Windows 8 - the Features, Applications and News Thread

New post on the Windows 8 blog.

It seems Win 8 tablets will have screens up to 2560x1440 res on 10" tablets, which is insane...

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On tablets Metro also scales all the graphics with screen res, so things wont become super tiny at 2560x1440. It will be like with phones or the new iPad.
 
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Going to be installing this on a little media PC I'm putting together - can't wait :)

How much RAM do you think I should get if I'm planning on using Hyper-V to run Windows Server and Linux? I'm taking some classes in these and would like to have a poke around.
 
I have two questions:

a) I read about Metro, but I don't understand exactly how it works. Is Metro something that runs over the normal desktop or is the desktop something that runs over Metro? How is Metro to use with a mouse and keyboard? Is it good, or something that's going to end up touch-only?

b) Is the preview stable enough to replace Windows 7 with?

Thanks.
 
Have to admit, the new features sound great I totally missed these when I tried the developer preview. I barely used Windows 8 though because I just couldn't use the Metro UI with mouse and keyboard. Going to download consumer preview now and run it in Virtualbox.
 
Tute said:
I have two questions:

a) I read about Metro, but I don't understand exactly how it works. Is Metro something that runs over the normal desktop or is the desktop something that runs over Metro? How is Metro to use with a mouse and keyboard? Is it good, or something that's going to end up touch-only?

b) Is the preview stable enough to replace Windows 7 with?

Thanks.
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a) Bit of both really. They are two different environments which overlap. Metro takes precedence but the desktop minus the start button is still alive and well so no loss.

As for mouse and KB use I initially installed the CP upon release and on first experience hated the metro apps and went back to Windows 7 rapidly.

I reinstalled it about a week ago and really tried to stay in metro to give it a chance and I must say I am really fond of metro now I've learnt to get around it and the new concepts like charms and semantic zoom (ctrl+mousewheel). The new start screen is a far better than the start menu IMHO and the hotcorners allow easy navigation (if you don't have multiple monitors).

It's new and different but not bad at all for mouse and KB in my opinion and I’m using it on a 27” screen. Just play with it and give it a chance. It isn’t as flexible as the desktop yet and there are clearly concessions made for touch but it’s quite a compelling user experience and it’s clear where MS is going with regards to a unified UI.

b) I’m using it as my primary OS but there is the occasional hang here and there but nothing critical yet. It is a beta at the end of the day.

Hope this helps answer your questions.

Cheers
 
Riggs5177 said:
As for mouse and KB use I initially installed the CP upon release and on first experience hated the metro apps and went back to Windows 7 rapidly.

I reinstalled it about a week ago and really tried to stay in metro to give it a chance and I must say I am really fond of metro now I've learnt to get around it and the new concepts like charms and semantic zoom (ctrl+mousewheel). The new start screen is a far better than the start menu IMHO and the hotcorners allow easy navigation (if you don't have multiple monitors).
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This is Microsoft's biggest problem at the moment. It's far easier to sell on great first impressions and limited functionality (iOS) than it is to convince people to spend a little time learning and adjusting to a new full-fat operating system. Not many people give anything a second chance these days. The Metro apps on the consumer preview are crap, but you can still use it day-to-day in the desktop mode.

Nobody cares that Microsoft have pretty much managed to unify the desktop/tablet platform on their first attempt. They are too busy squealing about not having a Start button and things not being in the same place they were previously. Maybe Microsoft have got it wrong. Maybe they should have developed a distinct tablet OS and left the desktop alone. I don't think so for my purposes, but time will tell as to how the market reacts.

They have done a terrible job of defining what exactly "Metro" is, and this isn't helping. People don't like what they don't understand. The amount of times I've seen people request the option to "disable it" like they used to disable Aero (because it was sooo unnecessary and a bloated waste of resources...) just goes to show the extent of the misunderstanding. Metro isn't bolted on to the desktop. If anything, it's the other way around.

To me it just smells like Vista all over again. Which is fine, because I'll be buying Win8 regardless and I'll be seriously considering a Windows tablet when my iPad3 gets over the hill.
 
Ok so I am interested in this storage spaces feature. The linked article in the OP is pasted below again:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/...rage-for-scale-resiliency-and-efficiency.aspx

I do not understand this article. Am I overcomplicating it? Can someone explain to me how they are getting 10TB from 2 x 2TB disks? They aren't are they? Are they dressing it up and pretending they are and calling it something else?

I can't see it. Help appreciated.
 
jaybee said:
Ok so I am interested in this storage spaces feature. The linked article in the OP is pasted below again:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/...rage-for-scale-resiliency-and-efficiency.aspx

I do not understand this article. Am I overcomplicating it? Can someone explain to me how they are getting 10TB from 2 x 2TB disks? They aren't are they? Are they dressing it up and pretending they are and calling it something else?

I can't see it. Help appreciated.
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Here's my thinking...

They're not getting 10TB from 2x2TB, they've set up a 10TB virtual drive or partition and allocated 4TB to start with. When that starts running out it will ask for more disks/storage spaces to be allocated to the pool.

So really the 10TB is just the maximum size of the array, not the actual size of the storage allocated to the array.

Edit: If you look down at the later examples, you'll see how this can be beneficial. The same pool of physical disks can be allocated to different logical disks. It makes for more efficient use of your disks, particularly as they get full.
 
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I'd like the under the hood enhancements, optimisations and fixes... but without a new UI.. but that's what I always want. :) I hope it doesn't feel too much like using a smartphone though.
 
ChileanLlama said:
Here's my thinking...

They're not getting 10TB from 2x2TB, they've set up a 10TB virtual drive or partition and allocated 4TB to start with. When that starts running out it will ask for more disks/storage spaces to be allocated to the pool.

So really the 10TB is just the maximum size of the array, not the actual size of the storage allocated to the array.

Edit: If you look down at the later examples, you'll see how this can be beneficial. The same pool of physical disks can be allocated to different logical disks. It makes for more efficient use of your disks, particularly as they get full.
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OK, so why not make an initial pool of something ludicrous like 100TB incase you ever reach that size? If the answer to that is "you can redefine it" then why not start with the actual limit that your current physical disks can support, aka the max 4TB in that example? Makes no sense to me. :confused:
So basically, they have integrated storage pools into this OS so you can address a single volume spanning multiple disks. Nothing ground breaking there really, although a nice addition. About time to be honest.
 
jaybee said:
OK, so why not make an initial pool of something ludicrous like 100TB incase you ever reach that size? If the answer to that is "you can redefine it" then why not start with the actual limit that your current physical disks can support, aka the max 4TB in that example? Makes no sense to me. :confused:
So basically, they have integrated storage pools into this OS so you can address a single volume spanning multiple disks. Nothing ground breaking there really, although a nice addition. About time to be honest.
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I'm guessing there's some limitation meaning there has to be a fixed size, instead of it just dynamically growing as you add more physical disks.

It makes more sense if you have more than one storage space calling on the same storage pool (physical disks). That would mean free space isn't split between disks or arrays and can be consolidated and used where it's needed.

Obviously you could go silly and put in a stupid amount per space, but it would make no difference, once the physical space is used up it's used up!

But if you had say 30TB of physical and 3x12TB storage spaces (36TB max), and the use was fairly variable (i.e not constantly growing and all spaces needed a maximum of 12TB but average use was say 8TB), that all 3 spaces could be accommodated from the one pool most of the time.

I don't know about you, but I've often run multiple arrays or disks and they all have a small amount of free space which is pretty useless on it's own, but in a pool arrangment all the few %'s from each disk can now be used, without having to repartition, rebuild arrays etc.

Now drive up the scale in a server (it's a feature in Windows Server 8 too) and if it's proven to be reliable it will be a good feature.

It's not ground breaking WHS1 had a similar feature back in 2007, but it's nice all the same.
 
jaybee said:
Ok so I am interested in this storage spaces feature. The linked article in the OP is pasted below again:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/...rage-for-scale-resiliency-and-efficiency.aspx

I do not understand this article. Am I overcomplicating it? Can someone explain to me how they are getting 10TB from 2 x 2TB disks? They aren't are they? Are they dressing it up and pretending they are and calling it something else?

I can't see it. Help appreciated.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I quite understand that maths but the idea of spaces is a good one. the idea of combining disks into one space and the OS making sure there is more than one copy of a file so if a disk fails we lose nothing is a great one. sadly, it isn't quite so great to set up.

The disks have to be empty and any files on them are erased whilst setting the spaces up. Basically, one need a big disk for all the files so that one can move everything onto the large disk before setting up the system and copying the files back. To be really helpful, MS needs to develop a tool to allow one to create a new space without having to move the files off. that might come with the release and, if it did, would make quite a good case for buying.
 
What's with the version of IE that comes on Metro? It's really cumbersome to use and doesn't work very well. Is it designed specially for tablets or something? It also doesn't seem to like Silverlight - I need it for a particular streaming site and it just keeps telling me to install it even though I already have :confused:

How can I pin regular ol' IE to Metro?
 
on the desktop, right click the IE icon on the taskbar and pin to start.

(i think. i don't have windows 8 installed right now)
 
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