Installing Windows 8

[Clavin12]

I am installing the developer's beta release of Windows 8 on a virtual machine using Virtual Box. Your thoughts?

[Ded10c]

I need to find the time to do that.

[Clavin12]

I tried it, but could not get any of the apps to open. Also could not get out of the control panel without switching to desktop.

[HitchcockGreen]

My thoughts:

Windows 8 is pretty terrible.
Unless you're a huge fan of Windows 7 Mobile, it's kind of a waste of time.

I tried the developer release (also in a VM) and unless you're going to test this on something touchscreeny you're best not to bother since that's where half the new features lie.

The only other significant difference is putting a task ribbon into Explorer itself, as you find in the Office suite.

[Ded10c]

If the whole Windows 8 / XBox 360 thing comes to pass, it may be more worthwhile. I'm not saying it's true by any means, it's a rumour and we'd have to wait to find out, but it's certainly possible.

[Zax]

It will be buried in the next few months and taken back to the drawing board is my prediction.

[Iron_Maiden]

Likewise.

[HitchcockGreen]

C'mon guys, this is Microsoft we're talking about! Even if it's terrible they'll still release it!

And yes, the goal was to have it as a cross-platform OS. (XBOX, Windows Mobile, Desktop/Netbook/Tablet/Laptop)

Android's Ice Cream Sandwich looks to be aiming at the same result.

[Nielk1]

What, are we going to get the opposite of Star Trek, odd numbered Windows won't suck?

[TwinShadow]

Windows 8, as it is currently, is terrible. Its horrendous. Right now I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt (not that I have much to give to Microsoft anyway) due to the fact that it hasn't even hit beta yet. W8 was designed more for the tablet market, thus the current iteration is meant to be placed on a tablet somehow.

I'm going to wait for either a leaked beta or a public beta before I try it again and see. At least by then, we can get more of an idea of what they're going to do with Windows 8, at least in terms of the Desktop market. Also, the idea of putting the ugly ass ribbon in everything just makes the UI even more ugly than it needs to be. XP had a clean UI that was nice, Vista/7 bloated it a little, but it still wasn't bad. Now we get the abomination of W8 with Ribbon in EVERYTHING it seems. I hope we get choices to turn them off, but then again, this is Microsoft, they don't let us choose what we want anyway.

[Josiah]

makes me so sick, almost makes me want to make my own OS... actually LFS with some windows api integrated for native exe support might not be a bad idea...

[GSH]

I've said this before: OS upgrades for me require a killer feature/app to justify the expense ($, time, etc). For me, XP has done fine for a long time, but the ~3GB RAM limitation is chafing. Now that you can routinely get 8GB for under $50, a 64-bit OS is required to take advantage of >3GB RAM. Yes, there's XP-64, Vista-64 and Win7/64. Of the three, Win7/64 is the best supported for the long term, etc.

Right now, I've not seen any killer feature/app for Win8. That may change. But for now, I'm comfortable just waiting and ignoring Win8 until that feature materializes. Or never. It's no big deal to me if MS (or Apple or Google or EA or Activision or etc) releases a product I don't care for. I don't have time or energy to play around with everything anyhow. So, I let others go off and do their own thing and when it seems interesting enough, I'll pick it up. Until then, <shrug>.

-- GSH

[Psychedelic Rhino]

Yes, my laptop is 64bit with 8gb of ram. Wow, what a difference over my XP PC.