[pratheekkunder]

On my way home now.. Have downloaded the Consumers Preview. Pretty excited to try it out.

[VW2010]

For the first time, I am actually excited to wait for a Microsoft OS!

Common Windows 7 was brilliant and exceeded expectation to some levels. My home system on Windows 7 is so fast my I5 core at work feels so slow.

Windows 7 is the best OS after windows Xp.

I have a mac as well. So can say Windows 7 is my fav along with Mac.

[vikram_d]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Here's the thing : the screen you see (in the pic posted by the OP) is just the Home Screen with a lot of Tiles (short-cuts to actual programs). Once you click on Start, it goes back to the usual interface that you see now on Windows 7.

Of course, the GUI is refreshing, but I was really hoping they'd transformed the whole Windows experience. For now, you just see the Tiles for shortcuts, eventually you use the same Desktop as 7. This being said, there are of course tons of other changes in the GUI which I liked.

I don't know if you remember the transition from Windows 3.xx to Windows 95. Windows 3 series were all completely DOS based where as Windows 95 was a complete GUI based OS with DOS as an operating environment and not an OS in itself. The reason for this was when they released Windows 95 there were a lot of apps and games that were still running completely on DOS.

What we see happening here is something similar. They have to provide a way to support legacy apps which at the moment are all the apps that run on Windows 7. If they don't do this do you think people will buy Windows 8. They will completely do away with the Win7 desktop eventually or maybe keep a smaller version for power users (like how we still have DOS). It is only a matter of time. For this to happen all the apps need to move to the Metro and finger friendly UI.

I have been running the Developer Preview on my tablet and on my desktop at work since the day of it's launch. On my desktop at work it is the primary OS even though I have Win7 as a secondary OS since my CAM software does not run on Windows 8. Now I have the Consumer preview on the tablet and I have to say I am mightily impressed by what I see. I just love the finger friendly UI and most of all the boot time.

My desktop in office starts up in 20 seconds flat (this is with all my software installed on it) and my tablet in 8 seconds.

Now the hunt begins for a transparent Samsung OLED monitor.

[madnish30]

Even I downloaded it, using it as my primary OS... pretty cool and sleek - however a little confusing at times...

But sure we all are not the only ones, lots of others have installed the same.

Install or Not | News: On It’s Very First Day, Windows 8 Consumer Preview Hits 1 Million Downloads !

[msdivy]

Windows 8 Release Preview is out - Download Windows 8 Release Preview

Hardly any different from consumer preview. How a tablet OS performs as a desktop OS in the market is to be seen.

[msdivy]

Windows 8 (RTM) Quirks:

Downloaded Windows 8 Enterprise and trying my hands. Things have changed vastly from developer preview edition (released Sep 2011) but only subtle changes from release preview edition (released May 2012). Now that there won't be any more changes to Windows 8, I list few strange behaviors:

1) Cannot activate Windows 8 Enterprise edition. I get this error code: 0xC004F074

2) Cannot block popup permanently for a site in IE10. I visit a news site often, which has popup on their home screen. I have to click 'Close' popup every time I visit that site.

3) Cannot change temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius in Weather app. (Release preview had a setting which is missing in RTM). Only way is to change region to a country that follow Celsius as default.

4) I use multi-monitor setup, Win 8 being in right monitor via remote desktop. I find it extremely hard to do the 'left side screen trick' to list the apps that are running.

5) It is very difficult to use IE in metro mode. Difficult to get the address bar to be visible, hard to list the tabs open. Actually I find it easy to use IE in desktop mode.

6) Metro apps start and take a while to update the screen. For instance, weather app starts and it takes some time to get weather data from Internet. For that time the system is rendered useless and since its full screen, it is annoying. This happens even if the weather data is updated in background. Same for news, store, search and other apps.

7) Not all settings are available in metro mode. So had to constantly go to control panel in desktop mode. Missing start menu made this task complex.

I was running Win 8 on a Hyper-V ( I gave 4 virtual cores & 4GB RAM). I found the performance sluggish. Constant switching between modes, excessive use of mouse for non-mouse tasks, too many keyboard shortcuts, didn't help either.

PS: I will be back with more quirks later as I use more

[vikram_d]

msdivy - are you using the 90 day eval version?

Edit: To get address bar in metro UI mode, just right click the mouse on any empty portion of the webpage. A lot of the stuff works with the right mouse button.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by vikram_d

msdivy - are you using the 90 day eval version?

Edit: To get address bar in metro UI mode, just right click the mouse on any empty portion of the webpage. A lot of the stuff works with the right mouse button.

I have MSDN subscriber account and I downloaded from there.
Thanks for the tip, it works.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by msdivy

1) Cannot activate Windows 8 Enterprise edition. I get this error code: 0xC004F074

Update:
I could activate via command-line using slrmgr.vbs. Activation via UI just failed.

[vikram_d]

Originally Posted by msdivy

3) Cannot change temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius in Weather app. (Release preview had a setting which is missing in RTM). Only way is to change region to a country that follow Celsius as default.

I have Celsius set by default. I used English (India) locale settings while installing and I also have an option to change temperature unit to Fahrenheit.

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by vikram_d

I have Celsius set by default. I used English (India) locale settings while installing and I also have an option to change temperature unit to Fahrenheit.

I chose 'US' while installing. Later changed to 'India'. All I have in option is this:

Originally Posted by msdivy

Windows 8 (RTM) Quirks:

Added my system to a private active directory domain. So we have next quirk:
8) When logged in as Domain Admin, none of the metro apps work. So when logged in as Administrator, Win 8 is just Win 7 with 'Start screen' but minus 'Start menu'.

[vikram_d]

Right mouse click inside the weather app brings up the temperature unit setting. Strange regarding the Domain Admin login. Everything is working here for me. Which server are you connecting to? I am using Win Server 2008 and everything works.

Note: The right mouse buttons behaves differently in different apps. You will need to try it in all apps to see exactly what it does there. Most of the times it brings up app related menus.

[im_srini]

Windows 8 booting up from a SSD in 3.9 seconds !

This is with no page-file configured.

Windows 8 (No Page File) Startup Test (raw) - YouTube

With page-file, Windows 8 booting up from a SSD in 8.0 seconds.

Window 8 Startup Test (raw) - YouTube

[Dry Ice]

Installed the release preview sometime back, and I must say, I am impressed! The UI is refreshing and doesn't feel like the traditional Windows. If you don't need to open your disks, you actually don't need to go to the explorer at all, which by the way, is the only link between the older versions and this. I can only imagine how good this must be on a tab. Every thing feels just so 'touch' friendly.

At the start screen you can configure any number of tiles and organize them in groups. The transition animations are great too! This could be a prefect OS for the HTPCs and provide an alternative for xbmc etc.

The store at the moment doesn't seem to have a lot many apps. I hope it improves over time. Like someone said before me, this is probably the first Windows release that I am looking forward to. Might just upgrade to it. The upgrade fee isn't much, I think it is $40 for a downloadable version for systems bought prior to July'12 and only $19 for systems bought after July'12.

If this catches on, Nokia might get lucky as well! People after getting used to the OS on their PC may just upgrade to a Win mobile!

[Parthasarathig]

I recently installed the windows 8 preview and boy was I impressed. The interface feels great and snappy just like the lumia.

Have always loved the metro UI and having it on the comp with live tiles is like my dream getting fulfilled. The OS boots so damn fast, not just that you are ready to use it right from the moment the system boots, without any lag.

Waiting for some sexily thin windows 8 tablets to be launched. Everything would feel much better with the touch interface, something that I've grown familiar with after having used the lumia.

Drawbacks:

I really wish they made browsing and selecting media files a bit intuitive (not sure if its the right word). I mean, if Im using the picture app, I'd like pictures to be automatically selected from the folders i point to and not having to pin point each and every file.

This problem can be noticed more when using the video files. I want only the video files to be displayed when I select a particular drive and not the other bogus contents of the folders like photos or songs.

Maybe there is a workaround to do this. Experts, any advice?

Dual booting is a pain:

I've windows 7 also installed. Once you select the windows 7 option in the boot screen, the computer sort of goes into hibernate mode and reboots and then only we can use windows 7.

Also after installing windows 8, the boot time of my win7 has drastically increased even though I've installed them on separate partitions.

Has anyone else also noticed this?
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Overall love the look and feel of Microsoft's new OS and hopefully waiting for the release of Surface tabs. Any idea on the release dates?