[Closed] Windows 8 "consumer preview"

I've got the dev preview at work. Unimpressed. Probably good if you have a touch screen (and cataracts).

Much difference between that and the consumer one, I wonder?

Improvements in non-touchscreen capabilities* apparently + addition of App Store and probably some other guff.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/29/mwc_windows_8/

By the time it had downloaded and I'd installed it into VirtualBox it was bed time so only had 5 mins looking around.

* using a keyboard + mouse 😉

ReFS looks like a good upgrade to NTFS. Haven't seen too much else I'm interested in.

Downloading now to try on my Mac in Parallels - could be interesting...

ReFS looks like a good upgrade to NTFS. Haven't seen too much else I'm interested in.

It really does.

They've been rumbling about replacing / superseding NTFS for ever. WinFS was the golden child, basically treating a volume like a dirty great big SQL database; we were supposed to get that back in Vista days and it never saw the light of day (and WinFS itself harks back to OFS which is pre-W95).

ReFS looks like they've shitcanned WinFS again in favour of something else more NTFS-y. I think in the grand scheme of things that's probably a sensible thing to do.

I can't get it working. I just get an error about it entering recovery mode. Downloaded the iso a couple of times now, same result.

Bugger, if samuri can't get it to work, I worry about my chances! Still, that's tomorrow's project - g'night all

Went in like a dream for me.

I am awesome though 😉

You're not Surf-Mat are you? He was awesome once....

The download links don't work for me!

Does it still have minsweeper?

getting nowt but errors in virtual box when I try to install it (tried 32 and 64 bit).

not that bothered to be honest, as I use a mac mainly at home and happy with Win7 for my torrent box/media player

I suspect it's my laptop, I'll try it at home.

Cougar - Member
It really does.

They've been rumbling about replacing / superseding NTFS for ever. WinFS was the golden child, basically treating a volume like a dirty great big SQL database; we were supposed to get that back in Vista days and it never saw the light of day (and WinFS itself harks back to OFS which is pre-W95).

ReFS looks like they've shitcanned WinFS again in favour of something else more NTFS-y. I think in the grand scheme of things that's probably a sensible thing to do.

It looks to me like they've had a good look at ZFS, then nicked as much as possible! Gotta be a good thing in my book.

I was thinking about buying a netbook. Would I be able to upgrade next year when a netbook version comes out do you think?

Installed first time on the laptop I've put it on - definitely feels biased towards touchscreens, the old Desktop just feels like a token gesture

Can I still upgrade to XP?

Well, it's installed, and seems to work. Now wtf did they do with the Shut Down button?

Was quite impressed that it installed first time in Virtual box this morning. I installed Firefox just to see what happened, and it seems non-metro apps just look like an afterthought on the metro UI. Works ok though, unlike most of the apps - mail didn't do anything, app store not available, messaging didn't seem to work with my account etc. Not sure what to do with it now, although like allthepies I was hoping for the "Microsoft support" people to call - "yes, it's Windows. No, I can't see the start button...".

I've got the dev version in VirtualBox. meh. I wonder if I can be bothered to download the consumer version? (I suppose I should try to run it as a VM on a RaspberryPi when I get one of those, just for giggles)

Can I still upgrade to XP?

None of my laptops/netbooks/monitors have a touch screen, so not sure why I'd want to install an touchscreen oriented OS?

I was hoping for the "Microsoft support" people to call - "yes, it's Windows. No, I can't see the start button...

I'd let them do the remote desktop thing also just to ratchet up the confusion levels 🙂 Obviously I'd trash the instance afterwards and restore from a snapshot.

Really why are you even bothering?
It's a known fact that every 2nd Microsoft release will be **** (self modded, can't believe that got past the swear filter) beyond belief, released in a rush, pushed onto OEM's and then dropped like hot potatoe 😉

(just to state this isn't a mac loving anti-MS rant, just noting history)

Really why are you even bothering?

For curiosity. I'm not wiping my Win7 install and moving over to Win8Beta 🙂 I'm just installing it in a VM to have a play with and see what M$ are smoking these days 😉 Calm down fella 🙂

only pulling ppl legs, I'd be interest in seeing/playing with it, if I hadn't got 'stuff' going on... but history does tend to repeat itself with MS.

Win2000 still functions perfectly fine

Not necessarily. I had to upgrade cos I had software that wouldn't run on it.

W95 was fine, 98 less so, ME not so, NT fine, 2K fine XP fine, Vista fine (for me), 7 fine. Most seem to work

W95 [i]fine[/i]???

[img] [/img]

Vista fine? please tell me your joking

and cant say im a fan on windows 8 from what ive had a play. cant see it being on our corporate network.

Just getting HAL errors for the Server 8 on ESXi 4.1 so I'll have to wait for some hardware to get freed up. Seems to be a known problem.

It all went wrong after DOS 6.20 IMHO. But that's probably just me.

(-:

Vista fine? please tell me your joking

My Vista install worked fine for about 3 years, would probably still be working fine if I hadn't got bored of it and installed Ubuntu.

My Vista install survived months of living on a faulty hard disk (which crashed the PC daily), a subsequent cloning to a replacement HDD, and an in-situ upgrade to Windows 7. Whatever else may be wrong with Vista, it's pretty robust.

Whatever else may be wrong with Vista, it's pretty robust

It never lived down its release, must be said that sending it out to the big wide world without stable drivers for the most popular hardware was a bad idea... the problems of not living in a closed OS ecosystem...

XP was only fine after SP2, it was a load of rubbish that broke most of your programs before that...

XP was only fine after SP2, it was a load of rubbish that broke most of your programs before that...

Bloody SP2 broke my ActiveX control I used for digital signatures about a week before project delivery, grrr.

(EDIT - removed, doesn't matter)

Vista fine? please tell me your joking

I have both the x86 and the much maligned x64 versions. Neither are great these days, but that's more a factor of the age of hardware they're on. I've never had to re-install either.

And compared to any other general public-based OS of the time, W95 was just fine. You have to bear in mind that equally shonky software and third-party drivers were rife then too, and that's hardly the OS's fault! I certainly doubt that MacOS7 would have been much more stable, certainly if id didn't have the ease of being a closed ecosystem.

For that matter, I've had to hard-reboot my MBA using Lion more often than I think I've ever had to do to a healthy PC 🙄

Had a play around with it last night on a tablet pc. Metro doesn't seem too responsive, thought that's probably down to the VM and hardware. Can't say I'm sold yet.

Damn - just had "Windows Technical Centre" on the phone but I didn't have the PC with the Win8 VM powered up. She hung up on me before I could get it going. Maybe next time.