Windows 8 Experiences thread

[0iD]

After reading some of the posts about the Win 8 customer preview, I thought I'd start a thread so people could share their experiences, be they positive or negative, on Windows 8 preview builds.

[Jonj1611]

I hated it in all honesty, would never get used to that metro thing, and on the desktop, without the start button I hate it even more. To be honest, it makes me feel like I am a PC user who really should have a tablet.

I dont think I will ever get used to it and there isn't anything really in it that makes me say, wow I need that.

Think its going to be what vista was to XP, an operating system you think you want then wish you hadn't when you get it. Think I will be staying with Windows 7 which I have a feeling will become the new XP.

[Splash]

I've spent about 10 mins with it in VMWare Workstation and my feelings are largely that it's pretty well done from a tablet/mobile device perspective but I remain to be convinced. Will spend some proper time looking into it though: we all hate change, and the big change in UI is always going to initially stick in the craw of those of us who have been happy with the Windows UI for years.

TBH I'm more interested in the Server 8 experience, but I'm still 45 mins from that download being complete.

[=assassin=]

At least it was mentioned a while back that you can always go back to the 'classic' interface. I assume people have tried it to make sure it is there?

[lodore]

I quite like it. It feels faster than 7. it has less processes running in the background. im not sure about the start screen but I will get used to it. Having one taskbar per monitor is a nice feature. I do not know why it took MS so long but im glad windows 8 has a pdf reader. it does feel weird not having a start button. I have tried most of the applications I use on it and they work fine. I hope they do pre order deals like with 7 because I do intend to buy it. not sure if I will get one or two licenses thou.

its a shame you cant really test out the app store yet. the preview doesn't have proper English for display language. I do like the live ID integration.

I feel microsoft have done a good job of creating an OS that caters for different markets. it does take awhile to get used to certain things.

[TheAnimus]

I think it might be worth people mention the platform they have been evaluating it on at the top of their post.

Ie Desktop with keyboard and mouse
tablet
Desktop with multi touch screen
Desktop with multi touch touchpad.

[directhex]

Frankly, I'm lost.

I can't tell which apps are running

The hidden start menu (fling cursor into bottom left corner) is... wat?

Why is the useful start menu mode (bottom right corner -> search) so hidden?

If you're going to force a touchpad UI onto a desktop user, at least let me deag through the start screen with the mouse, not by finding the piddly little scrollbar

I can't believe they plan on unleashing this as-is on desktop users. Touchscreen eliminates half the concerns, fine, but as-is? Yikes.

[shaithis]

TM2.exe is gone

and if you haven't figured out how to turn metro off

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
"RPEnabled"=dword:00000000

[this_is_gav]

and if you haven't figured out how to turn metro off

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
"RPEnabled"=dword:00000000

Apparently that disables the new Task Manager too though. I say apparently, as it's not working at all for me.

[DannyM]

Doesn't removing the Metro UI basically make it Windows 7? If so, errr... what's the point?

[Hoonigan]

Currently firing this on a USB drive to install on a different partition.

One question.. Why are all the companies going absolutely touch crazy?!

[1stRaven]

Just been testing this at work.

Desktop only - Turn metro off and its ok.
Multitouch screen all in one desktop - Works great. A lot easier to use than win 7 on it.
Rdp - Same as desktop
Rdp from Ipad - Works ok but having some issues with getting the start menu up. I think this is down to the rdp software more than anything.

[aidanjt]

One question.. Why are all the companies going absolutely touch crazy?!

Because all things mobile are making investors wet and weak at the knees. It doesn't matter to them (and they likely simply don't understand) that desktop and mobile are completely different paradigms, mobile is making the news, so everything must go mobile.

[TheAnimus]

Because all things mobile are making investors wet and weak at the knees. It doesn't matter to them (and they likely simply don't understand) that desktop and mobile are completely different paradigms, mobile is making the news, so everything must go mobile.

I don't really think its that simple.

People are more and more spending time and money on their phones. I wouldn't be surprised if, as it stands, the average PC home user spends more in a year of ownership (inital costs asside) on software on their smartphone than they do on their PC.

The thing is Win8 will have the ability to let you have a tablet that can run office, which you can then 'dock' to a proper QWERTY mouse + VDU setup.

I can see that been very useful for the hot desk worker types.

Its their first attempt to make a best of both worlds scenario, right now, as it stands thou, I can't see why I'd be upgrading any desktops, or my mothers laptop to windows 8.

[Spud1]

I've made a post on the wrong thread..but in short I totally agree with DirectHex's comments.

Metro just isn't made for the desktop - thats clear - and it works great on a touch enabled device that you are sat in comfortable toucing distance from.

It's terrible from a desktop user's POV (even with a multi touch screen, when you sit a reasonable distance away from it). It's even worse from a "power user"'s POV.

My general reaction was "wtf?" when I booted it up last night, followed by lots of "Why why why" questions. E.g.

Why is it so much more complicated to shutdown now?
Why does the new "start" screen make it so difficult to see/browse/find my apps?
Why have they taken the "hotspot" concept and implemented it all over the place. It's awful (what's wrong with buttons)
Why go to the effort of thinking about 2 monitors (2nd taskbar is great!) and then make the hotspots on monitor 1 only??

And so on..until I asked my last question.

"Why don't I just turn it off?"

When you do that, it's much better..you get all the technical "under the hood" improvements, which are what really matter, and all the gimmicky touch things that are awesome for a tablet but terrible for a desktop PC, get hidden away.

Time will tell how things turn out - this is only a consumer preview as we know, and MS will listen to the feedback they get and react accordingly. It's clearly not representitve of the final product, and from a more "serious" POV I can start to test my software against it and look at developing some metro apps with a more updated build than the old dev preview. So all that part of it is great, especially since we have a separately installable VS2011 now


edit: this post here seems to give a reasonable collection of viewpoints - which follow the trend we're seeing here..http://windows8beta.com/2012/03/wind...user-reactions

[Terbinator]

Its just too unstable for me to have long enough on it to be annoyed at the minute.

Someone needs to port that task manager to Windows 7 for the time being though.