Windows 8

[zourtney]

Last night, I installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview on my work Macbook Pro. Under the guise of IE10 compatibility testing (which I will do). After "fixing" a few driver issues, it's up and running. By "fixing", I mean doing a clean install -- in-place upgrades still bite back).

All in all, I like it. Of coure, I've had a few of the apps crash, unwarranted Explorer windows pop up in the desktop view, and mouse navigation just kinda feels old-school. But it's a nice change and looks pretty dang nice on a 13" screen.

Anyone else tried it yet?

[Nick]

I downloaded the ISO yesterday with the intent of duel booting my laptop, but have yet to install it. Though I still intend on playing with it.

On a slightly related note, Visual Studios 11 beta was made public yesterday for all to try.

[zourtney]

Can I assume VS11 has Win8 and WindowsPhone SDKs built in? For whatever reason, the WP7 dev kit I downloaded acts as a separate, standalone copy of Visual Studio. Which seems silly, at best.

[Nick]

I think it does... let me check... Nope. It's the other way around. The Win8 SDK has Blend (?) and VS11 included with it.

http://www.i-programmer.info/news/177-windows-8/3857-windows-8-consumer-preview-get-it-now.html

[zourtney]

I could get so much more done if I gave up sleep.

...for about 26 hours. Then that plan would fail. Such a shame. Too many toys.

[Nick]

Don't I know it. I have no less then 8 unfinished projects (go-karts, forum themes, wooden tables, wifi-RC cars, LED fish lights, you name it) too little free time. Too much work time. Can I just retire yet?

[zourtney]

Fish lights? That must be cool, because I have no idea what that means! I too have no trouble keeping myself busy. My whole life is a side-project. (<-- I don't know what that means, either)

[Nick]

Fish lights , as in lights for the fish tank

[Brad]

So... Melissa got a new Acer ultrabook for use with her business and because my Dell laptop is dieing. This laptop comes with Windows 8.

Unfortunately my first impressions can be summed up in three words "hate, hate, hate!" I just wasted an hour of my life trying to remove all the stupid UI-formerly-known-as-metro apps so that I can replace them with actually functional desktop versions. It also took me an exceedingly long time to figure out how to open up any program without a desktop shortcut. Without a touch-screen the "metro" apps are so freaking counter intuitive. How do you go back to the previous screen? Scrolling sideways SUCKS. I do not have a sideways scroll wheel on my mouse Microsoft, why do all the metro apps require me to scroll sideways? I actually had to use Google to figure out how to turn the computer off.

I think eventually when I've removed all the extra useless stuff and figured out how to deal without a start menu my extreme annoyance with the OS will go away. In fact I'll probably find a couple new features I actually like.

But WOW that was a bad first impression.

[Nick]

Wow. They really dropped the ball if some like you needs technical help turning into off. My mom has been looking at getting a new laptop as well (her work kinda adopted her old one as it works with their printer.) and I have b3n doing my best to steer her away from win8 machines. That is getting harder and harder to do.  All the ones on sale have it and you have to seek out models still with 7.

[Brad]

The shutdown button is in the settings menu. THE SETTINGS MENU.

[zourtney]

Nick, you could always just put Win7 on whatever she gets. I wouldn't steer her away from Win8 as much as I'd steer her towards one with a touchscreen...or (gasp) an OS X machine. Unless that's too much of a change or she's totally uninterested.Windows 8 makes enemies fast. A lot of it's got to be because keyboard and mouse navigation in metro apps sucks...with exception of the "find as you type"-like feature. And touch surely must suck on the desktop view. Both are usable, but seem to make cranky old men out of technical professionals. Wait...that's what every release of Windows does. Meh.

[Brad]

How often does anybody actually use a touchscreen on a normal non-tablet (meaning you can't flip the screen around) laptop? Does it really add around $100 of value? I can't really see the scenario where that feature gets regular use.

Metro apps have less functionality than standard desktop apps and are a total waste of screen space. They also use a whole bunch of features which just make them harder to use with the standard keyboard/mouse combo (like sideways scrolling.)

I'm sure Metro would be great on a tablet (although I'm not seeing what its got that beats Android or IOS) but it just doesn't make sense on a PC. Ignoring Metro, Windows 8 works great because it's basically exactly like Windows 7 with a different way of looking up applications. It just gives me a really bad first impression. I really try not to be one of those "change is bad! I was used to Windows 95 why do they have to change everything!" kind of person (they had one of those in Best Buy the other day when I was there) but I was just thoroughly unimpressed with Windows 8/Metro.

[Nick]

I guess I will have to go someplace and play with one. And then get her to try one and see what she thinks.

[zourtney]

Well...yes