 20 second boot time, I never thought I'd see the day, and I certainly don't have a fancy new UEFI motherboard.
My biggest frustration with Metro is not having a means of closing the open tiles. Look, I didn't MEAN to hit the RSS feed when my internet wasn't working. Can I please close this tile and go someplace else now? Please? Escape doesn't work, right clicking doesn't work, and AF+f4 didn't work (although that old standby still works in the Win7 desktop mode.)
The built in RSS feed was a nice surprise, and I think this could give Google Reader a run for its money.
So far I have:
- Forced Win8 to recognize my ancient wireless dongle by telling it to use the base chipset manufacturer's XP 64 driver
- Forced EVGA to install its Windows Vista 64 bit driver onto Win8 by installing it as Windows Vista SP2 compatibility mode. Look at that, it worked, and now I have 1080P.
- Forced a few other drivers to SUCK IT UP AND PRETEND ITS WIN7 YOU CRYBABIES
Runs pretty nicely on a 4 year old machine with a middling video card. 20 second boot time, I never thought I'd see the day, and I certainly don't have a fancy new UEFI motherboard.
My biggest frustration with Metro is not having a means of closing the open tiles. Look, I didn't MEAN to hit the RSS feed when my internet wasn't working. Can I please close this tile and go someplace else now? Please? Escape doesn't work, right clicking doesn't work, and AF+f4 didn't work (although that old standby still works in the Win7 desktop mode.)
The built in RSS feed was a nice surprise, and I think this could give Google Reader a run for its money.
Posting from IE10!
I really like the ribbon interface in Windows Explorer. I was sort of nervous about it when I heard about it, but hot damn, it works great. I suspect it'll be easier for those of us who have been working in Office 2010 for the last year than those who have never seen Ribbon before, but I'm happy.
A bug I encountered: Before my internet was stable, I attempted to run the "optimize my Windows" not realizing it was Windows Update. I was then hit in the face with 10 windows of .NET Frameworking 3.51 freaking out because it wanted to update and couldn't. I think MS put it in there as a test, to ensure that Windows Update was going to working.
My verdict so far: Windows 8 will be great on new devices with a touchscreen interface, but so far there's no real reason to upgrade from Windows 7.
Edited, Sep 16th 2011 11:43pm by catwho
I really like the ribbon interface in Windows Explorer. I was sort of nervous about it when I heard about it, but hot damn, it works great. I suspect it'll be easier for those of us who have been working in Office 2010 for the last year than those who have never seen Ribbon before, but I'm happy.
A bug I encountered: Before my internet was stable, I attempted to run the "optimize my Windows" not realizing it was Windows Update. I was then hit in the face with 10 windows of .NET Frameworking 3.51 freaking out because it wanted to update and couldn't. I think MS put it in there as a test, to ensure that Windows Update was going to working.
My verdict so far: Windows 8 will be great on new devices with a touchscreen interface, but so far there's no real reason to upgrade from Windows 7.
Edited, Sep 16th 2011 11:43pm by catwho
Can't get XI to install, because 32 bit compatibility is either not yet functioning or deliberately disabled for now. 
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