Windows 8 Consumer Preview

So, I was bored tonight so I decided to install windows 8 on my convertible tablet in my sig (Lenovo s10-3t). It works pretty well, its fast enough and the touch works great. As I expected the new livetile interface is great on a tablet.

One major issue, since this is a netbook(kind of anyway) the native screen resolution is 1024x600 which is not high enough for any of the metro apps to run. If you try to run any of them there is an error stating that the res is too low to run that.
If this system is designed for tough-screens and tablets it needs to be able to support low-res tablets. (my opinion anyway). I will probably be playing with this for the next few days but this tablet-based OS seems to work pretty well on a tablet (still not sold on the desktop aspects but whatever)

Update: I did some research on the web and found that you can force resolutions by editing the regedit; now that I changed it so that it will work on this computer. It distorts everything but it works well. This OS is ideal on this computer. Frankly, it is the best OS on a tablet like this one and it is fun to use.

I've just got round to trying this out. I'm a big fan of Windows 7. Even going so far as to making it my default environment in place of Debian (I have that in a VM so I get the best of both worlds).

I've spent the initial ten minutes trying to resist the urge to make a snap judgement and keep an open mind. But that's about as long as I could go. I'm a professional user. What I see in front of me is some junior lego-like toy. It's probably fine on a tablet. Who cares? This is almost utter rubbish.

VERY disappointed. I don't know what they were thinking.

I ran it for 3 days on my laptop. Uggg, I could not stand the tablet interface with mouse/keyboard. Oh god, so horrid. It would run great on a tablet or phone, but for a laptop or desktop, There HAS to be away to turn off that UI. If you can not turn off that UI, looks like I'll stick with win7 till they stop supporting it.

I've got it installed in a VM. I just click on my user profile in the upper right of Metro and it gets me to the regular desktop without all the colored tiles. Haven't spent much time playing around in it yet. I have to shut down F@H SMP2 Debian Linux client to open up the Win8 VM. Don't want to lose any bonus points in F@H by shutting it down in the middle of a WU. I'll have to try and catch an opening between WUs to play with Win8 again.

I see the same complaints whenever Microsoft changes the UI. People bitched when XP came out so they had the option to go back to the classic UI. Vista/Win7 same thing about the UI. I imagine there will be an option to switch back to the familiar Win7 UI too. They are perhaps forcing people to try the Metro by making it hard to switch off Metro. Eventually most people will learn Metro and get used to it. I can't image Microsoft not implementing a classic option in the RTM version.

Don't forget that mobile devices are the majority compared to desktops and even laptops and that trend is continuing into the foreseeable future.

Audioaficionado said:

I've got it installed in a VM. I just click on my user profile in the upper right of Metro and it gets me to the regular desktop without all the colored tiles.

Click to expand...

But if I only had to do that extra click on starting up once, I might tolerate it, though it would be a constant irritation. But in order to start up new programs, I have to hover around in the top-right trying to get the invisible side menu to appear or hit the Windows key, go back to Metro, find the program I want in a non-hierarchical layout of what I have installed, then go back to Desktop. Every time, so far as I can work out. Alternately, I could clutter up my Desktop with a hideous screenfull of shortcuts. Also - 'blegh'.

And the Metro interface does not scale well. It might be fine if you have half a dozen things you regularly want to access. I have just counted 20 programs that I regularly use in my Start list.

Audioaficionado said:

I see the same complaints whenever Microsoft changes the UI. People bitched when XP came out so they had the option to go back to the classic UI. Vista/Win7 same thing about the UI. I imagine there will be an option to switch back to the familiar Win7 UI too. They are perhaps forcing people to try the Metro by making it hard to switch off Metro. Eventually most people will learn Metro and get used to it. I can't image Microsoft not implementing a classic option in the RTM version.

Click to expand...

With respect, I disagree. The above paints people who dislike the new as simply being against change.

I went from Win 95 to Win 2000 and thought it great. I went from Win 2K to XP and initially disliked it not because I didn't think it was good, but because SP1 hadn't come out yet and it was very buggy. Post SP1, I again thought it was very good. Vista came out and I disliked it. I had good reasons for disliking it I think. Like XP when it first appeared, it was very problematic until the first Service Pack had come out for it. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. Vista did a lot of good things under the bonnet, but it wasn't until Windows 7 they could build on that properly and make something really good. With MS Office, when they introduced the ribbon, there were a tonne of people knee-jerking how they didn't like it. I sat down and tried it out and found it a really big improvement. Basically, I don't think I'm someone who just complains when things change and then eventually gets used to it. Which is kind of what you're implying. I have very supportable reasons why I dislike what I've seen of Win8 so far. I've explained them. They don't come down to what I am used to. If I can demonstrate that it is slower to start something in Win8 than in Win7, then that is an actual fact.

Audioaficionado said:

Don't forget that mobile devices are the majority compared to desktops and even laptops and that trend is continuing into the foreseeable future.

Click to expand...

Maybe. But as I said: this might be fine for many types of mobile device, but I'm assessing it based on my need to sit at a desk and work. I don't care if it's a great O/S on a bloody tablet. Tablets are mainly good for lying on the sofa browsing the web. I would never want to prep a large spreadsheet on one or develop software on one. I want an O/S that is geared to my desktop and laptop needs when using my desktop.

Perhaps the RTM will be more to your liking or maybe not...

Until then one of these might be the workaround.

Audioaficionado said:

Perhaps the RTM will be more to your liking or maybe not...

Click to expand...

I hope so. I've been semi-putting off a new laptop upgrade because I didn't want to buy just before Win8 came out. I'm crossing my fingers that there will be alternative, more professional set ups available when Win8 actually comes out. I've been really impressed by Windows and Office for the last few years. XP was okay, though I was a real Linux-snob at the time and wanted to do everything on KDE. I would really hate to see MS do a train-wreck. Particularly as that would leavethe Apple monoculture to continue to devour the IT world.

h4rm0ny said:

I hope so. I've been semi-putting off a new laptop upgrade because I didn't want to buy just before Win8 came out. I'm crossing my fingers that there will be alternative, more professional set ups available when Win8 actually comes out. I've been really impressed by Windows and Office for the last few years. XP was okay, though I was a real Linux-snob at the time and wanted to do everything on KDE. I would really hate to see MS do a train-wreck. Particularly as that would leavethe Apple monoculture to continue to devour the IT world.

Click to expand...

I believe that if they force the Metro UI on everyone all of the hardcore users (programmers, IT, and Gamers) will either use 7 or switch to a Linux distro. I dont see anyone that spends that kind of time on a computer having the patience to use the New Metro. I have been debating this issue for a little while myself.

One problem I've noticed, at least with this early pre-release, is that it will not allow you to override the warning message that a driver is not Windows certified. I have a USB video capture device that worked fine in Win 7 and Win 8 won't let me install the driver. I hope MS changes that.

I have Windows 8 installed on TruckPuter 2012 and I really like it.

It found everything during installation and the only manufacturer-supplied software I "had" to install was the Asus AI Suite, mainly so I could use the Temperature Monitor portion.

As others have said, it balks at lower resolutions on the monitor, but I got a new Lilliput touchscreen for the Truck and I can run the tile apps fine now.

Since its main use in my truck is to replay videos I download from Youtube and play music, I have it set up to start Windows Media Player.

One note: I was connected to my home network synching vids and music and stumbled across my recording of one of the recent superbowls that I recorded in MS Vista. I double-clicked the file and it started up Windows 8 Media Center. It's there, but I did not have my USB TV Tuner connected to go through the rest of the setup process. I will rectify that soon and will just have Media Center start up upon bootup.

Overall, I am tolerant of the tile interface, but am moderately impressed with the polish of the product at this early stage. They didn't do half-bad this time.

notarat said:

Overall, I am tolerant of the tile interface, but am moderately impressed with the polish of the product at this early stage. They didn't do half-bad this time.

Click to expand...

I will admit that although the new interface may not be as easy to use on a desktop, it does look very nice and it seems to work fairly well, especially for a beta product.

I haven't tried it yet, but just by watching the preview videos I can tell that it will be really annoying to have to move your cursor all the way to the corners to access start, settings, and other stuff. It wouldn't be so bad if they came up with some good mouse gestures or keyboard shortcuts. I have the Asus Transformer Android tablet and I use the keyboard and mousepad a lot with the dock. I can attest that it's really not bad at all using a mouse with a mobile OS. However, it is nice that I always have the option of using my finger to navigate instead of the mouse.

not really liking the tablet feel to it.. seems cheap?

Windows 8 mouse and keyboard meet Metro [video review]

Thanks for the video. I'll give it a try this weekend.

Maybe it's just me. But here's what happened.

I decided to play around with Win 8 today (haven't touched it for more than a week) which was installed on a separate HDD on my main computer. Booted in with no problem. Checked updates which showed there were 4 new updates. Updated and rebooted. I couldn't get into Win 8 again. There was only a black screen. So went back into Win 7. It said I had to check my disks for errors. Okay. And there was a whole boatload of errors. Chkdsk had to delete, fix and recover a multitude of files on ALL my HDDs, including my SSD which housed my main Win 7 O/S. When chkdsk was done I could get back into Win 7.

Tried to do a new fresh install of Win 8. Same problem. During installation and when it had to reboot I could only get as far as a black screen. Had to do a hard Reset. But still only to a black screen. So back to Win 7. Chkdsk popped up again and again there was a boatload of errors which it fixed. Got back into Win 7. Tried to start MS Outlook. It said my PST file was missing. Now it seems I've lost alll my emails. Now I'm downloading various Recovery software to see if I can recover the PST file.

Don't know whether it's Win 8's fault, the new updates or whether it was my system. No matter what, I'm not going to install Win 8 Consumer Review on my main system ever again.

neo668 said:

Maybe it's just me. But here's what happened.

I decided to play around with Win 8 today (haven't touched it for more than a week) which was installed on a separate HDD on my main computer. Booted in with no problem. Checked updates which showed there were 4 new updates. Updated and rebooted. I couldn't get into Win 8 again. There was only a black screen. So went back into Win 7. It said I had to check my disks for errors. Okay. And there was a whole boatload of errors. Chkdsk had to delete, fix and recover a multitude of files on ALL my HDDs, including my SSD which housed my main Win 7 O/S. When chkdsk was done I could get back into Win 7.

Tried to do a new fresh install of Win 8. Same problem. During installation and when it had to reboot I could only get as far as a black screen. Had to do a hard Reset. But still only to a black screen. So back to Win 7. Chkdsk popped up again and again there was a boatload of errors which it fixed. Got back into Win 7. Tried to start MS Outlook. It said my PST file was missing. Now it seems I've lost alll my emails. Now I'm downloading various Recovery software to see if I can recover the PST file.

Don't know whether it's Win 8's fault, the new updates or whether it was my system. No matter what, I'm not going to install Win 8 Consumer Review on my main system ever again.

Click to expand...

I had issues with Windows 8 as well. When I installed Windows 7, it was on my SSD, and so was the hidden partition. When I installed Windows 8 on the same SSD, it took the bootloader to my 2TB HDD, which in return completely destroyed my Windows 7 boot manager.

Had to rebuild the entire thing. Was a pain.

Rule #1 when installing windows:

Always always always disconnect all other hard drives you don't want it touching while it installs.

Audioaficionado said:

Rule #1 when installing windows:

Always always always disconnect all other hard drives you don't want it touching while it installs.

Click to expand...

Yep. I learned that the hard way.

i hate metro with passion
how would it be practical for business use?