Windows 8 "Release Preview" Released

[video=youtube;eM5pFkNQ7no]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM5pFkNQ7no&feature=player_embedded[/video]
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Windows 8 Downloads - Windows 8 Release Preview ISO formats

Key - TK8TP-9JN6P-7X7WW-RFFTV-B7QPF


See also: Windows 8 Release Preview and http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/3997-windows-8-release-preview-download.html



Windows 2012 Server RC - Download Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate (RC) Datacenter

 

[alphanumeric]

W7 has been doing everything i need since it was first in beta finding the 32bit 7 would run things the 32bit Vista wouldn't! The backward compatibility saw a major improvement.

With 8 however many things are seeing a reverse trend in that area. While MS stressed OEMs to have device drivers and updated versions of things ready for 7 not too much besides Metro apps has been seen for 8! I think the software companies already realize that 8 is likely to flop "Big Time"! and are in no hurry to rush new stuff out.

What MS has done with 8 is rather then follow a successful trend 7 enjoyed has now figuratively abandoned the all too familiar desktop OS for something else. Despite whateven security and other improvements 8 would bring in most are not too happy after a first look at it!

I could not have said that any better myself.....I will not be running Win8 on my dell laptop.....not compatible with p4-m processor/bios....no install (fail.....it ran Win7 perfectly......what we appear to have here is a Microsoft attempt to add locked boot loaders to our personal hardware just like in the mobile market. there is no level of hell too deep for companies that think they own our devices or data and who think they should be able to dictate terms and conditions....we Americans deserve to suffer trough this kind of hell as we have consistently given companies a pass on poor customer relations and lousy hardware......no excuses are really necessary for companies with a just accept it attitude because you owe us your business.

The problem with the unsupported cpu is that it does not support certain features of it that is required. There is also a work around for that but I am not sure what it is. (I saw the solution but did not save the site.) The fact that your 9 year old processor is not supported does not mean that Microsoft is trying to screw you over or lock you down.

I keep hearing folks complain about this but not one so far has bothered to look up a solution.

I read one article that reported some of those "unsupported CPU" errors could be fixed with a BIOS flash. Windows 8 is miss identifying the processor. Sorry I didn't save the link either.

 

[CB]

Aside of all things have been discussed.
Why I feel that I miss some games that were there on WDP or WCP?
Any reason why MS bother removing it?

 

[alphanumeric]

Aside of all things have been discussed.
Why I feel that I miss some games that were there on WDP or WCP?
Any reason why MS bother removing it?

My guess is its just another attempt by Microsoft to force you to use Metro apps and go to the Apps Store?

 

[MadHorseman]

The problem with the unsupported cpu is that it does not support certain features of it that is required. There is also a work around for that but I am not sure what it is. (I saw the solution but did not save the site.) The fact that your 9 year old processor is not supported does not mean that Microsoft is trying to screw you over or lock you down.

I keep hearing folks complain about this but not one so far has bothered to look up a solution.

Obviously you haven't read several posts referring to:-

Error when installing Windows 8 Release Preview: “Your - Microsoft Answers

The work-round for some of us is "BUY A NEW PC". Might do - but it won't be running Win 8.....

 

[CB]

Funny that My ASUS Core i3 laptop was able to have WRP installed but I never been able to connect to office network as Jmicron integrated LAN was ignored by WRP.

Aside of all things have been discussed.
Why I feel that I miss some games that were there on WDP or WCP?
Any reason why MS bother removing it?

My guess is its just another attempt by Microsoft to force you to use Metro apps and go to the Apps Store?

You're right. I found that I have to download some of it from windows store. Just a matter of making much slimmer windows installation modules I guess.

 

[Night Hawk]

Aside of all things have been discussed.
Why I feel that I miss some games that were there on WDP or WCP?
Any reason why MS bother removing it?

Just another way to get you to shop at the MS store! Most of the games that were included with Windows since 95 are available for download free at various sites. MS is simply trimming the fat out of 8 as well as promoting their Metro apps store where now you buy what was included with Windows.

Mine Sweeper and others are also old Legacy games they figured at this late date was simply clutter as they try to get you to rethink. The novelty days will now be a thing of the past! Their mantra now is no longer based on customer satisfaction but on customer requirements!

As far as installation despite the slow initial loading from disk with a drive known to be in excellent working order the install to the second drive went on without fuss. The RP as well as the CP will tend to have some bugs that will need to be worked out along with patches from both Intel and AMD you would expect to see included in upcoming Windows updates automatically once 8 is out in retail form.

Initially Vista had some of these similar problems with the RC1 and RC2 builds before the retail launch while 7 was found to be able to "run out of the box" for most without issue. 8 will still be a totally new animal however with some OS training to get it working in many cases.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
some of these games like spider solitaire or hearts are still great to play while waiting for that large download to complete - these games require a bit of logic and it's nice to have things that don't depend on quick reactions (as we get older) or work by killing / maiming / destroying things like so many modern games are.

I got spider.exe to work from XP. this one is easy just copy the spider.exe executable. The others need some sort of install mechanism --I'm sure somebody can port these from W7 soon enough.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[CB]

Aside of all things have been discussed.
Why I feel that I miss some games that were there on WDP or WCP?
Any reason why MS bother removing it?

Just another way to get you to shop at the MS store! Most of the games that were included with Windows since 95 are available for download free at various sites. MS is simply trimming the fat out of 8 as well as promoting their Metro apps store where now you buy what was included with Windows.

Mine Sweeper and others are also old Legacy games they figured at this late date was simply clutter as they try to get you to rethink. The novelty days will now be a thing of the past! Their mantra now is no longer based on customer satisfaction but on customer requirements!

As far as installation despite the slow initial loading from disk with a drive known to be in excellent working order the install to the second drive went on without fuss. The RP as well as the CP will tend to have some bugs that will need to be worked out along with patches from both Intel and AMD you would expect to see included in upcoming Windows updates automatically once 8 is out in retail form.

Initially Vista had some of these similar problems with the RC1 and RC2 builds before the retail launch while 7 was found to be able to "run out of the box" for most without issue. 8 will still be a totally new animal however with some OS training to get it working in many cases.

I'll give some time until it suit my Asus Laptop hardware while it runs smoothly inside my twoo other desktop. Except RP's similar issue with CP about the latest ATI control center.

Hi there
some of these games like spider solitaire or hearts are still great to play while waiting for that large download to complete - these games require a bit of logic and it's nice to have things that don't depend on quick reactions (as we get older) or work by killing / maiming / destroying things like so many modern games are.

I got spider.exe to work from XP. this one is easy just copy the spider.exe executable. The others need some sort of install mechanism --I'm sure somebody can port these from W7 soon enough.

Cheers
jimbo

You are truly right, while concentrating to the real work, we need games that is not squeezing heavy load to our head.
Going to download it somewhere on the internet.

Kevin

 

[Night Hawk]

I'm not even running the latest Catalyst on 7 let alone on 8! The older Cat. 10.4 still works well for the MSI Radeon HD 5750 1gb card in use here.

You might want to try stepping one or two Cat. versions there as well just in case the latest is simply "buggy"? I just helped someone else lately with a buggy update for his NVidia driven card on 7 where blue screens were reported showing sometimes the latest isn't what will always work.

 

[MrNeeds]

got it installed despite the CPU error, seems that only the fresh install approach seems to work when you have this error, so recovered my boot info via EasyBCD and created a new partition on a spare drive and installed it on that, works flawlessly.

 

[Hopachi]

For those of you running Win 8 in VirtualBox you might try this first before installing the VDDM driver:

I've already posted this in the VM section but here you have the screenshot again.

Without this personalisation you get all sorts of distortions across screen (note: these distortions are worse in CP than in RP but it's still safer to tweak the visual setings).

BTW. aero transparency in a VM is overkill.

VMware Player installations work ok.
Just the experimental VBox driver poses problems.
Win 8 as a host works flawlessly here.

Thanks
Hopachi

 

[whs]

Just the experimental VBox driver poses problems

You can say that again. It's a mess.

 

[kado897]

The annoying thing is you can't untick the box in W8. Experimental should mean optional.

 

[Night Hawk]

got it installed despite the CPU error, seems that only the fresh install approach seems to work when you have this error, so recovered my boot info via EasyBCD and created a new partition on a spare drive and installed it on that, works flawlessly.

I just ended having to use the Refresh PC option to perform an almost repair install except it removes all programs and drivers on the initial clean install. That automatically picked up on the 7 install seen on the host drive now set as second in the boot order to run the dual boot from the 8 drive.



Grabbed that one with a cell camera rather quickly to show people how the 8 boot screen looks like. I went into the msconfig>boot tab there to see 7 set as default again. Later I make a few adjustments with EacyBCD since that had removed in the refresh along with everything else.

So much for repairs like that! I might as well have performed a clean install since everything had to be reinstalled from scratch once again!

 

[CB]

I'm not even running the latest Catalyst on 7 let alone on 8! The older Cat. 10.4 still works well for the MSI Radeon HD 5750 1gb card in use here.

You might want to try stepping one or two Cat. versions there as well just in case the latest is simply "buggy"? I just helped someone else lately with a buggy update for his NVidia driven card on 7 where blue screens were reported showing sometimes the latest isn't what will always work.

I tried going backward till I got the closest version that match. It is Catalyst 11.2.

Run pretty good with no issue.

 

[Night Hawk]

That's great! Glad to see that worked out for you!

Often I was finding that you often had to do the "shuffle" with the different versions even before ATI was bought out by AMD in order to find the one that would work the best.

For the RP install I simply right clicked on the card while in the Device Manager to update the driver set from the old 10.4 Cat I initially put on to get things smoothed out for the card here. I mainly use the old 10.4 to allow some older stuff to run on 7 due to being too hard coded for the newer.

On 8 the lack of being to toss DX 9 along with 11 will see the elimination of far more older game titles far newer then the few I still run on 7! As long I run the 10.4 and nothing newer so far one old title will run without DX 9 since Direct X 7 was an option seen with the installer there. The ATI/AMD updated Cat.s then became the problem.

 

[Hopachi]

On 8 the lack of being to toss DX 9 along with 11 will see the elimination of far more older game titles far newer then the few I still run on 7! As long I run the 10.4 and nothing newer so far one old title will run without DX 9 since Direct X 7 was an option seen with the installer there. The ATI/AMD updated Cat.s then became the problem.

No need to worry on this one:
I didn't installed directx 9 yet and some oldies work without problems.

There are games made back in 97 like Dune 2000 and Starcraft I and work prefectly Win8. They require directx 5.
I don't know if some of you know Dune 2000 but it works like back in 98 again (with 98 compatibility of course) and on Win 7 that's not the case:
It's an RTS game like Red Alert 1 and it seems there is some sort of directx effect they used to shake the screen when someone's building(s) get destroyed. Well that effect doesn't work on XP (only on some VM's) nor in Vista nor in Win7 it's confirmed. But surprisingly it works on Win8.

The Compatibility Mode in Win8 is improved, I can say that without doubts.
Running Dune 2000 on Win7 without compatibility mode works (runs the same with 98 comaptibility).
On Win 8 you got to set Win98 compatibility for it to work (but then runs like in 98).

You got Moto Racer (97 again) that needs 16bit screen resolution: right click on the main exe -> 16bit compatibility (exists only on Win8 interface) and compatibility mode: Win98, and yes it works better than in Win7 (runs I think too fast on newer CPU' so watch out)

Then you also have Age Of Empires II: you can see what I mean here http://www.eightforums.com/gaming/2593-windows-8-age-empires.html
This on is newer than Dune 2000 or Starcraft but it didn' t run well enough in Win7: you had those bad colors all over the screen.
And you know what I'm gonna say now: that it works on Win8: BUT wait until you get on the gameplay windows because the menu's still don't look that good.

There may be other classic releases that might also work. But after those tests with some om my classics I think Win8 does a very good job, beating Win7 on this kind of test.

All looks good.

 

[SeoHyun]

can i upgrade CP to RP?

 

[Hopachi]

can i upgrade CP to RP?

I think you can, but i've never tried that.
Mount the iso or burn to disc and run setup.exe: it will tell you if upgrade is possible or not.

Anyone else?

Regards
Hopachi

 

[whs]

If you have only CP on the system, you can do it. If you also have Windows7 on the system, you risk upgrading that.