Windows 8 Consumer Preview Thread

So it's installed and the apps actually work now.

I quite like the messenger one, all of my contacts in one place so I can contact them from everywhere.

I hope this gets integrated within Windows Phone 8.
 
I like the messenger metro app. Looks nice and fresh. I find it tedious when in desktop, to switch to a full screen app, then have to switch back to desktop.

For this reason, I won't be using any of the Metro apps. I'll stick with the desktop MSN, which is actually quicker to reply with. In fact I see no reason to use Metro apps if on a desktop.

I've tried them, and its slower to keep swapping from full screen back to desktop.
 
WHS has been killed off. The replacement, as such, will be Windows Server 2012 Essentials. It's basically Server SBS 2011 Essentials with some of WHS2011 features, such as streaming. It's also $425 for a licence :eek:
 
WHS has been killed off. The replacement, as such, will be Windows Server 2012 Essentials. It's basically Server SBS 2011 Essentials with some of WHS2011 features, such as streaming. It's also $425 for a licence
Click to expand...

Its not really the replacement for WHS (there isn't one) it is just the closest server version left.
 
nightmare99 said:
Its not really the replacement for WHS (there isn't one) it is just the closest server version left.
Click to expand...

Which is why I said "as such". In the same way there's no longer a SBS or SBS Essentials. They've simplified their product line up, just the same as with Win8, and harmonised what was the Colorado servers (SBS Essentials and WHS) into one.

http://download.microsoft.com/downl...2EB724/Windows Server 2012 Essentials FAQ.pdf

"Q: Will there be a next version of Windows Home Server?

A: No. Windows Home Server has seen its greatest success in small office/home office (SOHO) environments and among the technology enthusiast community. For this reason, Microsoft is combining the features that were previously only found in Windows Home Server, such as support for DLNA-compliant devices and media streaming, into Windows Server 2012 Essentials and focusing our efforts into making Windows Server 2012 Essentials the ideal first server operating system for both small business and home use—offering an intuitive administration experience, elastic and resilient storage features with Storage Spaces, and robust data protection
for the server and client computers."
 
I'm still on WHSv1 because of the drive pooling thing. Is that going to be in 2012 Essentials? Or something like it?

Edit: Looks like Storage Spaces does the job, but still no replacement for the centralised backup, which is annoying. Its both got me out of a couple of scrapes, and also brilliant for upgrading drives.
 
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I'm not convinced with Storage Spaces...

You can't remove drives once they're added to the space - without moving your data off, deleting the space and starting again. DE did this really easily to allow you to add and remove drives.

In a Simple storage space (no parity or duplication) files are split into 256MB chunks effectively making your Storage Space a large RAID0, if one drive fails the whole lot goes. DE stored full files (and often folders) on a single drive that could at least give you some chance to recover at least some of your files.

Finally, whether it's a beta bug or not - I'm not sure. But I had a problem with some disks not liking my controller. Windows would start to create a storage space and they would time out. After that Windows (WSE2012) would BSOD everytime one of those drives were connected - and wouldn't even boot. I had to manually clean all the drives that contained any remnant of the storage space.

So far Storage Spaces is a brilliant idea, but still not as good in some respects as DE, and given the problems I've had with dropped drives I won't be trusting my data to it just yet.
 
Hey guys

thinking about trying out windows 8 to see what its all about, i have a SSD 240gb with windows 7 installed and a 1TB HDD for data storage, how do i go about duel booting ? and if you where me where would you install it?

thanks
 
I've just put win8 on a VM and it runs surprisingly well!

I'm with the "can't stand metro" group. Looks like I'll have to use an alternative shell like emerge or cairo if I can't get used to metro.
 
Calgar117 said:
Hey guys

thinking about trying out windows 8 to see what its all about, i have a SSD 240gb with windows 7 installed and a 1TB HDD for data storage, how do i go about duel booting ? and if you where me where would you install it?

thanks
Click to expand...

Create a partition within windows 7 on your ssd, about 50GB just to be on the safe side for programs and updates etc... And just install/boot to that.
 
ChileanLlama said:
I'm not convinced with Storage Spaces...

You can't remove drives once they're added to the space - without moving your data off, deleting the space and starting again. DE did this really easily to allow you to add and remove drives.

In a Simple storage space (no parity or duplication) files are split into 256MB chunks effectively making your Storage Space a large RAID0, if one drive fails the whole lot goes. DE stored full files (and often folders) on a single drive that could at least give you some chance to recover at least some of your files.

Finally, whether it's a beta bug or not - I'm not sure. But I had a problem with some disks not liking my controller. Windows would start to create a storage space and they would time out. After that Windows (WSE2012) would BSOD everytime one of those drives were connected - and wouldn't even boot. I had to manually clean all the drives that contained any remnant of the storage space.

So far Storage Spaces is a brilliant idea, but still not as good in some respects as DE, and given the problems I've had with dropped drives I won't be trusting my data to it just yet.
Click to expand...

That's a bit worrying. I had hoped to use Spaces but now you have me bothered. I can see some point to having to keep drives in place - its not raid after all - but how is it when a drive dies? Can one replace the dead drive and get all the files back or are some just lost?

Having a 1TB disk on my desk I was intending for Drive Spaces, I will now carry on with it as a backup drive connected to my new Akasa Dock which is highly recommended by the way.
 
In all Storage Spaces data is written in 256MB chunks. If your Storage Space is parity or duplication then you should be able to survive a single drive failure, perhaps more dependent on the level of duplication or parity you have chosen.

If you use a Simple space, then if a single drive fails you lose everything, just as in a RAID0.

At least with Drive Extender on WHS v1 you had the ability to pool your drives, but if one drive failed, even without duplication, you wouldn't lose data on the unaffected drives. Storage Spaces is step back in that respect, to the extent where I wonder why MS even offered the Simple storage space option.
 
No problem. To be fair I wouldn't even consider using a storage space unless you had a heap of data across multiple drives which you wanted to present to the OS as one drive.

E.g. 10TB of video spread across 4x2TB drives + 2x1TB drives.

Definitely have a backup anyway. Any duplication or parity protection on Storage Spaces, is no different to RAID. I.e. it's to avoid downtime rather than should be considered as a backup.
 
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