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A week with Windows 8 Release Preview
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msdos622wasfun
Sep 5, 2012, 3:30:56 PM9/5/12
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Well, in anticipation of the release of the new OS, I decided to pick up a 2 TB hard drive and put Windows 8 Release Preview on it. I'd like to describe my experience up until this point.
The good:
[*] Installation was very simple.
[*] Fast. Seems even faster than Windows 7, which was in turn faster than Vista. Of course, I've got a clean install, so that might have something to do with it.
[*] I like "Metro." Navigating it with the mouse doesn't seem so hard now that I'm used to it. No Start "button?" Not a big deal to me. I think the Start Screen is a big improvement. Edge UI hot spots are a clever idea.
[*] Nice enhancements to the traditional desktop elements of the OS, such as improved file explorer, task manager, etc. The desktop is still there, as well as the taskbar, system tray, and many of the other things we're already used to.
[*] Have only installed two major game titles at the moment, but they run fine. Overall compatibility seems good.
[*] I think the Store looks very promising. I've installed a couple of free things, and they're very good-looking and functional.
[*] I think everything is very pretty and very clean.
[*] No BSoD's so far.
The (gulp) bad:
[*] Some things are unstable at the moment. The new version of Internet Explorer likes to crash a lot, but on the plus side it usually resumes where it left off immediately with all my tabs restored.
[*] There can be *some* clunkiness and confusion when I switch back and forth between the desktop and the new interface.
[*] Some of my tools don't work yet. The Dropbox client, for instance. Decided to give SkyDrive a try, though, and it works great. (Actually, I just noticed something ... the SkyDrive app is creating temporary copies of my files and not saving them back to the cloud by default ... why would it do that?)
[*] Not having built-in DVD support (as in playback of movies, not data discs) just seems a tad silly, but I suppose Microsoft have their reasons. Free alternative DVD players like VLC play normal DVDs fine, but I had to download something called DAPlayer to play Blu-rays -- I couldn't get my licensed copies of PowerDVD or WinDVD to work yet with those.
[*] I guess I'm just gonna have to get used to the things they took out, like "Recent Documents."
I do plan to upgrade to it (on my main rig) when it's released. I'm also contemplating replacing my HP laptop with a Surface Pro when it's released as well. Those things look so effing sweeeeeet!
--
Erich K.
The good:
[*] Installation was very simple.
[*] Fast. Seems even faster than Windows 7, which was in turn faster than Vista. Of course, I've got a clean install, so that might have something to do with it.
[*] I like "Metro." Navigating it with the mouse doesn't seem so hard now that I'm used to it. No Start "button?" Not a big deal to me. I think the Start Screen is a big improvement. Edge UI hot spots are a clever idea.
[*] Nice enhancements to the traditional desktop elements of the OS, such as improved file explorer, task manager, etc. The desktop is still there, as well as the taskbar, system tray, and many of the other things we're already used to.
[*] Have only installed two major game titles at the moment, but they run fine. Overall compatibility seems good.
[*] I think the Store looks very promising. I've installed a couple of free things, and they're very good-looking and functional.
[*] I think everything is very pretty and very clean.
[*] No BSoD's so far.
The (gulp) bad:
[*] Some things are unstable at the moment. The new version of Internet Explorer likes to crash a lot, but on the plus side it usually resumes where it left off immediately with all my tabs restored.
[*] There can be *some* clunkiness and confusion when I switch back and forth between the desktop and the new interface.
[*] Some of my tools don't work yet. The Dropbox client, for instance. Decided to give SkyDrive a try, though, and it works great. (Actually, I just noticed something ... the SkyDrive app is creating temporary copies of my files and not saving them back to the cloud by default ... why would it do that?)
[*] Not having built-in DVD support (as in playback of movies, not data discs) just seems a tad silly, but I suppose Microsoft have their reasons. Free alternative DVD players like VLC play normal DVDs fine, but I had to download something called DAPlayer to play Blu-rays -- I couldn't get my licensed copies of PowerDVD or WinDVD to work yet with those.
[*] I guess I'm just gonna have to get used to the things they took out, like "Recent Documents."
I do plan to upgrade to it (on my main rig) when it's released. I'm also contemplating replacing my HP laptop with a Surface Pro when it's released as well. Those things look so effing sweeeeeet!
--
Erich K.
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