Windows 8 Beta released to day

[GreyGeek]

And I downloaded the 32 bit version, weighing in at 2.5GB, which took my connection about 25 minutes to download. The 64bit is larger.

I used the latest version of VirtualBox, which includes a Win8 config setting, to create a guest OS on a 20GB virtual disk.

Two things off the top:
It is unusually slow as a guest OS.
It looks like Win7phone. I don't know if it works like Win7phone because I've never used a Windows phone.

Get used to using the keyboard button with the Windows logo on it. Get used to BIG SQUARE colored boxes with uninspiring icons on them.

I found, playing around, that I could add a "Desktop" icon to the system tray area, and clicking it provided a comfortable menu structure that was also reasonably fast. Here are some jpgs.

http://ubuntuone.com/1pSP8kJE9GXXtatLm1b448

http://ubuntuone.com/3YIHCW1u68X9v4VZT2MFDL

http://ubuntuone.com/7mHKPgEbS0GsaxWXV7Tjkl

http://ubuntuone.com/0zXqdPh8nhKvawRZTybbbD

http://ubuntuone.com/3oLGN6Ufb0VGaIcu20LZTS

http://ubuntuone.com/45BUAMQxzHEOnLU4prjG9W


Will it compete with iOS or Android on tablets and smartphones?

I don't see how.

[whatthefunk]

So they did drop the windows start menu. How do you access programs from desktop

[GreyGeek]

Those big square boxy icons, that look like crap, are themes to programs which open to other boxy icons which link to apps. There are two pages of them, the second page being the "All" set of smaller boxy icons. Also, there is a way to put a "desktop" icon near the system tray. Clicking on it gives something which approximates the classic menu structure.

[SteveRiley]

Engadget's review includes a detailed discussion of how to interact with the Metro UI, along with some videos.

Start button

Okay, so pressing a hardware button isn't exactly a gesture, but if you have a Windows 8 tablet it will have a physical Start button beneath the display. Pressing this brings up the full-screen Start menu. For the mouse you might be thinking the equivalent would be to just click the on-screen Start button that has resided in the lower-left since Windows 95 -- but you'd be wrong. With this version of Windows Microsoft has killed off that button, and there's no way to get it back. Instead, you need to drag down to the lower-left corner of the screen, where that button used to live, and click.

This is probably the most befuddling change in this version of Windows. Even when you get down to the raw Windows desktop there's no graphical Start button to be found on the screen, just the hidden hot-spot waiting for your hovering cursor. You can of course use the Start key on the keyboard (officially called the "Windows logo key"), but we can imagine some novice users on a laptop or desktop dropping down to the desktop view to run some app or another and having absolutely no idea how to get back.

This is a change from the version of Windows 8 that came with my developer preview tablet.

[GreyGeek]

Engadget's review includes a detailed discussion of how to interact with the Metro UI, along with some videos.
This is a change from the version of Windows 8 that came with my developer preview tablet.

Interesting. Thanks for the video link.

In a VB install that lower left corner trick doesn't work. And, in several apps I cannot find a way to close them short of opening the task manager and killing it.

For previous users of Windows this Metro UI represents a significant learning hurdle. I suspect Windows users will greet it the way Gnome users greeted Unity.

I haven't used it enough, yet, to form an opinion on anything about it except its visual appearence and ease of navigation, both of which are not in a direction I would prefer.

[whatthefunk]

Looks really unorganized and bungled up. Why does everyone want to get rid of menus all of a sudden

[SteveRiley]

Looks really unorganized and bungled up. Why does everyone want to get rid of menus all of a sudden

Menus and fingers don't go well together. Of course, neither do mice and fingerprint-covered monitors, but no one seems to care about that...last thing I want to do is squint at my 25" monitor blurred with slimy finger trails...

[Ole Juul]

Thanks for the pics GG. I see that they still have a "Command prompt" so I guess they have a terminal so you can actually use the thing.

. . . Get used to using the keyboard button with the Windows logo on it.

Uh, oh! I don't have one of those since I use a classic model M. That's a deal breaker. I'll just stick with Linux.

[GreyGeek]

Menus and fingers don't go well together. Of course, neither do mice and fingerprint-covered monitors, but no one seems to care about that...last thing I want to do is squint at my 25" monitor blurred with slimy finger trails...

You named my #2 complaint with touch screens. (Virtual keyboards is #1). I have enough trouble reading the screen without smudges.

[ScottyK]

I fired up a VM to give this a checkout, and I have to say I'm not impressed. Unity comes to mind, along with "Fisher Price".

My 7 year old son summed up the whole Windows 8 experience. He looked at the interface and asked, "Is that a new kids program?" When I explained to him that it was the new windows program, he told me that it looked like it was made for kids. Enough said!

[SecretCode]

What does Microsoft have now, that Apple, Google, Canonical and Microsoft are fighting to have in the future?

[GreyGeek]

What does Microsoft have now, that Apple, Google, Canonical and Microsoft are fighting to have in the future?

A bad reputation?

[SecretCode]

Tsk tsk!

Any company can deal with a bad reputation if it makes the kind of money Microsoft's been making.

No, I was referring to the monopoly Microsoft has enjoyed in desktop computers (with the Windows OS and with the control they have over hardware vendors). No other company now believes they can hurt MS in that space, but the future is smartphones and tablets, and that's anyone's game - Apple had the closest thing to a monopoly of attention, with the iPhone and iPad, but their strategy of controlling the hardware leaves the door open for Android and Unity (and even Plasma Active) to compete with other hardware vendors.

Which is all fine, but it means that most of the innovation from those companies is directed towards future market share - and possible user-lock-in, or vendor-lock-in, if not effective monopoly. Nobody really cares about large screen and keyboard-and-mouse operating systems any more. (Cynicism alert for that last sentence!)

[ardvark71]

I have enough trouble reading the screen without smudges.

Hmm. The prospect of phasing out mice (or at least the attempt) doesn't sound very appealing. At least 8 will still support them.

Regards...

[Ole Juul]

Hmm. The prospect of phasing out mice (or at least the attempt) doesn't sound very appealing. At least 8 will still support them.

One thing about touch screens is that because of the physiology of neck, arm, and shoulder muscles, you can't have them out in front of you. They will need to be down and close to your body. There's a lot of implications of that. Not the least of which is the impracticability of the wide screens that seem to be popular now. Without a wide screen one looses the ability to compare documents or do transcriptions from imaged text, and so on.