Windows 8 Release Preview Discussion

[BajiRav]

Not sure if anyone else noticed but, the current rumor mill from canouna over at that Winunleaked forum is that Windows 8 could RTM by end of July. Now, while I may find that somewhat unbelievable, another thing that I did notice when I installed the Release Preview a few hours ago was - by scrolling to the end of the EULA statement - the tagline for the document version, and was somewhat surprised to see:

EULAID:Win_RC_3_PS_R_en-us

That's RC3 for those not in the know, and even though this is just a document, Microsoft has never gone past RC3 aka Release Candidate 3 stage for an operating system release. The last time they did 3 full Release Candidates was Windows XP iirc. So...

If Windows 8 Release Preview is Release Candidate 3, we're almost home people.

This tends to lend a lot of credibility to the canouna statement about RTM coming as early as the end of July, maybe a bit sooner. From RC3 to RTM it's typically 1-2 months so, let's hope this all pans out accordingly. Microsoft appears to have Windows 8 on a very fast track indeed, especially considering there was no "advance warning" officially about this Release Preview coming out except the "early June" rumors - they never offiically said it, and that little booboo on the blog yesterday well, that could have been part of the plan all along. ;)

Rumor? Microsoft officially said "2 more months" on the building windows 8 blog. :p

[PGHammer]

Yeah, me neither man... Square peg round hole.

Please - like how many folks have 30" displays - let alone larger displays - that they use on a regular basis?

Screen sizes larger than 23" are outliers - mostly for reasons of price. Quality monitors - especially flat-panels - larger than 23" may be dropping in price; however, how much of that is due to the poor economy?

Also, WinRT applications don't have a "windowed" mode - unlike Win32 (API deficiency). Win32 windowed applications can be "adjusted to suit" in most cases - however, that's not always true, even with Win32 applications. (Haven't you run into a Win32 application that has issues (windowed, full-screen, or both) with an outsized display? I seem to recall that Microsoft Office - and Outlook in particular - is normally unhappy with overlarge displays; Office applications run full-screen by default.)

However, since it *is* an API problem, that is why - other than games, which I generally run full-screen - I run no WInRT apps.

In short, your problem is not new - nor is it unique to WinRT; however, due to the API's design, it is more common there than with Win32.

[Darrian]

I went into the csversion.ini in the sources folder and changed the build number, now it allows me to upgrade will all the settings.

Wish I'd thought of that lol.

[SCSI_2k]

Definitely a great improvement from CP. I was hoping Music Libraries from a network share would be fully supported in the Music App by now but it is not :(

I share the folder and create a shortcut (not a network drive). Works 100% for all apps and libraries.

Can you please give me steps on how you did this? I followed the instructions in the Windows Help and Support on "adding a network folder that isn't index to a library".

-create a folder C:\Share\Music

-include C:\Share\Music to the Music library

-Delete the Music folder

-mklink /d c:\share\music \\server\music

The "my music" section of the Music app is still empty. :( All music from the shared folder shows up in WMP. Zune app is still much better.

[Dot Matrix]

Ok, I detest, on a *desktop* some of the metro apps seem out of place. But I'm loving the new News and Sports apps, along with the weather and mail apps. Now we have a Wikipedia app. :D

But the Skydrive, Photos, Music, and Videos apps need work before they replace Zune, and Live Photo Gallery as my default apps.

[PGHammer]

Indeed. Even though built-in MSE, feels a lot faster than Windows 7. Also, my new SSD's blue screen errors which makes Windows 7 totally useless for me are gone :woot: Nvidia hurry up :laugh:

Also, AMD has updated the Catalyst drivers for the Release Preview - among the additions are support for the HD7xxx GPUs (HD5xxx and HD6xxx are still supported).

That puts me in a first class pickle - do I go HD6770 or HD7770? (A tough choice when both are the same price - even with identical support in Windows 7; however, now with both supported equally in the Release Preview? Yeeks!)

[ViperAFK]

Please - like how many folks have 30" displays - let alone larger displays - that they use on a regular basis?

Screen sizes larger than 23" are outliers - mostly for reasons of price. Quality monitors - especially flat-panels - larger than 23" may be dropping in price; however, how much of that is due to the poor economy?

Also, WinRT applications don't have a "windowed" mode - unlike Win32 (API deficiency). Win32 windowed applications can be "adjusted to suit" in most cases - however, that's not always true, even with Win32 applications. (Haven't you run into a Win32 application that has issues (windowed, full-screen, or both) with an outsized display? I seem to recall that Microsoft Office - and Outlook in particular - is normally unhappy with overlarge displays; Office applications run full-screen by default.)

However, since it *is* an API problem, that is why - other than games, which I generally run full-screen - I run no WInRT apps.

In short, your problem is not new - nor is it unique to WinRT; however, due to the API's design, it is more common there than with Win32.

Its not just large displays that metro doesn't work well on. Its desktop systems in general. My windows 8 test system is an asus laptop with a 1366x768 screen. Metro constantly feels like its getting in my way. Even on this screen the metro apps seem empty and space-wasting.

I generally consider myself very flexible with new technology and interfaces. I rarely complain about UI overhauls and such. I liked vista when it came out, loved seven when it came out, I like unity and gnome-shell, I like OSX, I liked the office ribbon upgrade.

Metro, No. It just doesn't work. It feels incredibly awkward to use with a mouse, and windows 8 as a whole feels very inconsistent. The ONLY thing I like about metro is the search function (which was already in the win7 start menu).

Metro makes windows confusing and un-intuitive:

Getting to control panel in windows 7: Click start button, click control panel.

Windows 8: Use one of the hot corners (which are in no way made obvious for new users) to bring up the charm bar, click settings, click control panel.

The start screen hot corner is too close to the leftmost superbar icon, very easily to accidentally bring up the hotcorner icon.

Inconsistent systemtray behaviour. Sound, Clock, and battery applets are the same as in win7. Wireless applet brings up a big metro screen?

I gave metro ie10 a brief try and found it pretty confusing, I couldn't reliably figure out how to bring up the tab bar (could only switch them with ctrl +tab) or the addressbar. Just felt super awkward with mouse. Users that find something as simple as google chrome confusing will have a blast with this :p

By default file types are set to open in metro apps even on the classic desktop, this seemed jarring and annoying to me. Clicking on a jpeg or mp3 opens up a limited fullscreen metro app, instead of the windows photo viewer or windows media player. All this switching between desktops WILL confuse users. I do tech support as my job, most users I talk to can't even grasp the concept of a hotkey or a gesture, they can hardly even use their mouse properly. Metro will be a nightmare.

Win8 does have some nice improvements. Better performance. The new task manager and file copy UI's are both beautiful and functional, but I honestly don't understand how anyone thinks metro is a good idea on the desktop /sorryfortherant, most of it not directed at your response, I just couldn't stop typing!. :)

[BajiRav]

I gave metro ie10 a brief try and found it pretty confusing, I couldn't reliably figure out how to bring up the tab bar (could only switch them with ctrl +tab) or the addressbar. Just felt super awkward with mouse. Users that find something as simple as google chrome confusing will have a blast with this :p

Right click not showing up tab bar for you?

[ViperAFK]

Right click not showing up tab bar for you?

hmm, it wasn't when I tried it before, but it seems to work now. Its still not quite obvious, considering the amount of people I talk to daily that can't figure out right click no matter how many times its explained to them. ("Left click or right click?") lol.

Anyway, I'm sure it works fine on a tablet, but why would someone want to use that on a desktop with a mouse? Chrome's interface is pretty much as simple as it gets and its much more desktop oriented.

[BajiRav]

hmm, it wasn't when I tried it before, but it seems to work now. Its still not quite obvious, considering the amount of people I talk to daily that can't figure out right click no matter how many times its explained to them. ("Left click or right click?") lol.

Anyway, I'm sure it works fine on a tablet, but why would someone want to use that on a desktop with a mouse? Chrome's interface is pretty much as simple as it gets and its much more desktop oriented.

yeah I am not a fan of hidden tabs as well :/ I wish there way a way to have just simple textual tabs.

[contextfree]

The most annoying change is that the All Apps button (as show here) - which is still hidden behind a right-click - has now been moved to the far right of the screen. It makes absolutely no sense. You have to click the bottom left to trigger the Start screen, right-click and then drag your mouse all the way over to the right of your screen to click the button and then all the way back to the left to select a program. Honestly, Microsoft has actually managed to make the usability worse - it's as if they're trying to annoy users.

You can also get there by using the Search charm from the desktop or the Start screen, though.

[ajnauron]

For those going from Windows 7 to Windows 8 Release Preview, does this feel faster than Windows 7?

[contextfree]

For those going from Windows 7 to Windows 8 Release Preview, does this feel faster than Windows 7?

I will say that it doesn't feel noticeably slower than my Windows 7 install on the same machine, despite the fact that the Win8 partition is on a spinning-plate HDD and the Win7 partition is on an SSD :)

[Stoffel]

Still downloading at full speed (74KB/s) just over half way now :(

I'll catch up tomorrow afternoon

[BajiRav]

Oh man, my vhd dual boot install is stuck at "Getting system ready" for the second time now :-(.

[+Zlip792 MVC]

How to get Pro SKU out of ISO? Which Product Key to use?

[George P Global Moderator]

I installed it fine on vbox, also installed the guest additions and everything is working, i'm in IE10 desktop and in full screen.

IE10 is faster when loading pages but scrolling is slow, probably just a vbox thing though. Going to check out the new metro apps next.

[lameb]

Im running it besides Windows 7 in my laptop and ts pretty cool I guess, I liking the super fast performance,the mail, news, photos apps and I'll be checking out the app store later during the weekend. But I'm not so fond of the music app and not much customization for the start screen. Other things I don't like is that I cant snap apps to the side because my laptop screen is 1280x800 :'( and how the desktop is just like sitting there I hope most developers move over to metro I'd love to have Adobe suite, iTunes, and all the other crap I have on Win7. Also there is no Media Center how the hell am I going to watch and record tv on my entertainment pc :'( so I might not upgrade that one for now.

[neo1911]

Installed in 9 minutes v/s 15 minutes required by Windows 7 on same SSD.

Bad things:

All the basic quirks like no start button, idiotic hot corners for mouse users, half baked metro apps are still there.

Another problem carried forward: I cannot copy a file from a network share and paste it directly in a folder which requires admin access. Eg. into Program Files or in C:

I have to copy them first on Desktop and then to my desired folder.

Good things:

Definitely faster than CP. Maybe they have adjusted the animation timing to make it appear more quicker.

Weather app in metro finally works for India. Most recent connection to internet is given a priority just like Windows 7.

[The_Observer]

Installed onto main machine, very clean and fast. abit faster than CP. Now looking forward to the release of RTM!

[Subhadip]

Now more than ever, I am loving Metro UI. Going back to Desktop is a pretty stale experience. Sadly at this point I must. Hopefully by Windows 9 time I would only rarely need to move back to Desktop.

Microsoft should definitely lead the way. There's no need for dropping back to Desktop just to use some Control Panel features or Explorer, there must be Metro Explorer. Same applies for Office.

[zeke009]

The verge guy said you can upgrade from the CPy , but people on news post are saying you can't. Who's right? Or is there some trick to make it upgrade?

You can run the upgrade scenario, but your only option is to not save any data or files. Not much of an upgrade.

I have it running on an Acer W500 with an upgraded mSATA drive and it's working great. I just got around to downloading the AMD Release Preview driver and am installing it now.

[MichaelAWYu]

Installed it on my Dell XPS 15. Runs better than Consumer Preview, but the major bug is still here. I even read a article yesterday that scientifically proved Windows 8 Metro mode on Screen bigger than 12'' equals diaster.

It's kind of ironic that Microsoft this time did all the details right but missed the fundamental designing guidelines. Glad we still have Windows Phone, XBOX and Office on board.

[downhillrider]

Is anyone having skydrive signing in issue's? Metro UI skydrive is fine, but its trying to sync in Explorer and it says it cannot connect, try checking your connection. it worked fine in the 1st preview.

[George P Global Moderator]

It was working good in vbox, some minor graphical problems in a few metro apps, and also I couldn't get xbox to work. Well, it wouldn't login till I changed my location, did that but then it wouldn't even start, neither would the store again either. Seems like it doesn't like my region yet. :p

The apps look fine on my 22" 1080p screen, and the desktop works fine like it always has. Those who talk about wasted space on their 27" or 30" screens, you'll have to wait for apps and their devs to take advantage of it, right now as a preview they're not going to give you fancy apps for free. When the time comes though and they start selling things then we'll get a better idea.

On a side note, can I finally get IE10 for Win7 please?