Windows 8 The Verdicts ?

I have been playing the original Need for Speed: Most Wanted on my laptop with Windows 7 but have since upgraded to Windows 8 and the original Most Wanted game is incredibly smooth on Windows 8 when compared to Windows 7. It's like the timing granularity of the operating system has improved dramatically.

I used to achieve the same type of superior timing granularity on Linux when I used to game back in the days and it's very surprising to finally see it in Windows 8!

Anyone else noticed it?
 
I agree, I'm seeing speed improvements all over the place. Not scientific by any means, but it feels very quick.

World of Warcraft seems smoother.
 
I might be getting this for the sake of a virtual machine testing environment but I can't quite get my head around the Metro UI.

Can someone explain how it is useful to see a tiny summary of an email when I have 20 new ones in my inbox to read. Its faster for me to alt+tab to an email program where I can actually read and reply to emails than it is to pop up the Metro UI and look for the little tile that tells me very little.

I just can't see how the Metro UI is supposed to help. If you want to make people more efficient, get them to use an app launcher. It just seems like a step backwards UI wise to me. I have had no issues with windows 7 and lower but windows 8 seems like they integrated a very strange bolt on to the main OS and UI.
 
I am going to try the final out and use all my tweak applications

7 taskbar tweaker
vista switcher (try add metro as an exclusion)
3rvx
virtual dimension (for transparency)

Then i will try all the start menu tweaks and see if the metro still gets in the way. If it does not then i can deal with it and might eventually start trying out some of the metro stuff, if just for full screen weather only.

Also are there any system resource metro apps yet? Are there any apps for metro that are significant in functionality? terminal emulator, file manager, advanced music player with playlists and equalizers like foobar and so on? As i remember someone saying that they will be ready by launch date, its still early. Can i search the app store without being on windows 8? *googles*
 
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fez said:
I might be getting this for the sake of a virtual machine testing environment but I can't quite get my head around the Metro UI.

Can someone explain how it is useful to see a tiny summary of an email when I have 20 new ones in my inbox to read. Its faster for me to alt+tab to an email program where I can actually read and reply to emails than it is to pop up the Metro UI and look for the little tile that tells me very little.

I just can't see how the Metro UI is supposed to help. If you want to make people more efficient, get them to use an app launcher. It just seems like a step backwards UI wise to me. I have had no issues with windows 7 and lower but windows 8 seems like they integrated a very strange bolt on to the main OS and UI.
Click to expand...

You're not meant to treat the start screen as a notification screen, yes it provides some limited functionality in that regard but it's more in the sense that you're going off to do something like open a web browser and you get notified you have 10 new emails or you have 10 app updates in the store etc.
 
fez said:
Can someone explain how it is useful to see a tiny summary of an email when I have 20 new ones in my inbox to read. Its faster for me to alt+tab to an email program where I can actually read and reply to emails than it is to pop up the Metro UI and look for the little tile that tells me very little.
Click to expand...

Don't force yourself to use metro stuff. If it's faster to alt-tab into Outlook, then just do that.

It's easy to overthink this kind of thing - just get on with using your PC.
 
It seems there are 2 ways of thinking on this.

The way i see it: The Start screen is the hub of Windows, and 'Desktop' is a sort of application to help ease the conversion from old to new. You should try, whereever possible to remain in the Metro environment and moving to the Desktop is essentially 'not using Windows 8'

The way others seem to see it: The Start screen is an application to allow you access and info quickly. "Desktop" is the real Windows 8 and it just happens to be an option on the Start Screen.
 
TruffleShuffle said:
It seems there are 2 ways of thinking on this.

The way i see it: The Start screen is the hub of Windows, and 'Desktop' is a sort of application to help ease the conversion from old to new. You should try, whereever possible to remain in the Metro environment and moving to the Desktop is essentially 'not using Windows 8'

The way others seem to see it: The Start screen is an application to allow you access and info quickly. "Desktop" is the real Windows 8 and it just happens to be an option on the Start Screen.
Click to expand...

Both IMO

1st option on tablets
2nd option on desktops.

At least for the forceable future. Untill the majority of stuff I do on desktop has metro apps.
 
You will never have open source metro applications due to the closed nature of it so that sort of rules out like 90% of the windows desktop applications from the get go. *shrug*

I prefer to look at metro like a less advanced version of rainmeter. :D

Or when you meet a girl and want to go on a date and she brings a long a fat friend, that fat friend is metro... lol
 
groen said:
You will never have open source metro applications due to the closed nature of it so that sort of rules out like 90% of the windows desktop applications from the get go. *shrug*

I prefer to look at metro like a less advanced version of rainmeter. :D

Or when you meet a girl and want to go on a date and she brings a long a fat friend, that fat friend is metro... lol
Click to expand...

Can still be open source, they just have to publish it in the store.

There's nothing stopping any developer producing metro apps. Big software will unlikely be on metro for a long time untill it's evolved. Allthough things like cut down versions of photoshop should be fairly soon seeing as they make iOS apps.
 
groen said:
Well that is good news. Is it free to publish ?
Click to expand...

$99 to set up an account and can publish multiple apps from that one account.

Edit- sorry even cheaper $49 for individuals
Windows 8 represents the single biggest platform opportunity available, and business terms of the Windows Store represent a developer-first point of view. The registration fee for individuals is $49 USD, with a $99 USD fee for companies. The revenue share is 70%, but when an app achieves $25,000 USD in revenue—aggregated across all sales in every market—that changes to 80% revenue share for the rest of the lifetime of the app.
With access to millions of potential customers around the world, development choices that let you use the skills you already have, rich platform capabilities for building Windows apps, business terms that maximize your revenue opportunity, and flexible business models for the apps you create, Windows 8 and the Windows Store provide an unprecedented opportunity for you to imagine, build, and sell your apps.
Click to expand...
 
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Good start, upgraded my laptop from Windows 7 (after using Clonezilla to image it first I might add) and getting introduced to Windows 8...as a blue screen, well light blue sad smiley face Blue Screen.

So yeh, not all that impressed at the moment. :(
 
well i stuck it on my laptop on the spur of the moment last night, for £25 i thought i might as well. Never used the beta so this was my first experience of it. Frankly, it just seems like Win 7 with extra steps to actually get to do anything. Does feel a little faster though.

Is there any way of configuring the start screen, i dont want all those squares but a choice few and some apps would be nice. And i want to pin the power off option somewhere to save me all the clicks to get to that.

Im sure it will be lovely on a tablet and ive got my CC poised for a surface pro but i wont be replacing win 7 ultimate on my main pc anytime soon.
 
And i want to pin the power off option somewhere to save me all the clicks to get to that.



Make your own power off shortcut by right
clicking on the desktop, then add to task bar.
Google is your friend, search for -- Shutdown.exe -s -t 00
 
Like lot's of others, I think Win 8 is pretty good, just need to get the Win 7 type of start menu back especially for those using a desktop.
 
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