free windows 8 preview...

[billygoat333]

...who is going to try it? I might give it a download.

http://www.legitreviews.com/news/11461/

EDIT: direct link to microsoft (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516/)

[Fuganater]

I might throw it in a VM and see how it does.

[crenn]

*downloads all* ;D

[xr4man]

i know what i'm doing tonight now. - building computer to run this and downloading.

[slaveofconvention]

Damn, I can't remember the last time I downloaded something that would take over 30 mins :S - too used to 700mb downloads heh

Just warned the wife that I may be stealing her PC for a day or two - hers is the only machine in the house with a touchscreen :P

[AmEv]

Im VMing it.


See you in FOUR hours....

[slaveofconvention]

I have a spare 500gb Sata drive sitting here - I'm just going to yank her HDD and install 8 on the spare - that way there's no risk to her stuff and I get to see it without any potential VM issues - at least, that's the theory heh

[diluzio91]

honestly? so far i'm not really loving much, and find myself repulsed by
The mutalation of the start menu...
Anyone here try to find the power button? Thats right, its hidden in the settings...
Programs seem laggy (forgivable as im running this on a dual core atom, and its a dev preview)

Havn't gotten further into it yet...

[AmEv]

I suppose, use the main power button to turn it off?

[xr4man]

just looking at screen shots, i really don't like the "metro" tiles. maybe if they were finished off like android or iphone tiles. but being just plain blocks is definitely a step backwards.

[AmEv]

*epic facepalm*

(click pic for source)
http://mthruf.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/job-fails-technology-moves-in-squares1.jpg (http://work.failblog.org/2011/09/16/job-fails-technology-moves-in-squares/)

[NightrainSrt4]

Lmao.

[xr4man]

hahahahaha

[billygoat333]

...all I want to do is play minesweeper. come on Microsoft.

[xr4man]

i got my ram in for my win 8 machine on friday. but haven't loaded it up yet.

[billygoat333]

I am downloading it now. Probably will give it a test drive on my i7 rig since somehow my windows 7 install got corrupted.

[luciusad2004]

I played around with it for a little but wasn't to impressed. I found that on a traditional PC the Metro Interface wasn't good for anything except getting in the way and squandering productivity. I don't even think it's THAT pretty. It's not bad, but not like staring in to the eye's of an Angel or something that would make me applaud this radical paradigm shift.

I spent 5% of my time trying to figure out what the less than intuitive metro apps each did, then the other 95% of my time playing around with the actual desktop view.

[luciusad2004]

Couple of strange issues I've found with Windows 8 maybe some people here have found a way around it by now...

1st. The desktop version of IE10 and the Metro version are different, as anyone running the Dev Preview should know. The issue I've found is that, if you change your default browser, then click on the tile to launch the metro browser it will not launch the metro version of IE10 but instead goes to the desktop and launches the Desktop Version of IE10. This behavior baffles me.
It would make sense if it was at least trying to load your default browser but it seems that it just disables the Metro Version of IE10.

2nd. Closing Metro Apps doesn't seem to close them. The only way I have found to exit them is with ctrl-esc. This would normally be fine as they supposedly go in to a suspended mode and stop hogging resources but I've noticed with apps that have any sort of sound that once they close the sound continues to play. This seems to indicate that the app is still running in the background.
I should be able to close these apps completely without going through the tast manager and furthermore if they are not in focus It seems they should stop playing sounds.

[DynamoNED]

I'm going to give this a whirl using my parents' old machine which I replaced a couple weeks ago, but turns out the original motherboard is heat-fried, so looks like I'm either going to have to go hunting for a Socket 775 motherboard. Pretty sure I've got a spare (if I haven't sold/loaned it out).

Why run this Windows 8 preview on an ancient Pentium D w/2GB DDR2? Frankly, I want to test performance with older hardware; I'm curious about the demands the Metro interface will put on an older system in terms of graphics and CPU usage.

[xr4man]

finally loaded it up last night and so far i hate it with all my heart.

i don't like having to click on windows explorer just bring up a regular desktop. then i don't like that if you close the explorer window it shoves you back into metro. which is way uglier than windows 3.1 ever was. then i can't figure out how to get out of metro ie10 without going into the task manager.

so, does anyone know what is supposed to be better about windows8 other than the metro interface?

[Ichbin]

I did a livestream of it a couple days ago.

Doesn't go into too much, mainly just first impressions.

www.livestream.com/ichbin

Head to about...25 minutes in if you don't wanna see it install.

[luciusad2004]

finally loaded it up last night and so far i hate it with all my heart.

i don't like having to click on windows explorer just bring up a regular desktop. then i don't like that if you close the explorer window it shoves you back into metro. which is way uglier than windows 3.1 ever was. then i can't figure out how to get out of metro ie10 without going into the task manager.

so, does anyone know what is supposed to be better about windows8 other than the metro interface?

There should be a tile that takes you to the desktop. Once in the desktop you should have a link in the task bar to IE 10. If you open IE from there it will take you to regular IE. Then you can download Chrome :whistler:

[xr4man]

yup, i found all that.

but, how do you make it stay in desktop mode permanently? that metro crap is retarded.

[SXRguyinMA]

There is a setting for it. I read it yesterday. The metro interface is geared towards tablet PCs. There is a setting to get the STD desktop at startup.

[xr4man]

if you can find how to do that i'd appreciate it. if not, i'll hunt down the info myself. that may make me hate it less.

[xr4man]

i think i found an easy way to bypass metro.

http://www.ghacks.net/2011/09/15/windows-8-start-menu-toggle-disable-enable-metro-ui/

[crenn]

My girlfriend just did this method of installing Windows 8, very interesting if you ask me:
http://blog.concurrency.com/infrastructure/dual-boot-windows-8-from-vhd-using-windows-setup/

As for my opinion of Windows 8, it's not bad, but it's not great in it's current form. The metro interface is very nice for tablets (although on my girlfriend's netbook, the Metro interface apps won't open because the maximum screen resolution is 800x600!) but for a desktop, I'd prefer to have some desktop setting which brings back the Windows Vista/7 start menu with a button to go into Metro mode.

Additionally, if you have a tablet which isn't working with the pen (My girlfriend has a Wacom Fun Bamboo Pen and Touch tablet, touch was working fine, but the pen wasn't), installing the Windows 7 drivers works fine and will 're-enable' the pen functionality. I wonder if a lot of the Windows 7 drivers will work fine with Windows 8 (if so, this is good news!).

I might give it a go on my netbook soon via the VHD method shown above.

[luciusad2004]

My girlfriend just did this method of installing Windows 8, very interesting if you ask me:
http://blog.concurrency.com/infrastructure/dual-boot-windows-8-from-vhd-using-windows-setup/

As for my opinion of Windows 8, it's not bad, but it's not great in it's current form. The metro interface is very nice for tablets (although on my girlfriend's netbook, the Metro interface apps won't open because the maximum screen resolution is 800x600!) but for a desktop, I'd prefer to have some desktop setting which brings back the Windows Vista/7 start menu with a button to go into Metro mode.

Additionally, if you have a tablet which isn't working with the pen (My girlfriend has a Wacom Fun Bamboo Pen and Touch tablet, touch was working fine, but the pen wasn't), installing the Windows 7 drivers works fine and will 're-enable' the pen functionality. I wonder if a lot of the Windows 7 drivers will work fine with Windows 8 (if so, this is good news!).

I might give it a go on my netbook soon via the VHD method shown above.

I had to use Windows 7 Video Drivers for my Latitude Laptop to get my video working properly so I would place a safe bet on at least a good number of the windows 7 drivers working for windows 8.

[xr4man]

so i downloaded the program from the link above and woo hoo!!!!! no more metro for me! i have a full desktop with full start menu. i'm hating win8 less now.

[Kayin]

I tried it and promptly set fire to the disk and installed Fedora. I like my PC much more now.

Also, have you guys looked into that one of the "features" of Win8 may be that there's no ability to install other OSes-on a motherboard level?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?275482-Will-Windows-8-Secure-Boot-Block-Linux

[luciusad2004]

I tried it and promptly set fire to the disk and installed Fedora. I like my PC much more now.

Also, have you guys looked into that one of the "features" of Win8 may be that there's no ability to install other OSes-on a motherboard level?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?275482-Will-Windows-8-Secure-Boot-Block-Linux

I don't forsee this as being much of a detriment for enthusiasts who build there own machines as most decent motherboards will likely come with the ability to disable this feature.

For OEMs on the other hand... I see a lot of people Not installing Linux in the near future.

[luciusad2004]

Metro stopped working for me today. It would just freeze up whenever i went to the metro start screen. I figured A reboot would take care of it so I shut her down and ran off to work.

Got home and started her up and I have the old windows seven interface back. I checked the registry to make sure it was set to use metro but the key was set properly. So i have no clue what happened. I'm not sure If Im upset about it or not yet.