Windows 8 Customer Preview

[phongn]

Here's the Customer Preview and Server Beta. It runs in VirtualBox and VMWare Workstation 8 or Fusion 4 if you don't want to multiboot or wipe out your existing build.

ArsTechnica has a good article on the UI changes since much of how Windows has worked since 1995 has changed. For those of you who hate convergence, well, looks like you're sticking with Windows 7 until it's dead (or upgrade to Windows 9 or 10 or whatever once the kinks have been worked out)

It feels a bit incoherent with the standard mouse+keyboard interface, to be frank. I'm sure it'd be more natural in a touch-centric system but the still have some work to do to make mouse interaction easily discoverable.

[Pendleton]

It's truly the most awful OS I've used yet, and I liked Vista, for all the bitching over it. This is well into ME territory, and reading various accounts on the web, the most glowing reviews are from tablet users, unsurprisingly. The reaction is highly mixed, and I had the opportunity to see what my deputy director of IT thought of this and all I got was laughter. We're still on XP, and I imagine W7 might be still far off in the future, but so far, no one in corporate even entertains the idea of W8.

I was rather hoping the kinks I encountered were down to VirtualBox or some system issue, but I've seen replicated accounts.

I'm all for change, but this... isn't change for the better. It's like they listened to the complaints about W7 on tablets as feeling like a poor port, but then went the total opposite extreme and forgot that people use desktops and those things don't have touch screens.

[White Haven]

Sigh. And I was pondering upgrading for the native USB 3.0 support and a few of the other back-end updates. Why can't MS sell UIs and OSes separately?

[Pendleton]

As it is, Metro is great as a tablet UI, which is where it belongs, or on smartphones. On desktops it just isn't intuitive or efficient. Forget the moaning over the Start button non-issue. It's everything else that doesn't seem right. Someone seriously dropped the ball on this revamping of the interface.

[White Haven]

The number of tries it took them to arrive at Windows 7's UI tells you all you really need to know about how incredibly bad Microsoft is at UI design. It's trial and error on a grand scale.

[phongn]

The number of tries it took them to arrive at Windows 7's UI tells you all you really need to know about how incredibly bad Microsoft is at UI design. It's trial and error on a grand scale.

Metro was their first serious attempt at a unified design language and pretty successful on smartphones (and I'd suspect tablets, too) and perhaps it isn't surprising they're now trying to move there.

Their last major UI change was the Ribbon, and that was designed with Office 2003's opt-in instrumentation (and a success, even through power users love to hate it). It wasn't really applied in a more global way, though.

[AdmiralCross]

OMG that is awful!

I love Windows 7, I even liked some of the features of Windows Vista (except that it was a memory hog). But I really enjoyed Windows 7, but this is I don't even know what it is. It looks like a cheap version of a smartphone system.

[Skgoa]

I don't see why people are crying about the UI. I tried the preview in VirtualBox and it's just a fancy touc-optimized start menu. You can have your desktop etc. just like always. If anything, this is a better implementation of OS X's Mission Control and Dashboard. I don't see a USP that would make me switch right now, but I wouldn't mind installing Windows 8 on my next desktop.

[phongn]

I don't see why people are crying about the UI. I tried the preview in VirtualBox and it's just a fancy touc-optimized start menu. You can have your desktop etc. just like always. If anything, this is a better implementation of OS X's Mission Control and Dashboard. I don't see a USP that would make me switch right now, but I wouldn't mind installing Windows 8 on my next desktop.

The Metro and 'Classic' worlds do not coherently work with each other. There's also no discoverability of key interface elements (hot corners, for example).

[phongn]

I really hope the current touch fad passes before much longer. It's really shitty in a lot of ways.

It's here to stay, brought on by the rise of the touchscreen smartphone. You might as well rant about the mouse.

But, this looks like a fairly competent execution of it. Clicking in the corners is smart - that's the easiest way to use the start menu anyway (well, next to the brilliant keyboard search introduced in Vista) since it is trivially easy to click a screen corner, much easier than a button - putting the start button in a corner is a good thing they did in Windows XP too.

Yes, but there are no cues that the hot corners exist. Sure, if you did some exploration you'd find out that they do something but unlike the Ribbon there nothing indicating there's more functionality. (Also, it's painful inside a VM since you don't get the "infinite target area", but that's not a normal circumstance)

[Count Chocula]

As a daily Droid and Toughbook user, I confess to a liking for touch on the small screen and in a car...but I have found next to NO use for it in an office setting. I loved XP, hated hogVista, and mostly like Win7; it's more resource efficient than Vista at least. Unless MS is moving their whole business model to touch tablets, though, this has the smell of 'fail' all over it. I'll pass. I'd rather have Bob.

[Terralthra]

I loved my tablet computer...back in 2006, when it was an HP TC-1100, with a stylus. The precision of a stylus (and not having fingerprints and sweat all over the fucking screen) was a joy to use, and Windows XP Tablet Edition was definitely well-engineered.

Tablet computers...? Eh. I'm not sold. I like my Android smartphone, but I need a real keyboard to code.

[Pendleton]

Another touch rant: did you know inner scroll bars on websites are invisible on iOS devices?

Yup, the fucking thing is hidden, and how do you scroll it? With two fingers.

Who the fuck would have guessed that? Apparently nobody in my experience.

My parner and myself figued this out. Must be geniuses, but I digress. There was, funnily enough, a lot of bitching from old school Mac users when the option to scroll was made more intuitive on the touchpads copying the iOS format. I find it far better, and scroll bars on a tiny screen are a distraction at best.

idk, the touch thing will surely get worked out eventually though. Microsoft is much better at making productive products than the idiots at Apple and Google.

Why are Apple and Google "idiots" exactly? We're talking about Microsoft who have put a touch interface on a desktop. Apple and Google are actually not doing this, so which company is losing the plot here? The fact that we had touch augmented W7 machines for a while, when other companies, including Apple, showed why this mechanically will not work, is indicative of a company trying to make up for getting reamed in the smartphone and tablet market, by not making compromises.

Hit the mouse lock thing, I'm sure the vm app has one. Mouse locks rok. <3 <3 <3

Indeed. VirtualBox 4 has a prompt for this. Windows 8 is still, otherwise, an abortion of an OS.

[MKSheppard]

It's here to stay, brought on by the rise of the touchscreen smartphone. You might as well rant about the mouse.

Microsoft is aiming to try to unify the mobile and desktop OSes -- I think, so that you can compile once for both worlds.

Basically, aiming this at the iPad/Kindle Fire universe rather than smartphones; because on those you have enough screen real estate, and room to do something elsewhere on the hardware.

It would be nice to have software work the same on my future Windows Tablet, and my 64-core desktop; instead of having to buy specialist versions. Think being able to seamlessly move between Microsoft Outlook X and Microsoft Office X on the tablet and desktop worlds, with just one point of sale disk for both.

I can also see the new Metro UI being partially useful for media centers; since the UI with it's big blocky buttons and touch optimizations looks like it would work well with a remote or gamepad.

That said, I hope there's a way to just have the Metro UI only appear on bootup, and then go away to be replaced by W7 classic desktop

[Pendleton]

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I see this as further "consumerisation" of IT. It's basically dumbing down the OS to appeal to the non-power users, and sacrificing the old stylings for something Microsoft is really betting will pay off (the tablet idea, despite the fact that people are buying iPads, not generic tablets). I have talked to a few power-users, with mixed impressions so far. Metro, as a UI, is just something we're going to have to get used to, since MS is shoving it down our throats now, though thankfully you can still use the old W7 Aero interface, the majority of people going for casual use will likely stick with Metro, and may as well go for WoA rather than a full blown desktop for that matter. For MS, it is logical to have one hybrid OS for all devices, than maintain several different flavours. Apple is doing this. Linux is doing it. Google is doing it. What I am concerned about is the rumour of nine different kinds of W8 product. What happened to home and enterprise only?

We hear whining over many changes to OSes, from Ubuntu's Unity to OS X's Mission Control. You won't please everyone, but the changes are usually for the better. Maybe with tweaking, W8 will be far better and more intuitive. I can see this working much better with a Magictrackpad on a Mac at work, than with the mouse I currently have with me, and to be honest, other than twitch shooters, I am far more productive on a decent sized and integrated trackpad anyway. Multi-touch gestures are the future, and no normal mouse really offers those. It's one thing that the touch revolution has done that I like, much as I may miss my old Symbian slide-out keypad phone over the touchscreens of today.

I do like the typing to search for an app function, which reminds me of Spotlight and Android's search on mobiles. The Windows Start menu bar was always my biggest UI gripe until Vista started making it a little more manageable.

I'm willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt. We had these criticisms in the past over other transitions; they just seem a lot more vocal today, and I know a lot of people resent the rise of tablets and smartphones eating into PC shares and making OS makers deem the users of the CLI as second class.

[Sharp-kun]

I really hope the current touch fad passes before much longer. It's really shitty in a lot of ways.

It's here to stay, brought on by the rise of the touchscreen smartphone. You might as well rant about the mouse.

I'm not convinced. The Mouse has been slated by the media to be replaced for years, both by voice commands (HA! imagine that in a busy office when on the phone) and touch. Touch has its uses, but I'm not going to be faster touching the screen while using Excel than I am shifting my hand slightly and clicking.

[Tribun]

The way I see it, Microsoft tries so hard to suck the cock of the tablet market, that they forget where they actually make their money (desktops and laptops, which, despite all funeral speeches in the media, won't vanish any time soon).

For a normal computer user, this thing is completely unusable and to add insult to injury, Metro is just bolted on and to force you to use it, MS simply removed several options from the dektop and hid them in obscure places in Metro. Using it with mouse and keybord is a nightmare and despite what some (MS inclusded) what other to believe, touchsceens won't become more than a niche in desktops and laptops.

Meanwhile on tablets it's also a nightmare to use, since everything that goes beyond simple usage (like file operations, movement, etc...)throws you onto the desktop since Metro is completely useless for anything that's a bit more complicated. And it is obvious that the desktop isn't especially touch-friendly, especially on smaller screens.

This basically is Microsoft BOB taken to eleven.

[Dalton]

The way I see it, Microsoft tries so hard to suck the cock of the tablet market, that they forget where they actually make their money (desktops and laptops, which, despite all funeral speeches in the media, won't vanish any time soon).

I think they're trying to get some of that sweet, sweet market share that's currently being dominated by iOS and Droid devices. Good luck to them; Apple is as entrenched in that market as Microsoft is in the desktop/laptop market. Not to mention that they have to face off with cheaper eReader alternatives like the Kindle Fire. But hey, competition is good. Maybe iPad prices will drop a bit. And maybe wingéd monkeys will fly out of my ass.

[phongn]

The way I see it, Microsoft tries so hard to suck the cock of the tablet market, that they forget where they actually make their money (desktops and laptops, which, despite all funeral speeches in the media, won't vanish any time soon).

You mean Windows Server, Exchange and Office?

I really hope the current touch fad passes before much longer. It's really shitty in a lot of ways.

It's here to stay, brought on by the rise of the touchscreen smartphone. You might as well rant about the mouse.

I'm not convinced. The Mouse has been slated by the media to be replaced for years, both by voice commands (HA! imagine that in a busy office when on the phone) and touch. Touch has its uses, but I'm not going to be faster touching the screen while using Excel than I am shifting my hand slightly and clicking.

I'm not saying that the touchscreen is going to replace the keyboard-and-pointer combination for serious productivity work. I'm saying that the touchscreen is here to stay and is fundamentally part of common human-computer interactions now.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I see this as further "consumerisation" of IT. It's basically dumbing down the OS to appeal to the non-power users, and sacrificing the old stylings for something Microsoft is really betting will pay off (the tablet idea, despite the fact that people are buying iPads, not generic tablets). I have talked to a few power-users, with mixed impressions so far. Metro, as a UI, is just something we're going to have to get used to, since MS is shoving it down our throats now, though thankfully you can still use the old W7 Aero interface, the majority of people going for casual use will likely stick with Metro, and may as well go for WoA rather than a full blown desktop for that matter.

Lets get off our high-horse about "dumbing down"? Power users love to rant about this but there's also the idea of making things just work better, too.

I'm willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt. We had these criticisms in the past over other transitions; they just seem a lot more vocal today, and I know a lot of people resent the rise of tablets and smartphones eating into PC shares and making OS makers deem the users of the CLI as second class.

The transition is being roughly handled, which is the problem. Also, CLI users should be overjoyed for Windows 8 Server since the primary means of administration is PowerShell!

Hit the mouse lock thing, I'm sure the vm app has one. Mouse locks rok. <3 <3 <3

Indeed. VirtualBox 4 has a prompt for this. Windows 8 is still, otherwise, an abortion of an OS.

It does (VMWare Fusion and Workstation user here), but my use case is to not constrain VM input.

[MKSheppard]

I think they're trying to get some of that sweet, sweet market share that's currently being dominated by iOS and Droid devices. Good luck to them; Apple is as entrenched in that market as Microsoft is in the desktop/laptop market. Not to mention that they have to face off with cheaper eReader alternatives like the Kindle Fire. But hey, competition is good.

I'm interested in a Kindle Fire, but not for a while now, because right now, the Kindle Fire doesn't seem to offer subtitles, meaning I would have to rip and burn my own movies with subtitles hard-burned on the video file itself, or hope someone releases an app for the Kindle Fire that can play back .srt files.

This BTW, is why I hope M$ manages to make W8 a decentish force in the tablet market, because it'd be nice to just be able to use VLC media player (or whatever) portably between my desktop and tablet; so I only have to keep one set of files, instead of "here's a set of files that work with x, some with y."

[Executor32]

Since it's an Android tablet, you should be able to install MX Player. It supports both embedded and external subtitle streams in several formats, check the features page at the link for a full list. It also plays just about any video file format and codec that your PC can.

[TimothyC]

I had played with the developer preview a bit, and the biggest problem that I had was the lack of the start menu - but Stardock has come up with a solution. Not sure how well it would work (I haven't tried it yet).

[Executor32]

I tried that, and didn't care for it. Instead of a proper Start menu, you get the Metro Start screen shrunk down below fullscreen size. I found that ViStart is almost perfect. It's meant to bring a Vista/7 style Start menu to Windows XP, but it works equally well in Windows 8. The Start menu it creates is nearly identical to 7's, and the only way you'd know it wasn't standard is that there are no fancy mouseover or clicking animations on the Start orb.

[mr friendly guy]

Good thing I got my new computer with windows 7 and didn't wait for windows 8 to arrive like my dad suggested, after taking the advice from board members in a previous thread. I do plan to get a Lenovo Yoga which converts from an ultrabook to a tablet, which is windows based. So Windows 8 should work well for the tablet mode. I only plan to use a few office applications, listen to music, watch videos and use it as a reader for CBR/CBZ and some PDF files. So windows 8 should work fine there.

[xthetenth]

I'm trying it out on a laptop which doesn't have much at all installed on it (it's a working computer with an ssd) and I don't think I've been able to come up with a single complaint yet. The start screen is so much better for my purposes than the start menu it boggles the mind. Rather than a list of six or so programs that never includes what I actually want and is relatively space constrained in the lower left corner, I get a nice full screen display that includes everything on my computer. It's never a matter of having to go hunting, what I want is going to be there. The big tiles for everything make being on a touchpad a whole hell of a lot more bearable, as well. I've actually started using the windows key. That's one thing about 8, it works brilliantly with keyboard shortcuts. It also boots unbelievably fast. I can shut down the computer with little more thought than I would when locking my phone's screen. Sure it's different, but everything works as well if not significantly better for me.