dbminter Posted September 30, 2011 Posted September 30, 2011 Downloaded and installed the free Windows 8 Developer Preview to get some first impressions of what the upcoming OS might be look. From what I've seen, be afraid. Be VERY afraid! It seems like Microsoft purposefully designed Windows 8 so that once basic tasks take more clicks or are totally eliminated from the OS. For instance, to access the log on screen, you HAVE to click off on a screen saver page. I could only access the Desktop by first selecting Control Panel from the obviously designed to be a smartphone start page. Then, I had to select More options from Control Panel in order to get the Desktop to appear. Once I got to the Desktop, imagine my surprise when the Start Menu is totally gone! How are we expected to get applications to work? Now, granted, this is a preliminary release of the OS and some things may be fixed. For instance, I hope for Windows to support/ZoneAlarm to support Windows 8, which neither currently do. But, I don't like what I've seen, which just backs up some things I had read. Like the likelihood that the Start button would be removed from the interface. You know, I didn't test to see if the Windows key on the keyboard opens the Start menu. I'm not about to reinstall it just to test that!
spinningwheel Posted October 1, 2011 Posted October 1, 2011 Thanks db, think I'll just stay with XP for a while longer.
dbminter Posted October 1, 2011 Author Posted October 1, 2011 Actually, believe it or not, Windows 7 is actually a version of Windows I'd recommend. It's the first time I've ever actively endorsed a flavor of Windows. In a stunning turn of events, Microsoft combined the good parts of Vista, which were few and mostly cosmetic in nature, and fixed the parts that were wrongly implemented or just plain wrong for Windows 7. Of course, there IS that Blu-Ray size issue in Windows 7, but...
LIGHTNING UK! Posted October 1, 2011 Posted October 1, 2011 That start screen in Win 8 has a button for desktop. It's annoying that the start button on said desktop then takes you back to the start screen though! lol
dbminter Posted October 1, 2011 Author Posted October 1, 2011 The funny thing is, when I tested the Developers' Build the first time, there WAS a button on the start menu for the Desktop. My other 2 installs of it did NOT have said button. So, go figure. Typical Microsoft behavior.
LIGHTNING UK! Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 I have the 8102 build in VMWare and it definitely has it I'm sooo not a fan of the new 'Metro' interface/app style though so I'm glad they made Windows 7 as good as it is.
dbminter Posted October 2, 2011 Author Posted October 2, 2011 I don't know what build mine was beyond what they called it: Windows 8 Developers' Preview. As I said, it worked once and then it didn't work; typical Microsoft software behavior. I have to install it over my primary partition and then restore the daily backup in order to try it out. I've done it like 3 times thus far, and that's enough as far as I'm concerned!
LIGHTNING UK! Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 You should look at VirtualBox... it's free
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