Hello from Windows 8

Just finished installing the Preview on my Dell XT2.  First impressions, it's certainly feels fast! 

Got problems with the touch screen though, can pan around, but can't click by touch (can with the pen) but I've always had issues with the touch on this thing.

Right off to play...

@PerfectPhase:

lucky you, still downloading. I am thinking doing on my bf's laptop as well. The new 200+ RAM is very attractive because that machine has tiny ram. Can't wait to try it out.

Will be downloading here for a few hours (bit bandwidth challenged).  Playing with the "Shooting Range" preview in the meantime.

@PerfectPhase:Did you install it on a new partition? I'm getting "Required cd/dvd drive device driver is missing."

The new shell works pretty well on the tablet they gave out but when running apps a lot of them just die. They said the version they were demoing is newer that what they are giving out as a dev preview so that's not suprising. They did also say that the new bits should come through windows update at some point.

Now off to try and install Eclipse on this thing...

Working fine on my pc too:

Dual boot Win8/Win7

Win8 Partition with 40GB, 25GB total occupied, 64bit version

ASUS P5NSli, Intel Core2Duo 6300, 4GB RAM, GeForce 9600GT

Incredible fast task switching, Metro get the mouse wheel for rolling (not much intuitive), can't bring the right-side menu with mouse, IE10 menus with right-button mouse click (I think I still need to discover how make mouse emulate finger gestures )

15 minutes ago,new2STL wrote

 (I think I still need to discover how make mouse emulate finger gestures )

You would think a mouse drag would correspond to a finger swipe gesture, but that doesn't seem to be the case. It's kind of annoying that you can't "swipe" through the start menu jump lists with your mouse like you "swipe" with your mouse when panning in Google/Bing maps. You have to use the scroll bar at the bottom.

53 minutes ago,cbae wrote

...

 You have to use the scroll bar at the bottom.

The mouse wheel is working for scroll from left to right (and vice-versa).

Stop mouse at left-side and "swipe" (actually click and drag) works for task switching perfectly.

What is not working (and I'm still figuring how do to it) is the "swipe" from the right-side to bring the "start" menu

5 minutes ago,new2STL wrote

*snip*

Actually the mouse wheel is working for "Swipe" left and right (and dragging the scroll at bottom). Stop mouse at left-side and "swipe" works for task switching perfectly. What is not working (and I'm still figuring how do to it) is the "swipe" from the right-side to bring the "start" menu

I guess the wheel is fine for the start menu, but what about on a true panorama screen where you typically swipe both horizontally and vertically?

Yeah, I haven't had much luck swiping in from the right side with the mouse. The left side works, but it takes precision when running it as a VM from a window.

@new2STL: didn't install Win 8 yet, but my understanding is that you can bring up the "charms" menu with the mouse by pointing at the lower left corner of the screen (where the start menu used to be). Maybe the swipe from the right is just a touch thing?

After about 20 minutes so far...hate it.  I've never had such a visceral reaction to an OS before, and I generally accepted MS's view of creating one OS for tablets and desktops, that is my holy grail.  But as for running on a desktop, this is just not the way to do it.

• The Start Menu IS very jarring.  It completely disrupts the workflow you're performing when you hit Start and all your work is whooshed away and you're suddenly staring at a huge screen with icons.  So if say, I want to launch another Notebpad session and I go to the Start menu and start typing as I do with Vista/W7, I can't just quickly hit <return> on the first hit - all my work is sent out of the way and I'm staring at a huge ugly green background with huge icons.
• Even Search, hitting Winkey+F - full on Metro.  I DON'T WANT TO BE TAKEN AWAY FROM MY APPS WHEN I'M JUST PERFORMING A FRICKIN SYSTEM-WIDE SEARCH.  How in the hell?
• The "new" Aero is probably the ugliest Windows GUI that MS has ever produced.  To "Metrofy" it, all they've done is turned down the transparency, made everything square (they finally started to get away with that with Vista), and slapped in the ribbon GUI with an ugly centered title bar on the window.  Really, this is amateur hour stuff here.  Looks like a screwed up WindowBlinds skin.  I believe this is on purpose - Metro is the GUI.  You're being punished for using this like a PC.

I just can't believe, even at this early stage, that MS thought this was an acceptable blending of the two environments.  It's an absolute disaster from my perspective.  Tablets and single-tasking is the new Windows - the desktop is cleary a ghetto environment.  It really seems like the Windows team is just floundering at this point.

Jobs was right - MS just has no taste.

Installed on my Clevo 900F. Overlay performance is better than seven! Now testing and developing fun apps .

Funny thing, it took me more than a minute to find 'Shut down" button.

If you have performance issues with Metro, check windows update. For example I hadn't driver installed for my GTX280M. It was not installed by default throw Windows Update. Media player still can't read MKV out-of-box. This makes me sad panda

Other question: What about Java J2EE development for Metro? (Well, I prefer C# anyway, so not a big issue for me)

Edit  : One more thing, there is NO LAN search options when bringing on Win+F search interface !

I'm kind of agreeing with you there. I'm sure the changes to Aero will receive many more tweaks before release (look at what other Windows versions looked like in the first pre-release), so I'm not too worried about that.

But I hate the start screen. It's nice as an option, but like I said in the other thread, there has to be a way to open an app or do a search that doesn't take over the entire screen. It's ridiculous. This UI is completely unsuited for a desktop.

Over the years, as the UI changed in new versions of Windows, I've always used the new stuff. I loved the start menu change in XP, with the frequent application list and system stuff on the right. I loved the addition of search in Vista even more. I loved taskbar grouping since it was introduced in XP. I love the Win7 taskbar.

This is the first time that there's been a change to such a core part of Windows where I really dislike it. There has to be an alternative to this start screen stuff by RTM, or for the first time ever I might have a solid reason not upgrade.

Who knows, maybe the start screen will grow on me (unlikely) or maybe they can mold it into something that's more suitable for the desktop and mouse usage, but it will require major changes.

It all looked so nice and reasonable in the keynote too, but when using it my reaction was just instantly negative, which has never happened to such a strong degree before with any UI change MS has made that I can recall.

6 minutes ago,NitzW wrote

After about 20 minutes so far...hate it.  I've never had such a visceral reaction to an OS before, and I generally accepted MS's view of creating one OS for tablets and desktops, that is my holy grail.  But as for running on a desktop, this is just not the way to do it.

 

• The Start Menu IS very jarring.  It completely disrupts the workflow you're performing when you hit Start and all your work is whooshed away and you're suddenly staring at a huge screen with icons.  So if say, I want to launch another Notebpad session and I go to the Start menu and start typing as I do with Vista/W7, I can't just quickly hit <return> on the first hit - all my work is sent out of the way and I'm staring at a huge ugly green background with huge icons.
• Even Search, hitting Winkey+F - full on Metro.  I DON'T WANT TO BE TAKEN AWAY FROM MY APPS WHEN I'M JUST PERFORMING A FRICKIN SYSTEM-WIDE SEARCH.  How in the hell?
• The "new" Aero is probably the ugliest Windows GUI that MS has ever produced.  To "Metrofy" it, all they've done is turned down the transparency, made everythingsquare (they finally started to get away with that with Vista), and slapped in the ribbon GUI with an ugly centered title bar on the window.  Really, this is amateur hour stuff here.  Looks like a screwed up WindowBlinds skin.  I believe this is on purpose - Metro is the GUI.  You're being punished for using this like a PC.

I just can't believe, even at this early stage, that MS thought this was an acceptable blending of the two environments.  It's an absolute disaster from my perspective.  Tablets and single-tasking is the new Windows - the desktop is cleary a ghetto environment.  It really seems like the Windows team is just floundering at this point.

Jobs was right - MS just has no taste.

I agree that the new start menu is jarring when you're in the desktop view. They need to allow staying with the old start menu when in desktop mode. There should just be a start menu option to go back to the Metro start menu.

When you select the search "charm" from the left pop-up menu (What is that menu called anyway?), you're brought to a Metro search screen.

I don't stare at the window chrome enough to give a $hit about how it looks after the first 5 minutes.  When I first saw the title bar on an Explorer window, I was like "WTF is that?". After I realized that it's just the name of the current folder, it makes sense. If your windows are cascaded, you can now see which window is in what folder. It also works better with Aero peak when you have long folder names. FWIW, the title bar name is only for Explorer. Regular applications do not have a centered title, as far as I can tell.

When you select the search "charm" from the left pop-up menu (What is that menu called anyway?), you're brought to a Metro search screen.

...a large, bright-green third of the screen with almost no detail.  It's just slightly better, but it looks and feels completely out of place.  It's like you're activating another completely separate desktop with a completely different GUI just to search on the desktop you're currently in.

It's just so poorly done it's really stunning in a way.

I don't stare at the window chrome enough to give a $hit about how it looks after the first 5 minutes.

Fine.  But a lot of people do.  MS is supposed to be moving towards more fit-and-finish in their products, if anything they can take from Apple it's this - this is a regression.  I want the OS I use to actually look good and feel like it was designed by the same company.

Thanks Blue Ink! I've found the "start menu" (need now remember its called "charms"...) on the lower left corner of screen (instead of right-side as showed in the videos) 

Now its complete:

• click and drag from left-side of screen switchs tasks
• right-button click brings the App's menu (equivalent from swipe from botton on touch)
• Hover mouse on lower left corner brings up "Start menu" (equivalent from swipe from right on touch)

 P.S.: Using a 1080p screen rez.

Am I the only one finding no Metro apps (except the Control Panel) will start? I installed the 32-bit build (I didn't have a 9GB DVD-R or spare USB key handy, before anyone asks!) on my old Latitude XT but without anything starting up it's a bit difficult to get a feel for it. The fact the touch sensor on this keeps generating phantom touches all over the place (to the point I had to disable it) doesn't help much either.

Hopefully a good old clean of the screen, followed by an install of the full 64-bit dev version will go a bit better.

29 minutes ago,NitzW wrote

*snip*

...a large, bright-green third of the screen with almost no detail.  It's just slightly better, but it looks and feels completely out of place.  It's like you're activating another completely separate desktop with a completely different GUI just to search on the desktop you're currently in.

Wait a minute. Your original complaint was:

I DON'T WANT TO BE TAKEN AWAY FROM MY APPS WHEN I'M JUST PERFORMING A FRICKIN SYSTEM-WIDE SEARCH.  How in the hell?

I just showed you how you won't be "taken away" from your apps. If you haven't initiated a search yet, what details would you expect to see. The "green third of the screen" gives you a lot of search options. Did you even look at the different options? Apps, Settings, Files, IE, etc. You can even search Build sessions for videos. 

It's just so poorly done it's really stunning in a way.

*snip*

Fine.  But a lot of people do.  MS is supposed to be moving towards more fit-and-finish in their products, if anything they can take from Apple it's this - this is a regression.  I want the OS I use to actually look good and feel like it was designed by the same company.

What exactly are you complaining about here? Do you not like that they're going away from Aero with the flattened look of the desktop windows chrome or are you b1tching because they don't look Metro enough for you?