Windows 8 - Consumer Preview

[Quiver318]

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview is out (beta). I am afraid to look, but I am downloading it anyway.

ISOs and keys at the link below:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso

[Shaggy Hiker]

Tell us what you think before you kill yourself in a suicide pact with your computer.

[tr333]

It's got to be one of the worst interfaces I've ever encountered. Seriously. It looks like they got Fisher-Price and put it on a tablet, with no thought to people that might want to use a standard keyboard/mouse. And I have to logout before I can shutdown? or did I miss something there?

[Icyculyr]

The Metro UI looks horrendous. And now they're bringing the ribbon to Windows Explorer, ugh!

They'd be far better off focusing on making Windows 8 work even better for desktops and laptops and putting WinMo 7.5 on a slate, rather than trying to make Windows 8 work on a slate.

[kregg]

And I have to logout before I can shutdown? or did I miss something there?

Not quite - Move your mouse to the bottom right hand corner, select "Settings" from the popup on the right, press Power, then press Shutdown.

You see, that was far more efficient and intuitive than that mess that was Windows 7's way of shutting down. With Windows 7, you'd click Start then Shutdown. Not efficient at all. ಠ_ಠ

[FunkyDexter]

Not quite - Move your mouse to the bottom right hand corner, select "Settings" from the popup on the right, press Power, then press Shutdown.

You see, that was far more efficient and intuitive than that mess that was Windows 7's way of shutting down. With Windows 7, you'd click Start then Shutdown. Not efficient at all. ಠ_ಠ

MS just don't seem to like you turning their products off do they?

[JuggaloBrotha]

Not quite - Move your mouse to the bottom right hand corner, select "Settings" from the popup on the right, press Power, then press Shutdown.

You see, that was far more efficient and intuitive than that mess that was Windows 7's way of shutting down. With Windows 7, you'd click Start then Shutdown. Not efficient at all. ಠ_ಠ

But Vista, Windows 2008 and Widows 7 don't have a start button anywhere on the desktop, there's the windows button that shows the windows Menu, in which case you can click Shut Down or click the more options where you can click Logoff, Hibernate, etc from that submenu. But the start button and the start menu was deprecated as of Windows Vista. Just like the taskbar was deprecated as of Windows 7.

[dilettante]

You see, that was far more efficient and intuitive than that mess that was Windows 7's way of shutting down. With Windows 7, you'd click Start then Shutdown. Not efficient at all. ಠ_ಠ

99.9% of the time I hibernate my personal PCs.

On my desktops there is a single "sleep" button I have set to hibernate. On laptops it just takes a Fn-shift+F4. On my tablet I just hold the Windows button for 3 seconds.

Seems pretty easy from here.

[dilettante]

They'd be far better off focusing on making Windows 8 work even better for desktops and laptops and putting WinMo 7.5 on a slate, rather than trying to make Windows 8 work on a slate.

Could be they looked at how Phone 7 has entirely killed their market share in mobile and they wanted to take another direction.

Sadly they've gone the wrong way with Win8, too far toward Phone 7, and may just be killing their desktop market share as well.

[Quiver318]

I was going to install it, but fortunately an installer error (0x80070001) prevented it about half way through. Sounds like it is not much of an improvement over the Developer Preview, anyway.

Q

[d_glienna]

Running GREAT as a VHD. Did a clean install with 1 out of 8 processors, and 1gb of RAM (off the ISO). Took pretty long, but is 100x better than the previous version.

Actually can be used with keyboard or mouse or touch!

[Icyculyr]

Could be they looked at how Phone 7 has entirely killed their market share in mobile and they wanted to take another direction.

Sadly they've gone the wrong way with Win8, too far toward Phone 7, and may just be killing their desktop market share as well.

I thought Windows Mobile 7 was quite popular?

I think they're following in Apple's footsteps, but they're doing it the wrong way. Apple's not trying to make touch work on desktops, and they're not trying to force OS X onto a slate. They used "OS X mobile" aka iOS for that, which is what I think they should do with WinMo.

[dilettante]

Windows Mobile died at version 6.

The platform was trashed years ago and replaced by a fully dot-net-ti-fied Windows Phone 7, which was a huge flop.

See the stats at http://mobilephonedevelopment.com/archives/1428 and anywhere else.

[Icyculyr]

Windows Mobile died at version 6.

The platform was trashed years ago and replaced by a fully dot-net-ti-fied Windows Phone 7, which was a huge flop.

See the stats at http://mobilephonedevelopment.com/archives/1428 and anywhere else.

Thanks for the link, those are interesting statistics. I was aware that it had a low market share right now, but from what I've seen of it, it looks quite good. (Admittedly, I've not used one or seen a detailed video of it.) Perhaps we'll see some good growth as more smartphone models come out running WinMo 7.

[dilettante]

The problem is that consumers don't identify Microsoft with phones.

Windows Mobile offered a lot to business and professional users that the others didn't, but the advantage was squandered so most have fled to BlackBerry or Android.

[Icyculyr]

The problem is that consumers don't identify Microsoft with phones.

Windows Mobile offered a lot to business and professional users that the others didn't, but the advantage was squandered so most have fled to BlackBerry or Android.

That's true, but if they really get on the bandwagon I reckon they could change things up and offer a good alternative to iOS and Android. But, I'm not sure they've really got the marketing skills... o.O

[tr333]

Windows Mobile died at version 6.

The platform was trashed years ago and replaced by a fully dot-net-ti-fied Windows Phone 7, which was a huge flop.

See the stats at http://mobilephonedevelopment.com/archives/1428 and anywhere else.

Don't forget the phone that was the precursor to Windows Phone 7. The abysmal Microsoft Kin that was canned after six weeks because of poor sales (apparently only 500?).

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/...-kills-the-kin
http://slashdot.org/journal/252026/Rumor-500-Kin-Phones

[dilettante]

Yeah, the Kin was barely a flash in the pan. Really makes you wonder how they run that company these days.

[tr333]

And here's some more useless stuff from Windows 8:

The included Mail app only supports a "Microsoft Account", so no POP3/IMAP here...

The Calendar app likewise requires a "Microsoft Account", so no local (non-cloud) calendars...

Stuipd gestures are required to "close" an app. Who would have guessed that people will use this interface with a mouse, not just on a touchscreen?

Same thing for the "People" app... requires a "Microsoft Account".

And the "Messaging" app... only connects to MSN. This isn't too surprising, considering MSN Messenger did the same, but there are huge numbers of people that connect to other IM networks outside of MSN. Even iChat in OS X supports Jabber/XMPP and AIM (or at least it did last time i checked).


This whole thing looks to be highly cloud-focused
Here comes all the ISPs having to tell people how to install Thunderbird because the Windows Mail app won't connect to POP3/IMAP.

[tr333]

And I click on the "Finance" app:

"This app is not available in your market."


At least they have an integrated PDF reader with Windows Reader.

[Nightwalker83]

Windows Mobile died at version 6.

The platform was trashed years ago and replaced by a fully dot-net-ti-fied Windows Phone 7, which was a huge flop.

I just wish Microsoft continued with J# that we'd still be able to code for Android with having to use Netbeans.

[dilettante]

Perhaps this bundled captive crudware is their attempt to copy the "Google Experience" many Android devices try to foist onto customers?

[Shaggy Hiker]

Here comes all the ISPs having to tell people how to install Thunderbird because the Windows Mail app won't connect to POP3/IMAP.

Yeah, sure sounds like it, but how hard can that be, anyways? Aren't these the instructions for installing Thunderbird:

1) Unscrew Cap
2) Chug

[tr333]

Yeah, sure sounds like it, but how hard can that be, anyways? Aren't these the instructions for installing Thunderbird:

1) Unscrew Cap
2) Chug

[tr333]

Perhaps this bundled captive crudware is their attempt to copy the "Google Experience" many Android devices try to foist onto customers?

Has Microsoft forgotten that Android runs on touchscreen devices? ie. phones and tablets? I could understand this happening on Windows Phone 7, but not on a "Desktop" operating system

At least iOS only requires the AppleID for the app store. iOS and OS X both support IMAP/CalDAV/CardDAV/LDAP in the default Mail/Calendar/Contacts apps. I would guess Android is the same?

[FunkyDexter]

1) Unscrew Cap
2) Chug

You missed step 3:-
Bend double in a vain attempt not to auto-unistall the horrible cocncoction that's currently corrupting your olfactory sub-systems.

Honestly, Thunderbird is possibly the greatest evil man has ever thrust upon the world.

[JuggaloBrotha]

Honestly, Thunderbird is possibly the greatest evil man has ever thrust upon the world.

Which says a lot considering the only thing better than ThunderBird that I've seen to date is gmail's web interface.

[FunkyDexter]

The drink. Not the application.

[d_glienna]

Stuipd gestures are required to "close" an app.

Alt-F4 not working?

[tr333]

Alt-F4 not working?

Where do I click Alt-F4 with my mouse? I don't see any button labeled "Alt-F4".

[d_glienna]

Drag the middle of the screen down to the bottom of the screen, like the new update for Win 7 Phone. (Couldn't figure out how to turn it off. Kept flicking it down, it'd reboot, and come back on. Hold it down for 5 seconds, though.)

[chris128]

Add me to the huge number of people that despises the Metro UI and was absolutely amazed at how unintuitive it was. Worst thing is they are bringing this sh*t to the server OS as well! My day job just got a lot more frustrating...

Although compared to the new UI for Visual Studio, Metro is incredible.

[Max Peck]

Add me to the huge number of people that despises the Metro UI and was absolutely amazed at how unintuitive it was. Worst thing is they are bringing this sh*t to the server OS as well! My day job just got a lot more frustrating...

Although compared to the new UI for Visual Studio, Metro is incredible.

+1

It's a good thing for me that I develop mostly business-intelligence type code (Rules Engines, stuff like that) and database applications. When I develop the front-end for something it's generally to the Windows desktop, maybe to a web server from time-to-time. I don't believe I'm going to need to deal with Windows 8 (Metro) for a long time, if ever.

In my lab here at the house I've got Win8 running in a Virtual Box session. I ain't gonna let it out onto a real machine any time soon. The Metro interface is as arcane as I've seen it. We've spent the last 25 years or so refining the desktop presentation and now they're going back to something like Metro? I can see it if they developed something just for tablets but, good grief Microsoft, don't fart around with the Windows desktop system. What are you trying to do, deliberately kill off your bread-and-butter market?

BTW ... I used to be a Windows Phone user (up to 6.5). When I saw "Metro" coming I saw a dead-end and got an iPhone4 (now 4S) as soon as they became available on my carrier (Verizon). I have since looked at the Windows Phone 7 devices and realized I've made the right choice there.

Apple has a better model (going forward that is). OS/X for their desktop systems and a completely separate O/S for the mobile devices. Why can't Microsoft do something similar? Think they're going to get Win8 to run on a device that's as lightweight as an iPad? I highly doubt it.

What a mess. However it ain't my mess, it's Microsoft's mess. Maybe they'll succeed with this but if Windows Mobile (Now Windows Phone) is any indication I think we're looking at a train wreck in progress!

I don't wish Microsoft any ill-will, I just think Sinofsky has his head up his ass on this one. I'm not going to dump my Windows7 boxes or any of the technology I presently own from Microsoft but I am, for the first time ever, doubting that I will move forward with the platform.

That's OK ... I've spent enough money on my tools as it is. I'll just use 'em as-is for the next 5 or 10 years. No problem. Code emitted from VS2008 will run on Windows platforms from XP up for many many moons to come.

-Max