Microsoft Releases Windows 8 Developer Preview

New submitter Tonyd0311 writes "Microsoft has just released the Windows 8 Developer Preview in both x86 and x64 formats. The download includes an SDK for Metro-style apps, and 28 example apps. It also has 'developer preview' versions of Expression Blend 5 and Visual Studio 11 Express."

Comments

Too late

[PowerCyclist]

If I wanted to develop smartphone apps, I would go with one of the more established platforms like iOS or Android. Windows 8 just doesn't have the market share for phones ....What, it's for desktops? They can't be serious.

Re:Too late

[PowerCyclist]

NOTE, that was just a little jab at the interface. Reports are that the backend is OK so far and hopefully they will create a separate desktop GUI for it as well.

Re:Too late

[North Korea]

It already has the normal desktop UI... You can login to either one, which is great as your programs will work for both tablets and desktops. .NET apps should work directly, and native apps are just a recompile away.

Re:Too late

[PowerCyclist]

Yes, after further research i found this: http://hothardware.com/News/Microsoft-Windows-8-GUI-Will-Be-Just-Another-App/ I hope they provide both and not drop one -or make it a $100 add-on

Re:Too late

[unixisc]

If I wanted to develop smartphone apps, I would go with one of the more established platforms like iOS or Android. Windows 8 just doesn't have the market share for phones ....What, it's for desktops? They can't be serious.

Well, x86 and x64 ain't phone chips, so obviously, it's for laptops, netbooks and so on. As for what phone developers would do, you're right.

Re:Too late

[shutdown -p now]

Win8 will also run on ARM; just not this preview release yet.

Re:Too late

[Pengo]

Really?

Our small group has developed a few mobile apps, and we've done well enough on markets that don't have Apple's huge user base. Building a reasonably decent app for us have sold well when ported to Palm's market. Though now it's all but dead, the windows market will make a lot of people a lot of money before critical mass lands. Pushing prejudice aside, and not taking into consideration some groups already considerable investment in the marketing strategies and loyal customer base for the iOS platform (which is my personal favorite environment to build for), it's silly to call a company like microsoft too late to the game to make a business selling applications on.

Decent money is being made right now on the windows market place, even with a low usage base, and with the sheer mindshare they have of folks that are windows programmers not wanting to re-tool over to MacOS to write iOS apps is going to create a decent ecosystem of applications, which is what will truly drive the demand for their handsets.

I haven't sat down and wrote software personally for WinMo7, but I watched a guy on our team re-write a Android app that we have on the market in Visual studio in about 1/5 the time it took to write a similar application in XCode for Mac, and that was fumbling through C# and a new toolset. Overall to compare the development environment that Win7 programmers enjoy, you could almost call it penis envy.

Yeah, I know this is Slashdot, and I have invested MANY years into Linux/Java and more recently iOS/ObjC.. but I'm pretty shocked how nice it appears to work in Visual Studio, and more importantly how effective a decent programmer can be using the tools even with absolutely no experience working with it. If MS can get the handsets to the masses, they will I believe really give Apple a serious run for its money.

That said, automated reference counting (garbage collection) in iOS5 and the new Storyboard layout in xcode is a godsend for productivity. It's definitely going to bring ObjC to new higher levels of productivity for experienced iphone devs, and reduce the barrier to entry for new programmers wanting to pick it up and learn it. What an interesting time we live in! We're seeing the true benefit of competition reward us as engineers by giving us GREAT choices in platform development!

I would hate a world where Apple is running unchecked or being stuck with buggy android phones as the only platform of choice .. and we all know what life was like when MS was the only real game in town.

Long live competition! Let's hope all the major players do well and prosper.

Re:Too late

[Truekaiser]

incorrect.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4771/microsoft-build-windows-8-pre-beta-preview/1
the window's 7 like desktop is only there for compatibility with programs not made for the metro ui. it provides only a task bar and desktop. the old start menu is gone. launching it will result in being kicked back to the metro ui. also on the right side of the desktop will be a metro ui panel.

Re:Too late

[North Korea]

As it stands Windows 8 is still in its infancy. The build in Microsoftâ(TM)s demos is 1802, a pre-beta and not feature complete version of the OS. Microsoft needs to balance the need to show off Windows 8 to developers with a need to keep it under wraps until itâ(TM)s done as to not spook end-users. The result of that is the situation at BUILD, where Microsoft is focusing on finished features while unfinished features are either not in the OS or are going unmentioned. For comparison, at PDC 2008 the Windows 7 interface was not done yet, and Microsoft was using the Windows Vista interface in its place.

You shouldn't assume anything based on that beta preview. It's not complete and it's missing complete features, the ones being start menu. This beta is mostly for tablet manufacturers and app developers so they can start experiencing with the new Windows. When Windows 8 will be released, and most likely in the upcoming betas, it will have all the usual things in desktop too. Do you honestly think that Microsoft would abandon their largest market area, ie. business users for something that only works with tablets?

Re:Too late

[segedunum]

Really?

Yes, really.

the windows market will make a lot of people a lot of money before critical mass lands.

No, they won't. When Android was catching up to iOS no money was made by anyone until critical mass was reached. Most users on mobile platforms do not pay for any applications which makes critical mass very important.

Re:Too late

[RDW]

Do you honestly think that Microsoft would abandon their largest market area, ie. business users for something that only works with tablets?

Yes, absolutely no chance that MS would inflict some random unintuitive user interface on their business users that completely discards well over a decade's worth of experience with the existing GUI, for no good reason except that it 'looks modern', and with no option to revert to a 'classic mode'. They'd never do anything that crazy!

http://blog.schauderhaft.de/2009/01/08/the-ribbon-sucks/

Re:Too late

[codepunk]

You are correct the android market is no where near a profitable venue for developers. I happen to use a great cross platform tool kit but refuse to even compile a copy for android. By the time I press the compile button and upload the apk to the market I have already wasted more time than it is worth.

Re:Too late

[cyssero]

No, they won't. When Android was catching up to iOS no money was made by anyone until critical mass was reached. Most users on mobile platforms do not pay for any applications which makes critical mass very important.

Android vs Windows Phone free apps - A case study: Part II. Free apps are yielding great returns on WP7 because the market place is that much less saturated. Although WP7 is far from "critical mass", in 30 days WP7 revenue for this free app was $108.55 with 114,920 impressions vs. Android's $3.44 of revenue and 11,606 impressions. This is just one case study and there are a lot more. Decent money is being made now, even with 3-5% marketshare.

Re:Too late

[hairyfeet]

Well to be fair you can kill Metro and you'll have a bog standard Win 7 UI, which personally I think is the best damned UI MSFT has ever come out with by far. Breadcrumbs, jumplists, it makes it easier for power users while at the same time letting those that are clueless get around and find new features easily.

Frankly trying to pass Metro off on the desktop tells me what I already knew, that Ballmer isn't qualified to shine Gates shoes and he sure as hell ain't a decent CEO. he has a case of Apple envy so badly it hurts. i can just imagine him trying to fire up the troops "And with Metro we'll make Windows as hip and cool as Apple! Yes we will! We really will! STOP LAUGHING AT ME!!".

That is why I say its high time to replace the Gates borg, Hell Gates hasn't been there in years. Instead it should be Ballmer with his tongue out and an "I Heart Apple!" beanie, as that would better describe the current state at MSFT. While I'll wait to pass judgement on Metro until I try it frankly it looks stupid as hell for a desktop UI. I have a feeling I'll be killing Metro and sticking with Aero, if I don't just "pull a Vista" and bypass the whole thing. Win 7 is supported until 2020 you know, no reason to care if Ballmer cocks this one up.

Re:Too late

[unencode200x]

In the BUILD presentation and everyone I've seen MS has consistently said that both the touch UI and traditional mouse and keyboard UI will be first-class citizens. Watch the presentation, they say it and show it when they build an app, live on stage using Visual Studio 2011.

Re:Too late

[smooth wombat]

I was going to say Windows 7 as the ribbon, while a chore to relearn and definitely not as intuitive or informative as every previous version, isn't as bad as some have made out.

Windows 7 itself, on the other hand, is akin to Bob in usability. It's as if the programmers got together and said, "How can we make it more difficult for people to find what they need? How can we hide every usable function and feature by burying it in the most obscure and non-logical place? How many ways can we change what we've done for the last two decades so that people have to relearn everything?"

It seems they found answers to these questions.

Re:Too late

[jbengt]

You shouldn't assume anything based on that beta preview. It's not complete and it's missing complete features

In other words, it's not a beta.

Re:Too late

[PowerCyclist]

I agree with your conclusion and was considering just sticking to win7 for a while longer. Personally I have it slimmed down to the point of being just XP with the fun virtual folders tool. Unless win8 uses significantly LESS resources than 7, I see no reason to switch anytime soon. Eh, that last comment was pretty pointless as I'll switch back to Linux as soon as my current netbook is supported better or I get a new PC.

Re:Too late

[ILongForDarkness]

I give it a week in the wild before someone makes an app that gives you back your normal start menu. But yeah as is the desktop is just another app you pick from the metro ui and "start" means take me back to metro.

Re:Too late

[ILongForDarkness]

Exactly. I think a "tick/tock" approach similar to Intels would be great. Every ~2 years a new release but alternating so one release adds new/revolutionary/might like it features the next focuses on stability and pulls in the features from the revolutionary distro that the market liked. So if you are a business upgrade every 4 years onto the "mainstream" release, if you really really want the cool new feature then upgrade every 2 years. MS doesn't have to look like they are being left behind, but at the same time gives some stability (in the sense of update refrequency) to the mainstream OS users. If I was them I'd really push for a 4-5year limit on support too so that users can wait a year or so for the kinks to be worked out of the mainstream version but have to upgrade when they buy new hardware after that. Only reasonable as it is crazy to support and continue to sell software that is 10+ years old on new hardware.

Re:Too late

[hairyfeet]

Oh if you want a slim Windows 7 you should try to get a hold of a copy of "Windows Tiny7" and give it a spin. They really need to hire the guy that makes the Tiny series to work for MSFT, because I've tried WinFLP and WinEmbedded and frankly it stomps the living hell out of both of those while being more compatible with existing programs than either of those.

How slim are we talking? Try a Win 7 that runs like a champ on a 1.4GHz with 512Mb of RAM, and which flies low on 1Gb or more. It idles at just 254Mb of RAM and the speed level is just pure insanity. But that is the thing about ALL of the Tiny series, just truly insane speed. His Tiny2K uses 49Mb of RAM, TinyXP uses just 65Mb of RAM, Tiny2K3 just 78Mb, and TinyVista which is the closest he has gotten to bloated uses around 380Mb.

But I have to say I think I'm just gonna sit this one out. Windows 7 runs great and with it being supported until 2020 I just haven't seen any real compelling reason to jump on Windows 8. If they have another one of those $50 upgrade deals I may buy a copy simply to play with in a VM but I can't see actually wanting to spend any time in metro unless I was running a tablet. Metro on a desktop? Just seems like a majorly dumb idea from the company whose current CEO seems to make the PHB in Dilbert look like Steve Jobs.

Re:Too late

[Missing.Matter]

A week? An app? It's a registry hack and it's out today. http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/get-windows-7-start-menu-explorer-and-task-manager-in-windows-8/

Re:Too late

[ILongForDarkness]

Nice but it brings you completely back to the Win 7 interface from what the article says. What about the ribbon win explorer? Some of the changes you might still like to keep but just want to have a normal desktop environment. I guess someone will right a little widget that will take a key combination and toggle the registry rather than you having to do it manually each time you want to go back to the metro start menu or win 8 explorer.

Re:Too late

[PowerCyclist]

You missed the point of the little joke. It would have been better as a cartoon of a developer looking at the new interface and thinking it was only for smartphones/ tablets and having to be told it was for desktop/ laptop chip architecture.

Re:Too late

[Omestes]

Windows 7 itself, on the other hand, is akin to Bob in usability. It's as if the programmers got together and said, "How can we make it more difficult for people to find what they need? How can we hide every usable function and feature by burying it in the most obscure and non-logical place? How many ways can we change what we've done for the last two decades so that people have to relearn everything?"

Hmm... Windows 7 is basically a non-broken Vista with a dock. Vista was a slightly more glossy (and broken) version of XP. If you have a hard time adapting to 7 then there is a serious problem, or you haven't used windows since... well... Win95. Windows has never been known for its ease of finding settings, Windows 7 is no better, or worse, than any previous version. But I don't care, a modern OS is a terribly complicated beast, so you're always going to have some wonkey bits, and some inconsistency. What did you have to relearn in Win7?

Win 8, on the other hand, is Microsoft's Gnome Shell or Unity. A dumbed down tablet interface shoved onto desktops, and hoping to succeed because "tablets are cool".

This decade will be remembered as the decade when the desktop OS died. Not because its obsolete, but because marketing departments decided it was. For some reason people forgot that people need to do WORK on their computers, and not just look at beautiful widgets with slidey effects. I need to find programs efficiently and quickly, be able to sort and find data and files, and be able to juggle many windows with the least possible effort. I want to be able to access OS setting quickly, as I need them (which should be rarely). And I need my OS to get the fuck out of my way when I'm working on projects. Hell, it should as ignorance as humanly possible, even when I'm doing banal tasks like reading /.. I don't care how sexy it looks, I'm not using my computer as a fashion accessory, I'm using it as a tool. After you hammer out the important bits, then worry about aesthetics and style.

Right now Win8 looks like a golden hammer. It sure it pretty, but wait until you try to nail something.

Re:Too late

[Drugmath]

Correct, it's a developer preview, so that they can see the basic mechanics of the OS before the real beta builds.

Windows 8

[North Korea]

I tested it earlier today and I think it looks great. The boot time is insanely fast, the metro UI is better than I thought and you can still easily change to the normal Windows shell. On top of that developers can target both Windows PC and the upcoming Windows tablet markets with their apps. Overall I got a very good impression of Windows 8.

Re:Windows 8

[Dyinobal]

Ya I trust all the news I get from North Korean sources too.

Re:Windows 8

[North Korea]

Ah, slashdot, where giving a honest opinion about Microsoft's product will get you modded down for troll if you say anything good about it.

Re:Windows 8

[PowerCyclist]

I'm pretty sure representing yourself as North Korea had something to do with that moderation too.

Re:Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll and Funny, eh mods? It's a shame I can't fix all your intentional abuses of mod points here.

Stay classy, slashdot.

Re:Windows 8

[ozmanjusri]

Ah, slashdot, giving a honest opinion about Microsoft's product

Don't blame us Slashdotters.

Your own marketing team is shooting you in the back because you didn't gratuitously say "Windows" often enough. Windows.

Re:Windows 8

[flimflammer]

So yo're suggesting people are downmodding someone as a troll for their completely irrelevant username and not the actual comment at hand? Is that somehow better?

Not that I really believe that anyway since it's not exactly rocket science to see how the general Slashdot community mods pro-Microsoft comments, believing them to only be shilling or trolling.

Re:Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

You got modded up for this? Slashdot has become immaterial. I am sad because I used to read insightful posts. Where shall I find inquisitive and factual conversations?

Re:Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

If you honestly believe that Microsoft even notices Slashdot, let alone hires people specifically to spam it, you're insane.

Re:Windows 8

[exomondo]

I tested it earlier today and I think it looks great. The boot time is insanely fast, the metro UI is better than I thought and you can still easily change to the normal Windows shell.

I found that too, the interface will take a bit of getting used to if you wanted to use metro with a mouse and keyboard but i found just jumping to the desktop view for desktop apps was fast and fluid. I'd like to try it on touch hardware.


On a side note why is parent modded troll?

Re:Windows 8

[Microlith]

If you honestly believe that Microsoft even notices Slashdot

Shockingly, I expect they do. However, I expect that "North Korea" is a plain old troll.

Re:Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you change to the normal Windows shell? It's bugging me not being able to have a start bar, and losing everything on screen to some huge screen of crap.

Re:Windows 8

[bonch]

It simply couldn't have anything to do with your past trolling history.

Re:Windows 8

[justforgetme]

pornhub?

Re:Windows 8

[justforgetme]

Well, there is posting a pro microsoft comment and there is plain shameless attention whoring. ggp isobviously the latter :-P

Joke aside I spun the preveiw up in a VM and it wouldn't install. But that might be me messing up virtualbox...

Re:Windows 8

[exomondo]

Joke aside I spun the preveiw up in a VM and it wouldn't install. But that might be me messing up virtualbox...

You have to set the vm default setting to 'Windows 7', that could be why it's not installing.

Re:Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

Social Media Marketing & Community Manager
Microsoft Online Audience Business Group
Posted: August 15, 2011
Address: Bellevue, WA 98005
Type: Full-time

"We are looking for a creative and strategically minded individual who has experience working with consumer brands leveraging social networking tools and managing online communities. The candidate must have demonstrated deep social media expertise and experience growing and nurturing online communities. In addition the candidate must be able to develop end to end social marketing strategies leveraging different social platforms, devising ways to build consumer groundswell/participation and new innovations in social marketing and advertising. The ideal candidate must have a deep understanding of building digital media campaigns in social platforms and must be experienced in leveraging Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, location-based-marketing, YouTube, and other technologies as part of a digital marketing mix. The candidate must also be able to develop plans that demonstrate how owned, paid, and earned media fit together as part of the overall marketing strategy."

Re:Windows 8

[North Korea]

in social platforms and must be experienced in leveraging Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, location-based-marketing, YouTube

I really doubt Microsoft is that interested in Slashdot. Facebook, Twitter and other sites are the largest ones. Slashdot is just some site where they get dissed at no matter what they do.

Re:Windows 8

[nzac]

How long does it take you to get to the normal windows shell?
Is it loading the full OS or just enough to run Metro apps?

Re:Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

...Steve!? Nothing personal.

Re:Windows 8

[DrXym]

I expect virtually every large organisation pays PR companies to astro turf in relevant social mediums. Including Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.

Re:Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow.. a business hiring people for marketing products using social media. Apart from all major corporations nobody does that ! What a scandal !

You anti-ms trolls are hilarious.

Re:Windows 8

[Uhyve]

Although the guest additions don't work yet, so it doesn't run as well as it could. Thinking I'll make a Windows 8 partition to give it a proper go.

Re:Windows 8

[bejiitas_wrath]

Are they going to include the Windows classic interface? That is my favourite interface, it is very simple and sleek, hopefully that will be an option.

Re:Windows 8

[Missing.Matter]

For Microsoft, Slashdot is not a relevant social medium. Bashing Microsoft is like a religion here. There's no point in trying to change opinion here because 1) it will never work and 2) just trying makes opinion even worse.

Re:Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

That implies the people modding him down keep track of his posting history (yea, it's easy to open up his history, but first one must take an interest in keeping track)...

Seeing as his post, as of this writing, is not modded to oblivion, Occam's razor would say that other people, who don't keep track of his posting history, probably modded him back up... ... but that implies that those who modded him down are not being impartial with their judgment, down modding him based on personal bias/prejudice against him the person. That is just as bad if not worse than the GP's comment that people are down modding him based on bias against M$ the company

Re:Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

What's anti-MS about showing them hiring people to market in Slashdot?

They'd be crazy not to.

Re:Windows 8

[TangoMargarine]

ruled by the religious nut-case fringes who cling to the "one-and-only-truth" as if their lives depend on it.

I'm sure you've noticed the merciless, brutal mocking that ensues every time someone even mentions creationism or Christianity?

Re:Windows 8

[DeathFromSomewhere]

The hilarious part is assuming "Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, location-based-marketing, YouTube, and other technologies" means slashdot.

Re:Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me a single instance where Microsoft

* Instructed an employee (or contractor) to HIDE their employment status with microsoft.

AND

* Instructed them to dispense marketing material on Slashdot OR anywhere else on the web.

Re:Windows 8

[Goaway]

And do you know what kind of things they do, then?

Things like http://developers.slashdot.org/story/11/08/30/0627206/Microsoft-Wants-Your-Feedback-On-Its-New-Python-IDE .

And do you know what Slashdotters do in return?

Act like children.

Re:Windows 8

[Goaway]

Oh, what did he do in the past?

Say other positive things about Microsoft?

Re:Windows 8

[terjeber]

There is no real difference between people devoted to creationism and the Linux devotees. Really. It is religion. It is sad.

Re:Windows 8

[Cl1mh4224rd]

I tested it earlier today and I think it looks great. The boot time is insanely fast, the metro UI is better than I thought and you can still easily change to the normal Windows shell.

They're working on that. Remember, it's just a preview; there are bound to be flaws.

Re:Windows 8

[TangoMargarine]

So a "religion" is anything you don't like, then?

Re:Windows 8

[ChatHuant]

So a "religion" is anything you don't like, then?

Not to speak for the GP, but in both the religious and Linux supporter communities there are very vocal minorities who have an unfortunate tendency to disregard facts when they contradict their respective dogmas; this may mean insulting anybody who contradicts them (for example, by labeling them as "shills"), down-modding stories or comments that may be either critical of Linux or pro-MS (whatever the factual contents), going on extended rants, and so on (as we can see in the comments for this very story). In either case, I don't think they represent the majorities, but they *are* quite visible. This similarity does make Linux supporters sometimes look to outsiders like a cult.

Re:Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's admit that at the very least, Microsoft has taken a risk here and tried to rethink the way we interface with their product. This is the sort of thing that Slashdotters should be applauding, even if we prefer to use non-proprietary operating systems for ideological reasons. It is, therefore, such a shame that even trivial attempts to innovate the GUI in the Linux camp are met with flame wars/ trolling/ hate/ FUD/ anger.

In comparison with what Windows is proposing here, poor Mark Shuttleworth's Unity dock/taskbar seems like a tame and rather stale affair. Yet the Linux community has been doing its best to shoot it down and to kill any innovation on the Linux desktop. This spectacle is all the more dispiriting given the ease with which anyone can select an alternative windows manager on Ubuntu. In fact, for this very reason the Unity hatred so clearly smacks of bad faith and group think.

I am committed to open source and open standards, but I have become convinced that given this conservatism and hostility to change it will not be the open source community that will determine the future of human-machine interfaces, even as our interactions with computers come to reconfigure more and more of our cultural practices and mediate our exchanges with other human beings.

Re:Windows 8

[terjeber]

No, a religion is the blind following of dogma by rather slow people. I happen to like Linux, and for Ruby and Rails Ubuntu is my primary development machine. I am not retarded enough to make Linux into a religion however. Hell, a bunch of the Linux religious nuts also believes in the second coming of something that is never going to happen. For the born-again-nuts it is Jesus (even though he said he'd be back within 30 or so odd years they are still waiting). For the Linux nuts it is The Year of The Linux Desktop(tm). As most religions, the Linux Nuts also have a "satan", someone so evil that anyone who utters "his" name must be evil to the core. For the Linux nuts it is Windows or Ballmer or Gates.

Remember, "assumption" starts with "ass". Just because someone is not buying the whole Linux dogma and the born-again-computer-user bullshit doesn't mean that they don't "like" Linux. There is a huge difference between blindly regurgitating mindless dogma and just using whatever fits the situation. When I develop Ruby I use Linux since it is the most appropriate platform for Ruby development. When I edit photos and videos I use Windows because, together with Apple, it is the only reasonable solution (no, Linux is not even a player in that space).

Re:Windows 8

[terjeber]

As I said in my own reply, I am not an outsider. I have used Linux since 0.93 (or was that 0.97, can't remember) and it is an excellent platform for what it is good at. So, I am probably what you would call an "insider" insofar as I am an active user of Linux. Even as an insider the religious nuts are a cult. It's not a matter of "looks like". They have all the hallmarks of a cult of nuts.

Re:Windows 8

[PCM2]

Joke aside I spun the preveiw up in a VM and it wouldn't install. But that might be me messing up virtualbox...

It took me a bunch of Google searches and messing around to get it to install. I had to:

1. Enable VT-x in the BIOS
2. Create a VM with 2GB of RAM and a 40GB hard drive (dynamic drive is fine)
3. Set the OS type to Microsoft Windows/Other Windows
4. Enable VT-x, Nested Paging, IO APIC, and PAE/NX in VirtualBox
5. Set the chipset type to ICH9 and the IDE controller type to ICH6

I don't know if changing the chipset type is strictly necessary. I've since changed it back to PIIX3 and it seems to work fine. I only know that before I did all this stuff, I couldn't get the Preview to install. Also, when I got it to successfully install, the whole process went much faster than the 2-3 other times I tried it, when the install failed about 98 percent of the way into "Expanding Windows files."

Re:Windows 8

[exomondo]

Although the guest additions don't work yet, so it doesn't run as well as it could. Thinking I'll make a Windows 8 partition to give it a proper go.

Yes that's correct, so it is a bit jerky at times but obviously it isn't like that when it's running native.

Re:Windows 8

[PCM2]

This is true, although Aero Glass seems to work (albeit slowly) even without the guest additions.

Re:Windows 8

[PCM2]

i found just jumping to the desktop view for desktop apps was fast and fluid.

I should probably get modded Troll for further stoking the ant-Microsoft flames, but it should be noted that "fast and fluid" is a new Microsoft code phrase that was repeated many times at the BUILD conference sessions. You will be hearing it a lot more as the Microsoft marketing push kicks into high gear.

Re:Windows 8

[exomondo]

but it should be noted that "fast and fluid" is a new Microsoft code phrase that was repeated many times at the BUILD conference sessions.

I think it's a pretty good way to describe it, that's how they termed it and in using it i found that to be pretty true.

Re:Windows 8

[PCM2]

I'm finding it anything but; but then, I am running it in a VM without a touchscreen or proper hardware acceleration. Still, I'm finding myself having to guess what to click on just to navigate these little toy apps it ships with. How do you go back to the previous screen? How do you close it? Do I right click this or left click that? It's inconsistent, and it's all frustrating to the point that I'm begging for it to stop, but I'm forcing myself to stick with it to see if it grows on me.

Re:Windows 8

[exomondo]

I'm finding it anything but; but then, I am running it in a VM without a touchscreen or proper hardware acceleration.

Yes that's expected and the reason for that is that you can't install the vmware tools, or virtualbox extensions or whatever your environment calls them.

How do you go back to the previous screen? How do you close it? Do I right click this or left click that? It's inconsistent, and it's all frustrating to the point that I'm begging for it to stop, but I'm forcing myself to stick with it to see if it grows on me.

To some degree im finding the same thing, it's not effective with a mouse and keyboard. The windows key takes you back to the start screen but if you just want to go and grab the application back you need to move the mouse to the left edge of the screen and pull the app back, great for a swipe on a touchscreen, not so great with a mouse. This is compounded on a VM because you have to find the edge without the VM losing mouse focus, which is quite hard.

I would prefer it to work without having to see the metro interface at all, so if you chose to you could load up straight to the desktop app and work from there, that would be better for mouse/keyboard setups.

The real question is

[Anonymous Coward]

... Will it blend?

Re:The real question is

[shutdown -p now]

Yes.

Re:The real question is

[SpiralSpirit]

Not only will it blend, it blends faster than any other OS on the market. Normally you push the blend button, then there's some blades spinning, and the thing breaks into big chunks, and then smaller chunks, and then a fine powder. With windows 8 you push the blend button, and it's automatically reduced to a fine powder with awesome Metro style text. Even better, we wrote an app to un-blend windows 8. It works, instantly, and it was only 4 lines of code! and it work on anything - tablets, phones, pc, toasters, oranges. Fuck linux - windows metro programs are actually running on the hairs of my forearm right now.

Re:The real question is

[thegreatbob]

Somebody at Microsoft might have come up with the name just for this particular occasion... Not trying to give them too much credit for forethought though...

Whew!

[Black Parrot]

I was starting to worry that we'd have to go a whole 12 hours before we got another Windows 8 story.

Re:Whew!

[igreaterthanu]

Hey at least it's not about Bitcoin. ;)

Re:Whew!

[shutdown -p now]

Given that there are two more days of BUILD, you'll probably see more of this.

I predict the next story will be about the windows app store policies.

Re:Whew!

[Ihmhi]

Did you guys hear that Windows 8 will have a Bitcoin mining application built into it? You can also refinance your mortgage and buy Uggs boots.

Re:Whew!

[SpeZek]

*gasp* News for Nerds? On my Slashdot? It's more likely than you think!

Re:Whew!

[Anonymous Coward]

Next up: Apple reacts to Microsoft building Bitcoin payment into its next Windows 8 smartphone by buying gold-payment-including Android clone by GBB (Gaga, Bieber, (Glenn) Beck). ;)

Re:Whew!

[RightSaidFred99]

Yeah, I mean that massively dominant operating system coming out with a major new revision with extensive, user visible changes - pfft, who gives a crap about that!

Bring on the news about a slightly remixed Linux distribution of the week, where they changed the -O2 to -O3 and found it made .002% difference in the performance of 'ls'!!!! That's real news, by gawd!

Re:Whew!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, pretty silly bringing up a story about Windows 8 being, oh I don't know, available as a functional preview and all, since all we ever here is so much rumor. So you can download and run it, so what! No different than if someone said that someone else said they had a cousin who's brother saw a beta. Nothing to see here folks except a functional preview. Move along...

Oh wait....
 

Re:Whew!

[bonch]

Yes, can we please go back to the daily cycle of Linux, Google, piracy, and random gadget stories? Two stories about a major overhaul of the most popular desktop operating system in the world is way too much.

Re:Whew!

[caitsith01]

Yeah, Slashdot is only interesting when there's a story about some random unpopular Linux distro getting a minor update every 12 hours, not when there are stories about the OS used by hundreds of millions of people around the world!

Re:Whew!

[thegarbz]

Seriously? Why do you bother coming here at all? Windows 8 is the hot topic at the moment because these last 2 weeks there have been movement at the OS that could potentially make up more than half of all computer OSes (or won't if you believe the Slashdot comments or your own eyes). This is how News works. Something happens, it is reported on, often this generates hype for a few consecutive weeks, and then the stories drift off in the ether until the next major milestone.

Don't like geek news? Don't read it. Head over here for a news site that won't ever run a Windows 8 article if you have no interest in IT.

Re:Whew!

[Black Parrot]

Seriously?

Uh, no.

This is Slashdot. We make fun of Slashdot here. Don't get your panties in a bunch over a perceived slight to your favorite software.

Time-out?

[black3d]

Can anyone inform what the time period on this is? 128 days?

Re:Time-out?

[cheater512]

That should be cracked soon. Give the guys 5 more minutes and it should be on all the torrent sites.

Re:Time-out?

[shutdown -p now]

It will expire on 3/11/2012. So 6 months, as usual for Windows pre-releases.

Re:Time-out?

[shutdown -p now]

It doesn't have activation, so there's nothing to crack, really. No point torrenting it, either, since you can just download directly from MS (serviced by Akamai, I believe).

Re:Time-out?

[igreaterthanu]

Why would anyone care? It's probably buggy and there will likely be a beta out before then that fixes most of the problems.

Re:Time-out?

[cheater512]

Windows? Buggy?

Re:Time-out?

[slack_justyb]

It's probably buggy

Microsoft labels this release as pre-beta, after test driving it for about six hours (non-continuous), "probably," would be a ghastly understatement of the OS' current state.

Re:Time-out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorant? Misinformed? Troll?

So hard to tell nowadays....

Flashback: Windows Vista.

Microsoft developers are merging untested code directly into the main branch. Code is buggy and breaks unrelated functionality. This continues right up to release/gold disc.

Result: Main branch contains massive amounts of untested code, broken functionality, and bugs.

Flash forward: Windows 7 / Vista patches.

Microsoft developers run all code through multiple tests with existing branch code. All bugs are worked out and any affects on unrelated functionality are mitigated. Code is them merged into main branch.

Result: Main branch is clean, stable, and thoroughly tested throughout the entire development process from Dev-builds, through beta, to public release.

Today: They are using the same dev process they started after the Vista release. The goal of this process is to make every build "release ready". Current builds, though missing a good chunk of functionality, should be rock-solid stable.

Benefits: Dev process can be guided by date or feature-set and always be stable/release-ready, regardless. Current build always includes latest bug-fixes, functionality changes, feature additions, and all of these are tested and stable. Can release *tomorrow* and be more stable than Vista was on launch-day.

Re:Time-out?

[Anonymous Coward]

But 3/11/2012 is over a year away!

Re:Time-out?

[shutdown -p now]

Months are shorter in 'merica.

Re:Time-out?

[PCM2]

That's incorrect; it does have activation. There's just no product key to enter. If you install it without a network connection, though, it informs you that it's not activated and a lot of the Metro personalization options are greyed out. I couldn't find an expiry date in the activation settings, but I expect Microsoft will "expire" the Preview by the time Beta ships to developers.

Re:Time-out?

[shutdown -p now]

Ah, I didn't realize that - thanks for pointing it out.

As for expiration, yes, it'll expire in 6 months.

The question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

will it run crysis?

To be fair to MS

[Space cowboy]

They at least are showing there is more than one way to develop a touch-enabled and touch-optimised smartphone. I'm on the fence as to whether it's the correct UI for the desktop, but anything that makes life simpler for the few relatives still holding out and not going Mac is a boon to me.

Redmond definitely didn't "photocopy" this UI, and I like the look of it - fresh, well thought out, and novel. You're not taking away my iPhone just yet, though :)

Simon

Re:To be fair to MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Microsoft has been doing tablet PCs since Windows 3.0 so they do have some experience...

What I want to know is when they're planning to get rid of 32-bit OS versions in the desktop and server spaces. Wouldn't it make sense to concentrate on the 64-bit OS and improve its compatibility mode if there is still legacy software that still doesn't work in it?

Re:To be fair to MS

[gmhowell]

Well, Microsoft has been doing tablet PCs since Windows 3.0 so they do have some experience...

Doing it wrong for 20 years is nothing to brag about.

Re:To be fair to MS

[Osgeld]

doesnt seem to effect apple

Re:To be fair to MS

[Anonymous Coward]

affect.

Affect: To influence.

Effect: A result or outcome of an action (e.g. the slashdot effect)

Re:To be fair to MS

[Anonymous Coward]

The interface fucking sucks.
I hate smart phones, won't ever own one. I sure as hell don't want their defective UI on my computer.
I tried it, gave it a fair chance, lasted all of 5 minutes after completing install, before I deleted the VM.
If this is what Win8 is going to look like, it's the end of Microsoft, period. This will never fly for the pc croud.
If you want to waste your computer resource trying to make it look like a phone os that hasn't sold more than 5 phones, go ahead.
It fucking sucks.

Win8: way better than expected

[RiBread]

So, in June the marketing guy says to me "you should go to the Microsoft dev conference this year", and mind you this is one week after I've finally cut over to Linux as my primary OS.

Well. as I sit here reading Slashdot on my free Samsung win8 tablet, I have to say I'm impressed. This thing may not be an iPad but it sure is better than the android tab I brought with me!

Re:Win8: way better than expected

[shutdown -p now]

This thing may not be an iPad

Well, it's an x86 tablet with some beefy CPU inside... consequently, it weights 900 grams. So no, not exactly an iPad.

Stay tuned for when ARM stuff comes, though. ~

Re:Win8: way better than expected

[fragMasterFlash]

Your ARM based Android tablet isn't as powerful as an Core i5 based tablet? Let me guess which one is heavier, has worse battery life.

Re:Win8: way better than expected

[ozmanjusri]

Well. as I sit here reading Slashdot on my free Samsung win8 tablet

Not win8. They're called W-Eights, and for very good reason...

Re:Win8: way better than expected

[PowerCyclist]

What's wrong with my 2.5 year old Atom netbook? Nothing, it's my primary PC and it cost $330 (in early 09), has a 7h (honest) battery life, USB, SD, and VGA output.

Re:Win8: way better than expected

[shutdown -p now]

There's nothing wrong with a netbook if what you want is a netbook. A tablet is something a tad different.

Re:Win8: way better than expected

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a feeling getting free Win8 tablet may have biased you a tad there. Just sayin'.

Re:Win8: way better than expected

[PowerCyclist]

Agreed, Tablets can be extremely useful for selected tasks and fairly useful for many other things. I'm glad to see some with A/V outputs and native features similar to netbooks. I'll be really happy when tablets (and most laptops/ netbooks) adopt modular component standards like desktop PCs. Hopefully the day will come when you can buy all the various parts of tablets from different manufacturers of YOUR CHOOSING for the configurations you want -and I hope it's before I have to replace my netbook.

Re:Win8: way better than expected

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but you are comparing where Android is now with where Windows 8 will hopefully be next year....

Re:Win8: way better than expected

[Missing.Matter]

What? He's comparing Android now with Windows 8 now. That is released Android with pre-beta Windows 8.

"Metro." They did this before.

[RyanFenton]

I remember back when this "Metro" was called "active desktop". Your family members would gunk up their desktops with a dozen widgets, then go hunting for more until their system was useless. On my own system, it has always been one of the first things I disable, as it serves no real purpose, and complicates the use of traditional applications in various 'interesting' ways.

Windows cannot be simply limited to an app store, so half the banner ads on popular websites will quickly become devoted towards offering persistent applications on your system - also known as spyware - now tailored to fit into a giant box in the center of your screen.

I don't need my icons to take up 1/16th of my screen - it's a rather bad use of what I'd like to be productive time. Even with various media-consumption pads and consoles, I find it a horrible design to limit my view to a random assortment of large candy boxes.

And I really, REALLY don't think this heralds any positive new era of application development. A whole new layer of specialized docking, with its own special UI process, making cross-platform work that much more of a mess... I don't mind the learning the complexity, it's just the reasons for the added workload seem to be more to feed Marketing than actually accomplish something meaningful, which always holds some existential angst.

Ryan Fenton

Walled garden

[Adrian Lopez]

Too bad software made for Windows 8's default "Metro" interface will only be available through Microsoft's App Store. Win32 programs will still be available from other sources, but Metro apps will not.

Re:Walled garden

[SeaFox]

I count that as a feature. Let's keep all that crap together in one place so it's easy to avoid.

Re:Walled garden

[bonch]

This community is so out of touch. It's not 1998 anymore. It's okay to stop personally hating "M$".

Re:Walled garden

[Alex Belits]

No, it's not.

Even if Microsoft, against all expectations, produced a usable OS, it still must be destroyed, because Microsoft always cuts off all possible directions of progress unless Microsoft is in full control of them.

Re:Walled garden

[Anonymous Coward]

A business wants to dominate the market? Shocking. Quick call the communist superhero team. Public-Ownership powers.. activate !

Microsoft wants to sell you more shit. Apple wants to sell you more shit. Google wants all your data to flow through their networks so they can record it and mine it and show you ads to sell you more shit.

Re:Walled garden

[Alex Belits]

First and foremost, Microsoft is not entitled to anything -- neither "selling shit", nor being immune to other people's hostility toward it. If it seeks to destroys whole areas and branches of software development, it's everyone's right to defend those areas against those attacks.

Second, Microsoft seeks power over users, and the whole free software movement is against giving such power to anyone, least of all notorious abusers such as Microsoft. Deal with it.

Third, Microsoft's actions are nowhere close to ones of any honestly operating business. They were convicted monopoly abusers when last time anyone bothered to investigate them, and Microsoft behavior now is not any better than it was then.

Fourth, and most important -- what you posted is a Microsoft standard talking point. You either work for Microsoft, or stupid enough to parrot their copy/paste marketing. Either way, shut up (and optionally die in a fire).

Re:Walled garden

[marcello_dl]

Vista.

Re:Walled garden

[Anonymous Coward]

This community is so out of touch.

Actually you're the one that's out of touch. Different people have different points of view. Not like some cult-like mono-cultures I could name.

It's not 1998 anymore.

The year is irrelevant. It's the actions that are relevant.

It's okay to stop personally hating "M$".

And it's okay not to also. Their choice, not yours, and with good reason.

Re:Walled garden

[jones_supa]

Agreed.

Re:Walled garden

[CProgrammer98]

s/Microsoft/Apple/g

FTFY

Re:Walled garden

[Johann Lau]

oh really? and what, exactly, changed? feel free to roll over, but you'll need arguments if you want to convince people with half a brain of following in your lack of footsteps.

Re:Walled garden

[Johann Lau]

and your point is what exactly? other than that you're an anonymous idiot, which isn't even signal, just repetition of a well-known fact?

and how does wanting to make profit equal wanting to dominate the market? that's the problem, you see, they don't just want to sell us stuff period, they want MOAR.

you can mock all you want, but the fact is, when you're the host, cancer you don't cut out gets the last laugh, just before it dies in a puddle of "stupid long-term model".

Re:Walled garden

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the hate of M$, it's expecting the same behavior from the same jack ass company. They made their bed, now they should lie in it.

Re:Walled garden

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft seeks power over users,

The onlyt thing microsft seeks is move revenue by convincing people to buy more of their crap. Power over users? LOL.. Will I understand this statement if I put on a tin-foil hat like you?

and the whole free software movement is against giving such power to anyone, least of all notorious abusers such as Microsoft.

Going by numbers the Free software movement is dead. All that's left is the less-religious Open Source movement. Try taking away Linux users ability to use mp3s, dvds, blueray, flash and remove all binary blobs and see how many users you have left. Any guesses? Its all talk, no action. For all the anti-proprietary religiosity very few people want to inconvenience themselves.

and Microsoft behavior now is not any better than it was then.

What nonsense. The same courts that convicted them for abuses were overseeing them for violations after the lawsuit ended. Either you respect the courts or you don't. Stop picking and choosing. You have screwed yourself by being an anti-ms zealot. Noone sane can take you seriously even when you might have a decent point to make.

Fourth, and most important -- what you posted is a Microsoft standard talking point. You either work for Microsoft, or stupid enough to parrot their copy/paste marketing. Either way, shut up (and optionally die in a fire).

I am sorry your brain is incapable of comping up with more alternatives. Your binary worldview is very welcome here on slashdot.

Re:Walled garden

[Anonymous Coward]

No it isn't you fucking astroturfer.

Tell Ballmer and the rest of the M$ crew I said whats up

Re:Walled garden

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the latest Linux desktop, you could be forgiven for thinking it was still 1998.

Re:Walled garden

[c2me2]

You should up your meds, and switch to daily therapy sessions, not weekly.

Re:Walled garden

[Alex Belits]

Nope.

Swipe in from the right

[hey]

You swipe in from the right to get a "start" menu.
How is that intuitive?

Re:Swipe in from the right

[shutdown -p now]

On a tablet, you'd actually just click the physical "Home" button to do that, same as iPad. On a laptop or a desktop, you'd move the mouse to the bottom left corner of the screen, or press the "Windows" button on the keyboard.

You can do it through the swipe-from-right "charms" menu mainly because it is easier to do so when you're holding the tablet in landscape and operating it with thumbs, but it's not the sole way to do this.

Re:Swipe in from the right

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's not intuitive but innovative!
I think they should patent this, if they manage to do it before Apple of course...

Re:Swipe in from the right

[Anonymous Coward]

'cos in webOS, you swipe "up" to get Quick Lauch while viewing a card. From there, you tap the arrow or swipe "up" from the gesture field.

Re:Swipe in from the right

[hey]

Thanks for the info. I suppose its like using Alt-F to pull to down the File menu - optional. But handy for experts.

I wonder how many downloads they from Linux users

[G3ckoG33k]

I wonder how many downloads they from Linux users.

Is it too much to hope for a Slashdot-effect and then mail Microsoft and ask them for the stats?

Just a thought.

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[Osgeld]

downloading now from debian squeeze for my junk box, which is actually not a bad machine for a dumpster dive compaq

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[flimflammer]

Active Desktop was way ahead of its time. These days the active desktop system would work rather well.

Best part about the new interface,

[PowerCyclist]

The best leverage ever for switching people over to Linux finally. "You're going to have to learn a new interface anyway, might as well learn one that will be around for more than a couple years."

Re:Best part about the new interface,

[bonch]

You are right; 2012 will definitely be the Year of Linux on the Desktop(tm) because Windows 8 comes with a new Start menu.

Re:Best part about the new interface,

[deniable]

It's worked so well for Open Office.

Re:Best part about the new interface,

[perryizgr8]

it didnt work for oo because oo was (is?) a steaming pile of unusable shit.

Re:Best part about the new interface,

[PowerCyclist]

OO was a fun beta to play with but not good enough as a replacement, then it got better, then it got good enough to replace M$ Office except for a couple features unique to powerpoint and excell still. Then, oracle :( Now we have LibreOffice, try it, it's actually pretty good.

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[ADRA]

This think of this as a good thing. All native desktop environments are going to the big harry fad of tablet computing. WHEN the fad fizzles out and people stop buying consumption devices and companies realize that they have to to start making -productivity- tools again, their desktop platforms will be dead and anyone developing interesting and usable UI systems will be doing so on the web instead.

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[shutdown -p now]

Trying to slashdot Akamai would be a bold attempt, but rather futile.

ARM binaries?

[unixisc]

Shouldn't there be an ARM format for WP8, or does MS expect phone vendors to use Atoms or Nanos for their phones?

I recall reading somewhere that they wanted a 64-bit CPU, in which case, they should also port this stuff to MIPS, which unlike ARM, has a mature 64-bit architecture.

Re:ARM binaries?

[shutdown -p now]

Shouldn't there be an ARM format for WP8, or does MS expect phone vendors to use Atoms or Nanos for their phones?

Win8 will run on ARM, but this particular developer preview only comes in x86 and x64 editions.
(there's no WP8, so far at least)

I recall reading somewhere that they wanted a 64-bit CPU

You will need to install the 64-bit version of this if you want to play with developer tools (SDK, Visual Studio, Expression, SDK). The OS itself does not require 64 bits.

Re:ARM binaries?

[Billly Gates]

Does anyone still use Mips? SGI is dead and Arm processors have taken over the mobile market. Mips was promising on some phones like 5 years ago

Re:ARM binaries?

[Microlith]

MIPS is huge in many embedded fields. It dominates the wifi router space, for instance.

Re:ARM binaries?

[Microlith]

Do you expect them to randomly have kernels for whatever ARM device you might have? All of the clunky "niceties" that we have on x86 that allow generic Linux and Windows kernels to install on pretty much any PC don't exist in the ARM world, so there's no point in posting ARM binaries unless it's in the form of a flashable image for a target device.

Re:ARM binaries?

[Osgeld]

crap routers and microcontrollers that no one uses (pic32) cause you can get an arm dev platform for 10 bucks

so yea mips is damn near death, just a few stragglers left.

Re:ARM binaries?

[terjeber]

It is unlikely that Win8 for ARM will be available for purchase or download (ever). ARM is a CPU, it isn't a platform spec. This means that the OS (drivers and stuff) must be modified specifically for each tabled/mobile vendors hardware. If ARM ever becomes a standardized platform, that might change. Until then, the only way to get Win8 on ARM will probably be to purchase an ARM device with Win8 pre-installed. This probably also means that you will have to depend on your vendor for OS updates. A little like the situation with Android and also WP7 these days.

Re:ARM binaries?

[Truekaiser]

ever hear of cpu architecture? as long as the binary's are built against arm v7 which the latest arm chips can run it will run on any device. also the chips come with a standard powervr gpu(except nvidia's tegra) so again drivers will be much simpler then x86/x86-64.

Re:ARM binaries?

[PCM2]

This means that the OS (drivers and stuff) must be modified specifically for each tabled/mobile vendors hardware.

But this is true for PCs as well. They have different CPU features, different motherboard chipsets, different graphics cards, different storage controllers. That's kind of what drivers are for -- you don't rewrite the whole OS to suit the hardware, you just install drivers. I really doubt ARM tablet designs will vary from each other so radically that it's impossible to write a common OS for them. ARM "systems on a chip" (SoCs) are becoming more commonplace, too.

Re:ARM binaries?

[terjeber]

But this is true for PCs as well

Not to the same degree. Chipsets, BIOS etc fall within a much narrower spectrum than on the PC. On the PC the bus, the chipsets etc are all standardized, not so on ARM.

I really doubt ARM tablet designs will vary from each other so radically that it's impossible to write a common OS for them

They will not, but there are two issues here. On a PC you can throw in a bunch of extra stuff just to cover your bases, on a smaller platform, that is not as easy. I am sure there will come a time when it is not needed, but at the moment there is not much standardization. Just look at the problems OS vendors have getting their stuff done properly. Not even Apple can do it, and they control both hardware and software.

Windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I boxed some bananas up with my iOs this year and had plenty of scooby queer diet pepsi.

so yeah!!!! hugs to all slaashdotterss.

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you accidentally a word.

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[shutdown -p now]

Oh, the irony. Do you know what Active Desktop is called today?

KDE Plasma Desktop.

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[Rizimar]

I remember back when this "Metro" was called "active desktop". Your family members would gunk up their desktops with a dozen widgets, then go hunting for more until their system was useless

What I remember most about the Active Desktop is that when a program crashed, it would turn your background into an HTML page saying that Active Desktop was improperly shut off. Then you'd click a button that the error displayed to get your wallpaper back.

The answer is ...

[shutdown -p now]

yes.

Re:The answer is ...

[stackOVFL]

Ahh, but will it run Windows, obviously not!

Anyone have torrents

[Billly Gates]

The server seems quite busy

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[RightSaidFred99]

I don't know, but I wonder how many "Tee haw, where can I download this for Linux, tee hee" comments we'll get from the neckbeards.

x86?

[juventasone]

You would have a hard time finding a new PC today that ships with Windows 7 32-bit (and isn't the 32-bit-only Starter edition). Why not drop it and make all our lives easier? Legacy systems can use Windows 7 or VMs.

Re:x86?

[Osgeld]

no x32 should be supported, there is no reason for many people to buy whole new machines for the promise of 64 bit software as there still is not much of it, what is the compelling reason other than memory space?

Take users like my father for instance, he has a 2005 machine but it rips XP a new asshole, it runs windows 7 great, why should he have to spend hundreds on a new machine that is not going to offer him squat, just to do the same internet / office tasks its doing now?

PS: windows 7 pro can be found in 32 bit, and honestly from a user perspective you cant tell the difference, and if your running servers you wont be concerned about whatever MS is farting out today until its 110% solid (from a MS server point of view)

Re:x86?

[Anonymous Coward]

what is the compelling reason other than memory space?

Are you serious? Off the top of my head..

1) Hardware DEP
2) Kernel Patch Protection
3) Driver Signing on by default.
4) More virtual memory per process. (useful for software working with large files - video editing s/w etc.)

If those aren't important to you, then I guess you shouldn't upgrade your hardware.

Re:x86?

[unixisc]

But that was the point of GP. Any x86 PCs - leave them on Windows 7 for good, no need to upgrade. For x64 PCs, make Windows 8 a 64 bit OS, w/ win32 supported as a WoW module (the way win 16 was supported on win32). Apps - one can still run 32-bit apps on x64. So keep using your existing 32-bit software, but use the 64-bit Windows 8 only for PCs that have 4GB or above RAM.

So your father's case - he can keep his 2005 box, keep it on Win7 and not bother. The above argument was make Windows 8 64-bit only, and up to Windows 7, have 32-bit versions.

Re:x86?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL legacy systems using VMs. What a fucking jackass!

Re:x86?

[TangoMargarine]

From a practical standpoint, aren't most of the machines being sold these days coming with 4 or more gigs of RAM?

Re:x86?

[PCM2]

You would have a hard time finding a new PC today that ships with Windows 7 32-bit (and isn't the 32-bit-only Starter edition). Why not drop it and make all our lives easier?

A few reasons:
1. Not everybody feels it necessary to buy brand-new hardware to run a new OS. Windows 8 sounds like it will run on anything that could run Windows 7, so why drop support for machines arbitrarily?
2. Not everything that runs Windows is a PC. There are ATM machines, kiosks, and other devices that run Windows Embedded, which is based on the same core as "real" Windows (not CE). Some of those use 32-bit processors.
3. Microsoft is hyping the fact that Windows 8 will run on ARM, and as of right now, all ARM chips are 32-bit. True, it's a different architecture from x86, but I suspect there are enough code dependencies to require Microsoft to maintain a 32-bit tree just for ARM.
4. How, exactly, does the existence of 32-bit Windows make your life hard?

Re:x86?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us have older computers you insensitive clod.

Re:x86?

[juventasone]

1) Correct, not everybody. I would estimate that there will be 1 PC owner with 32-bit hardware wanting to pay $150 to upgrade to Windows 8 for every 10,000 PCs with 64-bit hardware sold with or upgraded to Windows 8.
2) Correct. And these systems can continue to run XP Embedded or 7. And in five years I bet the new hardware will be x86-64 or ARM.
3) Or perhaps there's no dependencies.
4) Any time you work with drivers (for hardware or software), a single version becomes two. There are millions of jobs where this requires more work and more opportunity for problems. I create an installer package for SEP, I create two. When the installer needs to be run, I need to run the right package on the right system. This is just one of a thousand examples I experience. I can't even imagine other people's jobs.

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed 100%! I do NOT like the direction that UI developers are going these days. It used to be about making good use out of screen real-estate, multitasking, and productivity. Today it's about cramming social widgets into a shiny box to satisfy the masses who can't be bothered to click on their Facebook pages. I do not need an icon to occupy a 128x128px box. I don't need this on my desktop, I don't need this on my tablet, I don't need this on Ubuntu Unity, I don't need it on GNOME 3 either. I get along just fine with 32x32px icons and can fit many more of them on my screen at once (this is called "usability", it makes the system easier to use when you're actually doing work).

As for touch functionality, 90%+ of Windows and traditional Linux users do NOT have touchscreens. We use these (now "antiquated") devices such as desktops and laptops, which have keyboards and mice as inputs. Oversized touch icons do not make sense for keyboard and mouse input. If such a small percentage of users is using touch input, why develop such a large percentage of OS feature just to support this small market share? If it gets ported to ARM the market will increase, but despite popular belief the desktop and laptop platform is not dying. Businesses that do real work need real hardware, multiple monitors, powerful processors, and other things that aren't going to have shiny touchscreens.

I know that the final release will have the classic interface, but this developer edition seems to be stuck with just the new Start menu, which is really annoying to test on a regular desktop. I don't care that it supports new software if the new software isn't worth using without a touchscreen.

In short, I think all UI designers have fallen off the deep end. I see touch, gesture, etc. interfaces as unnecessary. They may be useful for scrolling/zooming, but eventually you're going to break down and need a real keyboard and mouse for something (ever tried typing a long document on a touch keyboard? didn't think so).

X86 ...

[Archangel Michael]

REALLY?

When Win 7 should have been x64 only, they tell me Win 8 will be x86 too? Gahhhh, why won't they drop x86 already?

Re:X86 ...

[Osgeld]

why? do you really need 16 gigs of ram to run fucking firefox? (ok bad example)

it amuses me people here bitch and wine about XP, but if you actually want to upgrade your OS then you have to buy a new machine, which unless your running 1080p video games and bluray wont make a piddleshit difference.

if your going to buy a new computer every update of an os just go fucking buy apple and shut the hell up, leave us rational people alone.

Re:X86 ...

[unixisc]

Yeah, given how willing MS has been in the past to stop supporting even 32-bit CPUs like the 386 and 486, it's even more legitimate now to drop support for x86, and limit it to x64.

Re:X86 ...

[unixisc]

No, you don't need 16GB of RAM. But if your box comes w/ it - and after a while, they'll no longer sell less than 4GB DIMMs, the only thing that can support it is x64. And therefore the 64-bit OS becomes necessary. The apps themselves can remain 32-bit - nothing is stopping them. But the OS needs to support 64 bits if the box has 4GB or more.

If you have 3GB of RAM or less, and are running Windows 7, just stay w/ it - no need to upgrade. As it is, like you point out, everytime someone upgrades Windows, they need more firepower in their box.

Re:X86 ...

[iainl]

Because some of us are planning on dumping it on cheapo netbooks, at least while it's just the pre-release Developer version?

Re:X86 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Netbook Atoms do not support 64bit?

Re:X86 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

My Core Duo Thinkpad x60s from 2006 would not be able to run it albeit there is no reason why it shouldn't run Windows 8.

Re:X86 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

For guys that want to install it on Atom :) And MS wanting to sell a copy to them too.

Re:X86 ...

[bhcompy]

Physical Address Extensions.

Re:X86 ...

[LtGordon]

Gahhhh, why won't they drop x86 already?

For much the same reason that Linux is still available for DEC Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC, SPARC, S390, etc. Granted, it doesn't make business sense for Microsoft to support that many architectures, but barring it being prohibitively difficult to design which I imagine it is not, maintaining support for the x86-only community is likely to increase sales to those who wouldn't otherwise be able to upgrade.

Re:X86 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently there are LOTS of very old 16bit applications running. 16bit applications don't run on x86 only Windows, and running then in XP mode is a PITA.

Re:X86 ...

[0123456]

Physical Address Extensions.

Microsoft don't support it in desktop windows and probably can't because of crappy old drivers that fall over if it's enabled. And it's a horrible kludge anyway.

Of course the push for ARM will further delay the appearance of 64-bit Windows programs because developers won't want to be developing for 64-bit Windows and then find it falls over when they recompile for 32-bit ARM because someone did something stupid.

Re:X86 ...

[Archangel Michael]

The difference is that Win 8 won't run on 386 very well (original x86 32 bit). I doubt it will run on 486, Pentium 1, 2 and barely run on 3. Which leaves PIV as the only x86 platform that it might possibly run on, and that platform is older than XP. By the time you get to the end of PIV production, you start getting into Core processors which DO have x64.

My point is to cut out the legacy bloat that is not needed. If they want to support x86 native, they should keep supporting XP, which is the last 32 bit OS Microsoft should have made. I predict that some Smartphones will have more than 4 gig of RAM by the time Win 8 comes out.

Re:X86 ...

[unixisc]

Works w/ HDD, but not w/ RAM, which is why not only 32-bit Windows, but even 32-bit Linux can't go above 3GB. If PAE could have solved this, there'd be no reason for 64-bit OSs even today, and even Intel would have seen no reason to introduce x64.

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[bonch]

So don't install those apps.

Anything else I can help you with?

Avoid 8, there's a pattern

[therufus]

I've found there is a pattern for MS operating systems:
95 = unstable
98 = excellent
ME = better left forgotten
XP = still kicking and doing ok
Vista = poorly received
7 = best yet

That's my opinion based on being in the industry and speaking with other computer techs over the past 15 years or so. So with the bad/good/bad/good/bad/good pattern, I'm staying clear of 8 and waiting for 9 ;)

Re:Avoid 8, there's a pattern

[Osgeld]

that is not a pattern you dumbass, cause you forgot half of the releases

95 = fine for the time, but issues with anything but legacy hardware

95 OSR2 = much better, direct X is no longer a patch for a fuckup and usb starts to be supported

98 = crap

98 SE = excellent

ME = really I never had a problem with this OS, most people today just go ME LOLZ!!! but really if you didnt run a fucking celeron with 8 megs of ram it did ok, it was rock solid on AMD machines and I used it for years

2000 = the fucking best, but you forgot that

XP = crap, its 2K with a vomit theme and fucking stupid wizards to wipe your ass every time you click something, and when it first came out it was the cumdumpster of all hackers, yea you could send a pop up message box to anyone on the internet, took years to unfuck, SP2 is when it started to be respectable but still ran like a dead dog compared to 2k

Vista = useless garbage until they service packed it to windows 7

7 = still does not do a single fucking thing that XP and 2k didnt do, even more retard wizards, popups every time you click, but yet lets spyware install freely, force upgrade just for directX otherwise the only other thing that impressed me was the calculator, just another vista service pack but since vista sucked so bad they changed the name.

yea thats a hell of a pattern

Re:Avoid 8, there's a pattern

[unixisc]

2000 was still NT, XP was where NT and Win9x converged

Re:Avoid 8, there's a pattern

[unixisc]

I agree that initially, XP was crap - particularly the limit of drive sizes to 128GB (I had a 160GB before SP2 was available). To fix it, one had to download stuff - there was no way you could get it from a clean CD, unless it happened to be SP2. Also problematic was Microsoft Messenger - I'd get weird messages from my ISP until I disabled Messenger from Administrative tools, services (local). It took a while before I found out from a talk show that that was how it was to be disabled.

But one thing I praise Vista & XP for - support for IPv6, although it could be better.

Re:Avoid 8, there's a pattern

[cyclomedia]

It was a combination of having SP1 and a setting registry key, EnableBigLBA, that you needed. I don't know why it was so important to correct you, I'm a pedant, sorry.

Re:Avoid 8, there's a pattern

[jones_supa]

2000 = the fucking best, but you forgot that

XP = crap, its 2K with a vomit theme and fucking stupid wizards to wipe your ass every time you click something, and when it first came out it was the cumdumpster of all hackers, yea you could send a pop up message box to anyone on the internet, took years to unfuck, SP2 is when it started to be respectable but still ran like a dead dog compared to 2k

So much agree. I don't know why even in Slashdot XP is often praised while forgetting that it was basically just 2K with extra bloat, bugs and security risks. I was a Linux man all the time of XP as it sucked so much.

In my bag, 2000 and 7 are the solid ones, others pretty much crap.

Yeah, except it wasn't

[SmallFurryCreature]

Maybe if you got your head out of MS fanboy land for a while you would have noticed that the general opinion about KDE4, Gnome 3 and Unity is NEGATIVE on slashdot. There was no praise and now that even the old stable desktop gnome has gone there is a lot of protest.

So your idea of funny is that people who protest about useless gunk on Linux desktops also complain about useless gunk on the Windows desktop...

Don't quit your day job to do standup... oh you don't have a day job. Funny that.

wow, that sucked

[TheInternetGuy]

I actually like Windows 7 a lot, but I would be using Linux all the time, except WW (Work and WIfe) dictates the use of windows. Ok, back on topic. I downloaded and tried it. But I dont see anything in there that would make me ditch W7. Not that I am all that fond of the Start Button menu, but replacing it with some crappy Flash (ehm silverlight) page is not an improvement. Don't see the new UI working all that well for phones either, perhaps it would be ok on Set Top Boxes or something.

Re:wow, that sucked

[jawtheshark]

I'm lucky... Work for me is Linux. Wife came with her computer bundled, and when it broke (Caps blew. It ran XP Home), I steered her to Apple. It has a much better WAF and is much easier to use for her. So, I don't get "I can't do it, you do it"... Now I say: "Apple is made for people that don't think like computer people.... You'll have an easier time finding it than me". Works like a charm.

So we've been Microsoft free for a few years now and I had no complaints whatsoever. Myself, I exclusively use Linux on the desktop/laptop.

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[niftydude]

Count me as one - I'm downloading it to my Linux box...

I've sshed in to my home server from work, and used wget to download the iso. I certainly couldn't do the same task remotely by command line using a windows system, and work would frown on me downloading a 5 gig iso using their network.
I'll run it in a vm to take a look, but I doubt there will be anything interesting enough to move me from linux :-)

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[Anonymous Coward]

Word, man

Desktop PCs

[black3d]

Words fail to describe how truly and completely awful the interface, task switching and metro UI are for normal Desktop PC usage.

If I hit Search, I want my regular search box, one click away from the app I was already using. I do *NOT* want to then after searching, have to click START to return to the metro UI, then DESKTOP to bring up the Windows desktop, then click my program to get back to where I was. Nor do I want to hit the Application Scroller button and rotate through to the correct application. Might be great on a tablet PC where you can just "hold a finger down" and bring up a task list (no idea if you can, just presuming they'll follow something Mac-like in that regard). But on a desktop, this is truly hideous.

If the interactions I've experienced in testing so far even remotely resemble the end-product, I'll be giving Windows 8 a miss. In that case, if Windows 9 is similar too, I'll finally be forced to kick the Windows habit I've had for 15-odd years.

I still do!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to work with a Windows OS on a daily basis and hate it with a passion for very present sins (technical and ethical) and look forward to the day when it is no more then a display item in the museum.

Just because they are "oh shit, we have to actually compete now" does not mean that I have to like them. The alternatives still seem much more attractive, even if some of them are only just taking shape.

Downloading it right now...

[thegreatbob]

Downloading for the purpose of testing on what I consider a marginal hardware spec, considering I guess I'm going to have to virtualize for the 64-bit version with developers tools. Intel Core Duo T2400 @ 1.83GHz... 2GB RAM, 30 GB or so of disk space. I will install the 32-bit edition natively though... My guess is it's going to be kind of like the 2000->XP move where the user interface was refined (some may see it differently) and a bit more thought was given to future proofing it for hardware. Hope they release an ARM setup soon... Wouldn't mind playing around with full blown windows on tiny (and cheap) ARM hardware...

Re:Downloading it right now...

[Osgeld]

the 32 bit version crashed on launch with a memory error for me using my junk box

AMD sep 2GHZ, 2GB ram, ATI (something or antother DX9 compatible)

Re:Downloading it right now...

[thegreatbob]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y932_swJhWQ The only thing I have to say about that... still downloading @ 1.8MB/s between 2 downloads... This is actually a Thinkpad T60... There's definitely more to gain from pushing/prodding them to get it right in the end....

Re:Downloading it right now...

[thegreatbob]

So far it has turded all over every virtualization software package i've tried so far on windows. VMware 3.1.4 = nogo (HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED @ blue graphical screen Qemu 11.0 (via qemu manager) = nogo (STOP 0x7F w./ 0xd,0x0,0x0,0x0 parameters @ black text screen) Virtuabox 4.1.2 = nogo (Griped about missing files after giving me much false hope) This was with the 32-bit version. Will try again tomorrow. I've seen speculation as to the requirement of ACPI 2.0 being the issue with VMware but that's all I know...

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[thegreatbob]

AC is talking to itself again...

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[Hadlock]

You don't need icons to take up 1/16th of your desktop; however I think if I spent more than a few seconds, I could dig up several studies that 90% of consumers use less than 8 applications on a daily basis (internet, facebook, twitter, email, instant messaging, word, excel, calculator - or similar! take your pick!).
 
Win8's metro/active desktop won't be for the power user, but this is definitely the direction things are going to head for consumer laptop/netbook/tablets in the future. This is the appliance interface your mom wants to see when she turns on her computer. Power users will still need a "real" desktop of course, but this style interface wasn't designed for them. Apple has proven that large icon based app navigation works, which I think is why Microsoft is willing to throw their weight behind this. This is one of the few things I've seen Microsoft do in the consumer space in the last decade that wasn't a complete disaster. To top it all off, they've given a nod to you and I, the power users, and allowed us to turn off the sparkly new crap and use our old desktop system how we need it.

MIPS is still relevant

[unixisc]

Yeah, SGI was just a part of this market. MIPS is the CPU of choice in routers, set top boxes, Playstations, Nintendos and so on. And their current architecture is competitive w/ ARM even on power consumption, which was traditionally ARM's biggest selling point. Also, w/ Loongson, Chinese designers & manufacturers are using this for a whole bunch of electronic products. Also, MIPS the company has targeted Android as one of its platforms. Windows 8 should be another logical choice, given that NT once existed on the MIPS, so porting shouldn't be a huge job: take NT4, which was the last version of NT/MIPS, and backport the changes b/w that and Windows 8 to that platform. Oh, and WinCE too existed on MIPS.

MIPS

[unixisc]

Which is why MIPS is a good idea

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[Robert Zenz]

+1, whish I had Mod-Points. :)

"Metro-style apps"?

[Ant P.]

Microsoft at it again, ripping off other software's names. First Midori and now this.

Re:"Metro-style apps"?

[thegreatbob]

Midori is a Japanese word for green... ... It's also just a code name for a project. With metro, perhaps they were going more for this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_Metro#Geo_Metro ... It seems they actuallytook the name from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_County_Metro_Transit

Exclusive 'touch' control

[Anonymous Coward]

Some impressions:
There appears to be no way to switch to another app using just touch, or in my case, just the mouse.
Alt-tab worked fine but I cannot see any way to get to another app or show a taskbar when using Metro apps.
Moving to the bottom left corner shows a popup Start button, but on the Desktop/normal shell, when you click the Start button, it takes you to the scrolly-left-scrolly-right interface. There appears to be no way to zoom on this, so if you have many apps, this is going to be a nightmare. Having said that, you can pick up and drag the boxes around to suit your needs.
There appears to be no way to close Metro apps, either with the keyboard or mouse. When my weather app couldn't get an Internet connection, it just sat there, and is still sat there.
The control panel within the Metro system is limited, and will just launch the main control panel on the normal desktop.
The Developer preview includes Visual Studio 11, which allows C++ apps to be written too, but there GUI designer doesn't appear to include any controls to drag and drop, and there is heavy use of .xaml, some strange XML markup for the GUI. Needs more investigation!

Strangely, I like it. But then again, I like many OSes just for fun :-)

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[perryizgr8]

you seriously think akamai can be slashdotted?

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[Anonymous Coward]

One right here. I just wonder what they kicked out into the Internet this time.

To be 100% honest, I probably won't use Windows day-to-day if I can avoid it. I'm no fanboy - I just like the Linux approach better.

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[Anonymous Coward]

Twice.
Once in the title and again in the comment itself.

XP drive limit

[unixisc]

Maybe, but that was hardly known, and WD's support simply said that one needed SP2 if one wanted to support the entire 160GB as a single drive. Even then, I didn't like partitioning drives for the same file system. What is the size limit for a drive under Windows 7?

Your post makes me cry

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember just a few short years ago, Linux on the desktop was a real possibility. KDE 3.5 was a great DE, so was Gnome2.

Now Windows has a shell that does everything that KDE4 and Gnome3 tried to achieve, with the little difference that in Windows, you actually have a working computer. You know, I do not grudge Microsoft their success, I just look with sadness at what has become of our DEs in Linux. When was the last time that a Linux DE was hailed as "wonderful", or even, as you so poignantly put it, "better than I thought"? Our DEs are barely usable, to the point that, at my job where I develop applications that will run on Linux, I install it in a virtual machine.

It sucks.

Re:Your post makes me cry

[Omestes]

I actually LIKE KDE4, sure it sucked for a couple years, and 5 or so point releases, but it isn't that bad, especially if you put the work into making it fit your style. Xfce isn't bad, either. It isn't too my tastes, but I can see myself running it. Sadly Windows7 is actually good, though. Really good. Even if I didn't still try gaming from time to time, I'd have a hard time yanking it off my primary computer. But if any Linux distro excelled at being a media center, I'd rip Win7 off my HTPC in a second.

Sure, I'm not dancing in the street about KDE 4.7. But the only reason I was excited about Win7 is because it was like the second coming in comparison to its predication, Vista. KDE 4.7 is just a gradual maturation from a DE that sucked a bit worse than Vista (Vista wasn't as bad as people wanted it to be, either), where Win7 was actually a bit shocking.

Win8 might work well on my HTPC, if it runs lighter than 7. I don't mind it being dumbed down, since I don't actually do any work on it, and its accesable to non-techy friends. But it is never touching my actual main PC. Not unless they they realize that I don't own a giant tablet, nor would I get one (the various "touch" PCs I've used have sucked, it works great on a 10" screen, but chokes on a 25" monitor, much less 2 of them).

I have no problem working with KDE, or Gnome2. The only issue I have is a dearth of decent software, and that's hardly the DEs fault.

Turnabout.

[Anonymous Coward]

What operating systems UIs have you designed/developed/implemented. Let us know so we can shit on your work too.

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[fishthegeek]

I just finished installing Windows 8 Dev Preview on a test machine, and I'm a Fedora guy all the way through. The interface is startling. My one complaint after using it for about 15 minutes is that the interface presents screen items such as the word "Start" but doesn't give the user any indication on how to interact with the screen element. My instinct was to mouse-over "Start" and try to click it. I was surprised when there was no response from the OS. It's just decoration. Another example might be the scroll wheel. You don't see the progress bar at the bottom until you actually move the wheel a considerable distance. Contrast that to Gnome3 and it makes the Gnome guys look like geniuses. I rather think that if you're going to present something to the user make that thing helpful. I'm not bashing 8, I rather like some of the ideas.

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you could use RDP/VNC and start the download on your home computer. I don't understand why clicking on a link in a browser is is inferior to typing some command. After all, you got the link via a browser :-P

Besides why do you keep your PC on 24/7? Unless you're running some services its just wasting electricity.

... and the hype for Windows 8 has begun ...

[QuietLagoon]

Microsoft will be using all its grassroots capability to hype up Windows 8 here on /.

.
It is going to be Windows 8 all the time here.

The problem is that Microsoft software always looks best before the official release. What we see of Windows 8 before the launch will be carefully orchestrated and controlled by Microsoft. Even Windows Vista looked good before the launch.

Think about it....

Re:... and the hype for Windows 8 has begun ...

[c2me2]

Are you out of your mind? "Always looks best before the official release" is just insane. Have you ever installed a beta in your life? The final product is always an improvement over the beta. I've installed just about every single beta of every rev of NT and SQL Server, all the way back to Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1 and SQL Server 4.21. Do you understand that betas and previews are released before the final product, and that *work continues* before the final product? Do you understand that time flows forward, not backward?

Re:... and the hype for Windows 8 has begun ...

[QuietLagoon]

Are you out of your mind?

.
Sometimes.

"Always looks best before the official release" is just insane. Have you ever installed a beta in your life?

Many, many times. But I was not talking about actually using the product, I was talking about the perception created about the product by Microsoft's extensive grass-roots efforts. Just look at the unabashed gushing that is already occurring here over Windows 8. It's Windows, for Pete's sake, not the Second Coming. How can the actual released version of Windows 8 live up to that hype? That was a part of Windows Vista's problem, they pre-release perception was built too high by the grass-roots efforts; and when customers actually started to use Windows Vista, the fiasco unfolded.

The actual product that is released never lives up to the perception that Microsoft's grass-rooting builds for the product.

Re:... and the hype for Windows 8 has begun ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Vista did not!

Re:... and the hype for Windows 8 has begun ...

[c2me2]

Everyone hypes their product. Get used to it. It's how the world works. Do you expect them to just say, "Well, ho hum, here's something you might consider using."? Does *anyone* who sells *anything* act that way?

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[r3x_mundi]

Its not Active Desktop. This is a new shell and a new user interface paradigm, built on top of a completely new cross-platform API (WinRT). Metro applications run in seperate processes, sandboxed, and they never touch the win32 API. Furthermore, applications are installed from a trusted source (the windows app store). Its not a dodgy web page asking you to install an ActiveX control.

Microsoft are actually doing a lot of things right this time IMHO. Metro isnt for productivity applications or games, but its pretty good for tablets, status or information displays, or casual stuff. Dont like it, dont use it. Its not replacing the desktop. Excel, Blender, OpenOffice wont ever use it. Its just another shell, thats all.

My only gripe is they Metro applications can be written in HTML+js, but using extensions. This is so it appeals to a wide developer base. However, their not trying embrace and embed the wider web, so in this regard, its better then Android or iOS which use much more proprietary tools to write their applications.

Productive time?..

[js_sebastian]

I don't need my icons to take up 1/16th of my screen - it's a rather bad use of what I'd like to be productive time.

Ehem.. you talk of productive time... and you are reading slashdot? Worse... you are commenting as well!..

Microsoft,why the Metro UI as default on desktops?

[master_p]

Is it sooo difficult to have the Metro UI on tablets and the classic UI on desktops? As a desktop user, I am not going to run Metro apps, because the mouse works better than touch in most cases.

So why do you have the Metro UI as the default for desktops? it doesn't make sense.

running in a linux vm?

[macshit]

Has anyone had any success running this in a linux vm?

I downloaded the 64-bit version, but my attempts to run it in qemu[*] don't yield happiness ... it gets as far as writing "Window Developer Release" or something on the graphics screen, and then after a while it starts puking out weird messages (some numeric codes, and a message "you must reboot; hit the hardware reset key") in a loop and then reboots.

__________
[*] qemu-system-x86_64 -cpu core2duo -m 2048 -hda qemu-hda.disk -cdrom WinwsDeveloperPreview-64bit-English-Developer.iso

Re:running in a linux vm?

[omnichad]

Try VirtualBox. I had to enable a lot of things - PAE, APIC, and so on just to get it not to stop there. This was on Windows, but that shouldn't really make a difference.

Re:I wonder how many downloads they from Linux use

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, powershell?

Someone tell me 2 things (from testers)

[Anonymous Coward]

1.) What executable's listed as desktop shell in Windows 8, here -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon in the SHELL string variable line (via observing it in regedit.exe)?

---

AND

---

2.) Does explorer.exe STILL EXIST in Windows 8 in the %WinDir%\system32 subfolder-subdirectory (or elsewhere beneath %WinDir%) ??

(The reason being here on this 2nd question is to test if you can still replace the NEW Windows 8 desktop shell, whatever the executable's called (metro.exe?) with the older XP/Server 2003 shell, of explorer.exe)

* "TIA!"

APK

P.S.=> This is in regards to a debate I had with someone here on /. the past couple days, here -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2426046&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=37389702

... apk

Re:Someone tell me 2 things (from testers)

[thegreatbob]

1) SHELL is set to explorer.exe. 2) Explorer.exe is definitely there... In its usual %windir%\explorer.exe location. Haven't installed yet, as STOP errors abound...

"pre-beta"

[TangoMargarine]

The Windows Developer Preview is a pre-beta version of Windows 8 for developers.

So, it's alpha then?

How do you keyboard-navigate the Metro Start page?

[jbarr]

The Metro style UI is definitely optimized for a mouse and for touch screens. Does anyone know how to navigate the Metro Start page using a keyboard?

Intuitively, I figured that you could just use the arrow keys to move around, but they do nothing.

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need icons to take up 1/16th of your desktop; however I think if I spent more than a few seconds, I could dig up several studies that 90% of consumers use less than 8 applications on a daily basis (internet, facebook, twitter, email, instant messaging, word, excel, calculator - or similar! take your pick!).

They use two actually.

• Internet Explorer (internet, facebook, twitter, email, instant messaging)
• Excel (word, excel, calculator)

If you wonder about excel: You can type documents in one of the cells.

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[Anonymous Coward]

I could dig up several studies that 90% of consumers use less than 8 applications on a daily basis

-Outlook
-KeePass
-Pidgin
-Firefox
-IE (ugh)
-Remote Desktop (up to 3 at a time)
-Microsoft Management Console
-Command Prompt (probably no more than 2 at a time...)
-Crimson Editor (the old one, not that crappy Emerald POS)
-various VPN tools (*shakes fist at Cisco and Sonicwall*)
-Word
-Excel
-OneNote
-Visio
-Visual Studio 2010 (sometimes as many as 5 of these)
-Visual Studio 2008 (a couple of these, for those old WinMo and SSRS projects that 2010 can't do)
-ConnectWise
-MobiControl Management Console

I guess I'm not in that 90%. Guess what I do for a living and why I'm paying close attention to news about Windows 8 developer previews.

Re:How do you keyboard-navigate the Metro Start pa

[DeathFromSomewhere]

Page up and down. I don't get why the arrows keys don't work either.

Tablet interface

[LtGordon]

The move towards tablet-style interfaces as a default makes me cringe. And seriously, the shut down option being hidden by default? C'mon, GNOME devs.

Oh, wait? Were you guys talking about Windows 8?

Re:Tablet interface

[thegreatbob]

In this day and age, if the OS+hardware combo is stable (hmmm....), you can elimininate most of your startup times with suspend/hibernate functionality... saves power and effort in the long run. All this newfangled quick-boot crap seems to be basically a glorified hibernation resume. Not a bad idea, but while it may be new to MS Windows, the concept of loading the functional parts of a system directly into ram from an image is certainly not. It's also a bit less lame than I make it sound... http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/08/delivering-fast-boot-times-in-windows-8.aspx

Re:Tablet interface

[thegreatbob]

Also, people have been replacing/augmenting Microsoft's limited shell functionality since before a lot of people here were born. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkaHAay9HXQ (that program was released in 1997 by the way)

There's little chance of that stopping any time soon, so don't worry...

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[omnichad]

I remember when disabling Active Desktop freed up 16MB of my 32MB of RAM.

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[Anonymous Coward]

I could dig up several studies that 90% of consumers use less than 8 applications on a daily basis (internet, facebook, twitter, email, instant messaging, word, excel, calculator - or similar! take your pick!).

Internet is not application but a global network
Facebook is not application but a website
Twitter is not application but website
EMail can be used trough application but I would believe most use webmail interface, so just a website
IM can be used trough application but I would say most use today website what offers that (like GChat and Facebook).
Word is Application but most dont need it as webpage offering basic features is enough, same thing with Excel and calculator.

So in the end, Google is right. You only actually need a web browser, a single application and it is enough for most people.

I like to use multiple applications what does their purposes well. I dont use websites to replace applications as it is stupid. You are only placing single application like web browser to do work what belongs to operating system itself.

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[Anonymous Coward]

It never worked well to begin with, what makes you think it would now? It's junk, garbage, crap.
It fucking sucks.

Re:Microsoft,why the Metro UI as default on deskto

[im_thatoneguy]

Repeat after me:
"I am not the normal desktop user. I am not the normal desktop user. I am not..."

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[Anonymous Coward]

K- what?

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[flimflammer]

It didn't work well initially for performance reasons. These days where we're bleeding performance and people use intensive desktop systems like Rainmeter would fit rather well.

Re:"Metro." They did this before.

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to believe you, I really do, but for me it seems this mobile fad has just balkanized cross-platform and open interoperability.

The walled-garden mobile app model, led by Apple (ironically of all corporations, if you're old enough to remember such things, but not at all ironically if you're still old enough to remember those things), has been sort of a "back-door" sabotage of what has otherwise been a steady march of progress toward openness, led by the web.

What you're saying makes sense, except for one thing: it walls off the openness to things existing "out there", in the cloud, or on another server.

Maybe you want that--maybe it's a good security model from some standpoint--but to me, there's something dangerous about the idea that "it's ok to relinquish openness on what's running closest to the hardware itself in exchange for openness on the network." The former is a lot more powerful than the latter.

How is it on desktop and laptop/notebook usage?

[antdude]

I don't care for tablets, but still do care about computing on desktops, laptops/notebooks, etc.