[Alexander Lee]

Windows Consumer Preview (Beta) is now live, download it here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso

http://www.zdnet.com/photos/setting-up-windows-8-consumer-preview-with-virtualbox-gallery/6347416 -- It's simple enough, but if you need hand holding, there's that.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/ -- Official blog Windows 8

http://channel9.msdn.com/events/BUILD/BUILD2011 -- Videos of Windows 8 and Windows Server 8's official announcement and run-through.

http://lifehacker.com/5889345/this-is-what-using-windows-8-actually-looks-and-feels-like?tag=windows-8

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/29/microsoft-windows-8-consumer-preview-detailed-impressions/

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Windows-8-Windows-9-Apollo-WinStore-Release-Candidate,13804.html -- If true, Microsoft may be hedging on Windows 8 being a flop.

Anyway, just continue discussing how much you love/hate/love to hate Windows 8/Metro UI

Anyway, according to some people on http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1523704 and http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/238-73-windows-consumer-preview-disable-metro, Metro can no longer be disabled by any means:

i think its dead end with win7 style on windows 8 cp
DWM is not longer normal service its hidden in the kernel i think

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but MS has already stated they scrapped the code for the Start Menu. It's not hidden, the registry edit doesn't work because it's not there to enable and Metro can no longer be disabled.

This also could mean the end of Windows Shell replacment programs.

---- Start Menu Alternatives for Windows 8 -----

http://frogboy.joeuser.com/article/418946/Windows_8_Start_button_returns

http://www.intowindows.com/start-menu-for-windows-8/

http://www.askvg.com/manual-method-get-classic-start-menu-back-in-windows-7-without-using-3rd-party-software/

[Laura-Jayne Lee]

Any chance of them to completely rethink Windows 8?

[Madison Poo]

Any chance of them to completely rethink Windows 8?

Yup, it's called Windows 9.

[Cayal]

Any chance of them to completely rethink Windows 8?

None. Windows 8 will ship with Metro.

Maaaaaybe if Microsoft decides, for the professional version of Windows 8 there will be a way to disable Metro, but I doubt there will be an obvious way for the Home versions.

More likely there's only going to be a group policy to push users into desktop mode, as that's what is hinted at currently

Run gpedit.msc and navigate to:

User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar -> Do not show the start menu when the user logs in

Currently it can only be applied to Windows Server 8, it also doesn't disable metro, just throws people into the desktop by default. Metro will still kick in when they go to open the "menu"

This group policy only applies to the Windows Server 8 Beta with the Desktop Experience Pack installed.

If you enable this setting, the user will see the desktop after logging in to a new session, instead of seeing the Start menu. The Start Menu will continue to function as normal, except that it will not show automatically after login.

If you disable this setting or do not configure it, the Start Menu will appear after the user logs in to a new session.

[chloe hampson]

Please, I'm all ears as to what on earth seems more user-friendly about this?

Installing and uninstalling software is easier than it's ever been.
The task manager looks more useful.
File transfer functionality has improved -- better time calculation, pause/start commands and more options in the event of a conflict.
It's faster than 7.
The best plug-and-play yet. This feature has always been something that's not been implemented properly, and it bugs me to no end.

I really don't spend a lot of time navigating through the OS. Everything I do actually do, Win 8 seems to have improved.

All they really need to do to make it clearly better than 7 is replace the start page with a(n improved) start menu.

[Manny(BAKE)]

I really like some of the features they showcased in that video. I'm thinking about trying it out.

Is there a way I could just partition another part of my HDD and install it on that partition? If so wouldn't I have to set it to Boot from that new partition and not the current OS partition through BIOS? How hard would it be to do that and would it be possible to un-partition it and delete it if I don't like it?

I'm guessing yes to all of these, but just making sure. I don't like to mess around when it comes to OS's since I seem to find ways to screw them up on a regular basis.

[Danger Mouse]

Installing and uninstalling software is easier than it's ever been.

When it comes to metro apps, yes, but this is because Metro apps are basically like apps on Mac OS X and self-contained. And the trade-off for this? Metro apps can only be installed through the Windows App Store. You have to give Microsoft your credit card information to use the store (even for free apps), and by default (in a hidden by default setting) Metro apps are allowed to get your name, picture, and email information. So nice Microsoft. The user-friendliness of this (which only applies to Metro apps) is far outweighed by the negatives it adds.

The task manager looks more useful.

Real sysadmins use Process Explorer or System Explorer. Process Explorer has been a Microsoft tool for a long time. If anything, you should be angry at Microsoft for not shipping Windows with it sooner. It's also not a user-friendly feature still for any luddite and doesn't clarify the difference between metro apps in-use compared to frozen metro apps. All a luddite will see is them using Memory and after the bad rap Vista got, will consider that a bad thing even though it is a good thing.

File transfer functionality has improved -- better time calculation, pause/start commands and more options in the event of a conflict.

This is the one thing that has improved. ONE thing, that's not enough to consider it more user-friendly, especially considering all the very anti-user things that Windows 8 did (the best example of that is how convoluted shutting down Windows 8 is compared to 3 keyboard button presses or two mouse clicks in WIndows 7)

It's faster than 7.

No it isn't, I proved that in the last thread with benchmarks. Not to mention that's not a user-friendly feature, just a nice one.

The best plug-and-play yet. This feature has always been something that's not been implemented properly, and it bugs me to no end.

How so? I've read nothing of this being true, not even an MS whitepaper.

I really don't spend a lot of time navigating through the OS. Everything I do actually do, Win 8 seems to have improved.

All they really need to do to make it clearly better than 7 is replace the start page with a(n improved) start menu.

Which won't happen.


To reiterate what I've said in the last thread: Windows 8 is a dandy tablet OS and even has some nice new features, but the schizophrenia that is switching between classic desktop and metro along with the plain anti-user behavior makes it a horrible desktop OS.

I really like some of the features they showcased in that video. I'm thinking about trying it out.

Is there a way I could just partition another part of my HDD and install it on that partition? If so wouldn't I have to set it to Boot from that new partition and not the current OS partition through BIOS? How hard would it be to do that and would it be possible to un-partition it and delete it if I don't like it?

I'm guessing yes to all of these, but just making sure. I don't like to mess around when it comes to OS's since I seem to find ways to screw them up on a regular basis.

You'll mess with your MBR and may need to repair it when you remove Windows 8. This is why it's best to install it to either a completely separate drive (removing the current one otherwise Windows will detect it and modify the MBR still anyway), using a separate computer entirely, or best: use a virtual machine.

[Rachel Briere]

Like I said, I won't be paying for it if I do get it, so I'm interested in what it may have to offer. If this turns out to not be much, that won't be a big inconvenience to me.

When it comes to metro apps, yes...

I was under the impression that this works for all programs? You just right click, "uninstall" and confirm? If not,

No it isn't, I proved that in the last thread with benchmarks. Not to mention that's not a user-friendly feature, just a nice one.

I won't go into why it is a user-friendly feature but I meant that the OS feels more responsive than 7 does. Not so? Menus pop up more quickly, there's less lag, etc.

How so? I've read nothing of this being true, not even an MS whitepaper.

I've read it in a few places. Could be false, for all I know, but if it is true... A lot of people are reporting that their devices are being picked up with much less hassle than was previously the case.

Which won't happen.

Didn't the developer preview have this feature? I don't see why they couldn't reintroduce it in one or more of the Win 8 packages.

[Bloomer]

I was under the impression that this works for all programs? You just right click, "uninstall" and confirm? If not,

It's possible for it to be done for MSI installed-applications as well if they are released through the app store and set up to do so, but otherwise it's just not possible to do that due to uninstall configuration. Even if it had the option, it'd kick you back to classic desktop to go through the uninstall process.

I won't go into why it is a user-friendly feature but I meant that the OS feels more responsive than 7 does. Not so? Menus pop up more quickly, there's less lag, etc.

I can't compare on bare-metal, but I have virtualized Win7s as well, and it's no more responsive than the virtualized Win7s. It does boot faster because of hybrid boot being enabled by default, but I have never cared for hibernation-based booting. Leaves too much to chance for me to ever trust it and I like having a clean slate when I boot up.

Even accepting that there is more responsiveness by the system, this is faaaaaar offset by the amount of mouseclicks and lack of keyboard accessibility for so many things. Keyboard = speed, mouse clicks = extreme slowdown. It takes 3+ mouseclicks (which involve a lot of mouse movement due to where the menus are and Microsoft's inability to follow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts) to do things I could do entirely by keyboard before. Not to mention things that took significantly less clicks before.

I've read it in a few places. Could be false, for all I know, but if it is true... A lot of people are reporting that their devices are being picked up with much less hassle than was previously the case.

If it was an actual thing, it'd be all over the building windows 8 blog, but they've not said anything on there. What you're talking about is built-in drivers and Windows 7 is the main one that did that. Windows 8 inherited this from Windows 7 and is able to fall-back on Windows 7 for drivers (just like Windows 7 was able to fall-back on Windows Vista for drivers).

Didn't the developer preview have this feature? I don't see why they couldn't reintroduce it in one or more of the Win 8 packages.

Microsoft has made it clear they aren't returning it. You can't even do it for windows server 8 when you install the desktop goodies. All that exists is an option to skip displaying the start screen, and that currently only supports Windows Server 8, not Win8.

The reason the feature was in Windows 8 Dev Preview was because Windows 8 Dev Preview was Windows 7 running on NT 6.2 kernel with Metro contained in a handful of DLLs being added as an overlay. Microsoft changed this with the Consumer Preview and now Metro UI is baked into the kernel. As I quoted in the OP, some are even saying that the start menu code has been completely removed, and from all my searching that does seem to be the case.

[jennie xhx]

To reiterate what I've said in the last thread: Windows 8 is a dandy tablet OS and even has some nice new features, but the schizophrenia that is switching between classic desktop and metro along with the plain anti-user behavior makes it a horrible desktop OS.

This. I might get it on my acer tablet tho.

[Ice Fire]

It takes 3+ mouseclicks (which involve a lot of mouse movement due to where the menus are and Microsoft's inability to follow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts) to do things I could do entirely by keyboard before. Not to mention things that took significantly less clicks before.

Such as? I can't imagine Microsoft would release an OS that didn't have shortcuts for things. It may just not be in the preview. (Then again, they do stupid things all the time.)

[Ian White]

Such as? I can't imagine Microsoft would release an OS that didn't have shortcuts for things. It may just not be in the preview. (Then again, they do stupid things all the time.)

Two I've already stated were launching a program as administrator and shutting down your PC.

Shutting down Windows 7 is dead-easy and I don't even use the mouse. Open the start menu with windows key, press right arrow to select shutdown, press enter and walk away. It was by far the best feature introduced with Windows Vista (though you had to modify Vista to shutdown by default button instead of hibernate) and it is now gone. Using the mouse is the biggest waste of time there is when you can use the keyboard intead since you're already on it typing. Open new tab? ctrl-t. Open a tab I accidentally closed? ctrl-shift-t. Need to click a link somewhere? . type link title (/ type link title on Firefox) and press enter. Need to go to a different url? Ctrl-L

The keyboard and I are good friends, I rarely leave it when working. Windows 8 is like a nightmare for anyone keyboard proficient. Now to shut down I have to enter metro (if on desktop). THis requires going to the bottom left corner. Now I have to go to the top-right corner (fitts's law violated) and hover. then a menu appears and I have to go to the bottom right of the menu (fitts's law violated) and click there. Now I have to click the power button, then I have to click shutdown. THAT IS INSANE THAT I MUST JUMP THROUGH ALL THOSE HOOPS JUST TO SHUT DOWN

the only way I've found to shut down Windows 8 with only the keyboard is to go winkey + type cmd + type shutdown.exe /s which has a minimum timer of 10 seconds after which you'll shut down. This is significantly slower than 3 keyboard button presses

[Amanda savory]

you switch between desktop and metro with start key right? I think you can get to the shutdown menu with holding start key. But it's been several months since I tried teh preview.

[Matt Fletcher]

Anyway, just continue discussing how much you love/hate/love to hate Windows 8/Metro UI

I love the Metro design and I really love how they are using basic css / javascript to create application GUIs but I hate that they're forcing Metro on us.

I installed Win8 last night on a netbook and I'm liking it so far. It feels more responsive than Win7 and it fits the small screen perfectly. I'm not sure about using Win8 on my gaming computer, I'll have to wait for proper game benchmarks to make that decision.

[Trey Johnson]

*Sigh* Microsoft is making Windows 8 Editions even more complicated, it looks like

http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/02/windows-8-versions/

Windows 8 Starter
Windows 8 Home Basic
Windows 8 Home Premium
Windows 8 Professional
Windows 8 Professional Plus
Windows 8 Enterprise
Windows 8 Enterprise Eval
Windows 8 Ultimate
Windows 8 ARM edition

Needs to be only three (at most four) editions. Home, Professional, ARM. If MS finds it absolutely necessary, combine Enterprise (which is only available through VLK) and Ultimate as one offering and make it available to everyone.

[Ana]

*Sigh* Microsoft is making Windows 8 Editions even more complicated, it looks like

http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/02/windows-8-versions/


Needs to be only three (at most four) editions. Home, Professional, ARM. If MS finds it absolutely necessary, combine Enterprise (which is only available through VLK) and Ultimate as one offering and make it available to everyone.

Geeze o.O

What would be the differences between Starter and Home Basic and Home Premium? Is it added features or programs?

[Mark Churchman]

Geeze o.O

What would be the differences between Starter and Home Basic and Home Premium? Is it added features or programs?

Starter was reserved for netbooks and only 32-bit, pretty much in Windows 7. Home Basic in Vista was a limited version of Home Premium (lacked Aero Glass effects, but had 64-bit support limited to 8 GB of RAM), In Windows 7 it was only released in specific countries, not everywhere. Home Premium is just normal.

It's ridiculous though, just release one home edition, one professional edition, and one ARM edition. If needed, release an enterprise-ready edition, but don't create artificial segmentation by splitting it between consumers who want all the features (ultiamte) and the business-oriented full-featured one (Enterprise)

[Lauren Denman]

I was recently trying to install Windows 8 Consumer Preview in VMware.....but it keeps crashing upon install.

I was installing it using remote desktop to the physical machine that holds my VMs. I gave it 1.5GB RAM, 40GB HDD space and 2 cores out of my Phenom IIx4 @3.7Ghz.

http://i438.photobucket.com/albums/qq102/Starforce9/Windows8ConsumerPreviewFail.jpg

[Syaza Ramali]

Now that I've had the chance to play around with W8 for a couple days, I've come to a few conclusions:

-It's much faster than W7, which is a welcome change. Boot times and general responsiveness.
-Metro apps are pretty, but far from efficient as of now. I agree with Defron about lack of efficiency with a mouse with anything Metro-related. Start, shutdowns, IE10, etc. It's just awful. Even some changes to "Desktop" are problematic. It took me a very long time to find Control Panel or Add/Remove Programs. I just don't understand why Microsoft decided to hide essential features like this away. It takes much longer to get to them now, and for what purpose?
-No other new features of any significance.

I love Windows 8's speed, but as of now it is SEVERELY lacking in efficiency and usablilty, especially with a mouse and keyboard. I don't know how any of this would translate over to a tablet, and to be honest: I don't care. Installing W8 on a seperate partition alongside W7 allows me to use all of my W7 programs with W8, without reinstalling. I'm happy to know that games and other software are compatible, but that's just it: I'm not doing anything differently with W8. I'm just trying to figure out how to make it more like W7. What this tells me is that W8 is fundamentally broken. It's not a matter of "change is bad." It simply doesn't work. W8 offers no new features of any value, and breaks or hides old essentials in the process.

Looking forward to Windows 9.

[Flesh Tunnel]

Okay I installed WIndows 8 and everything's great, but now I can't connect to the internet on my Xbox through my laptop anymore. I had it set up where I just shared the connection with the local area connection and it worked fine in Windows 7 (not a bridged connection, just shared). But now my Xbox can connect. I tried making it a bridged connection and that doesn't work either, and it actually caused the network control panel to lock up.

I really want to keep Windows 8 but I need to connect to Xbox Live through my laptop.

Any ideas?

When I click diagnose problem in windows it says the LAN does'nt have a valid IP configuration...

[Trevor Bostwick]

It's ridiculous though, just release one home edition, one professional edition, and one ARM edition. If needed, release an enterprise-ready edition, but don't create artificial segmentation by splitting it between consumers who want all the features (ultiamte) and the business-oriented full-featured one (Enterprise)

The article mentions that Win7 had 6 listed during a beta or something, too, but they didn't actually release that many in final retail. So we can hope it's same this time.
But if not....yeah, that's pretty silly.

-It's much faster than W7, which is a welcome change. Boot times and general responsiveness.

I have noticed "boot time" seems faster. I haven't pulled out my stopwatch yet to see exactly how much, but it feels significant. Not quite as convinced about the latter yet....but it's not installed on my personal rig (hubs doesn't build/use 'gamer' rigs), so hard for me to compare to what I'm used to.

[Haley Cooper]

I was recently trying to install Windows 8 Consumer Preview in VMware.....but it keeps crashing upon install.

I was installing it using remote desktop to the physical machine that holds my VMs. I gave it 1.5GB RAM, 40GB HDD space and 2 cores out of my Phenom IIx4 @3.7Ghz.

http://i438.photobucket.com/albums/qq102/Starforce9/Windows8ConsumerPreviewFail.jpg

VMWare workstation... Windows 8 doesn't work on VMWare Workstation 7 or older.

I have noticed "boot time" seems faster. I haven't pulled out my stopwatch yet to see exactly how much, but it feels significant. Not quite as convinced about the latter yet....but it's not installed on my personal rig (hubs doesn't build/use 'gamer' rigs), so hard for me to compare to what I'm used to.

Boot time is definitely faster, this is due to hybrid boot, basically it's a partial-hibernation wakeup to speed the boot time. As to general responsiveness I'm calling shenanigans. All benchmarks put it at the same as Windows 7 (besides mentioned boot time) and my experience tells me the same. Anything anyone is "feeling" is faster I say is due to confirmation bias or due to it being a clean install unlike whatever condition your Windows 7 install was. It's always impressive how much of a difference a fresh install of Windows can make, but don't confuse that with Windows 8 actually being faster.

[Lucy]

Okay my Xbox connection just randomly started working now.

So far I'm liking 8, though it took me awhile to figure out how to restart my computer. Nothing is self-explanatory in Windows 8, I feel like they're going to have trouble getting older users to update to it. I can't see my grandmother navigating in Windows 8 after just now finally getting the hang of the Windows format. She just gets comfortable using a computer and now they go and rearrange everything... LOL

[Alyce Argabright]

I love the Metro design and I really love how they are using basic css / javascript to create application GUIs but I hate that they're forcing Metro on us.

That's actually one of the things I hate. Then again, I haven't really looked into what any of the object models or other APIs look like. It just seems like a huge step back from WPF, which is one of the best (if not the best) GUI frameworks I've ever used. HTML, CSS, and Javascript have evolved into a giant mess, IMO, and need to be completely reworked. Javascript (IMO) is also a lot less intuitive than languages like Java, C#, and Python. The syntax for doing most OO development in Javascript is a disaster, and I still haven't seen Javascript debugging tools that come anywhere close to those available for the aforementioned languages. Don't even get me started on CSS...why you would want to do everything by typesetting standards in a GUI is beyond me.

[Cat Haines]

It's always impressive how much of a difference a fresh install of Windows can make, but don't confuse that with Windows 8 actually being faster.

Good point, and would agree.
The faster boot would definitely be appealing, however....especially since I don't use SSD. My Win7 boot times aren't bad relatively speaking (30-40 seconds) but I think that's largely because I never have many start-ups that run at bootup.