Windows 8 Consumer Preview

[James]

But it's just the desktop and that can be by-passed. What else would bother you about Windows 8?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0; BOIE9;ENUSMSE)

[Mandrake]

But it's just the desktop and that can be by-passed. What else would bother you about Windows 8?

All of the emphasis is on this new Metro-UI. If I disable it and use the Windows Desktop just as I do now, then what reason is there really to justify the cash for an upgrade?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0.2

[James]

Mandrake, it's too early to bemaking these judgments on this radically new OS. We don't fully know what is under the hood, so to speak. Thurrott said there is inexcess of a million new lines of code. The new browser is more secure and better able to handle today's webpages. It comes with a beefed-up AV that should greatly add to the security of being on line. We need more information on it. My stepson has been using it for some time now and loves it.

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[James]

And as an ironic signal of how stuck in the past the traditional computing paradigm is, one of the current most popular questions on the help forum is "how do I disable Metro?"

Why The PC Will Die Soon

BY KIT EATON | 03-06-2012 | 5:00 PM The PC has already been replaced by the tablet, in some hugely important and meaningful ways. Its day in the sun is all but over.

The above story on the effect the ipad3 will have on computing as we now know it is worth a read.

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[DJGM]

Another interesting article by Chris Boss on BetaNews.com:
Windows 8 can become Windows again!

A YouTube video of someone's dad with struggling to find his way around Windows 8.
How Real People Will Use Windows 8.
Had to chuckle at his closing comment ... and it'd be nice if his son didn't sound like such an arrogant arse!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20120216 Firefox/10.0.2 SeaMonkey/2.7.2 Lightning/1.2.1

[James]

I'll check this out when I get home. I'm in a coffee shop with my Fire which does not support flash.

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[James]

Hilarious video. And Chris did prove his point. Surely MS is going to give better directions. Hiding everything is not a good thing.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0.2

[beanboy89]

I'll check this out when I get home. I'm in a coffee shop with my Fire which does not support flash.

Off topic, but the Kindle Fire does support and has Flash preinstalled. To activate it in the Silk Browser, go to Menu > Settings > Behavior heading > Enable Flash.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:11.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/11.0

[James]

Interesting. I'll check this out. Thanks.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0.2

[DJGM]

Stardock have released a free add-on for Windows 8 called Start8, which places a customisable Start button
in the traditional place on the Taskbar. Clicking it opens a Metro style menu, but not the regular Start menu.
Not ideal, but a step in the right direction. Offering a choice that had been needlessly taken away.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20120216 Firefox/10.0.2 SeaMonkey/2.7.2 Lightning/1.2.1

[DJGM]

Another video featuring an average user struggling to find his way around Windows 8:

YouTube - "My dad tries Windows 8 for the first time" - posted by brigwy

Again, this demonstrates how rather lost and confused a lot of non-techie Windows users are going to feel
with Windows 8. Especially if Microsoft keep it like this in the finalised version, and not at the very least
offer the option of the having the traditional menus alongside the spangly new Metro interface.

For those that have never used a computer before, be it a desktop or a laptop, the Metro GUI will be great.
Those people will probably very rarely, if ever, need to venture into the classic desktop GUI environment.
Until they encounter WinXP workstations at their place of work, and wonder why it looks so different!


For what it's worth, here's how my Windows 8 desktop currently looks:




Also, here's the way I currently have the Metro tiled Start screen layed out:



Yes, it does feature desktop apps before Metro apps! I'd prefer to have the proper Start menu though.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; rv:10.0.2) Gecko/20120216 Firefox/10.0.2 SeaMonkey/2.7.2 Lightning/1.2.1

[Mandrake]

Thanks for the screenshots. One of the key things about the lack of a real start menu that would drive me insane is the lack of that search field.



When I hit the Windows key on my keyboard, in Windows 7, the start menu is opened and the search field is automatically active. So I can hit the Windows button, then just start typing the first few letters of an application I want to open (useful as I have a LOT of games and apps installed...) and the relevant applications are instantly displayed, if I wanted to I could just hit enter to launch the first one. I want to launch Firefox, I hit the Windows key, type fir then hit enter and it's open. I find this even easier than using the mouse to open a shortcut in the start menu. I could also obviously use this to search for documents, pictures etc too. Taking it away would do my head in.

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[DJGM]

You could do as I did, and rearrange the Start screen and drag your main desktop apps to the first section.

It isn't ideal, and not a totally adequate replacement for the proper Start menu, but it can still give regular
desktop applications the main focus on the spangly new Metro UI. There ought to be a way to make the
tiles and the font on the text labels smaller, so they're about the same size as regular desktop icons.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; rv:11.0) Gecko/20120312 Firefox/11.0 SeaMonkey/2.8

[DJGM]

Here's how it looks now . . .



Metro goes a little retro!

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[Antony]

Finally I got Windows 8 Consumer Preview installed. Pretty impressive I'd say.

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