The Windows 8 Thread

Glaucus · 19 Feb 2012 at 17:31

ng93 said:
I'm thinking more the sheer amount of on screen information, buttons etc. You can't get rid of it without messing up useability, and considering that metro is all about a clean minimalist interface, you can't really keep it either.

Why not in future implementations. As said auto detect input devices and change UI accordingly.
And etro is far from just interface. It's informationhandling and sharing and a lot more.

Something like that will and has to happen, of they want to acheive true cross platform. Same OS and apps, across devices.
Just program software identical with 3 different UI. K&M, touch, touch phone.

V F · 19 Feb 2012 at 17:54

ng93 said:
It's just a different style. I know plenty of people who prefer OS X and iOS to Metro, and plenty of people who prefer Metro to OS X and iOS. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it flashy and out of date.

Considering how awful OS X looked back in 2001. Apple tried transparency, it didn't work. Lion is a really refined UI.

I was always a Windows user before OS X. Working with OS X is such a joy. It's a pleasingly graceful UI/layout for workflow and it being my main OS since 2005. Not that I'm saying Windows 7 is bad but too much glass becomes a pain. Windows 7 is still a nice OS don't get me wrong. Just a shame the icons are so badly dated.

For me Windows 7 still leaves a bad taste visually of Windows Vista and it's dated. I still use Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion, XP, Vista and Windows 7 daily to see all the comparisons. Can't say I'm looking forward to Windows 8 and it's fruity flat square look, but I'll keep an open mind.

PermaBanned · 19 Feb 2012 at 18:02

Glaucus said:
For desktop there's both. It's not meant to be turned off, you just switch between the two.
ATM I use desktop, due to lack of metro apps (can't wait for beta and the app store), however there's no need to keep switching between the two once your in desktop view.

On multiple screen systems you get one desktop, one metro.
However this is how it's currently implemented, so subject to change.

For home use for most people. As long as software is in app form. Then desktop is pointless. For developers and work. Desktop is still vital.
However unlike othere's. I don't see any reason why big working type software can't be designed in metro with full functionality. However that will take years.

Eventually metro will replace tradition desktop completely, my guess would be windows 10.

Hmm. That's quite ballsy. Who do they think they are, Canonical?

Still, i've heard good things about KDE 4.8 of late. Looking like it should be ideal replacement for people after a more traditional desktop, finally getting back on track since 3.5. Gnome 3.2 on the other hand... well i guess it appeals to some people.

Glaucus · 20 Feb 2012 at 19:53

Brilliant, I still can't believe apple didn't implement iCloud to this extent in 5.0 update.

ChrisD. · 20 Feb 2012 at 20:00

That's pretty cool.

marc2003 · 20 Feb 2012 at 20:21

more details here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/...to-the-cloud-with-skydrive-and-windows-8.aspx

the explorer app will be available for vista/7 and it will support files upto 2GB in size.

vintage-x · 20 Feb 2012 at 21:38

that is really really cool. If you had a windows 8 tablet then it pretty much gives you 25gb of extra space or more depending what you pay.

wildest_jjk · 20 Feb 2012 at 21:50

Hey guys,

So from what I have gathered the windows 8 public beta will be released sometime this month?

I really want to try it but haven't used a beta before. So is it possible to download a VM first and install it on there? Or does it work in some other way? I just don't want to uninstall windows 7 for a beta!

Thanks

ng93 · 20 Feb 2012 at 21:54

The consumer preview (i.e. beta) is out on feb 28th. You can run Win 8 fine in a virtual machine, i've found vmware works best and is free too.

wildest_jjk · 20 Feb 2012 at 21:54

ng93 said:
The consumer preview (i.e. beta) is out on feb 28th. You can run Win 8 fine in a virtual machine, i've found vmware works best and is free too.

Very helpful!

Cheers

wildest_jjk · 20 Feb 2012 at 21:56

Is that VMware player? And where will I be able to download windows 8 when its available?

Thanks again

marc2003 · 20 Feb 2012 at 22:04

it runs in vmware player ok but it won't be out until the 29th. as for where.... it'll be all over news sites and forums like this.

vintage-x · 20 Feb 2012 at 22:12

just switched on my laptop/tablet and it seems like chrome finally has real touch support

I hope google have a chrome metro app ready
I also hope the metro media player is up to scratch

Idleman · 20 Feb 2012 at 22:43

ng93 said:
The consumer preview (i.e. beta) is out on feb 28th. You can run Win 8 fine in a virtual machine, i've found vmware works best and is free too.

Wish i had known this. I had the developer preview installed. What a mistake that turned out to be.
Installed on separate partion, all ok. Next day, found my music partion has disappeared. Earlier today, i found my TV partion has also gone.
So i deleted the partion(used Easus) with windows 8 on and then found i could`nt boot into windows. Not with windows on ssd or win 7 installation on hdd.
Just had to do a complete re-installl on my ssd :mad:

Have`nt checked to see if i can boot from hdd.
It seems as if i had one mbr for all.

Idleman · 20 Feb 2012 at 23:06

Just checked my hdd and the win7 installation has now disappeared. So from having a 430GB partion(win7), 200GB partion(TV) and a 100GB partion(music), i now have a 730 GB unallocated partion.

MR.B · 21 Feb 2012 at 02:13

wildest_jjk said:
Is that VMware player? And where will I be able to download windows 8 when its available?

Dont use any kind of virtualization software if you actually want a good experience with Win 8. It wont take advantage of all the performance enhancements. And if you cant actually see how much better Win 8 runs, then whats the point of trying the BETA in the first place?

Virtualized, Win 8 feels considerably slower than Win 7 and the UI is a little laggy, as any virtualized OS is always slower than running on real hardware. But if you just install Win 8 to hard drive or another petition then it's snappier at pretty much everything, and boots, shuts down, sleeps and hibernates faster. Theres also features that wont work in virtualization.

I'm planning to install Win 8 on a USB stick, using the new 'Windows To Go' feature (see original post for explanation). Assuming it's in the BETA. You can get USB 3.0 sticks that are almost as fast as SSD's.

Photek · 21 Feb 2012 at 06:03

HOW FRIGGIN' COOL is this SkyDrive feature...

Knowing that most people would still have files on a remote PC that weren’t available through SkyDrive, we built a new feature that allows you to “reach across” the Internet to access any file, stream videos, or view photo albums from a remote PC that is running SkyDrive on the desktop. For any remote folder or file, you can also choose to “copy to SkyDrive,” so that you’ll always have it across your devices.

screenshot plus more info on the blog under: 'Fetching files through SkyDrive.com'

I hope the desktop app is available when the W8 beta is up, as it will also be available for Vista/7

NathanE · 21 Feb 2012 at 09:28

Win8 blog said:
We are proud to announce the addition of English for the United Kingdom to the list of Windows display languages. We admit that this is something we should have done a long time ago. Windows users in the UK have gotten by with the US English version of Windows, and while we Americans knew this was not their favourite, that is clearly no defence. We believe that this version of Windows will also be widely used in India, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland and many other places.

We are releasing English for the United Kingdom as a standalone language. Standalone languages contain all the user interface components needed to be independent versions of Windows. Standalone languages can be used by OEMs to image a PC, or can be purchased as boxed software.

The release of English for the United Kingdom is also a trial run for us. Adding a second language under an already existing primary language code—ISO 3166-2 EN—poses some engineering challenges for us (which is why this took us so long to do). We have had to pay attention to the language fallback chain, for instance. If there are no localized resources available at any time, we fall back to secondary choices and then to English. That used to be English US. But, now there’s English UK as well. Which do we fall back to? So far, planning for these scenarios is looking good.

Finally! We're getting "Chiefly British" language support

gazzamcg · 21 Feb 2012 at 10:57

Any news on the protogon file system thingy.

mrk · 21 Feb 2012 at 13:12

MR.B said:
Dont use any kind of virtualization software if you actually want a good experience with Win 8. It wont take advantage of all the performance enhancements. And if you cant actually see how much better Win 8 runs, then whats the point of trying the BETA in the first place?

Virtualized, Win 8 feels considerably slower than Win 7 and the UI is a little laggy, as any virtualized OS is always slower than running on real hardware. But if you just install Win 8 to hard drive or another petition then it's snappier at pretty much everything, and boots, shuts down, sleeps and hibernates faster. Theres also features that wont work in virtualization.

I'm planning to install Win 8 on a USB stick, using the new 'Windows To Go' feature (see original post for explanation). Assuming it's in the BETA. You can get USB 3.0 sticks that are almost as fast as SSD's.

I've had Win8 installed on VMWare Player for a few months now and have noticed no sluggishness in the UI and the experience has been excellent. Hardware accelerated video works as does FlashHD without issue.