Windows 8 - What do you think?

[schmebay]

It is great on my Samsung Slate. I like the Metro "thing." The Metro menu slides smooth .. feels like my iPad. would like to pretty it up though.

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

Seems to me like the olden days when internet appliances came out. (Iopener, Apple Newton, etc.)
And now with these computer devices unlike the past ones Microsoft sees something that will make a
serious impact, and as with those internet appliances I'm onboard again. BTW anyone interested in buying my old iOpener?
LoL

 

[ADRz]

It is great on my Samsung Slate. I like the Metro "thing." The Metro menu slides smooth .. feels like my iPad. would like to pretty it up though.

I hear you and this is all great for tablets. But let's have a good perspective on this. Tablets are not the place for a heavy and demanding computing experience. This is where you briefly check some email, read a book or a magazine and watch a brief video. Should we surbordinate a very robust OS to these tasks? I think not. In addition, why do so while degrading the desktop experience? It seems bizarre and counterproductive. In my opinion, this is one of the great upcoming disasters in computing.

 

[Darcy]

Hmm

Microsoft announced it was porting Windows 8 to ARM chips in a bid to unify the desktop and mobile versions of the operating system.

Source: Windows 8 and the ARM Revolution: The Pros and Cons | PCWorld

 

[Darcy]

Hmm

Microsoft announced it was porting Windows 8 to ARM chips in a bid to unify the desktop and mobile versions of the operating system.

Source: Windows 8 and the ARM Revolution: The Pros and Cons | PCWorld

 

[HQuest]

I believe all the below may had been mentioned before, but I just skipped a dozen or so pages.

I've just booted back to Win7 after playing some hours on the Win8 and the Metro UI. The OS itself feels like... a regular Windows. I did not noticed big improvements whatsoever against, let's say, Win7.

However, this Metro UI... If anyone ever joked about Apple's Launchpad, well, Metro UI is a way poorly Launchpad implementation. I may be suspect saying this, as I do own a couple Apple products and I got quite used to their UI. But IMHO Metro is confusing. Don't get me wrong, I believe it has lots of potential, but right now is more lame than usable. Everything is so big (on a 30", 2048x1536 display, where I expected input texts and buttons to be scaled, they are all huge!). Maybe if I used it on a tablet my feelings may change, but on the desktop, this is going to turn out a fiasco - bigger than Windows ME.

I did liked the ribbon bar implementation on Windows Explorer, makes things on par with other Microsoft apps (notably Office 2010). And I could not test more, as both Socialite and Tweet@rama (or whatever it was called) is somewhat buggy - first not even logging on, the later partly working.

I loved that details screen which pops when you do move over Start menu - with the clock, wireless and some more details. They could add some more details over there, like weather (maybe I did not found how to add).

All in all, there is still plenty of work to be done. I, again, think it is too early to call Metro UI a "positive approach to a desktop revamp".

 

[AndoidOS]

I like Windows 8, but you can tell it's made for tablets. I can't really see how it will work for PC's.

 

[vrosa]

I like Windows 8, but you can tell it's made for tablets. I can't really see how it will work for PC's.

It will surely be good for both kind of devices, but I think that the UI may have to be adequated to each one.

 

[AndoidOS]

I like Windows 8, but you can tell it's made for tablets. I can't really see how it will work for PC's.

It will surely be good for both kind of devices, but I think that the UI may have to be adequated to each one.

Hopefully...

 

[ADRz]

I like Windows 8, but you can tell it's made for tablets. I can't really see how it will work for PC's.

It will surely be good for both kind of devices, but I think that the UI may have to be adequated to each one.

Well, a peculiar use of English!! I am sure that you meant "customized".

However, Microsoft would not do this. It cannot do this. The two major reasons for the Start Screen are

(a) Condition desktop users to the Metro-style interface. They can then go and buy Windows tablets and smartphones. This Pavlovian experiment would not work if there is a different interface or the current one (god forbid) on desktops. Actually, one can see evidence of this Pavlovian experiment working in this forum. I do not know who the "genius" was at Microsoft who devised it, but kudos to him. Steve Balmer's ass depends on it.
(b) Make money selling Metro-style (full screen) apps. Of course!!! The suckers will simply flock to the new paradigm. If the old interface was utilized, you can do all the things you need to do with desktop gadgets. Microsoft has killed virtually all of the desktop gadgets because it needs the money from the Metro-style apps. (Go check, most of them are gone!!!)

So, without intense user pressure and the threat of the whole Windows edifice collapsing, Microsoft is not going to make any changes and it would not make the Metro-style screen optional on the desktop (or customize it in any way). My guess: The Start Screen may be optional in the "Enterprise Version" of Win8 for which MS would want $300 for a single license (for suckers that do not have volume purchasing agreements). This would discourage typical users from buying it and installing it.

So, one is left with the totally laughable idea of a Start Screen as an overlay in a windowing OS running brain-dead, "full-screen" smartphone type of apps!!!Hurray, this is the future of Windows!!! Ridiculous!!

 

[vrosa]

Well, a peculiar use of English!! I am sure that you meant "customized".

Sorry for my bad english ...lol...

 

[pacinitaly]

I've been playing with it for 7hrs.
I did as a dual boot. can I just delete the partition and all will be gone?

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

I've been playing with it for 7hrs.
I did as a dual boot. can I just delete the partition and all will be gone?

THAT'S up to you, BUT why?

 

[whs]

If you imaged the 100MB system partition before the double boot, restore that. Else delete Win8 in msconfig > boot tab

 

[Vertex]

I kind of agree with you. Protection from MS is not what I am looking forward to. I caught enough nasties with MSE. And defrag I do not need for mz SSD. The new task manager is OK, but I get the same info from Resource Monitor.

If those are the only highlights, I am really unimpressed.

What I love about the new Task Manager is that it simply has a neater design, better coloring of these bars and graphs than the old boring Task Manager or even the Resource Monitor that has black and green bars and graphs which is quite a legacy design that should have been made neater on Windows 7 in the first place in my view.
What do you think about the Native PDF reader? Well it may be very basic. Its like Wordpad compared to MS Word when compared to Adobe Reader.

I hate the Secure Boot. Well its supposed to protect your bootup from viruses but it also locks off non Windows OSs from booting. I hope it gets pulled off.

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

Secure boot is a GREAT, and needed feature. And to Vertex, you can simply create a new partition and install any O/S you like outside of Win 8. This is my opinion, only someone that wants to send spam, or malware wouldn't like this feature.

 

[ADRz]

Secure boot is a GREAT, and needed feature. And to Vertex, you can simply create a new partition and install any O/S you like outside of Win 8. This is my opinion, only someone that wants to send spam, or malware wouldn't like this feature.

Try to create a new partition in 2 Tb disk and resize the rest and see how much time this involves!!! I do not think that this is a realistic suggestion. I have done it, but this is not something that I would recommend it easily to anybody. In any case, I find the rationale quite weird. At a time when it is progressively easier and easier to run multiple OSes, MS is trying to hit the brakes. It is certainly going to make MS look bad when many of its competitors do not place such obstacles and, indeed, make it easier to run various OSs.

However, this is much in keeping with Win8 being a "consumer" OS, not really meant for serious users. My guess that this feature has been placed there to make it difficult to run Android on Win8 Tablets. It was not really thought out as a total obstacle on the desktop. Microsoft figured out that many users would be temped by Android ICS and the hundreds of thousands of apps there and would proceed to install it. MS is rather afraid of competing against Android in these platforms.

 

[Mike Lonewolf]

MS is rather afraid of competing against Android in these platforms. [end-quote]

No they are NOT If need be Bill Gates would just buy them out. (example: Apple Mac's & IBM's O/Ses) *LMAO* Being funny aside, there are plenty of boot managers
out there that could do it simply. Not a big deal. I am running on a 1T drive Win 8 DP, Win 7, and Win XP.

 

[vrosa]

I am running on a 1T drive Win 8 DP, Win 7, and Win XP.

I run Windows 7 x64; Windows 8 DP x64; Windows Server 2008 R2

2x 500gb (System)
1x 1000gb (Storage)

 

[ADRz]

MS is rather afraid of competing against Android in these platforms. [end-quote]

No they are NOT If need be Bill Gates would just buy them out. (example: Apple Mac's & IBM's O/Ses) *LMAO* Being funny aside, there are plenty of boot managers
out there that could do it simply. Not a big deal. I am running on a 1T drive Win 8 DP, Win 7, and Win XP.

You did not pay attention to what I said. I said that the problem would be mainly in the tablets. These are consumer products and consumers do not want to deal with boot managers and the like. It is also unlikely that with these restrictions a single app can manage to install ICS, which is what MS wants to avoid. In the desktop, there are solutions although, of course, MS is not doing it easier to deal with multiple OSes.

By the way, to judge the possible success of the Start Screen, think Ubuntu One and what disaster that was.