8 Ways Microsoft Will Tweak Windows 8

For the past few months, Microsoft has observed while techies dug into the Windows 8 “Consumer Preview“–in geek parlance, the beta. The result is several big changes to the operating system, many of which will appear in the near-final Windows 8 “Release Preview,” due out in June.

For those who haven’t been keeping a close eye on Windows 8′s development, here’s a rundown of how Microsoft will tweak Windows 8 before launch

Source

A Guy

 

[Soundtweaker]

You know Kat, maybe that's your problem, you've gotten used to doing things a certain way and just aren't willing to bend. Try to think of the future, the future is completely different to the past. The future is touch and mobile and tablets and also this is a faster better version of Windows, just with a different twist.

Got an Android phone, and have absolutely NO interest in tablets.

AT ALL!

I'm a 'desktop man' through and through, and have been for a quarter of a century or more.

And THAT will not change.

It's not a matter of 'learning something new'.

I CAN use Win 8. With ease.

I simply don't LIKE it.

It's 'improvements' should be Win7 SP2.

As for the rest of it....no, thanks.

I'm not trolling, either, that's simply the way I feel.

I really did want to like 8 (the DP was OK, liked it), but am severely disillusioned....

As things are, I wouldn't even bother pirating it. I certainly won't be BUYING it.


BTW, by my tests, 8 is no faster than 7, except on boot-up, which, to me, is irrelevant.

Then you really havent ran many tests. Windows 8 offers much better performance.
Here's one example. The Cakewalk Blog » Blog Archive » SONAR X1 on Windows 8: What we learned from the Windows 8 Consumer Preview

 

[legacy7955]

Something that all the Metro and touch screen fanbois are deliberately FAILING to reply to is the issue of how a person trying to be productive can sit and try and type at the face of a desktop touchscreen for HOURS!!

It just ain't happening.

These marketing and consulting clowns need a smack down.

Just who determines that metro and touch screens are the future not to mention the DUBIOUS "cloud" which will remove total control of your personal data away from ones personal computer?

OBVIOUSLY THESE ENLIGHTENED ONES certainly have no interest in what the customer might want instead. Do they? LOL

 

[lehnerus2000]

HW & SW Configuration

Then you really havent ran many tests. Windows 8 offers much better performance.

It's entirely dependent upon the hardware configuration, drivers and installed software.

It's exactly like software (e.g. Firefox).
Some people say FF crashes constantly on their PCs (it doesn't on mine).

On my PC, the W8CP (VHD) boots ~9 seconds faster and it seems to be about the same speed (as W7) when it's running.
It definitely uses less RAM though.

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

lehnerus2000 I was hoping you would of exterminated that smiley guy rolling on the floor laughing. <g>

 

[lehnerus2000]

Eh?

lehnerus2000 I was hoping you would of exterminated that smiley guy rolling on the floor laughing. <g>

No comprende.

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

Your avatar lehnerus2000 is a Dalek, and from the British TV show Dr Who, Daleks EXTERMINATES humans....LoL

 

[Soundtweaker]

Something that all the Metro and touch screen fanbois are deliberately FAILING to reply to is the issue of how a person trying to be productive can sit and try and type at the face of a desktop touchscreen for HOURS!!

It just ain't happening.

These marketing and consulting clowns need a smack down.

Just who determines that metro and touch screens are the future not to mention the DUBIOUS "cloud" which will remove total control of your personal data away from ones personal computer?

OBVIOUSLY THESE ENLIGHTENED ONES certainly have no interest in what the customer might want instead. Do they? LOL

So your saying you have to use a touchscreen all the time in Win8? Didnt know that.
And the cloud is going to wipe all my local hard drives clean? Didnt know that either.

 

[legacy7955]

So your saying you have to use a touchscreen all the time in Win8? Didnt know that.
And the cloud is going to wipe all my local hard drives clean? Didnt know that either.

The main issue is that you MUST boot into Metro first BEFORE you can access the desktop each and every time you boot your computer at least with this version, and from what M$ seems to indicate this will not change in the final release.

As for the others, you have heard of "gradually turning up the heat on the frog in the pot" so it doesn't jump out BEFORE he is boiled alive?

 

[Coke Robot]

I think many people overshoot the runway when they talk about the Start Screen. It is kind of a new start menu, it could be kind of a touch Desktop UI for tablets, it could be many things. But what it truly is is a giant task switcher. You can enter the Desktop, go back, and switch over to a metro app, go back, and switch into a Desktop app, go back, and switch to a Library. It's exactly as the concept of the start menu in Windows 95 was, place your frequently used items in a single, consolidated place so you can easily navigate around. The only difference it's full screen. What's the big deal?

 

[lehnerus2000]

Your avatar lehnerus2000 is a Dalek, and from the British TV show Dr Who, Daleks EXTERMINATES humans....LoL

I see.

Daleks don't discriminate.
They'll exterminate any species.

It's looking the wrong way.

 

[crawfish]

I think many people overshoot the runway when they talk about the Start Screen. It is kind of a new start menu, it could be kind of a touch Desktop UI for tablets, it could be many things. But what it truly is is a giant task switcher. You can enter the Desktop, go back, and switch over to a metro app, go back, and switch into a Desktop app, go back, and switch to a Library. It's exactly as the concept of the start menu in Windows 95 was, place your frequently used items in a single, consolidated place so you can easily navigate around. The only difference it's full screen. What's the big deal?

With my Windows 7 taskbar, I don't have to do that constant switching. I see at a glance which windows are open and move between them with ease, observe progress bars in their icons, use jump lists, etc. Because I use program pinning, I always know where to look for programs to launch them and to find their windows while they're running.

As for the Start Menu, I rejected it as any kind of frequently accessed feature the first time I saw it in the NT4 beta, because it's a royal pain to navigate within it, and IT GOES AWAY when you select something from it, forcing you to perform the navigation all over again the next time. The Metro Start Screen just makes it a giant full screen mode to maximize its disruptiveness. Now add some even stupider things like "The 4 Corners" and you have the worst thing to come out of Microsoft in ages. I was using essentially the same interface you've described back in the 1980s (except for "The 4 Corners" - they represent real innovation in stupidity), and it wasn't great then.

 

[poppa bear]

I tried the DP, and the CP.

The CP (32-bit) is running on my other laptop, the 64-bit version has been and gone from this one.

I'm not even going to bother with the RC at this stage.

And won't be touching the retail version. Well, maybe after SP2, when/if they realise and correct
what they've done (hopefully).

No Start button or menu, no Aero, the GHASTLY Metro idea, no Media Centre, no DVD playback, this
insidious 'cloud' they want to force me into, secure-boot, and all the rest may have been acceptable if
there was a choice.

But, nooooooo...M$ know better than me what I want and what I do? I doubt that.

As I've said earlier, that's a shame, because there's a great little OS hidden in there

Long live Windows 7, which will probably go down in history as Microsoft's finest effort.

They should have put the (few, IMO) improvements (Task Manager, file-copy, etc) into a Service
Pack for Win 7 and left it at that.

(And I've used them all, since Win 3.0.)

Way to go Kat! Sad to say it says it all. My $$$$ stay in the bank till SP1, and if no change by then, which I doubt there will be, then it's off to Apple Mac store.

And so begins the demise of M$ in the desktop market, which is such an undignified way to bow out for a great pioneer of PCs.

Knock yourself out disagreeing with my assessment if that's what turns you on, but if I was a bookmaker I'd be giving high odds on the M$ "hack" not even getting out of the starting gate!

News flash!: M$ are holding a raffle!

2nd prize: Win8 Ult Retail.

1st prize: A program to safely remove Win8 from your PC ... to save you the humiliation of your neighbors ever knowing you installed it!

 

[Dave76]

Absolutely no problem with your choice poppa bear.

There needs to be a contender that's much closer to % users, competition is a good thing.

 

[BillWindows]

Well I've just downloaded the release Preview and have to say I'm really impressed, I don't even want to get off my computer anymore. It feels like someone has put a jet engine into my already V8 Windows 8.
Anyone thinking of going to Apple when this comes out had better hurry up, they might not be around after this comes out(kidding really, they do have 5%.)
I can't remember how many weeks it used to take to install Windows 3.11 but this took 15 to 20 minutes, with all my settings intact from the CP. I really can't understand how people do not like this OS.

As far as speed goes I don't think they could tweak it anymore.

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

Just a heads up people, just got off the phone with Symantec support, and what I had gotten from the person that answered was he must of had a heck of a night, he was grumpy and said

Not another person that upgraded

LoL So far, all the previous tricks are working, MetroTweakUI, vistart, etc still work flawlessly. Will be bugging Microsoft later on so that I can re-install my comp version of Office 2010.. I bet they LOVE me.

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

Not every species. They won't exterminate Nerdiods.


*edit* WTF?? I didn't post this here, posted in regards to a post of another message. Brink please delete this..Thank-you.

 

[poppa bear]

Anyone thinking of going to Apple when this comes out had better hurry up, they might not be around after this comes out, (kidding really, they do have 5%.)

That's what the mighty Roman Empire said when they scoffed at the inferior rabble army of the barbarians ... until Rome fell! Watch the 5% start to go up. But buy up stock first!

It feels like someone has put a jet engine into my already V8 Windows 8. I can't remember how many weeks it used to take to install Windows 3.11 but this took 15 to 20 minutes ...

It's not about speed of installation, or even speed of operating system ... it's about efficiency of data accessibility & manipulation!

Win8 is like having a quick start, high speed Formula One V12 racer on an open highway .... but! Uh oh! Theres' a speed restrictor inbuilt so you can't take advantage of what's under the hood!

I'm really impressed, I don't even want to get off my computer anymore.

Yeah, I can understand that, if you like playing with metro toy trains and pretty pictures.

 

[FSeal]

That article seems to be talking about THIS release. Everything that I recognised in it is implemented in this release. So yes, this is probably it...

In fact that "too easy to fall off" talk is exactly why NOW the hot corner zones overlap programs that you are running full screen (like games, photoshop etc). More like trading one problem for another. :/