Hi all
I'm liking W8 a lot so I'm actually running more and more stuff on it as my "Normal Computer". I know this isn't recommended for a development preview but it's been so stable and almost everything I need has run fine. I'm also fully aware of the risks involved into doing this.

I'm hoping a Beta or another developer edition will appear before the expiry of W8 in March 2010. I'm sure MS will want to build on the positive experiences of users so far and not force them to stop using W8 for several months.

If there is a Beta I'm sure I'll go on using it -- but what about the majority of users on this Forum - Will they revert back to W7 (or even XP --some people might not yet have upgraded XP to W7 especially as the W8 developer preview was "Free Software".

The only issue I have with W8 so far is that it's not possible (or I haven't found a mechanism yet to do this) of sharing a Printer with other computers even though the printer works fine on the W8 machine (there's no specific Printer sharing facility where you can allocate and name the shared printer).

I got round this by attaching the printer to a Virtual machine running W2003 server using vmware workstation on W8 (you can use XP or even W7 if you want as a VM).

I have some legacy apps that wont even run on W7 but these run fine on a guest VM on W8.

I've kept a backup image of my W7 machine just in case MS opts to NOT go for a public beta in March 2012 -- anybody else using W8 a lot now I'd advise them to have a backup image of an OS (a Plan B) otherwise - although unlikely - they could find themselves without an OS.

Cheers
jimbo

hi Jimbo. I loathe the idea of running pre betas, or even betas, as a main OS. I have even advised against it in columns such as this one.
But, like you, (running in non-metro mode) I have atred to use Windows 8 as my favoured OS!!

I love this OS, it has been working without any major problems so far, I have no reason to go back to Vista.

No problem here! Whatever the end story onn my use of the developer release, I would, in any case, do a new customised install. My private data is being parellelled in Windows 7 and is also backed up frequently.

I'm running it as my only OS on both of my computers. It has been doing wonderfully on my desktop, but on my laptop, it freezes every hour or so. Still, I'm doing this so that I become accustomed to the Metro UI. As far as my laptop is concerned, Microsoft can't release that beta soon enough. If it weren't for the fact that I only use it as a mobile computer and that I also have an android tablet to back me up, I would have switched back to 7 on that machine long ago....

me too,

Win 8 all the way.

Jeff