windows 8 consumer preview

really don't see any appeal/reason to install it, looks almost entirely focused on tablet features.. but was wondering if anyone here has anything else to say about it so far.

http://windows.micro...dows-8/download

Thanks, about to install this shortly

cool, i'll try it just to try it. doubt it'll lure me away from Ubuntu though.

Oddest replacement for the Start menu I've ever seen.

^Hmmm...? Anyway, check this out before installing Windows 8

http://www.tested.com/quick-look-at-the-windows-8-consumer-preview/47-792/#

to me, it's a more streamlined version of Windows 7, but yes.. really focused on tablet features. Things like the task manager and defrag api are real improvements, but everything else seems to be cumbersome. Maybe I just have to get used to it, but it just comes with the feeling like the OS is trying more than ever to hide everything in the background for a better 'ease of use' appearance

Its relieving to think that this might be the nail in the coffin for Microsoft. I hope Windows and Office both drown in a sea of failure.

  On 3/6/2012 at 8:00 PM, acid1 said:

Its relieving to think that this might be the nail in the coffin for Microsoft. I hope Windows and Office both drown in a sea of failure.

win 7 is pretty great, though.

gonna give this a whirl in a VM if the iso ever downloads. it's going slow as fuck, reckon MS's servers are getting hammered.

  On 3/6/2012 at 5:56 PM, RandySicko said:

to me, it's a more streamlined version of Windows 7, but yes.. really focused on tablet features. Things like the task manager and defrag api are real improvements, but everything else seems to be cumbersome. Maybe I just have to get used to it, but it just comes with the feeling like the OS is trying more than ever to hide everything in the background for a better 'ease of use' appearance

That's the approach Apple's been taking for years, if not decades now - Microsoft is late to the party, to say the least. I think they are really trying to get people to think of home PCs as tablets and vice versa, and Win8 is the first step in that direction.

I still think MS needs to take another card from Apple and ditch their current codebase and architecture, and start with a clean slate like OS X did - that's the only way they are going to rid themselves of their legacy problems and really innovate and move forward. Question is, can they?

they discarded massive chunks of codebase for vista and another bit for vista servi er i mean 7. this is the problem though. the whole codebase is like a big shaky house of cards.

Microsoft.

Every other Windows is shit. Windows 7 is good, so 8 will suck. Next one will be good again. Will be skipping this.

ugh, i know it's a 'preview' but it really feels slapped-together. two desktop environments? stupid, stupid, stupid.

It's fucking horrendous.

Windows 7 from XP was nice because it kept the fundamentals in place and improved important stuff, so people found it easy to navigate still. I'm surprised how well some of my end users adapted to it, even the most technophobic. However this is such a step backwards. I'm having trouble navigating my way to things I always used to use.

Control panel? Easy. Go to start menu, right click, select all apps, find Control Panel in a list of icons.

How am I supposed to know about right clicking for all apps? I just lucky guessed that after ages of clicking around.

Pure gash, man.

win7 is working great maaan, this looks like a schizophrenic mess.

Is there anyway of using it without the ugly as shit tablet interface like on a proper computer?

They have been trying to push that starting menu thing since XP, nobody likes it .. nobody will eve like it.

I don't even like the Windows 7 start menu, so fuck that shit, lol.

  On 3/7/2012 at 1:15 PM, Dan C said:

Is there anyway of using it without the ugly as shit tablet interface like on a proper computer?

that really seems to be the main focus of the preview. Disable that and what else is there?

  On 3/7/2012 at 8:02 PM, david said:

  On 3/7/2012 at 1:15 PM, Dan C said:

Is there anyway of using it without the ugly as shit tablet interface like on a proper computer?

 

that really seems to be the main focus of the preview. Disable that and what else is there?

Performance improvement? Stability? Under the hood sexyness?

O wait....Microsoooofts

I believe you can turn it off, although I think that turns it full off, so the UI goes back to looking like unskinned Windows XP...

I dislike MS almost as much as I hate MS the disease but I try to be neutral each time a new OS comes around. Windows 7 isn't bothering me too much even though some of it still feels cludgy, and it's been reasonably although not completely stable at work; the windows management improvements are genuinely inspired and pleasant.

But the tablet metro UI in 8 might be the ugliest, most disruptive thing I've seen in computing since the early '90s. Aside from the skeuomorphic calendar in OS X Lion, which looks like baby diarrhea.

I'm curious, why do you hate Microsoft so much?

Because I had the pleasure of having to use Windows ME in college and Vista at work and was forced to use IE6 by IT at my first post-law school job, and I cut my computing teeth during the monopolistic '90s era, which in part contributed to me having to use IE6 at that job. And I had to fix my family's... issues... with Windows-running computers from basically 1993-2004.

I don't really hate MS, I'm pretty anti-platform fanboism, but using MS products has been an occasionally fun and often horrible experience.

I've used GNU/Linux, Windows 3 - 7, OS X and older Apple OS systems, and they all have pros and cons, but my worst experiences have been on ME/Vista (and the early XP days) and pre-OS X Mac OS 7-9. The difference is Apple was forced to learn from its mistakes and MS is apparently forced to remain bogged down in legacy issues.... and MS makes a few more baffling aesthetic decisions than anyone else, probably because of some persistent design-by-committee mentality.

Haha, using ME then Vista? Sounds like you got a double sucker punch there.

Fair play though. I used ME, was fucking horrendous. Supporting Vista at client sites was more than enough for me to despise that too.