Windows 8 Consumer Preview Thread

Are you using the NVidia Windows 8 drivers or the Windows 7 ones? I notice NVidia had updated drivers for Windows 8 and thought they would be OK - at least I hope so as I shall need them soon!

It reminds me of the problems when Windows 7 came out and hardware manufacturers reckoned they couldn't have drivers until the OS was actually on sale. My scanner had to wait 6 months for the proper drivers from HP.
 
It's the Windows 8 ones. I purposely didn't put this machine onto Windows 8 until the RTM, expecting NVidia to have got the drivers pretty close - but they are way off.

Note it's only Surround (i.e. Multi monitors off of a recent card or SLI) they seem fine on my laptops with single displays.
 
Yep you'll be fine unless it's Surround (it basically puts all your monitors into one display i.e. 3x1920x1200 displays = 1x5760x1200 display to Windows. Under Win7 it worked pretty well for taskbar and window's maximising to a physical screen without switching to individual monitors.

Under Windows 8 it's horribly broken, more so by the fact it's not easy to switch to/from surround when needed.
 
Got a dual boot with my pro edition from dreamspark and will evaluate what its like for my parents but so far I still think its pretty horrific for a normal user compared to windows 7
 
ic1male said:
Here's one - is there anyway to restrict access to the desktop so that a user can only use the Metro interface and apps?
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Don't think you can totally get rid of the desktop.

I guess you could lock down their user access, remove the Pinned desktop item and limit the apps they can run, perhaps through the file associations.

Can't see anything in Group Policy that would allow you to remove it entirely though.
 
theheyes said:
I must admit that made me laugh. No, that would be cruel joke.
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Nah, it would be perfect for the kids and grannies. They can play the (soon-to-be) plethora of Metro games and use the Metro IE for browsing, etc. No need to even go to the desktop or have access to the file system, etc.
 
ic1male said:
Nah, it would be perfect for the kids and grannies. They can play the (soon-to-be) plethora of Metro games and use the Metro IE for browsing, etc. No need to even go to the desktop or have access to the file system, etc.
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That's easy then, just set them up with their own accounts and use the Family Safety settings. You can limit it down to the apps they can run.
 
Does renaming explorer.exe work? from what I've read Metro is the OS in Windows 8, the Desktop is simply an application that runs on top of it.
 
ChileanLlama said:
Anyone running Win8 with NVidia Surround? It's a bl***y mess.

Just tried the latest 306.23's and it's barely any better than earlier drivers. Where have the options gone from Windows 7 for how it handles windows, start menu etc. And why the hell does it take so long to go from one config to another and not work reliably, at least it doesn't hang the machine now, but it may as well do.

Basically stuck with spanned desktop and no Surround if I want to use anything productively, or a Start Screen and Apps the width of an industrial length tape measure, which flicker all the time. Wouldn't be so bad if I could change between surround and spanned easily, but takes minutes to redetect monitors and then needs a reboot anyway.

It's this sort of thing that MS need to get a handle on with NVidia (and probably other partners too) if they want to avoid the same type of perceptions Vista had.
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What is Nvidia Surround though? A quick google suggests it's some highly proprietary and niché thing to do with Immersive 3D Gaming? Is this correct?

I have multi-monitors on my Win8 and using the latest Nvidia driver, it's perfectly fine. Better than I was use to before as well.

Honestly it's not fair to criticise MS or even Nvidia that you can't get working some highly proprietary feature that only affects like 1% of the market. Why not just wait a few months and I'm sure they'll have it working for you by then.
 
mmj_uk said:
Does renaming explorer.exe work? from what I've read Metro is the OS in Windows 8, the Desktop is simply an application that runs on top of it.
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Not really true. Metro and Explorer are both first-class citizens. Metro acts as a HUD-like interface inside of Explorer also. It's actually really nice how there is a separation between consumption apps and production apps. It's kind of like having virtual desktops (which are standard in almost any Linux distro), but more elegantly thought out.
 
Loaded Win8 on a VM on Sunday, first impressions are I hate the Metro interface!

Having spent all of my adult life using a desktop I just can't understand why I'd want that on my home PC, on a tablet I think it would be OK but I just don't see why I'd want that on my home PC.

Other than that it seems very much like Win7 but I'm sure there are a host of "under the hood improvements". I can't see this being a compelling upgrade for the average user, I suppose if you like the Metro interface then you might jump in.

HEADRAT
 
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NathanE said:
What is Nvidia Surround though? A quick google suggests it's some highly proprietary and niché thing to do with Immersive 3D Gaming? Is this correct?

I have multi-monitors on my Win8 and using the latest Nvidia driver, it's perfectly fine. Better than I was use to before as well.

Honestly it's not fair to criticise MS or even Nvidia that you can't get working some highly proprietary feature that only affects like 1% of the market. Why not just wait a few months and I'm sure they'll have it working for you by then.
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It's the NVidia equivalent of Eyefinity for 2d/3d spanning a display across multiple monitors - read my other posts as I've already explained it. Yes it's quite niche, but even 1% of the userbase is a significant number of actual users. It is also a major feature touted by NVidia in their 6xx range.

I also accept it's not actually release date yet, but the progress being made does not give me confidence it will be stable, let alone have the same functionality that was in Windows 7 by the time of release. I'd like to be proven wrong.

Of course it's fair to criticise MS and NVidia they should never have released it until it was ready otherwise - even if I can work around it - it's this kind of issue that MS had with the release of Vista. If they don't fix it that small %age of enthusiasts and geeks can be very vocal - and will no doubt have a significant influence on how Windows 8 is perceived and ultimately adopted, just as it was with flaky x64 drivers with Vista.
 
ic1male said:
Tell us why.
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I can't see the use for it on a home PC, it just get's in the way, I'd rather just use the desktop. On my PC at home I have 3 x 24" displays that I can show my desktop on, Metro is just limited to one of them!

What problem is it actually trying to solve, I don't think I've ever thought while using my PC, damn I wish I had loads of small coloured boxes to click on instead of an ICON.

I think it would have been better being an "active desktop", where you could define the Metro like squares on your desktop, they can update/display in the background and be brought into the foreground with a key. It's kinda the wrong way around, I still want my main area to be my desktop, Metro should almost be a secondary addition to my desktop.

Multi monitor support has not been stellar and they've now perpetuated it with Metro, great if you going to use it in a tablet, just annoying on a PC.

HEADRAT
 
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@ChileanLlama - You need to complain to nVidia this has nothing whatsoever to do with Microsoft, I seem to remember with Vista, nVidia dragged their heels BADLY on getting decent drivers out of the door.

@HEADRAT - Have you gone to the trouble of setting up the Metro interface or have you just left it with the default? I spent the time setting my Metro up and I find it utterly fantastic, a lot lot quicker than using the start menu of old.

The only thing I do not like with Win8 so far, is none of the desktop apps/services will start up until you go to the desktop, minor annoyance, but not a major one.
 
Nikumba said:
@Headrat - Have you gone to the trouble of setting up the Metro interface or have you just left it with the default? I spent the time setting my Metro up and I find it utterly fantastic, a lot lot quicker than using the start menu of old.
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But I have 3 x 24 monitors, why do I now want to restrict myself to 1?

Yes I've added/deleted a few tiles but it just all form over function, the stuff I used regularly was already on my desktop, I never needed to go near the start menu.

Can you explain why it's so "utterly fantastic", maybe I'm just too old and set in my ways to really understand it, just seems like a colourful gimmick to me. If that's the only evolution they could think of for Win8 then I think Microsoft needs to get some better people working on Win9 !
 
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