6 replies to this topic

[Chugworth]

Well I just watched through most of Microsoft's BUILD keynote about Windows 8:
http://www.buildwindows.com/

A while back I complained about using the Metro interface on a PC. Although I'm still not a huge fan of Metro, I see how it would be a useful interface on handheld and touchscreen devices. The classic interface will still be there, and it has many improvements itself. What I LOVE is that it looks like the OS will be pretty much the same on PC and handheld devices. You can switch right to the classic interface and classic applications on handheld devices. Now if Windows 8 on phones is basically the same as Windows 8 on tablets and PCs..... I might be easing away from Android (or making the switch on day 1).

Oh, and the ISO files for the developer preview release of Windows 8 are available right here for anyone to download. They sure do handle Windows betas differently from the good ol' days, don't they?

[K2]

Chugworth, on 14 September 2011 - 02:38 AM, said:

Oh, and the ISO files for the developer preview release of Windows 8 are available right here for anyone to download. They sure do handle Windows betas differently from the good ol' days, don't they?

I'm afraid you just killed us there!!

[Chugworth]

Yesterday I installed Windows 8 on my HP tx2000z laptop. It's several years old, but it has a capacitive touchscreen (single-touch) and a digitizer pen. In the years that I've had this laptop, I rarely used it and hardly ever used the touchscreen features. Now, at last, I have an OS that makes the touchscreen useful. This is a good computer to at least get a taste of the touch features in Windows 8.

I've been playing with Windows 8 for several hours now, and actually, I really like it. The problem with the current mobile OS's is that they just have a limited feeling to them. Many times I've been using Android or ChromeOS and think: "I need to do (whatever), but I can't really do that from here." Windows 8 will solve that since the mobile OS becomes the same thing as the desktop OS. I really can't wait!

I'd like to go ahead and load Windows 8 on my desktop computer, but it's labeled "Developer Preview" for a reason. There are a lot of bugs, and obviously a lot of adjustments and improvements will need to be made from where it's at right now. Maybe I'll be ready to make the complete changeover with the next beta release.

[ImSkiZZer]

Thanks for the info Chug!
I am downloading the build as i type this.
You are right...it aint at all like the good old days... i cant beilieve its so easy to get this developper build. I was expecting maybe to have to search a little.
BTW, hello to everyone. Have not been around in some time.
I wonder if i will be able to install this on my Asus Transformer... probably not but hoping maybe when it gets to beta stages... it is an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor.
Nice to be back.

Edited by ImSkiZZer, 17 September 2011 - 01:41 AM.

[Chugworth]

ImSkiZZer, on 17 September 2011 - 01:40 AM, said:

I wonder if i will be able to install this on my Asus Transformer... probably not but hoping maybe when it gets to beta stages... it is an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor.
Nice to be back.

There will be an ARM version of Windows 8, but from what I gather it's tied more closely to the device that it's running on. The tablet manufacturers would have to build an image for the specific device - like the way Android is handled now. It might be possible to get the ARM-based Windows 8 working on some of the existing Android tablets, but it would take a good bit of hacking and programming. I'm sure none of the existing Android tablets would ever support it officially.

But if anyone is looking for some good existing hardware to try Windows 8 on, they listed some devices in this blog post:
http://blogs.msdn.co...7-hardware.aspx

The Intel-based ASUS EP121 tablet looks pretty nice. It's not cheap though.

[Chugworth]

A bunch of updates came in yesterday, and it seems like that improved things quite a bit. Sites that would consistently crash before in the Metro IE are working fine now. In fact, I've been browsing in Metro IE for about an hour or so, and the browsing experience has been... not bad. I'm typing this post from it right now.

[DJP]

tnx, downloading it right now