I am asking since I don't have too much time to play with it myself. UI and eye candy notwithstanding, is there any real advantage? Is it faster in moving files? Does it deal better with the wireless? I realize that this version is just a preview, not even a beta, but with all the talk about Metro - by the way, does anyone actually need it on a desktop? - I can't decide whether it's a worthy upgrade to Windows 7. I would of course try it out of curiosity, but right now I don't have much time .

No < message too short lol >

Other than what Ted said, no "real" advantages.Security, as with any MS product, will always be under more attack than other products. The new Windows defender could easily be ported to Windows 7.
My own (ver basic) performance ratings show no eye discernible increases in performance, although I read that micro second benchmarks show a difference. Mind you, My windows 7 has been tuned up to all the recommended limits.
My sartup time, from the menu, is about 5 seconds faster in Windows 8, over my (tuned) windows 7. No big deal.
I still prefer my Windows 7, with folders, menu to the new Windows 8 version - without a touch screen.

I have to say that unless they make discernible changes in the Metro UI regarding letting the EU add shortcuts to the interface along with other customization options. It has no real advantage.

That being said about the UI I have noticed a slight speed up in initial boot time and the way it handles my network connection. Both slightly improved, but to have the selling point of "Windows 8 it's just slightly better than the previous version!" Doesn't sound like a good marketing strategy j.m.o."

Hopefully revisions will be made that will make me eat those words in later releases.

Once I started using it on a daily basis I started liking it more, yes Metro is best on a tablet. I was able to customize Metro, like getting rid of the green background, replacing it with a photo. Adding my own tiles to Metro helps. It's still a bit rough on the edges, but I could live with it, even in this state. Yes it boots faster then Win7, but my Win7 has a lot more additions. Currently its running on a laptop with just 2gb of ram.
I as we get closer to a Beta it will get more polish.

If you have no time to play around with it, forget it. It is just a toy for the curious crowd. There are a few little things that were improved, but there are also a lot of new things (like Metro) that make no sense on a PC.

I wouldn't call it a toy, but it is just for the curious.

Honestly, when you look at the different version of Windows, the most biggest changes to them are eye candy except for the 9x-2000 systems. Windows progressively changes to adapt to what people do for the time. For 95, it was multitasking. For Xp, it was dealing with multimedia better. For 7, it was both easier multitasking and awesome multimedia management. But for 8, it's better touch support and getting applications to work with each other and Windows.

I for one do see improvements with 8. It's mostly boot time which I just love looking at. I literally sat for 10 minutes shutting down and booting up because it was that fast. There's built in security so no more worries to an extent of malware. Windows 8 includes Automatic Maintenance where as the name states, it does system maintenance daily. But the overall biggie is the eye candy of Metro and a redesigned Task Manager which is also very awesome!

I'd wait for the public beta before making major judgments. The Developer Build in the past is only really meant for developers to code software and drivers on pretty much finalized core Windows code. DBs don't usually have much eye candy and don't usually look anything like the final product. 8 changed that.