Windows 8 - What do you think?

[kado897]

There is a registry hack on the Windows 8 Screenshot Tour: Everything You Possibly Want to Know - How-To Geek but if you do it you also seem to lose the ribbon in explorer.

 

[Airbot]

Yeah, you also lose the new task manager, anything Metro related really. Also will probably disable any user accounts made with the Live ID. Local user account seems OK. Maybe other unknown side effects.

 

[kado897]

Makes me think that this is Metro bolted on to Win 7

 

[Golden]

Arggg. I just sat for 5 minutes watching a nice background with a clock on it, thinking when is this Windows 8 going to boot......then I realised its that screen thing that you have to flick.....this is looking more like the Windows Phone to me.

 

[kado897]

I admit it. I did the same. :ROFLMAO:

 

[runningnak3d]

Windows 8 sucks

Microsoft made a HUGE HUGE mistake by releasing this without a major disclaimer that the Metro UI will not be the interface for desktop machines.

I am *assuming* that this piece of spaghetti that they have given us isn't going to be the default for everything; if it is, God help their shareholders.

For a tablet interface, sure, it is OK. For a desktop interface, it SUCKS A**.

FYI - if anyone is interested, I will write up a tutorial on how to get it to work with VMWare 8, and have acceleration. By default, if you install it in VMWare 8, it is SLOW AS CRAP (NOT MS fault).

-- Brian

 

[Golden]

Bang.......huge restart after major freeze, was just clicking on the UI....maybe thats the equivalent of the BSOD.

 

[Golden]

Bang.......huge restart after major freeze, was just clicking on the UI....maybe thats the equivalent of the BSOD.

10 minutes sitting at this screen....going to have to shutdown and reopen the Virtual Machine.

 

[RamGuy]

I fully agree with you on that one.

Microsoft can't seriously intend that the Metro thingie will be default on desktop systems, that would be downright silly. There might be an option to run Metro only (for tablets etc..) and another option to run desktop experience (or whatever we shall call it) for desktop computers and servers, and perhaps even a dual mode solution looking like todays developer preview where we have some sort of combination of the two for those whom might be interested in that.

I for one can't see the point of the Metro UI on a desktop system whatsoever, only reason would be if you've got a desktop computer with touchscreen or something like that.

My major grip with this developer preview is the pure fact that the Metro part simply can't be ignored because of the way Microsoft have made the start menu work. It feels so damn annoying when the Metro UI gets launched every single time I hit the start menu, so mainly whatever I want to do besides looking at my desktop and launching a few explorer windows goes through the Metro UI. If feels clunky, it takes several more clicks and just feels slow and unnecessary compared to what we have been used to for the last decade.

And the fact that there isn't any obvious way to completely shutdown applications within the Metro UI itself it makes things even more clunky..


Seems to me like this release is aimed for tablet developers so they can get to know the whole Metro thingie and prepare applications to integrate and work seamlessly with it. It's almost like this release was purely aimed at tablets and not at desktop usage at all, and that might be the case for all I know.

The fact that major features like ribbons, and dual-monitor support and things like that get's disabled upon disabling the Metro UI seems to support upon the fact that this isn't aimed at desktop usage in the first place.



If Microsoft would in fact enforce Metro UI into Windows 8 and the release version would see a solution like the one in this developer preview where we can't really disable the Metro part nor ignore it in any way then Microsoft have made one serious mistake that will cost them a lot of potential customers.

But why didn't Microsoft make it clear that this version is aimed for tablets and touch devices and not desktop computers? Surly they understand that releasing this free to the public will resolve in numerous of confused testers?

 

[runningnak3d]

Oh yea, and dear God, did I pay all that money for a nice GPU just to have NASTY NASTY monochrome "tiles" / "icons" / whatever the heck you want to call them? I am looking at the example stocks app right now, and it is HIDEOUS.

-- Brian

 

[RST101]

Big thumbs up from this end although I do agree John that the metro is a big killer.

 

[debugged]

10 minutes sitting at this screen....

You're a patient man. I couldn't last 2 minutes - I tried booting from an external HDD through USB and got stuck at that screen. Now the HDD is plugged in to the mobo and it's fine (but perched temporarily on top of PC). Startup times from off are about the same as 7.

 

[brummyfan]

Like the History Vault, faster IE10 and pleased with overall performance.

 

[arkhi]

As a desktop OS, this thing fails. On multiple monitors, it fails harder. For example, that neat window switching thing? It's activated by clicking (or touching.. whatever), 1 pixel to the left of your screen. It's to the left, ALWAYS. So with expanded monitor-desktops, you'll be struggling.

There's a lot of things I like, most of which is already mentioned. However, this is not the state I want to replace Win7 just yet.

We'll see what happens during RC release.

Peace of advice: Use Windows Key+tab. They changed it to switch between Metro and Desktop

 

[sladapter]

Peace of advice: Us Windows Key+tab. They changed it to switch between Metro and Desktop

I think use Windows Key only to switch between Metro and Desktop, and use Windows Key + Tab to loop through all currently opened apps.

 

[arkhi]

Not every program, just the Metro "apps" and the desktop.

 

[Oldiesmann]

It looks interesting, but like others, I'm also not crazy about the whole Metro UI thing, and the "click and drag up to unlock" is also annoying. I'm hoping they'll refine this or come to their senses and give us an option of what we want to use by the time Win 8 is finally released.

I haven't really played with any of the apps though as I'm having trouble getting it to stay up on Virtualbox - it randomly crashes with an error ("SYSTEM EXCEPTION HANDLER NOT HANDLED" or something similar, "IRQL NOT EQUAL", "MEMORY MANAGEMENT", etc.), and the networking doesn't want to work either. Installing VMWare Server now to see if I have better luck with that. If only VMWare Workstation weren't $200...

 

[RST101]

It seems to have an android type feel to it with the slide in and out frames and then there is the apps........... It appears to be heading towards a mobile market to me...

 

[severedsolo]

Well... lets see, so far, hate hate hate metro.

One of the things I really thought they got right with 7 was Start Menu Search. Hell I actually stopped using Desktop Icons because of it, everything I wanted was right there in front of me. Now, you click Start and you get thrown into the Metro UI, which is frankly counter intuitive to use, and the search requires you then to click what your looking for (Apps, Files, etc.) before it displays the results, unlike 7 just showing you everything and (usually) getting it right.

It seems slow as hell, but then I'm loading it on an IDE HDD, I'm gonna try one of my SATAII's later.

Multi-booting is just a PITA. I use Windows 7's boot manager to dual boot 7 and Linux Mint usually, and while I CAN get 7's boot menu, once you've booted Windows 8, the next time you get 8's boot menu, which a) doesn't have the Mint option (despite EasyBCD saying it should do) and b) when you select Windows 7, the computer has to then restart to boot into 7.

If I want to get into Mint, after loading Windows 8, I have to: reboot, select Windows 7, wait for the computer to restart, wait for 7 to load, restart AGAIN to get 7's boot menu then select Mint from the 7 boot manager that then appears. WTH? I'm sensing some kind of borkageness in the boot manager there...

Oh, (saw someone comment on this earlier) if you want to pin your own apps to Metro, then they have changed the location of the start menu, it's now at: C:\Program Data\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs. It's also administrator only.

I'm not entirely crazy about not being able to close Metro Apps either... I notice in Task Manager they are marked as "suspended" which I assume means they aren't using resources... but still.

 

[yowanvista]

Looks like an OS designed for non-desktops systems, I'd rather keep using Windows 7 instead of this