News - Now anyone can try Windows 8 RTM for free

[HEXUS]

A 90-day trial version of Windows 8 Enterprise edition is now available to download.

Read more.

[Noxvayl]

Downloaded and interested to see what changes have been made.

[aidanjt]

I'll probably do the same, no harm firing up vmware.

[brasco]

Haven't got the time to test at the moment, would be keen to hear if they've made many changes.

[OilSheikh]

So, if you have downloaded and had a testd rive, do share your experiences. Is the Metro UI still there?

[cheesemp]

Even with free MSDN access I can't say I'm in any rush to download it after trying the developer and consumer preview versions....

[d032sh]

To upgrade, the evaluation must be uninstalled and a non-evaluation version of Windows must be re-installed from your original installation media.

Seems a bit annoying, surely they could only bring themselves more sales by allowing an in-place installation purchase option, even if they don't allow it until GA.

[AGTDenton]

Looks like their server is overloaded at the moment. It takes ages once I click on the download link and eventually comes back with a communication error message.

I'd like to try it as its free and worth getting familiar with it especially as someone you know might spring up with a problem.

[MrNeil]

Im going to give it a go i think. It's alright reading about the pros and cons but at least i can say i tried it and can write down about what i think

[Noxvayl]

I've installed the RTM and must say very little has changed as far as I can tell. During the install they do refer to using the corners to open menus so I suspect that will be part of your first start up as a consumer bringing home a new PC which is helpful.

Going through a few things I noticed something quite strange, I say that because I am at a loss to think how such a thing can be omitted and also surprised not to have heard anyone complain about it; I can not find an exit button or means to quit a Metro application while running it without using task manager, it seems that your only option is to use a corner menu to open something else over the app... maybe I'm missing something but this seems insane.

[cheesemp]

Going through a few things I noticed something quite strange, I say that because I am at a loss to think how such a thing can be omitted and also surprised not to have heard anyone complain about it; I can not find an exit button or means to quit a Metro application while running it without using task manager, it seems that your only option is to use a corner menu to open something else over the app... maybe I'm missing something but this seems insane.

No it makes sense if your using a touch a screen - you just swipe it away! And this is the problem with win 8 in a nutshell. Its great if you have a touch screen or use keyboard hot keys a lot. If you primarily use a mouse be prepared for frustration!

[Jude188]

I'll be giving this a good test! Might like it!

[Noxvayl]

No it makes sense if your using a touch a screen - you just swipe it away! And this is the problem with win 8 in a nutshell. Its great if you have a touch screen or use keyboard hot keys a lot. If you primarily use a mouse be prepared for frustration!

I can't even drag it away using a mouse... the only way to stop it from being on my screen is to open something else; If you want the process to stop there is no other way besides using task manager. For an OS designed to integrate mobile and desktop environments this is poor, I doubt anyone wants to leave all their apps loaded in memory regardless of how much RAM you have and it is an enormous waste of resources on a mobile device.

This is how I felt before adjusting the OS to be usable:

I think the majority of customers who get new machines with Windows 8 on will feel like this. I expect more people to want to downgrade to Windows 7 than people who demanded a downgrade from Vista.

To be fair though the rest of the OS is great. Explorer is more user friendly with the ribbon having some very useful links, start up is really fast and everything feels quicker than Windows 7; I am loving the Task Manager, currently use ProcessExplorer from Sysinternals which is powerful but the interface isn't as good and it lacks the services tab; I like having the taskbar extended to my second monitor and being able to pin almost anything to the taskbar or start screen; I also quite like the plain theme, not too bothered about aero. The other bits they've polished off in the guts of the OS are not noticeable to me and I am unlikely to use features like storage spaces.

For my usage Windows 8 is a newly skinned Windows 7 without Gadgets and a Start Menu, both of which I use, so the new offering doesn't offer me enough to upgrade.

[Teyo]

From what I've read of Win8 so far, the upgrade from Win7 is far from worth it. More so people seem to be saying the same thing that it's just Win7 with a new face. MS trying to cash in once again. They should have just released an SP with these upgrades to Win7 instead and focussed on releasing another OS at a much later date.

[dangel]

I've installed the RTM and must say very little has changed as far as I can tell. During the install they do refer to using the corners to open menus so I suspect that will be part of your first start up as a consumer bringing home a new PC which is helpful.

Going through a few things I noticed something quite strange, I say that because I am at a loss to think how such a thing can be omitted and also surprised not to have heard anyone complain about it; I can not find an exit button or means to quit a Metro application while running it without using task manager, it seems that your only option is to use a corner menu to open something else over the app... maybe I'm missing something but this seems insane.

The idea is somewhat like Android - you don't bother with task management for MUI apps because the OS will suspend them and free things up when necessary. You can close them by picking them up top middle and dragging them to the bottom of the screen (which is horrible with a mouse). The threshold can be adjusted with this:

http://winaero.com/comment.php?comment.news.101

..which is better but still horrible if you really must close apps. Also you can Win+Tab to show the task bar and rclick them closed from there (or top left swipe to show the same thing).

I must admit when I first got an android phone I treated it just like my on WinMobile phone and used taskmanagers etc until I found out that it wasn't required (and actually counter productive as it slows things down). Conversely my iPad seems to require rebooting/app killing to stop it from going wobbly once in a while.

Does 8 really require you to close Metro apps constantly? I've never bothered (although i'm not a massive user of them yet) and seen no tangible downside to it.


One thing I do like - the icons and text for legacy apps on the start screen are vastly improved and much clearer.


Boot straight to desktop with no software:

Regedit

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Change the value "Shell" to "explorer.exe /select,explorer.exe" (was "explorer.exe")

[Noxvayl]

@ dangel

I'm using the keyboard short-cut to close them, not that I use Metro apps that often either. I'm also booting to desktop which makes things a lot better for me but I still prefer Windows 7. I'm sure the good features like the new task manager and file copy interface will be available to Windows 7 at some point, if Microsoft don't do it someone else will.