Windows 8 Consumer Preview Feedback Thread

[Shawn]

So you see having to bring up the OSK and type what you want vs. drag/tap as a positive step on a tablet?

I don't understand your point. If you want to bring up the command prompt then you will need to use the onscreen keyboard anyway. Pretty much no one will be using the command prompt on their tablet.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Pick any other app or function that requires a search or keyboard shortcut.

 

[Dominato3r]

Pick any other app or function that requires a search or keyboard shortcut.

What are you saying?

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

What are you saying?

As little sense as relying more on the keyboard instead of point and click on a desktop GUI, WTF kind of sense is it supposed to make on a tablet?

 

[yinan]

Why would you want to bring up command prompt on a tablet? Anyway you'd just bring up the onscreen keyboard and type cmd.

I do not want to run it on a tablet, I want to run it on mydesktop. The command line is still supremely useful in managing many systems, debugging things. I probably use PowerCLI as much as I do the viCLient for administering my virtual environments.

 

[Dominato3r]

As little sense as relying more on the keyboard instead of point and click on a desktop GUI, WTF kind of sense is it supposed to make on a tablet?

What's so hard about searching for an application?

Even on Windows 7 I would use the keyboard and search for it, I have no idea where the command prompt even is.

 

[Zaap]

As little sense as relying more on the keyboard instead of point and click on a desktop GUI, WTF kind of sense is it supposed to make on a tablet?

It doesn't make any sense.

It's kind of funny seeing people twist into pretzels to explain why this mess is supposedly so great (The future is touch... that's implemented so badly you'll need to bypass it with key commands and searches for your applications!) But what sucks is it's Microsoft about to ruin their flagship product.

Me personally, I already mostly use OSX. I'm sure I'll be sticking with Windows 7 for the foreseeable future, and relying even more on OSX and saying "see ya" to Windows until they lose more money than Vista cost them, and have to mop up with an OS that returns to being for adults.

 

[Kathi201]

One of my colleague using this....but he is not satisfied from this working slow.????????

 

[tornadog]

anybody tried this on the Dell Inspiron One AIO PCs? I got one yesterday from Dell outlet for 275 bucks, just for trying out W8CP.

 

[guskline]

I had an extra case, an Asus M4A77TD mb, bought an AMD Athlon II 455 (unlocked 4th core and OC to 3.6 GHZ) 8 G DDR3, a 5770 video card and an older sata I 250G HD. Win 8 runs well. I own a licensed version of AIDA64 and it showed that win8 64 has a much smaller memory footprint than Win 7 64. I have COD MW3 running well through steam as well as Microsofts new Flight game.

I agree that the UI was a bear at first. However, the more I play with the system the more comfortable I'm getting with it. I think MS is going to have a very hard time getting people with desktops to upgrade with win8 in its present for. As mentioned above, need a start button. I simply hit the desktop tile but I still have to search. I add icons to my desktop to make it easy. It's very hard to judge if the OS is as fast as previous ones. To me it moves quickly. BTW, bootup is very fast for as old a hd as I have in the rig, that's a plus. I can't argue with the cricism that it is very foreign to Windows users. MS has their work cut out for them if they keep the Metro scheme as is.

 

[IeraseU]

I just went from Windows XP (which is my favorite OS from Microsoft of all time) to Windows 7 Pro 64 about two weeks ago. I'm going to stick around with Windows 7 and hopefully by the time I'm ready to move on all the GUI difficulties will be sorted out. If not, maybe I'll give OS X a shot.

 

[Dominato3r]

Windows 8 tablets will be available in 10- and 11-inch designs, with an anticipated nine-plus hours of battery life and 3G/4G connectivity. Other than the fact that the 11-inchers will be hybrids with a physical keyboard, the specs aren’t too surprising.

The tablets should weigh less than 1.5 pounds, similar to the third-generation iPad’s 1.44 pounds than the heftier Toshiba Excite‘s 2.2 pounds (granted, the Excite is also 13 inches). They’ll also be ultra thin, around .35 inches.

These Windows 8 tablets will also include Intel’s dual-core Atom Z2760 “Clover Trail” chipset. It features a “burst mode” that can be used for occasional small boosts of performance, and hyperthreading, which lets it function like a quad-core chip in certain circumstances. They will also include NFC and WiFi Direct.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/04/intel-windows-8-tablet-specs/

 

[hondaf17]

I installed W8CP on a spare 1TB HDD. Have been using it for about a week. Here are my thoughts/stories:

1) I like the metro design. Everything is all in one spot. I like the built-in apps. Weather, Finance, etc are all very well done and can be easily customized to my desire. I like having a "one-stop-shop" for everything.
2) I am running eyefinity and W8CP is really lacking in this regard. Metro runs on my center monitor. I open programs in Metro and I can't drag them to the other monitors. Whatever I open in Metro stays on my center monitor. Very disappointing, limiting, as one of the main benefits of eyefinity is the easy multi-tasking/many windows open. I want to use Metro for everything but simply cannot because of this.
3) I had W8CP up when my girlfriend and Mom came over. Didn't tell either of them anything about it. Girlfriend: looked at center screen, didn't do anything. Looked at my other two monitors (with desktop) and clicked the internet explorer icon on the desktop monitor, rather than on the metro GUI. I thought that was interesting. Mom: immediately keyed in on the "people" tile on the metro GUI. This was putting live updates from my facebook account, and she clicked on it immediately to see what my cousins and everyone else were up to. Interesting.
4) I feel the Metro GUI will simplify the computing experience for those that need it, 90% of the users. It's meant to do all the work for you, put everything in one spot. It's like if you're too stupid to set up a mail program, organize your photos, and browse to facebook, we'll do all of it for you. Since I (and probably everyone here) have no problem setting these items ourselves, we prefer W7 desktop, as it's more powerful and has less limitations. I wouldn't imagine many power users will uprgade but it is a simplified/fun version for most computing users.
5) I do hope they improve the interface with keyboard/mouse. Some things aren't very intuitive.

Edit: W7 drivers for my AuzenTech X-Plosion sound card did not work with W8. Might just be a problem with the installer though, as the installer said, "this system not supported."

 

[Shawn]

Edit: W7 drivers for my AuzenTech X-Plosion sound card did not work with W8. Might just be a problem with the installer though, as the installer said, "this system not supported."

Try running it in W7 compatibility mode.

 

[Infraction Jack]

Still waiting on amd consumer preview drivers for 7xxx series. I got a hacked up driver working fine for me most of the time on my 7750.

 

[Lotheron]

Not sure if it's been mentioned in this thread.

http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

But that ^^ makes Windows 8 CP usable. It's sad that it takes a third party app to fix an OS. This is after I tried using it for an hour straight and I was still lost. For example, there are two different versions of Internet explorer... one full screen one with the bar at the bottom, and the normal one.

Ugh, 1 step forward, 2 steps back.

 

[Zaap]

Supposedly confusion is the wave of the future.

 

[sequoia464]

Supposedly confusion is the wave of the future.

Not sure I understand what you mean by that.

Edit ; Actually - I don't think I understand anything anymore. Does that mean I'm already in the future??

 

[tornadog]

holy smokes, I loaded Windows 8 on the Dell Inspiron One 2205 I got from Dell Outlet store, and it rocks. For one it detected every device on it and loaded the drivers. I only have 1 unknown device which is the acpi. The touchscreen is super responsive except for the magic pixels in the corners. i dont know how much power the onboard gpu has, but I want to try some of the RTS games and see if touchscreen would work on it. Imagine playing RUSE with a touchscreen like the trailer video they showed last year!!!

 

[Chaotic42]

BTW - If anyone from Microsoft HR stumbles on this.... Please, hire this guy: http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/24/2822891/windows-desktop-ui-concept (proposed alternate Windows UI)

Way too much whitespace around the edges for my liking. I'm old school though. I like the Windows Classic UI, and I use it on my Windows 7 Ultimate machine. I've been playing with Windows 8, and I'm trying to reserve judgement since it's still new. I want to make sure I'm not biased against it since it is different.

The one thing I don't like is that the system doesn't really close apps. It just freezes them. I'm curious to see if that means you can't run something in the background, like say POV-Ray, while you're browsing the internet.

I'm not sure if Metro and being a power user will go hand-in-hand. It is pretty though, I'll give it that.

 

[Chaotic42]

Touchscreen is just a fad, it isn't the future. The real future interface is gaze tracking. The pc tracks what your eye is looking at and a blink of the eye is the click. You already do it when you use a mouse because you look everywhere the cursor goes on the screen, all that is left is the blink=click.
It is really impressive and you can download software now that lets you use a webcam , that software is somewhat buggy, but others are on the way with better cameras. Best of all no fingerprints on the screen.

You lost me at blinking to click. How do you differentiate normal blinking from click-blinking? What if someone blinks more often or less often, or for longer periods of time than "normal"?

 

[Chaotic42]

My guess is that much like grandpa uses Windows 7 to email and hipster cousin Jenny uses Windows 7 to blog, with Windows 8 they will be using Metro and everyone who actually wants to use their computer for "real work" will use the classic Windows interface.

Kind of like GUI vs command line. Metro seems to be an attempt to idiot proof basic computer use in Windows.

 

[Zaap]

Kind of like GUI vs command line. Metro seems to be an attempt to idiot proof basic computer use in Windows.

This is the problem in a nutshell.

In trying to make an OS 'idiot proof' one just ends up making an OS that assumes anyone using it must be an idiot.

 

[JackMDS]

In trying to make an OS 'idiot proof' one just ends up making an OS that assumes anyone using it must be an idiot.

Unfortunately that is the reason to Apple big success and every one tries to emulate it.

There is a big debate wether the PC is dead, or are Tablet and the like real PCs.

I see it as a mute debate. What happened in the past is that the majority of the End Users never really needed a PC, they just needed something to do email Surf, do simple note taking, and other "Social" activities.

There was nothing else that can do it but PCs so they had no other choice they got the Dells with XP and 256MB and had it for years.

Now there is a more comfortable choice so they do not need PCs any more.

Think about the times that there was No fast food joints and No take out.

Some people (who could afford it) ate in Restaurants while most people cooked and ate at home.

Then fast food (and delivery) came in, now most eat out in fast food joints home, or in home via delivery (think Pizza and the Colonel).

This change in eating habits is Not Good or bad, it just part of our functional evolution.

 

[Zaap]

Apple's designers forgot more about human interface design than Microsoft's ever knew.

There's so much irony in this whole debacle. Steve Jobs declared the PC dead- meanwhile OSX Lion isn't nearly the attempt to become iOS as people seem to think, not even close. Launchpad is about the only thing that resembles an iOS convention grafted into the OS, but Apple clearly knew better than to shove it right in the user's face. It's relegated to an option, and one that there's very little reason to use.

But clearly the minute Jobs said the PC was dead, Microsoft started digging a grave! Now they're trying to make the PC into a shoddy iPad wanna-be, following a wrongheaded notion that even the company that pronounced the PC dead isn't actually following.

The PC isn't dead- and eventually when the tech industry clears its head from their iPad wanna-be obsession, they'll realize that tablets will eventually have to become more like laptops and desktops to replace the function of desktops- NOT the opposite braindead strategy of trying to make fully-functional desktops into tradeoff ridden CURRENT tablets.