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Socoder -> Off Topic -> Win8 Preview

Tue, 13 Sep 2011, 17:11
Jayenkai
hmm.. I DO have a PC sitting here doing bugger all...

It's kinda half dead, and totally useless.
Might be worth playing with 8 on it!?

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Tue, 13 Sep 2011, 17:11
Stealth
Windows 8 Developer Preview is available to everyone in 9 hours dev.windows.com

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Tue, 13 Sep 2011, 17:47
Stealth
Do it. After watching the keynote, I don't think it's so terrible. It's actually...pretty nice.

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Wed, 14 Sep 2011, 04:24
spinal
So does this version 'run out'? I would expect it to, but maybe not as it's apparently still unfinished and buggy.

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Wed, 14 Sep 2011, 04:28
Jayenkai
Follow my morning, and you too can be as incredibly frustrated as I am!

1. Oh yeah, no Blank DVD's.. (for years!!)
MS provide you with a USB drive installer thingy, so that's sorted.. ...

2. Oh yeah, the crappy PC needs to be switched on!! ARGH!!

3. Oh yeah, the keyboard needs batteries. Damn, this PC's not been switched on for AGES!

4. Oh yeah, the crappy PC could do with a reinstall.

5. Oh yeah, the crappy Vista PC didn't come with a bloody Vista CD.

6. Oh yeah, the bag of shit Vista Home "Premium" (ffs) doesn't have a "reinstall from the machine" option. (FFS)

... sod it, let's just shove the USB stick in, and see where it gets us..

7. Oh yeah, the crappy piece of shit Vista PC doesn't fucking boot from bloody thumbsticks, for whatever the hell reason, even though the BIOS has been set up to do it.. LOOK, IT SAYS RIGHT THERE!!! ... RAWR!!!!!!

8. Sod 8...

9. Turn off the damn shitty bag of crap PC and leave it for another 6 months or so..

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Wed, 14 Sep 2011, 05:24
spinal
Dammit, don't you hate it when your browser 'finishes' downloading a file, then when you try to open it, it's 1gb smaller than it should be!!!! ffs.

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Wed, 14 Sep 2011, 07:13
spinal
Bah, can't install in vmware, apparently my 64bit laptop doesn't have a 64bit processor!

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Wed, 14 Sep 2011, 12:43
Stealth
Jayenkai 1. Oh yeah, no Blank DVD's.. (for years!!)
MS provide you with a USB drive installer thingy, so that's sorted.. ...


I have the same problem. Do you have a link to this USB installer thing?

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Wed, 14 Sep 2011, 12:58
Jayenkai
It's the same one they made for Win7. Apparently works with this, too.. (although, I can't vouch for the "And it installs" bit, for obvious reasons!!)

Linkage

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Thu, 15 Sep 2011, 01:40
JL235
The developer version of Windows 8 doesn't fit onto a standard DVD. It's about 100mb larger then mine, as they are single layer DVDs.

Using the MS tools I am unable to get my USB stick to boot.

Next option is to install from Windows 7, as it's possible to get it to install to a separate disk. However my copy of Windows 7 is 32-bit, whilst the Windows 8 installer is 64-bit only (why???).

It looks like I am going to have to download the standard 64-bit version of Windows 8 (which fits on a normal DVD), install it, and then install the dev copy on top.
Thu, 15 Sep 2011, 05:14
spinal
bah, cant install onto usb drive, vmware player = bsod, virtualbox = not64bit error. grrrrr.

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Thu, 15 Sep 2011, 06:16
JL235
I now have Metro installed, and have been using it for about 5 minutes.

The first main issues are that loads of my setup is now missing, for example I always have to setup my middle mouse button, and it's difficult having to setup Windows with a vertical monitor.

So far I've also found lots of small bugs. ctrl+delete doesn't work for deleting words (which I use heavily), and there are some rendering issues. Sometimes a line is rendered twice, sometimes 4 empty characters are rendered between the end of text and the caret, and SoCoder looks abysmal in IE 10. It's hard to explain, but the site looks like I'm looking at it on a TV, not a normal monitor, because it got really bad default font sizes.

However everything else is pretty cool so far!

|edit| IE 10 is _VERY_ snappy and fast. PMC can get some slowdown in editing, but everything is instant. Even some of the extreme demos I have, that really push rendering, run at high speeds. I'm really impressed. |edit|
Thu, 15 Sep 2011, 06:33
JL235
The new boot loader is also awesome. It's very clear, looks really clean, and best of all it syncs to your monitor setup!

I've also just got a blue screen, within 10 minutes of using it : ( . But that also looks really, really, nice when it pops up.

Another gripe is that Metro IE 10 has an ugly 1 pixel white border around the screen. This is because Metro reserves it, so you can swipe on from the sides, but I think it should silently match the neighbouring pixels.
Thu, 15 Sep 2011, 07:55
JL235
1 hour on, I'm not very impressed. All of the Metro apps feel like they are running in the same thread, as once you open 2 or more, most of them block.

It's also blue screened literally around 12 times so far. I am presuming there is a hardware issue, but so far the longest I've been able to run this for is around 15 minutes.

I also had a look at some of the Mtero apps. The Twitter is pretty nice. Small and minimal, but does the job well. There is also 'Socialite', for Facebook integration, which is just terrible. Most of Facebook fails to load, and it has almost no functionality.

Finally when you go to Hotmail, your logged in with your live ID. So if you want to use a different account, you logout, go to hotmail, and it logs you back in again! AGGGGH!
Thu, 15 Sep 2011, 11:49
HoboBen
ctrl+delete doesn't work for deleting words


Off topic, but holy shit! I was using ctrl+shift+right, then delete.

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Thu, 15 Sep 2011, 12:38
Stealth
IE 10 for Metro is apparently plug-in free. It doesn't support flash, java, or anything.

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Thu, 15 Sep 2011, 19:30
JL235
I don't think you are correct Stealth. Metro apps don't support Flash, Java or anything; I'm pretty sure Metro IE still will.

|edit| Actually my mistake, I think Stealth is right! |edit|
Thu, 15 Sep 2011, 20:24
JL235
Here are a list of pros and cons so far:

Pros

  • Metro looks beautiful
  • IE 10 Metro is genuinely quite nice to use, mainly because the really minimalist UI is great to use. For the first time ever, a fullscreen web browser actually works fullscreen.
  • The boot loader syncs with multiple monitors.
  • The new task manager looks really nice (but feels a little dumbed down).
  • When you close the ribbon, the new explorer is very nice. The surround takes up very little space, so more space for files.
  • The new login screen looks beautiful.
  • All of the new 'restarting', 'loading', 'updating' and 'installing' screens you now get when shutting down and booting up Windows are _much_ nicer then the current ones. With the colours they have used, it also feels very easy on your eyes.
  • Metro works pretty well with the mouse; I'm imagining much better then most tablet based interfaces.
  • Clicking on an already open Metro app just brings it back, and with the big tiles, this is really nice (hit Start, then click app)
  • When it works, it is all lightning fast! and I'm pretty sure the slowdown is due to the threads getting blocked rather then slowdown.

Cons

  • Pretty much all of the Metro apps that come bundled suck (especially Socialite), and the rest are useless. Only IE and the Weather app are nice to use, Tweet@rama isn't so bad, but the others are just pointless (and there are two touch painting apps, why?).
  • Can't close Metro apps. I imagine it works like iOS, where they are freed up on demand, but when your using it on a desktop it's really odd. Especially when you have a regular app right next to it, which you can close.
  • Metro apps start to randomly freeze up once you run more then 2 or 3.
  • The Weather app can't remember where I live, and often can't get my location. It's really hit and miss.
  • The new Start menu is essentially useless, and even working out how to open it takes about 5 minutes (clicking on Start now switches to Metro, so to open you have to move the mouse into the bottom left corner and touch the sides). Newly installed programs appear on the far right in Metro, whilst the Start menu doesn't list any. Even working out how to turn the machine off requires about 3 or 4 clicks.
  • No way to get to system applications, like to see system events or open Powershell, as they don't seem to be listed, anywhere.
  • Lots of small bugs with typing in text.
  • The Control Panel in Metro is just borked; looks nice but only the first few items work.
  • The boot loader takes ages to get into, and if your not booting into Windows 8, it requires the machine to fully restart (and so takes longer). Cold boot times are not fast!
  • To login, you have to grab the login screen with the mouse, and move it all the way up. This is awesome the first time you do it, but very annoying by the 10th.
  • Your Windows Live image, the one you set in Messenger, is used as your login image. That's awesome, except for the fact that Windows Live heavily compresses the image, resulting in your login picture looking very low-quality and blurry.
  • If you connect Windows 8 up to your Windows Live account, your forced to use it when you visit Hotmail. So you can't login to a second account (at least in Metro IE).
  • Can no longer press Start, and then type in application, to open an application. Start now switches to Metro.
  • All of Metro runs within one screen, which is very limiting on a desktop (especially with multiple monitors).
  • Blue screened literally about 15 times : (

Overall you can tell it's still in development, because of all of the bugs. I'd imagine they will all be fixed by the time it is released. But the main problem is that as a desktop OS, it feels like a huge step back. Lots of things that used to be trivial, are now difficult to do.

If it is like this when it comes out, I can imagine I will be disabling Metro and re-enabling the old Start menu. Good thing is that there are also a bunch of new internal features either in or coming, for example the new driver model for graphics cards is meant to be a lot faster.
Fri, 16 Sep 2011, 02:53
spinal
Dear Spinal,
You are not allowed to try the new demo of windows 8 because your processor incorrectly detects as the wrong type or you have too many partitions of a certain type on your hard drive (!!!!?!) please go away.

Microsoft.

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