Windows 8 Consumer Preview download links

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Gonna try it on our unused EE and see if it can breathe a bit of new life into it :)
 
how on earth do you us a touch screen on ya main pc anyway ???
its bad enough having wrist ache from the mouse never mind arm ache from pointing at the screen
 
Some kind of kinecting would be cool though.
 
I dont get it why not just make a seperate version for tablets?

Most likely cost. It would need two teams of developers to code and support two different OS GUI's. Have one team do all the work and you cut your employee salary bill.
 
No, it's about interoptibility and mobility with all the cool stuff and caveats that ensues. If done perfectly any app or game you can run on your pc is available to you on your tablet or phone and vice versa.

It's the right step, but if it is implemented successfully this time around remains to be seen. It's the dark side of HTML 5 - so to speak :D
 
One might ask a question. If it would be Apple or Google releasing MetroUI would the attitude be the same? I mean honestly. :unsure:

Also, please do not judge the OS based on the PREVIEW. It is not propably even feature complete, contains lots of debugging stuff to slow down, lacks most of the integration needed.

But still at least I like the concept a lot. It looks very promising and I cannot wait for it to complete. :thumbsup:
 
you guys are aware that you are judging an os that is no-where near complete right?

did you even read the page of information before hitting download? "this is not the finished product" "it will not resemble the commercially released version" etc, etc.....
Yeah, that's pretty obvious CYA language. Why would they release a preview of something if it's going to change drastically in between now and release? That would be stupid. What this is, I think, is a sort of tentative promotional thing intended to help people "get used to" the horrible new interface. Yeah, good luck with that, MS.

I believe the Metro part of Windows 8 is Microsoft's answer to moving users over to payed subscriptions e.g. Office Live and the App store on desktop PC's, to generate more revenue and market share. It does seem like Microsoft have rushed at this to try to keep up with the industry trend.

I don't really think we need 'Apps' for a desktop PC, just good software to do the tasks we want to accomplish. Apps are more suited to mobile devices. I'd rather have a software package that has a license and doesn't expire too rapidly or need a yearly subscription.
We never needed "apps" in the first place, it was a vast, stupid trend-frenzy to begin with and now the industry is trying to adopt it as the Official New Way Of Things because A. Apple did it and B. it gives them more control over the userbase. The "app store" model is deadly to innovation and needs to die.

That's why I love this guy.

One might ask a question. If it would be Apple or Google releasing MetroUI would the attitude be the same? I mean honestly. :unsure:
Yes. Stupid is stupid, and I don't care who's backing it. (And personally the honeymoon was over between me and Google with the Buzz debacle; once it became clear they were going to make a habit out of disrespecting people's privacy I realized they were exactly like every other IT mega-conglomerate, i.e. not to be trusted.)
 
If it was apple who did this I'd still-


No wait I can't. I can't honestly say it.

I can't continue that thought at all. The idea of apple doing this in a million years is just daft. Look:

2dM5V.jpg


Is that an operating system or the logo on the side of a transit van?
 
Been trying to get this to work again tonight and still getting nowhere.

Burned it to two different types of dvd media and neither will boot.

It prompts me to press any key to from cd, i click a button, it starts to boot showing me the fish logo and then the laptop either just freezes dead or reboots and continues in an endless reboot loop till i power it off. Basically does the same as the usb sticks i created.

However all usb sticks and both dvd's boot fine on my desktop pc and my wife's older core-duo laptop.
 
It seems to work find for me, but I'm really not liking the 'Metro UI' experience.

Whilst it has an excellent home on Tablet PCs and touch screen computers, it's really not geared to Desktop PCs and Laptops.

My main beef is the lack of a 'use desktop instead of Metro' option so that I can just tick a box and never see Metro again (in other words, disable it) - even an installation choice would be better.

On top of all this, in my role, I support Windows users and to go from supporting them on a Windows 'desktop' to a Windows 8 style 'Metro UI' is going to cause confusion for both us on the helpdesk and for the customer .... on top of not being very 'desktop' friendly, it's definitely not very corporate friendly (or business friendly) from what I can see.

Now, I've never been a massive fan of change to my OS - I complained when Vista came out, I then complained when 7 came out (M$ took out the 'Classic Start Menu' option) but I learnt to adapt how I use my computer and learnt to get on with the UI, however, I really cannot see me getting use to this at all.

I took my laptop in to work and showed the rest of the team Windows 8 Consumer Preview - the one thing that was mentioned was "No way can Microsoft be releasing THAT as a Desktop OS!?!"

I'm going to be looking at alternatives now - I use Linux on one of my older PCs (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - didn't upgrade as don't like the Unity shell, seems a bit too Metro like ;) ) or maybe I'll stick with Win7.

For the time being, I'm keeping Win8 CP installed so that I can get used to it and work out it's quirks etc. as I'll end up supporting this stinking pile of c**p at some point.

That's the negatives out of the way, now for a couple of positives.

I love how simple it is to install the OS - anybody can install Win8 with ease.

There's a "Windows Refresh" feature, not tried it yet, but if it works as expected, it's a great idea.

I also like the idea of signing in with your "Windows Live" account - by doing so, Hotmail, Messenger and your personal details are all automatically configured - sure it may have some downsides (privacy?) but for some users it's a great way to configure everything all together without too much hassle.

I'm a bit stuck in my ways sometimes, I know, but I like my computer to work around me, no me work around my computer ;) surely that's how it's supposed to work ??????
 
It prompts me to press any key to from cd, i click a button, it starts to boot showing me the fish logo and then the laptop either just freezes dead or reboots and continues in an endless reboot loop till i power it off.

I get the same using the 32bit iso in my laptop. Using the same cd from within xp, setup runs ok although it had refused to run under xp on another machine.

Won't install on my laptop though, as I don't have enough ram. My guess was that when booting from the cd, it fails if your system doesn't meet the basic spec. I had hoped it might install anyway...
 
The 'disable' metro options and hacks have been removed by MS for this version so users have to adapt to the new system.

Only early beta versions allowed the use of the old 'start' setup.

This is Microsofts answer to everyone else moving forward and them playing catch up.
 
It prompts me to press any key to from cd, i click a button, it starts to boot showing me the fish logo and then the laptop either just freezes dead or reboots and continues in an endless reboot loop till i power it off.

Won't install on my laptop though, as I don't have enough ram. My guess was that when booting from the cd, it fails if your system doesn't meet the basic spec. I had hoped it might install anyway...

Hi mate, laptop definitely meets the minimum spec

its a Core i5 with 6gb ddr3 ram and 640gb hdd.

I'm trying with the 64bit version, due to the 4gb ram limit in 32bit, but no it never gets past the initial booting.

If I run the setup from within windows 7, also 64bit, it starts and tells me it will restart, upon restart it boots back into windows 7 with no sign of windows 8 setup, not sure why.

I got it running now on my wife's older core-duo laptop with 3gb ram and 320gb hdd and i'm finding it rather sluggish to be fair.

I tried to launch the solitaire game last night and it freezes on every card movement for a few seconds.

Will have a bit more of a play later tonight.
 
We've seen some small amount of visceral feedback focused on "choice" or "disable"—a natural reaction to change, but perhaps not the best way to have a dialog leading to a new product.
Or in other words, "waah, waah, people don't like our art project, they're big meanie-heads!"
 
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