Windows 8 :S

[diz]

It looks very nice, but touch interfaces work only on tablets and phones. Using it with mouse isn't good idea IMO. Anyway I hope it will come before I finish my studies so I can at least test it for few months for free.

-diz

[GTFO. NachoDuck]

Good to see they've made an effort for the tablets market, since Windows 7 isn't great with them I hear. Look forward to hearing about any new desktop features.

[r3loaded]

While it's nice to see Microsoft innovating with its new touch interface, I still don't see the appeal of a tablet. How do you use one comfortably? Place it on a desk, and you have to either hunch over or prop it up with something. Sitting down in an armchair or standing up, you need to support it with either your forearm or hold one side with your non-dominant hand. This gets tiring very quickly, so your alternative is to again find something to prop it up on. The only comfortable location I can find to use one is slouching on the arm of a sofa, which works but isn't exactly great for your posture.

Meanwhile with a laptop, you can either place it on a flat surface, or use your legs. The screen can be adjusted to the most comfortable angle, and you get a trackpad and keyboard to get work done as well. There are plenty of ultraportables and netbooks that cost the same or less than tablets too.

[GTFO. vito]

A fair point reloaded assuming you mean slate type devices as it's one I seem to be talking to large corporates about all the time. If it's a convertible tablet then you get (allegedly) the best of both worlds - laptop and slate (albeit a bit heavier!)

And diz, there are plenty of touchscreen monitors or AIOs out just now that use the touch pack in Win 7 while still working as run of the mill PC. The thing that will make the OS sell though is touch based apps which, getting back to your point, are far more proliferate in slates/mobiles than they are for the desktop OS.

That said, Apple aren't sitting on their hands. I went to Apple's HQ recently to see the guy who is charged with getting ipad's into the (large scale) corporate/enterprise world and they are motoring. The ipad stuff they are doing in healthcare for doctors is pretty amazing tbh. If they get the licensing and purchase model right, as well as support from some big customer wins, Microsoft are in for some more years of heavy battling (in consumer and corporate) in my humble opinion.

[GTFO. kk20]

we looked at tablets for "one per student" approach. Instead of using the usual diaries and workbooks we use a VLE. We have about 60 netbooks that are "booked out" and these work well for us. But anything that students have will need to be locked down and controlled by us (GPOs etc) and mass deployable. Ipads, the shockingly crap offerings with windows 7 and various android tablets wouldnt fit the bill.

If W8 is useable and can sit on not so stella hardware (that will run at least 8 hours a day) with swappable power packs then we will be buying them.

ipads were ok but when we trialled one they couldnt do some basic "must have" that is file manipulation in the form of easy "redirected documents" shared drives, even webdav didnt work properly so they were sent back. Didnt try the android one, borrowed a supposed flagship windows from RM which was so crappingly shite it didnt last more than 2 days before being returned. Even the sales guy didnt push any "offers" on us to stay with them....

[GTFO. vito]

I think it's a way off for apple in quite a few customers yet kk (incl. edu) but i'm surprised RM couldn't get a decent win 7 machine to fit your bill given they are auth'd partners of HP and tosh (forget about their own mobile/laptop kit which is clevo/inventec rebadges).

Apple are counting on the push of social networking and consumerisation forcing IT Directors/Managers to adopt the technology but public sector type customers will be the last to buy that argument as they don't want bledding edge - they want working (as you'll know ). Some bleeding edge large corps that I could name (if I kill myself immediately after) are already implementing BYOB (bring your own box) strategies where they sandbox the corp environment per user as a virtual machine inside the user's own unit with VPN/network access to shares/storage/intranet etc.....some less forward thinking IT director's of course have heart attacks at the very thought (and cost)

Imagine not buying anymore client/workplace type kit though and telling the parents they need to

[GTFO. kk20]

It was horrible. For a start they shipped home edition (and had our full spec with what we wanted to do - inc domain access). Win pro was installed but no drivers were around. Multiple calls later got some "beta" drivers, they admitted they didnt have a true PRO version working. Still no wireless "pre logon" drivers. There was quite a "lag" from the touch screen and the tablet got hot. really hot. Battery life was ok though.

We also looked at doing a BYOB with PXE, indeed we have a trial at the moment for students bringing in their own kit. but for tablet again it would need to be a "PC" or at least support PXE and I dont think there are any PXE wireless specs yet (although there are a few neat linux booting PXE type affairs - I havent tried that yet).

[diz]

And diz, there are plenty of touchscreen monitors or AIOs out just now that use the touch pack in Win 7 while still working as run of the mill PC. The thing that will make the OS sell though is touch based apps which, getting back to your point, are far more proliferate in slates/mobiles than they are for the desktop OS.

But touchscreen won't work on computers we use now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_screens#Gorilla_arm

Mouse and touch pads are the most ergonomic controllers. Touchscreen works on tablets and phones, because they are small and you can hold them in hands or put them horizontally.

-diz

[GTFO. vito]

Seems a somewhat out of context answer I think.

I was answering your point re "touch interfaces work only on tablets and phones" by saying there are plenty of AIO devices and touch screen monitors that have perfectly capable working touch screen interfaces.

That said, I think I take your point where you might wish to have your hand extended for long periods (for whatever reason ??)

[Getsuga Tensho]

diz, you do realise that Windows 8 will have a traditional style UI you can use as well right? This tile interface is completely optional meaning you'll be unaffected by sticking to your mouse. I think it'll work quite well for tablets and touch screen laptops. Will certainly make things a bit smoother to use.

My main issue is with a few of the changes in the traditional UI. You're Windows avatar being displayed next to the task bar for a start, a few things in folder windows being rearranged to places that don't make sense and the ribbon menus you have have for folders needs improved a bit. Will just have to wait and see what else they offer tbh, some of it does look nice. Will probs have to wait for Windows 9 for the great version of it though....

[GTFO. Unflux]

How much will Windows 8 cost? OS X 10.7 (Lion) is £20.99.

[GTFO. NachoDuck]

How much will Windows 8 cost? OS X 10.7 (Lion) is £20.99.

As it should be when the average guy would have to spend ~£600 for something to run it on.

[GTFO. al]

What Apple call a New OS, Microsoft call a Service Pack.

[diz]

You can download some preview version of it.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516

-diz

[GTFO. Luckyg]

tried it out on my laptop. Took me a good 10 minutes to find the shutdown button. Why in hell would they put it under the settings bracket -_-

In general the menu seems very pointless for everyday computer use. Takes far too long to accomplish simple tasks and is a lot harder to navigate than a tablet touch screen which it was designed for.

Some of the UI changes do look visually pleasing (such as launching programs from the new start menu) but that doesn't make up for it

Plus the recent announcement that Xbox live will be integrated into Windows 8 to offer "all the *great* features of Xbox Live" puts me off.

Then again, i could just be overly critical because I'm not fond of change, when I have got so used to windows design for the past 12 or so years its hard to adapt to something that could be far superior.

[GTFO. NachoDuck]

I imagine or at least hope that the Xbox Live stuff will be slammed by the European commission as the browser issue was in Windows after Opera Software got all upset.

[GTFO. kk20]

Notes about installing the Windows Developer PreviewYou can't uninstall the Windows Developer Preview. To reinstall your previous operating system, you must have restore or installation media.

image first gents.

[diz]

Would be cool if it worked on windows virtual PC that comes with win 7... or I'm doing something fundamentally wrong. All I can see is bsod.

-diz
luckyg thx for review, I don't think you are supposed to shutdown it, that's why button is hidden.

[r3loaded]

I installed my copy to a VHD to avoid the hassle of partitioning, yet have it run natively.

I'm generally impressed, it's very slick and fast, but they need to do more work in making the Metro UI more accessible for keyboard+mice users (though I appreciate they've tried). The Start menu is a bit of a mess imo - it took me five minutes to find the shutdown icon. Alternatively they could provide a classic Start menu option while keeping the Metro UI.

Also, new modern-day BSOD! https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... e=1&ref=nf

[Elbert27]

I came across just a little hiccup last night. We shut off my personal main hdd so I could not accidently set up Home windows Eight regarding this and installed Earn 8 on my small supplementary hdd. This installed as well as went fine but when I re-connected my personal main hdd and tried to boot into my personal primary OS, Vista, I ran into a Grub boot error.

It wouldn't boot, I suppose simply because when I set up Win 8 this they have changed/moved/deleted/edited my grub file that allows me to twin trunk in to Mint/Vista. Now I must re-install the grub document in order to trunk into Peppermint or Vista.

Anyone understand a good way to get this done, I'm not as well familiar with Linux command's as well as hoped there was a quick fix.

[GTFO. Luckyg]

well the consumer preview is out now, for main desktop usage I will be sticking with windows 7, microsoft seems way to driven on the tablet atm and everything in windows 8 is built around them, say goodbye to the start button, now you have to swipe on the right hand side to find it.

Also the new logo looks fucking shit.

[GTFO. Lost Sock]

Yawn!

Bet that cost them millions too.

[-NanoCorp- CyberPower]

[GTFO. Luckyg]

well I have had alittle longer to play around with it, its works well on my dell duo laptop/tablet hybrid, but I only use that for Uni stuff so its completely irrelevant in terms of using it for my current day in day out computer usage.

However, i sure do hope they include a good tutorial on everything in the OS for the touch screen as I found myself doing gestures on the screen and not having a clue of what I just did and how I can do it again/revert it.

Personally I think they should have created either a solely metro style OS and then focus on updating and revising the current desktop layout for a future OS, atleast then we wouldn't have a half baked OS that shares features which don't work on contrasting platforms (i.e. metro works great on tablets, but the typical desktop features suck on tablets due to tiny buttons which require precision and visa versa)

[GTFO. kk20]

that was clearly done by someone who never needed to use windows.

3.1 was shit. 95 was good (3.1 with decent gui). They forgot 2000 which (for the time and domain admins) was like mana from heaven. So comedy fail

[r3loaded]

Played with Windows 8 beta over the past couple of days:

It's an awesome tablet OS, so much smoother and more powerful than what iOS or Android could ever hope to achieve.

However, it's completely sucks for doing any "proper" work. Even something as simple as listening to music on YouTube while editing some code does not work in the Metro interface (the video pauses until you switch back to metro IE). There's an unreasonable focus on running everything full-screen when splitting up programs across a large screen would be far better. I might still upgrade to Windows 8 when it comes out (free through MSDN AA) but I can guarantee I'll be spending 95% of my time in the classic desktop interface.

That said, it'll be fine for the vast majority of the population whose interaction with computers is limited to surfing, e-mail, YouTube, Angry Birds, and Facebook Facebook Facebook.

[diz]

well the consumer preview is out now, for main desktop usage I will be sticking with windows 7, microsoft seems way to driven on the tablet atm and everything in windows 8 is built around them, say goodbye to the start button, now you have to swipe on the right hand side to find it.

Also the new logo looks fucking shit.

What a horrible logo. Windows 7 logo is much nicer.

-diz

[diz]

Ur6jX.jpg

Win 3.11 was shit. For me Windows 95 was huge improvement.

-diz

[GTFO. kk20]

Have a windows 8 machine and its connected to the domain. works the same as a W7 machine although a few printer drivers are having a stez. Sophos wont work on it although a patch will probably sort that out. GPOs work fine. the machine is a P4 2.8 with 1gig RAM (our absolute lowest spec machine left) and it ran fine. Office 2010 worked just fine.

[r3loaded]

If you're considering deploying Windows 8 ARM tablets, forget about it. Microsoft have decreed that it won't support joining a domain, GPOs or any sort of remote management. Despite the fact that Apple are trying to push iPads into the enterprise with IT admin tools. x86 tablets will be fine though.

[GTFO. kk20]

yeah, that surprised us a bit about the ARM. x86 is will be. Not a cat in hells chance an "unlocked" tablet will be used by students.