Windows 8 - free preview

[GSH]

See here.

So far, no press coverage on Win8 has made me care about it.

-- GSH

[Red Devil]

pass; my screens need enough cleaning without me getting my greasy fingers all over it

[MrTwosheds]

Is it just me, or is the concept of using a time limited trial for an operating system more than a bit daft.

[Red Spot]

XP still doing its thing for me
I like the no 11, perhaps I'll upgrade around that time

[Commando]

I may give it a try. I already have VMWare player setup. That's what I use to do a majority of my web browsing in, including viewing this forum.

[Commando]

I gave the 32 bit edition a try in VMWare Player. I don't care for the interface at all. You literally have to add a desktop link to the taskbar, just go get the option to go to control panel. I find it annoying that Microsoft made it a complete pin in the rear to get to control panel. Sure you can Press Ctrl + R then type in Control Panel, but it shouldn't take that much effort to get to the control panel either.

I'm now downloading the 64 bit edition to see if it has hyper-v in it. I could not find hyper-v within the 32-bit edition.

[GSH]

From this preview:

After playing with the OS, it's painfully obvious Windows 8 should be marketed purely for touch devices. The fact that it can run regular desktop applications may suggest otherwise, but even in desktop mode, everything tries to get you back to the Metro interface as soon as possible. In fact, desktop mode feels a lot like a virtual machine, existing for those rare moments when you need to dock your tablet to a keyboard and get some meaningful work done.

(...)

For devices without touch capabilities, things will get a little dicey. It would be unfortunate if Microsoft decided to force this touch-optimized interface on its corporate customer base. Windows 8 feels positively schizophrenic when used with the keyboard-and-mouse combo common among business users. Unless Microsoft has plans in place to simultaneously support and promote Windows 7 as its desktop-oriented OS, a "Professional" version of Windows 8 with the ability to turn off the Metro enhancements and reinstate the Start menu would be a smart move. At this point, I wouldn't even consider purchasing the OS for a desktop or laptop I needed to be productive using. It's simply the wrong tool for the job.

-- GSH

[Zenophas]

My house is running a leaked Russian version of Windows 28.

[GSH]

Updated preview.

-- GSH

[Clavin12]

Wow. I really do not enjoy that.

[HitchcockGreen]

I find the whole Metro UI repulsive. The lack of a start menu and adding the ribbon to absolutely everything are not enticing features.

I'll wait til Windows 9.

Now Server 8 is a different story. There are actually a few features I'd like to play with, however (typically) you need a number of 8 servers to take full advantage of all the features.

[Red Devil]

should probably call it Windows h8

[Ded10c]

Tried to install it in VMWare, but it just wouldn't boot. Looks ugly anyway, I wasn't considering getting it.

[Commando]

I had no problems running the previous version in VMWare Player. Have no plan on bothering with the latest as MS has made it clear they aren't going to restore the start button or allow for the option to disable metry.

[GSH]

Bad news: this article says that the ability to boot Win8 to the desktop has been removed in the Win8 release. Looks like the new 'tiled' startup is the default/requirement. Linked from techreport.com.

-- GSH