Windows 8 Consumer Preview - First Impressions

[Luthien]

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.

[xr4man]

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

[Konrad]

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.

[AmEv]

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.

[Konrad]

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.