I thought it would be best if I broke this down into 4 sections:
- Web Installation
- Fresh Installation
- Brief overview
- What needs to be fixed
I won't get into any detail as to how you configure it or any of the nice new features as that would take quite a bit longer and I have to admit that I don't have it all figured out yet. I will however share something that helped me clean up some tiles and soothe some of the 'Start Menu Withdrawl' that all of us that aren't using it on a tablet will have.
Web Installation:
To be honest, I thought that the web installer was going to be one of those download tools that you HAVE to use to get the ISO down from wherever they wanted to hide it. I was quite surprised that it was actually the install tool an was going to upgrade my Windows 7 Professional installation to the new Windows 8 preview.
I am actually quite shocked at how well this worked, and if it wasn't for the fact I generally think it is not a good idea to upgrade from any previous OS (except Linux with keeping the /home partition) they did everything exactly right. You click on the installer, it downloads, installs and reboots and depending on your download speed, you are up and running with a new Windows 8 installation, as simple as installing any other program on the system.
The only caveat that you must know is that there is NO UNINSTALL. You can't simply try it out and uninstall it, it alters your system so much that this is not possible. So consider a virtual machine if you do not want to lose your existing Windows installation.
When I did try out the OS I did have a lot of left over garbage from my Windows 7 installation (namely the fact that I used a Mac theming program to make my system look like it was running OSX Lion). Some programs didn't work and there were a few other oddities, which is why I recommend that if you are going to try this, do a FRESH INSTALL. At least that way you know that everything is working as they had intended it to.
Fresh Install:
So with all the problems that I was having with the web install version of Windows 8, I wanted to start from scratch, so I went poking around for the Windows 8 ISO download. You can find it if you look, but I was maxing out at a 67KB/s download rate, which would have taken forever to get down to burn onto a disc.
Web Install Tip: If you have done the web install (which is super fast I might add), then you already have 2.8 GB sitting on your C: drive doing nothing. So rather than download the same thing twice, you can take what was placed on your hard drive for the web install and make that into a burnable ISO file to do your install. Here's how you do it (bear with me, this is from my memory as I finished the fresh install):
- Locate C:\WindowsEDR (or something like that) to ensure that you have the necessary files. The directory should be around 2.8 GB in size.
- Download this tool: http://www.sevenforums.com/attachments/installation-setup/72576d1273718566-boot-cd-dvd-bootisomakerv2.zip
- Unzip the tool and then run the batch file within it.
- It will ask you for the boot.wim file, so go to C:\Windows EDR\Sources and select boot.wim.
- Once you pick the file the program will begin to make the ISO file from the downloaded web installer files.
- Once the ISO is created (it will be created in a 'VirtualStore', so you may have to search for it).
So using the above steps I took the windows install files that I already had, created an ISO and then burned that to disk, much better than the 13 hours I was looking at for the ISO download.
The install of Windows 8 is identical in almost every way to Window 7, so it shouldn't be to hard to figure things out. I wiped out my entire drive and let Windows 8 have it's way with the file system.
Once the install was done, the system booted up and I began once again to setup Windows 8 from scratch. I have to admit that it is much more fast than the upgraded Windows 7 version and also a lot of things that were previously causing me issues were now gone.
Brief Overview:
As a user of Windows since version 3.1, I have seen every evolution of the OS and the revolution that happened since they switched over to using Windows NT technology, vs. the older DOS/Windows combination I thought I would be able to figure Windows 8 out relatively quickly, but I was wrong. The changes that they have made to the OS up front are quite strange and anyone used to the traditional Windows "Desktop" metaphor will have some things to get used to.
Metro UI:
This is supposed to be the greatest advance in Windows since the switch to NT technology, but I think it falls quite short of a great advance. The first thing you will notice upon completing the various setup screens is that at the end of it all you will see this tile interface:
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| Metro UI |
It will probably look a bit better than this given that I have changed a lot of it, but essentially you will be looking at this screen. Now before I go too much further, a colleague of mine at work looked at the UI today and said... "Hey, that looks like Lotus Notes!" I thought to myself... how does it look like Lotus Notes? Then it dawned on me... the little program squares do look JUST like Lotus Notes databases on the workspace:
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| Lotus Notes 6.5.1 |
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| Metro UI Application List |
I thought it was hilarious and also somewhat uncanny.
Application Selection:
Metro reminds me somewhat of Gnome 3.0 in the sense that you have a screen that you use to type a search term for the application you want, or you just click it from the screen right in front of you. Non-touch screen users of Windows 8 (myself included) have no reason at all to stay in the Metro UI as it doesn't really serve any purpose for people using keyboards and mice, it actually makes Windows look a little unkempt.
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| Gnome 3 Application switcher/search |
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| Metro Application search |
Metro App Switcher:
When in Metro or Deskop, when you move your mouse up to the top left corner of the screen you get presented with an application switcher. Before you get too excited, it is not at all like the way the workspaces work in Gnome 3 nor is it a fancy new way of switching between applications in Windows 8, it's sole purpose is to help you switch between Metro apps.
The switcher works almost exactly like the Android recent applications function works, and it should because it is pretty much identical, just useless for Desktop users.
Charms:
Not sure why they call them charms, but when you move your mouse pointer to the top or bottom right hand corner you get a bar that slides in. The bar itself is not customizable and only has 5 items on it:
- Search: Which takes you back to the application search window.
- Share: Which doesn't seem to be what you would expect for something that says 'Share'. It seems to share specific things and doesn't work the way sharing a folder might work. Try as I might it wouldn't let me share anything at all.
- Start: Brings you back to Metro
- Devices: Is again another example of not getting something you would expect such as all the devices that are removable. I only ever get shown 'Second Screen' when I click it.
- Settings: This is about the only useful button on the whole thing. From here you can go to the control panel, install themes, view computer information, alter your sound, brightness, networks and notifications as well as power down Windows (which is actually tricky since there is no start button).
Cloud Integration:
I haven't tried this out too much but the OS seems to tie in with SkyDrive as well as all the major social networks. I also didn't have to create a local ID as I am using my hotmail credentials to log into the machine (even when I am not network connected). If it does a better job of integrating with the cloud, I can see why the cloud is becoming an important part of an OS. If it is anything like what Google has done with Chrome, then (namely upon sign in all your apps, settings and bookmarks are restored) then this will be a great feature.
Skydrive is available (so far as I can tell) only via the Metro start screen. When you click on it, it basically brings up more squares showing some pictures and some folders that you may have up in the cloud:
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| Skydrive Layout |
While you can go through items in your Skydrive and save items locally by right-clicking the item, there is no way that I could find to send a file up to Skydrive.
Ribbon Everywhere:
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| Explorer Ribbon |
For the desktop, the Office ribbon has made it's way to Windows explorer and most MS products now have the ribbon interface.
What needs to be fixed
It is very clear from this demo that they are pulling away from the traditional 'desktop' metaphor and moving into Apple's 'app' model, which makes sense especially with the focus being seen on tablets and mobile OSes. They are also attempting to unify the experience across phone, tablet and desktop (possibly Xbox??) to make it easier to develop for and also reduces the learning curve for each of the listed devices, which also makes sense.
The problem is that it appears for the moment that they are going to do this at the expense of their biggest user base, the 'Desktop' user. When installing the consumer preview on my own system, it did take some time to find out where things were and to get accustomed to certain things. But one thing that I don't think that any Desktop user will get used to is the fact that the Desktop is now an app and that you will always have to look at that big blocky Metro UI if you want to launch a program. I imagine that the outrage over this and the fact that this couldn't possibly work for a business user will inevitably lead to allowing the Metro UI to be disabled in favour of the start menu, but time will tell.
In the mean time, if you do 'sorta' want your start menu back just create some links to your user start menu and to the all user start menu so that when you open explorer, you can navigate to the programs you want or clean up the start menu junk as I like to do. You can find the directories here:
Your Start Menu:C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
All Users Start Menu: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu
Here are the things that I think they should fix:
MetroUI as an option:
As I said earlier, they are going to be alienating all of their Desktop user base with this release and possibly working on the next Vista debacle unless they make this optional. Even if they want to 'force' people to adjust to the new reality of friendly touch interfaces and OSes, there is no way they can make this big of a jump so quickly. I am technical and have no problems using Windows, but even I had problems getting used to this OS and finding anything in it, I shudder to think of what might happen to people like my parents if they happen to buy that next computer with Windows 8 running on it.
There is also the fact that the enterprise will never buy into this. Unless there is another SKU for Windows in the enterprise you can expect the vast majority of companies to stick with Windows 7 about as long as they had stuck with Windows XP. And if there does happen to be a SKU, I wouldn't think it is hard to imagine desktop users flocking to buy it vs. the consumer release of Windows 8.
Make it an option and save yourself and everyone else a headache, the UI doesn't make sense on a non-touch PC.
Shutting down the PC:
Believe it or not it is hard to figure out how to shut down your PC. I couldn't find it initially, so to shut my system down I resorted to running 'shutdown /i' so that a window would pop up to allow me to shut the system down. To my surprise, despite my explicitly asking the system to shut down it only hibernated (albeit quickly) and when I started the system up from what I thought was a cold boot I was surprised to find some programs I had previously opened reloaded.
This appears to be another Microsoft attempt at pushing us towards purchasing that Windows 8 tablet because this hibernate/suspend behaviour would only be good for a tablet device. In my case, and what I will mention next, I was having an issue with my wireless card connecting to anything. The first thing that anyone typically does is restart the computer to start fresh and eliminate any possible issues that might have caused the problem.
Full Screen Apps:
I have tried some of the apps that they include in the beta, and while they are nice and clean, they lack the functionality you would expect on a regular Windows program. Essentially, the apps themselves are tablet oriented (of course) but since I am using the app on a laptop computer I would expect to get a little more functionality. Granted, this is a beta, so I can't have too many expectations and can only base my opinion on what I am playing with, but I really think that they need to ensure that there are sufficient options for Desktop users. The reason that I bring this up is that I have heard that the 'Windows Live Essentials' package, which in my opinion is essential is going to become a series of apps rather than a series of desktop applications. They did wonders with Windows Live mail, MSN messenger and the Movie Maker/Photo gallery applications, it would be a shame to see these applications go from being feature rich to barebone and tablet optimized. I don't think it is possible in every case to have a one size fits all approach to applications since Windows didn't start that way. They can certainly share apps, but going from feature rich applications to tablet apps on a desktop is not ideal. Hopefully this does not become forced, or even gently nudged given that many developers will want to get onto Windows On Arm for the tablets.
Settings
No doubt this is most likey a result of it being a beta, but I have to say that the charms and devices listed in the Metro UI version of settings is not cutting it. When I have my laptop docked at work and some USB devices plugged in I only ever see something about configuring a second screen. Perhaps it is a problem with my system, but it is also very confusing to try and configure a laptop when there are very limited options from Metro.... I think I would scream if I didn't know how to bring up the control panel or any other application that I was used to previously. And if they strip the old settings out completely, that will be 'interesting' to say the least.
Enterprise Applications
They should include an older version of IE or some sort of compatibility mode for existing applications with it. It is fairly early to say, of course, but one of the biggest problems I had is that virtually no web application would work with IE10. I had to try and make due with Firefox... and that was difficult. Definitely will need this compatibility (and it will most likely be there when then deploy) for the enterprise.
Sliding up to login
I would have thought that the OS would know that I am not on a tablet, because it doesn't make sense to me as a laptop user to have to use my mouse to swipe up, and in effect simulate a tablet touch to get to the login prompt.
Summary:
I think Windows 8 is worth a try, but it is very difficult to live with as a beta, which is what lead me to remove it and install Windows XP/Ubuntu 12.04. What the deal breaker for me was that enterprise applications would not work, my system would never actually shut down and everytime I did start it, it would have networking issues that were only solvable by running the troubleshooter.
From an upgrade perspective, I think it is asking too much though (at least for now). While I am fine with learning something new I know for a fact that it will perplex my parents and other non-tech literate people, since they are barely used to the current version of windows.
I can see this being a future play, something for a long way out as it is tablet centric. Sooner or we will not need that PC or laptop as we will be able to get all our work done on portable devices (phones & tablets) and even a laptop PC will be exactly what the laptop is currently to the desktop... a big heavy and cumbersome thing that is not convenient to bring with us or use. So in that respect Windows 8 makes perfect sense to me, I just don't think it is quite ready for general use. We also have to wait for a time when there are new devices that can accomodate all of the changes they have made in Windows8.
Update 05/05/2012: While playing with Windows 8 CP, I have been noticing that the computer never really shuts down, it either sleeps or hibernates. Ever single time it comes on the network card (both wireless and wired) do not work. I always have to troubleshoot them to get them back in working order. Not sure what that is about, but it is a pain. If we could just shut down our computers, that would be great too.
