Windows 8 - Developer Preview Options

[Charcoal]

The Windows 8 Developer Preview is now up for download.

Linky Link

I'm not really one to jump on board with a release like this on any machine I actually use for anything.
But through the power of visualisation, I'll be testing it on a VM and will post some impressions soon.

[Cybes]

Looking forward to your review, Charcoal. It's going to need to be pretty damn special to get me to migrate from 7 so soon.

[twinair]

Already coming down :) Hope it likes being installed as a VM.

[juggtron]

i couldn't get the direct download to work so I had to use torrents, it seems to be coming down ok but its only up to 5 %. Should i post the magnet link here?

[Charcoal]

Already coming down :) Hope it likes being installed as a VM.

I'm running a C2D, with 4gb of ram. And am currently installing it in a mostly default VirtualBox VM (i put the vm ram to 2Gb).
It took me three tries to get the instalker started, but then I was running a few memory hogging apps at the same time...

Installation is going fine now.
It's basically windows 7 so far :-P

This post has been edited by Charcoal: Sep 14 2011, 04:22 PM

[twinair]

Well I plan on running it in a Hyper-V server, so hopefully it plays nicer than VirtualBox.

[SquallStrife]

Running it in VirtualBox right now. Performance is OK, but I think that sometimes it doesn't recognise a mouse click the first time..?

The biggest and most obvious thing is that the "Start Menu" has been replaced with something that resembles Windows Phone 7.

What am I talking about..."resembles"... it's the exact same interface, but now it's massive. And green.

The first thing I imagine is that you'd have to scroll forever with more than a dozen or so applications installed, so hopefully there's some tools hidden somewhere to tinker with the Start....er...panel...(?) layout.

[kikz]

am sucking down this version "Windows Developer Preview with developer tools English, 64-bit (x64)" atm. Will be checking out what it means for a Dev... I aint blogging it here tho :p

[SquallStrife]

The demo apps look like they've come right off the screen of a phone. No or minimal UI displayed, 'til you right-click, which reveals a phone-like panel of clickable buttons along the bottom of the screen.

After about 10 minutes of frantic clicking and keyboard mashing, I discovered that the way to exit these full-screen apps is to hit the Windows key on the keyboard.......just like a phone. Ugh. Then when you click the "Desktop" tile to return to a familiar setting, you think you're in the clear, but a quick check of the simplified Task Manager reveals all the crap you've started still running in the background. Just like a phone.

I've just noticed that if you move the most close enough to the left edge of the screen, you get a little thumbnail of the "next" app that's running, and if you click it will switch over to that task.

So far... Not sure if want.

Oh, and it has a lock screen, with an image you drag up to unlock it.

Yeah...

[Cybes]

Oh, and it has a lock screen, with an image you drag up to unlock it.

Sounds like it's aimed squarely at tablets.

[A Hitman]

Oh, and it has a lock screen, with an image you drag up to unlock it.

Console port!!!!!!!!!!!
oh wait
Phone port!!!!!!!!

[Charcoal]

So it's installed and I can't say I like it.
It feels like it would be a great interface on a tablet, but for my PC? No thank you.

And I remember when the change tothe two column start menu came along, I was ine if a handful, of people that liked it. Again, I do not like this "start" menu.

I do like the ribbon menu in office 07 and 10, it does help useability. I'm not sold on it in explorer, but mainly because it's so big...

The snapping of one of the HTML5 apps to the side of the screen is nice. But why can't I have two (either side, ir top and bottom on one side) and why is there a huge green bar between the main and side views?

[atg]

Been playing with this today... Ugh *shudder* I'll echo the call that the new GUI would be fine for a tablet but sucks for a desktop/laptop... I saw my folks tonight and showed it to them to get a non-techies view of it. In my Dad's words "It looks like a kids play-and-learn toy computer".

[.:Cyb3rGlitch:.]

I'm still waiting for the download to complete. I don't think this will be a hit, it feels like a ploy to draw attention to their phone OS, rather than to actually attempt to make a good desktop OS. I can see this backfiring.

That being said, I'll reserve my final judgement until after I get to play.

[SceptreCore]

Keep in mind it's a developer preview. Not even a pre-release candidate at this stage, so it's probably meant to be a hashed together bastard.

This post has been edited by SceptreCore: Sep 15 2011, 01:10 AM

[SquallStrife]

I think Slashdot summed it up perfectly:

Perhaps the biggest is that Metro now provides an alternative environment that doesn't use the age old Win32 API. This means no more overlapping windows — yes Metro really does take the windows out of Windows.

The full-screen, touch centric interface seems to be the grand plan for Windows 8. Will 2012 be the end of the humble window?

This post has been edited by SquallStrife: Sep 15 2011, 10:41 AM

[Charcoal]

I think Slashdot summed it up perfectly:

Perhaps the biggest is that Metro now provides an alternative environment that doesn't use the age old Win32 API. This means no more overlapping windows — yes Metro really does take the windows out of Windows.

The full-screen, touch centric interface seems to be the grand plan for Windows 8. Will 2012 be the end of the humble window?

I find that Slashdot rarely sums up anything Microsoft related "perfectly".

The (mostly) normal interface is there.
There's just a slick, "easy" to use interface for mums and kids that shows up before it.

[SquallStrife]

I find that Slashdot rarely sums up anything Microsoft related "perfectly".

Rarely is true.

But have you fired up VS11? Create a "Metro style" application, and it runs full screen, as you would expect on a phone or tablet. Everything I've heard points to this as the goal for W8.

The (mostly) normal interface is there.
There's just a slick, "easy" to use interface for mums and kids that shows up before it.

Nah, the new design paradigm goes far beyond the Start panel-tiles-thing. I get the feeling that the current intention is for the classic desktop interface to be for compatibility more than anything else.

This post has been edited by SquallStrife: Sep 15 2011, 11:11 AM

[SquallStrife]

Also, you can compile your VS apps for ARM CPUs, another sign of Microsoft's new direction.

[Periander]

Install doesn't play nice with Microsoft Virtual PC. Going to try Virtual Box.