Windows 8 Consumer Preview - First Impressions

By Colin M. Ormsby

Microsoft pretty much nailed it for many of us with Windows 7. We got the reliability of Windows XP along with the features and "bling" of Windows Vista. The question then arose, what next? In the last week or so, Microsoft officially released a Consumer Preview of Windows 8. This is (or should be) a very good indication of how the final RTM version will look and act, so now the question is "Well?" - Let's find out..... <!--break-->

One of the new features Microsoft is pushing with Windows 8 is a much greater level of touchscreen support than previous versions. Windows 8 was built from the ground up with touchscreen technology in mind so it should be strong. Having said that however, Microsoft has got to be aware that the vast majority of users don't have touchscreens yet, so in order to actually shift this new OS they've had to make sure it will work equally well with a keyboard and mouse.

Fortunately (for the purposes of this article) I am one of the minority of people who DO own a full screen touchscreen PC. Well that's not entirely true, my wife owns one and I stole it for a week!

HP Touchsmart 300 all-on-one PC

The machine in question is an HP Touchsmart 300 series. This is an all-in-one PC with a 20" touchscreen and a combination of laptop and desktop hardware in the chassis. It features laptop RAM and slot-loading optical drive coupled with a desktop processor, a desktop hard disk and an utterly proprietary motherboard. The first thing to do is compare the specifications of this computer with MS's posted requirements for Windows 8, which I expected to find in the official Product Guide for Windows 8. available here. There's no mention of hardware requirements there, but I did find the following in the FAQ on the MS website.

Processor : 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster
RAM : 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Hard disk space : 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
Graphics card : Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device or higher

In addition, Microsoft has this to add:

• To use touch, you need a tablet or a monitor that supports multi-touch.
• To access the Windows Store and to download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768.
• To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768.

So none of those specifications should be a problem. The HP Touchsmart has a dual-core AthlonII 235e running at 2.7 GHz, 4 GB of DDR3, a 500 GB SATA-II hard disk (I took my wife's hard drive out intact and used a spare drive for this article - I'm not THAT dumb!!) and the graphics system is an on-board ATI Radeon HD3200 which is a DX10 compliant device. Finally, we have a multi-touch 20" touchscreen with a native resolution of 1600x900. Overall, this PC literally jumps up and down on the minimum requirements for both the 32 and 64 bit versions of the OS. On paper at least, we should be seeing Windows 8 at it's best.

New hard disk installed to keep the wife happy

Let's get started with the installation.
By default, there's a 5MB setup file you can download to install 8 on a PC that is already running a suitable version of Windows. I've always been one for clean installs, so for me the .iso was the way to go.

Downloading the installation .iso DVD is potentially a task in and of itself if you have a slow or traffic limited internet connection. A relatively hefty 3.3GB file is available for direct download from Microsoft through the Windows 8 Consumer Preview pages.

I had no issues getting my hands on the 64-bit version which I reasoned to be the logical choice with 4 GB of RAM and a 64-bit CPU in the Touchsmart. After a quick Sha 1 hash check to confirm the .iso arrived intact, I burned it to a disk and popped it into the slot-loader. Shortly afterward I saw a fish...

A Fish - that's it - just a fish...

So it's time for gripe number 1. That's all there was, no "loading" or "preparing to install" message, just a fish in the middle of the screen. St this point I didn't know if that was Windows 8's installation starting or some kind of pretty BIOS splash screen from HP, and it sat there for a while. As it happens, I was also working on rebuilding my server for the 4th time in a week so I figured "I'll get to that in a minute". By the time I did, a more informative screen had popped up.

First installation screen

This doesn't satisfy my gripe however. Microsoft are touting Windows 8 as a "super-user-friendly OS" and that initial screen was utterly unhelpful and uninformative. That gripe aside, the rest of the install was painless and nothing unusual for anyone who's ever installed a semi-recent version Windows OS. The setup did require a key which wasn't supplied so I had to dig through the FAQ for that but it was there. It's worth noting that the option to continue without a key, present in both Windows Vista and Windows 7 has now gone - no key, no progress.

Installation in progress

Key request screen

The next screen you'll see is a prompt to sign in to your PC. You have to provide an email address (this may be a Consumer Preview thing and I have no way of knowing at this time if it'll be in the RTM). If the email address you provide is linked to a Windows Live ID (like mine is) you'll see this screen next.

HP Touchsmart 300 all-on-one PC

It knows my name!!!!

Windows retrieved my details from my Live ID and posted them on the screen, a cute touch but not rocket science by any means. Next I was confronted with this...

Security verification

I didn't try to bypass it nor did I see any obvious way TO bypass it, so I think it's not an option. Shortly afterward I got my first glimpse of the new "Metro" desktop.

Metro Desktop

From fish to metro took about 35 minutes, not a particularly quick install but it's a notable improvement over XP, Vista, and about on par with 7. Now personally, when I install Windows on a PC, the first thing I do is pop into the device manager and get any drivers still which are outstanding. Finding the device manager was a challenge in and of itself and I ended up going to the non-metro desktop by tapping the Windows Explorer tile. Then I right-clicked on the desktop and selected customize, then control panel home, then the device manager via System which was rather tedious. I'm sure there's an easier way and someone will point out a keyboard shortcut in the comments below, but it wasn't obvious to me at the time and I dare say it could potentially be a real hassle for a less technically experienced user.

On the plus side once I did get into device manager and clicked on several expand options I got a very pleasant surprise....

Device Manager

Every single hardware device on the system is there, properly identified and installed. So that's a big thumbs-up, even on a relatively rare system like the Touchsmart the driver database was more than up to the task.

I then proceeded to have a completely random and unorganized click around. I found that I had to use a combination of keyboard, mouse, and touchscreen to do the things I wanted to do but that's something I'll cover in more detail next time. There are obvious links to things like media, email, and messaging, internet, games, maps, people and more.

One thought did enter my head at that point though, and I freely admit this is a personal thing, I like a nice clean desktop. There are rarely more than 3 or 4 icons on my desktop at a time, and usually there's a recycle bin, a shortcut to my server, shared folders, and nothing more. The metro desktop is little more than a collection of shortcuts to the apps you'd regularly use. Hopefully this is a dynamic system which will change with time like the ribbons in Microsoft office and the things you use frequently will stay while the things you never use will go, but only time will tell.

For now, a quick summary on my initial thoughts regarding the first installation and 10 minute poke around.

While installation was a breeze, it would have been nice if the fish logo had been accompanied by something, anything, to let me know that progress was taking place. The process was quick, problem free, and user input was minimal simply asking you to enter a key, and then sign in.

While I freely admit this is a very small sample group of one PC, the hardware support seems to be spot-on, every device was detected and installed as soon as the OS install was finished so 10/10 in that department.

The Metro desktop is nice and uncluttered with lots of vibrant colors The touch response was effective but I did find myself reaching for the mouse much more than I thought I'd have to with this whole "touch-friendly" goal of Microsoft's. It may well be that I'll soon learn to do by touch the things I thought I needed a mouse for, but this is first impressions and that will come later.

Overall it was a positive experience. I've certainly had more difficult setups and can't remember an easier install, so definitely a pat on the back for MS in that regard. It was quick and painless but only time will tell if that continues to be the case.

That's all for now. I'll be writing something more during the week after I've had a chance to play around with the system a bit more. For now though, how about you guys help me out? Post any questions you have in the comments thread and if there's something specific you want me to check out or look into, ask away....

I am currently loving the consumer preview of Win 8. It definitely is going to take some getting used to, but I can't wait to use it as a primary OS.

Nice quick write up. I was planning to install this within the next couple of days. The "fish tip" is good to know. lol and I lol'd at "A Fish - that's it - just a fish..."

Thanks,
Outlaw

I haven't had the same luck with it....

i'm still running the developer's preview, but my only real gripe is with the metro interface. first off, i don't really like it that much to begin with, but they could at least make it pretty. i mean, put some borders on the tiles and maybe some shading to make em stand out or something. the way it is, it looks worse than windows 3.1. it just looks amateurish.

I still have a Windows 3.1 installation.

I can post a screenshot if anyone wants.

I was serious when I said that I'd happily look into specifics for those of you with questions - I will do a general overview next, with a little more focus on the individual apps but I'm more than happy to look into areas I might not have considered yet...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmEv

I haven't had the same luck with it....

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What kind of problems have you had?

Looks like a good OS for touch-based devices. However, for everything else I think I'll stick to 7. I'm just not that into the interface for anything other than touch screen gadgets.

I installed it in a virtual machine.

Network drivers refuse to install.

I was going to go the virtual machine route - I did that when I did the Home Server install guide because it gave much nicer screenshots - I went full system this time for the touchscreen aspect and because I had a spare hard disk - it just made more sense.... I don't know a lot about virtual machines so I can't really give you any pointers, sorry

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmEv

I installed it in a virtual machine.

Network drivers refuse to install.

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what virtual software are you using ?

VMWare.

try getting the lastest VMWare ? or try Virtual Box

Meh. Seems like we're going backwards here Microsoft. If i wanted 3.11, I would have never upgraded from my 286 machine.

Also, if I wanted the Metro interface, I'd go buy an Xbox 360.

I forsee being popular, but there will be a large number of "not only no, but hell no" mindsets out there. This will lead to people refusing to upgrade, which in turn will eventually lead to more virus laden machines as support for Windows 7 will eventually go by the wayside.

Although....Windows 8 and KDE For Windows...this has my curiosity piqued to say the least. http://windows.kde.org/ for those of you not in the know.

Well for a perspective from the younger generation - my 15 year old son was here for the weekend so I had him use the W8 machine and he gave up with a "Don't like that at all" after less than 2 minutes - having said that his general attention span isn't exactly great in the first place....

Running KDE on my computer right now.

Well, at least the Linux install.

slaveofconvention have you used the key combination of windows key + x ?

Hunh.

Virtualbox did the trick.

that's good amev

We haven't tried it yet. Kayin has talked about the possibility of testing it. I'm not too interested in it at the moment but I don't particularly care for Windows. I have 7 on my desktop, mainly because not all games I play work very well on Linux. I don't have a touchscreen for pc. My phone does, but it's Android.

has anyone heard of a time limit for this like MS did with the win7 pre-releases?

They always have a limited use period of some sort; it's not like MS will be giving away their next generation OS for free.

Win8 will have native hardware support for UEFI and USB3.0 and of course a fully comprehensive driver database. I'm kinda unimpressed since Win7 will also support all this hardware through updates.

It'll also be ported onto ARM platforms. That's great and will likely spawn a lot more cheap or mobile computing devices, but at the moment it's of no real use to me. Interestingly, there's some controversy about this right now, since Microsoft is trying to impose UEFI restrictions on Win8 ARM machinery (they quickly reversed the same restriction policy on x86 platforms when cornered by the media).

The Metro UI is being hailed as the Amazing Big New Thing. At a glance my first thought is that the last thing I'd want to do is turn my PC into a big iPhone ... I mean what's the point of all those pocket-inspired shortcuts and tradeoffs on a PC device which already has at least one full-sized display and keyboard/mouse interface? A new desktop theme or wallpaper just doesn't justify spending $$$ on a new OS (after spending $$$ on my old one). But I'll wait and see, the damned thing will be default installed on every laptop over the next decade, maybe it'll turn out great. Besides, Metro UI ripoffs are already available for download, should I ever feel the impatient urge to try it. As it stands, I'm seeing what amounts to being a newer and bloatier version of WinCE or Windows Mobile, at least in terms of which hardware markets it's targeting.

Wow, integrated Microsoft SkyDrive integration? The same Microsoft SkyDrive which, uh, already floats in the cloud for anybody on any computer with a hotmail account? Incidentally, I can't get SkyDrive to actually work on half the computers I use, it just sorta freezes the browser (even IE) ... good thing I'll soon have the option of spending hundreds of dollars to fix that, assuming I want to use the cloud at all, assuming I wouldn't use any of the countless free options already out there. Again, I'm seeing ominous hints of Microsoft trying to get a foot in the door on tomorrow's hardware; consumers will be expected to purchase any number of mobile touchscreen gizmos but (with Microsoft's help!) always have access to their growing pile of personal junk data.

Integrated IE10. Haha, 'nuff said about that.

So I'm not seeing any new features or "technologies" which will improve what I already do in Win7 - which is less and less every year as more of my computer life migrates towards linux freeware. I pretty much use the Windows only when I want to be really lazy or to ensure maximum compatibility with the latest-greatest hardware, apps, and benchmarks ... and it never takes long before I dig up something linux which works at least as well and isn't covered in MoneySoft branding or integrated "call the mothership" spyware. Maybe I'm just too much of an old grognard, desktop at home synced with laptop as needed, cellphone barely smart enough to remember names and phone numbers and take photos on the fly, not at all the mainstream megamarket.

I'm with you mate. While I didn't pay for my legit copy of XP, there are few things that I can do in 7 that I can't do in XP. If anything.

The only 2 reasons I don't just drop XP completely are AutoDesk software is garbage under Wine, and most games (namely C&C) are drastically slowed down with the virtualization.

I suppose I'm just preemptively ranting. Because sooner or later Microsoft will shift completely over to Win8 and discontinue supporting Win7. Yeah, the opensource crowd usually continues to match Microsoft's official updates ... but still, forced OS migration, on a costly "ultimate" OS which is less than 2 years old, meh.