Windows 8 preview release is now available

Downloaded, will play over the weekend when I have some time.
 
Downloading at home atm.....

Actually looking forward to this, it seems to fix a few of my gripes with the CP.
 
Yep, will be downloading and installing over the weekend. Hopefully a lot of the beta issues are gone.
 
mcryan said:
Yep, will be downloading and installing over the weekend. Hopefully a lot of the beta issues are gone.
Click to expand...

What issues? The bit of time I work on Consumer preview had none, in fact I replaced my Windows 7 base. Granted I spend most of my time in Linux but still did not have any crashes or app problems on 8.
 
I had quite a lot of issues, not huge ones, just little bugs you would expect from a beta product. The occasional app or game not working, occasional crash. But it was usable as a main OS.
 
Will download over the weekend, along with the latest Linux Mint and set up a dual boot :)
 
Synaesthesia said:
Busy downloading.

Here's an long and detailed critique of Windows 8 to read while y'all wait for the D/L (8000 words!)
Agree with a lot of what he says

Fear and Loathing and Windows 8
Click to expand...

A couple of good points he makes, yes! I for one think Windows 8 is going to change the way we see computing forever. From an app developer's point of view I'm really excited. Especially after using the dev tools. Neither Android nor Apple's dev tools are really enterprise ready, but MS has been in the developer space for a long, loooooooong time, and you can see that coming through here.
 
I pretty much agree that Windows 8 is made with tablets in mind. It works ok on the desktop, but the charms bar is much more intuitive on a touchscreen, and the whole simplified Metro look is clearly tablet-oriented.

This is not a bad thing, it's very forward-looking of MS, IMO. Just as laptops have usurped desktops as the mainstream PC right now, Tablets will become the mainstream PC in a few years. Microsoft want to make a tablet device which can serve your media consumption and creation needs. If they pull it off they will stay dominant for many years to come.
 
Synaesthesia said:
I pretty much agree that Windows 8 is made with tablets in mind. It works ok on the desktop, but the charms bar is much more intuitive on a touchscreen, and the whole simplified Metro look is clearly tablet-oriented.
Click to expand...

The touch screen comments will become irrelevant once you start using a touch mouse or touch pad.

Microsoft has now enabled the same gesture control to be used on those devices. So yeah I can see us hunting for Mice with touch surface on top before the retail hits. ALso Kinect will help with other navigational options.

The OS is designed with the future in mind more than the past.
 
There is only one small tiny minute itsy problem that is bugging me.

Its not so clear yet on how it will work or if its just rumors but I have a feeling Microsoft is planning the kill free and open source software with this release, esp when it comes to metro based aps.

And its only this part where I have an issue with Windows 8, all the rest is nothing compared to removing my freedom.

3 reasons for this fear:
Free/no cost development
Limited to no Sideloading also see http://arstechnica.com/business/201...pers-can-bypass-windows-store-for-metro-apps/
Metro Only tablets

Its early days so we can not say what the end result would be, but my Microsoft sense is starting to tingle

The locked bootloaders and App certification is a minor for me still. As thats rumors on how Microsoft/OEMs may start locking down the OS/PC in future versions by only allowing Certified Applications/OS's to run. All in the name of preventing piracy, you know.
 
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Elimentals said:
There is only one small tiny minute itsy problem that is bugging me.

Its not so clear yet on how it will work or if its just rumors but I have a feeling Microsoft is planning the kill free and open source software with this release, esp when it comes to metro based aps.

And its only this part where I have an issue with Windows 8, all the rest is nothing compared to removing my freedom.

3 reasons for this fear:
Free/no cost development
Limited to no Sideloading also see http://arstechnica.com/business/201...pers-can-bypass-windows-store-for-metro-apps/
Metro Only tablets

Its early days so we can not say what the end result would be, but my Microsoft sense is starting to tingle

The locked bootloaders and App certification is a minor for me still. As thats rumors on how Microsoft/OEMs may start locking down the OS/PC in future versions by only allowing Certified Applications/OS's to run. All in the name of preventing piracy, you know.
Click to expand...

The free/no cost dev article is really very inaccurate. I.e. "Microsoft will let you have a free compiler or a good compiler, but not both".

Visual studio is a premium product that incorporates a massive ammount of functionality. Expecting this for free is ridiculous. That being said, you can use any C#, C++ or any web dev IDE you want, your don't have to use VS.

Visual Studio Express is free for exactly that reason, it's a try before you buy kind of thing, but you really don't even have to touch VS if you don't want to.

Also, very interesting, if you go with the web dev option, you've got access to the entire windows API through javascript, because of WinRT's service based interfaces. This is really quite amazing!
 
Frikkenator said:
The free/no cost dev article is really very inaccurate. I.e. "Microsoft will let you have a free compiler or a good compiler, but not both".

Visual studio is a premium product that incorporates a massive ammount of functionality. Expecting this for free is ridiculous. That being said, you can use any C#, C++ or any web dev IDE you want, your don't have to use VS.

Visual Studio Express is free for exactly that reason, it's a try before you buy kind of thing, but you really don't even have to touch VS if you don't want to.

Also, very interesting, if you go with the web dev option, you've got access to the entire windows API through javascript, because of WinRT's service based interfaces. This is really quite amazing!
Click to expand...

I am not a windows developer so will not be able to counter, all I know is what I saw including the comments in that article and as a Opensource user it does ring some alarm bells.

Any way like I said only time will let us know.
 
I've been using the Consumer Preview release for a while now and I must say, I'm less than impressed. I've had to go through the schlepp of adding launch icons for everything I need on the taskbar or the desktop, because the seriously annoying and time wasting effort of having to go through 2 or 3 different screens with the lack of a start button is driving me NUTS. When it comes to multi-tasking and actually USING the computer, Win 8 is very counter-intuitive.

Perhaps they should have left the start button - the lack of it just adds hassle. Or at least some sort of ability to choose what sort of interface works best. I don't like that they make it harder and harder to access advanced settings.

I agree from a 'consuming information' point of view (vs creating stuff) it is a great idea and the suggestion of integrating it with a kinect sort of system is awesome, but I'd like the option to have the traditional "red x" to kill a program turned on when I don't have a fancy touch screen and have my hands on my keyboard and mouse (for example). I really think they should have something that adapts a little better to the kind of environment the user has. Is this maybe slightly ahead of it's time yet still backwards?
 
I downloaded the 64bit ISO. Wrote it to DVD and installed it but the install fails at 84%. Checked the SHA1 hash and it doesn't match. 3.5Gb data wasted. Now I am running the web installer. Sigh.
 
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