When the Windows 8 Developer Preview was first launched in September 2011, many tech enthusiasts wanted to make that version their primary PC operating system. Even more people decided to take the plunge when the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 was launched in late February.
Microsoft has been clear that both of these Windows 8 builds still have a number of missing features as well as bugs. Having said that, a number of Neowin readers have already installed those builds of Windows 8 and made it their main PC OS. Those people have been relaying their experiences in a very popular post on our forums named, "Who uses Windows 8 as primary OS?".
The post was begun in January by Neowin forum member Simmo3D. He installed the Developer Preview of Windows 8 on his Samsung Series 7 slate PC and wrote at the time:
So far I am loving the experience. I have not really ran into any major issues but I have noticed a bug every now and again (not a big deal).
Another forum member, Possession, didn"t have as good of an experience, saying:
As of now no, as the Developer Preview is too buggy and unstable, Obviously as it"s a developer build.
When the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 was launched, more Neowin forum members tried it out. One very enthusiastic user is forum member AndreaBorman, who wrote a number of posts in this forum topic. Borman admitted to some issues with the Consumer Preview at first. Writing on March 18th, Borman says:
Well unfortunately Windows 8 CP is very bad. And it is exactly like that. You cannot use it because there are so many problems. So WINDOWS 8 NIGHTMARES PREVIEW is a good name for it.Why don"t Microsoft just let up and make Windows 8 with a normal Windows 7 desktop and start menu? But I don"t think they are going to do that.
However, Borman had a change of heart after installing Windows 8 a second time. In a detailed post on March 27th, Borman explains how she got Windows 8 running by doing some formatting on her notebook"s hard drive along with some other changes. Borman wrote:
I now have Windows 8 CP running almost like Windows 7. And so that way you don"t see much of the Metro theme,even though it"s still there.And you cannot turn it off. And you don"t have to deal with it very much either. And this time Windows 8 CP is working a lot better so they must haver fixed some problems already.
Borman just wrote a new post today with some more info, saying she has now installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview on two netbooks. She adds:
Also most of the Windows XP and Windows Vista software works on Windows 8 the same way it does on Windows 7. And also a lot of software has now been updated to work on Windows 8 CP.
Another Neowin member, PGHammer, wrote a few days ago:
I"ll be shifting to the Release Preview when it comes out, for the simple reason that, unless they completely screw the pooch, it won"t be any worse than the Consumer Preview, which has been, for me, flawless. (Surprisingly, that wasn"t the case with Windows 7 + SP1 on the same hardware.) Odds of my going back to Windows 7 - none. No chance at all.