Windows 8 Consumer Preview Thread

Just installed this on my new SSD. The new explorer and desktop features are ace but not getting on with metro at all. Hopefuly they will add a way to disable it eventually; I know there was a registry change you could do in an older version to get rid of it and bring back the start menu.

Anyway, other than metro my only issue is some weird graphical bugs on the browsers (IE and firefox), anyone else getting that?
 
ChrissyT88 said:
Ah, cheers - thanks Glaucus. Missed that whilst scanning the help files.. one of those days!
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You can also upon the Start Screen and just start typing.


This is my main OS now with Linux as backup


I can think of one thing I would like instead of having to hover in the bottom left to get into the start menu, just a button there like the windows button to open it
 
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What was wrong with Vista? nothing really bothered me about it.

Linux is okay, a bit too much hoops to jump through to do some things though.
 
Boozebeard said:
Just installed this on my new SSD. The new explorer and desktop features are ace but not getting on with metro at all. Hopefuly they will add a way to disable it eventually; I know there was a registry change you could do in an older version to get rid of it and bring back the start menu.

Anyway, other than metro my only issue is some weird graphical bugs on the browsers (IE and firefox), anyone else getting that?
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The trick with the metro desktop is to get it set up for just the things you want. Ditch everything you can't see yourself being bothered by and add all the shortcuts, favourites, traditional desktop programs and games and then see how you get on with it.

I'm really not missing the traditional start menu at all now.

I do think there should an option to keep the charm bar on top, it's all not quite right though I'm having seen the changes between the dev preview and this I'm confident they'll work something out.
 
Murray said:
Ah, so like Windows 8 then? :p
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I've only spent a couple of minutes on it on a test PC at work so haven't built an opinion. I have my first SSD arriving today and will install it either tonight or tomorrow and give it a good test.

I also thought Windows 7 was a nice upgrade from Vista.
 
Murray said:
What was wrong with Vista? nothing really bothered me about it.
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I think the main issue was of Microsoft allowing lower specs, and OEMs selling laptops that, while certified for Vista, couldn't really run it comfortably. So you ended up with laptops with a slow hard drive, 1gb RAM (and even less in some cases!) and so much crap pre-installed that by the time you came to use it for the first time, it was already grinding to a halt.

Other than that, I guess the only real issues were the over-eager UAC prompts, and for some the lower copying speed, specifically over networks - I say for some as neither my work or home installs were affected by it.
 
I don't understand why microsoft can't just make the metro optional, they must be realy stupid to think that all desktop users are going to like blocks. When i first saw the UI on the windows 7 phone i thought it was terrible idea then, now that they are trying to ram it down every ones throat on the desktop. I still think they are going to come out and say, we were just joking this is our tablet OS. Maybe they will still come to their sense and fire all the metro designers.

What would be the benefit for trying to have one OS over multiple device types, anyone ?

Why would anyone who has been using a pc for 10-20 years all of sudden want to start buying apps and forget about all the open source software etc. Why would any one who has used a computer want everything full screen all of a sudden?

At 1900x1200 fullscreen apps are just a bad idea. I did not find any of the applications on the metro ui good or usable or even viable. So the metro screen ends up being a glorified desktop. If you only use the metro screen for shortcuts how is it any better than a desktop? its not. Add on top of that, most people these days are moving away from using the desktop due to the pinned items in the start and task bar. Bet that didn't show up in their heat maps.
 
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I've a feeling that the Metro-only situation is to push developers into making touch-optimised applications and tiles and really get it off the ground. I can imagine that the Start Menu may well make a reappearance either for the release version, in an optional install or in Windows 9.

But if it was a simple on-off switch, then their worry would be that people would simply ignore Metro and Windows would struggle to get off the ground on tablets (not that I can really see it working in the current iteration, but hey-ho).
 
I have to say, giving PC users the choice of Metro rather than forcing it on them would seem to be the way. I imagine the problem is that with all the hype being about Metro - I haven't heard anything about Windows 8 apart from Metro - that Windows 8 without Metro would be just Windows 7! I wonder if that is actually true and it is juts a facelift for Windows 7...


in any event, there are not going to be many sales in selling a Windows 7 look-alike so i suspect Metro is here to stay and the sales to desktop users will vanish.
 
Last night I had a dream and it caused me to remmeber somehting I had long forgotten, excuse the meme but Kids today have no idea what this is :P



Its called the Windows 95 active desktop channel bar, you could move it anywhere on the desktop, alter its width/height, add/remove buttons (which could be used to open web sites, files, programs, anything) and it did not replace the start menu.

So in short its better than the Metro interface in every way imaginable and it comes from 17 years ago, oh Microsoft there is not a facepalm big enough ^^
 
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Gosh, ubersonic, I don't remember Active Desktop at all and i used Win 95 and help my family with it. It looks awesome compared with Metro!

I hope Microsoft monitors forums like this... they might learn something.
 
It's what I suggested in post #621 - implementing Metro in the desktop, either replacing the Metro shell itself or an option for desktop users. Surely it would be best of both world for everyone.
 
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