Windows 8 Beta

Welp as I predicted, it looks like the Classic Theme is dead and gone from Windows 8.

About time, too.

Oh God, the bitching will be endless. :p


There's some really nice stuff in Win 8, but I don't have a tablet or touch device, I think they really need to have a standard start menu and way to disable metro for people like me.

Completely agree. Hopefully they'll listen to their beta testers/developers.
 
i dont see the point of the start menu when you can just use the start screen. its the same thing, just more attractive.
 
Its the same people that insisted on "classic mode" for the taskbar on windows vista/7. They are unimaginative and uncompromising and unwilling to accept change. Those people never work in IT.:rolleyes:
 
Heatless.... a few questions for you on the EP121...

Did you install any Asus drivers or did you just go "as is?"

Does the g-sensor work when you rotate the tablet?

Any odd errors? I've been getting errors on the desktop about a missing asus driver, but I can't seem to get rid of it.

Some general Metro UI questions... I don't see a metro based file navigator. Something I can view my photos and play my media from within the metro UI.

I saw on the Keynote video, they showed a bunch of apps like mail and calendar. Did any of these make it into the preview?
 
has anyone successfully installed this with vmware 7? I didn't have much time to mess around with it... only about 10 mins, but I couldn't get the iso to boot
 
Tried it....looks like I'll be skipping W8 and staying with W7 for a long while. Basically they took W7 mobile and put it on the desktop. So if you don't like W7 Mobile chances are you will not like W8...I don't need a phone OS as my desktop OS no thanks :)
 
2 -3 minutes for a boot? With a regular shutdown, I'm seeing 8-10 secs from POST to login screen. A full reboot is closer to a minute or two.
 
Heatless.... a few questions for you on the EP121...

Did you install any Asus drivers or did you just go "as is?"

Does the g-sensor work when you rotate the tablet?

Any odd errors? I've been getting errors on the desktop about a missing asus driver, but I can't seem to get rid of it.

Some general Metro UI questions... I don't see a metro based file navigator. Something I can view my photos and play my media from within the metro UI.

I saw on the Keynote video, they showed a bunch of apps like mail and calendar. Did any of these make it into the preview?

The only hardware not working for me are the G Sensor and Bluetooth. I've tried installing the Asus driver for that but it didn't work properly and I've not gotten around to trying the Asus Bluetooth driver. Yeah I too didn't see a Metro file explorer though you can do a file search from Metro.

Overall the quality is very impressive for a pre-Beta, touch and pen are solid thank the touch seems a little temperamental at times nothing too bad. Office 2010 installed perfectly OneNote seems to be working great. My goal today will be to get Bluetooth working.
 
I fully understand this is a developer preview, but I hope once it hits a feature complete state, we get things like better customization of the start screen, because unless I just can't find out how to do it, there is no way to add tiles/shortcuts to to specific applications. Yes some are added when you install, but not all programs use installers they are just a self contained executable. On a desktop it would be nice if I could just pin my most used apps on the start screen, the same way I currently use the start menu in W7. I never actually click the "all programs" in W7, i just pin everything I use to the task bar or start menu, any other program I just search for it.
 
What's your resolution? You need at least 768 vertical pixels to run immersive apps.

Doh! I completely forgot about that. My netbook only has 600 vertical pixels, so looks like I'm out of luck, though later today, after work, perhaps I'll hook my netbook up to my monitor just to mess around with it.

I didn't play around with it too much last night, but the boot-up time is quite a bit faster. Windows 8 shaved about 12 seconds off startup, on this netbook. I like the lock/login screen, and the photo swipe login is a neat idea. One thing I'm wondering, is when you're on the start screen, and you start to type you get the search stuff, and a list of the apps. Is there a way to bring up the grid of installed applications, without already typing something, and suddenly narrowing down the list?
 
dxdiag please

I can post a dxdiag.txt from Windows 7 if you want. However, in Windows 8 the screen remains blank from the boot screen to the desktop, so that's a no go.

Seriously, is there no failsafe or VGA mode?
 
I think young people will like W8, but older people say over 40 will not. W8 seems like its geared towards social media, facebook twitter etc. I want a OS to work from not worry about facebook updates....
 
I think young people will like W8, but older people say over 40 will not. W8 seems like its geared towards social media, facebook twitter etc. I want a OS to work from not worry about facebook updates....

I'm over 40 and loving it. I just hooked my EP121 to an external monitor, Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Office 2010 works perfectly thus far, just as easy and productive as Windows 7 and multi-monitor is MUCH better in Windows 8.
 
I have yet to make IE 10 non-tablet the default browser instead of the tablet version. Until I figure that out, I'm going to stick to either Chrome or FF.
While in the Immersive Browser, go to the settings charm and change the default IE for link-handling.
It takes longer than usual though to find programs not pinned to the Metro UI slide. I'm still trying to figure that out at the moment-- how to access a normal Start Menu instead of the Metro UI app slider.
Start Menu is gone.
No option that I've seen so far yet to change the green background. Another thing I'm trying to find out how to change.
You can't change the green in this build.
If you have more than one monitor, you can set one screen to have the Metro UI slides and the other a Desktop view. I've yet to figure out how to get multiple desktops that was mentioned to be included in Windows 8.
Multi-Mon taskbar was mentioned, but what do you mean by Multiple Desktops?
 
While in the Immersive Browser, go to the settings charm and change the default IE for link-handling.

Start Menu is gone.

You can't change the green in this build.

Multi-Mon taskbar was mentioned, but what do you mean by Multiple Desktops?

Thank you for telling me about the IE 10 one.

As for the "app slider screen" (my temporary name for now), I'm trying to figure out how to add more programs to it or access other programs I've installed. There seems to be a recently installed programs list or similar in the last pane if scroll to the far right. That might be it, but I'll have to look into it further.

Instead of relying on a third party app to do it, you can setup multiple workspaces (or multiple desktops). Could that be the Multi-monitor taskbar? Or something else entirely?

Closest thing I can find was this:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/windows-8-multiple-desktops-smart-sticky-notes-and-more/45501

Unless, it's actually this:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-8-Multi-Monitor-Support-on-Steroids-221479.shtml

There's a lot to figure out what is in the OS and getting used to the new interface. It's the equivalent of when I first experienced the Ribbon UI in Office 2007. I played around with it for a while and have come to "accept it."

To me, it seems the Microsoft is moving away from the traditional Windows interface by trying to make it more intuitive and easily accessible, and trying something new entirely. It changes your concept of what a PC UI is with multiple windows and such. It's going to be interesting to see how computer users will come to accept it and use it.

Lastly, I know I'm probably making this more difficult than it seems but I seem to be hitting the Start button more often just to open a program or switching back to the Desktop to switch to another window or to the Control Panel if I'm in the fullscreen Control Panel or IE 10. I'm also trying to figure out how to close one of the fullscreen apps like the Piano or Chess program. Right clicking seems to bring up an Open or Save option for the Piano app.
 
VirtualBox works just fine for me, and I'm using an older computer at work to run it
Dell Precision 490 with a dual core Xeon and 4GB ram

Gave the machine 1GB of ram and set it to windows 7 x64, works like a charm.

win8previewH.JPG
 
As for the "app slider screen" (my temporary name for now), I'm trying to figure out how to add more programs to it or access other programs I've installed. There seems to be a recently installed programs list or similar in the last pane if scroll to the far right. That might be it, but I'll have to look into it further.
To get to the All Programs list, do a search for nothing. Then you can right-click on programs and pin them to the start screen.
Instead of relying on a third party app to do it, you can setup multiple workspaces (or multiple desktops). Could that be the Multi-monitor taskbar? Or something else entirely?
Unless, it's actually this:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-8-Multi-Monitor-Support-on-Steroids-221479.shtml
Correct, that softpedia article describes the new features. There aren't multiple desktops.
 
Developer preview. Pre-beta.

That's a pretty poor excuse not to provide some means to get something essential (like a damned video driver) working again. :rolleyes:

Ugh, finally gave up and reloaded the OS. Hopefully, things go a little more smoothly this time around.
 
Were you able to get the VirtualBox display driver working? I can't get it to start, and I'm stuck at the wrong res...
 
Wish horizontal scroll from my multi touch track pad worked.

It's definitely pretty, and fun enough. but daaaaamn navigating metro without it is a bitch.
 
For those who are unaware, the Metro theme at release will be completely optional. Microsoft has said many things are missing from this build because it's not a beta. This is a developers build to test apps to work with Metro and nothing more. There is no point in releasing anything but Metro because the rest of the OS is similar to 7. It's not needing to be tested at this point. That's what beta is for.
 
For those who are unaware, the Metro theme at release will be completely optional. Microsoft has said many things are missing from this build because it's not a beta. This is a developers build to test apps to work with Metro and nothing more. There is no point in releasing anything but Metro because the rest of the OS is similar to 7. It's not needing to be tested at this point. That's what beta is for.

I don't think this correct. Maybe I'm missing something but Metro is the new Start Menu as having two Start Menus just isn't something Microsoft is likely to do.
 
To have it run the traditional desktop without breaking things: :rolleyes:

Registry edit:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
change value of RPEnabled from "1" to "0"

To get the MetroUI back, just switch it back to 1.
 
OK, ran into the same black screen video issue when I updated the ati drivers, however pressing winkey+P 4 times got everything working again. Somehow, Windows automatically assumes that the laptop display is secondary, and the primary display is a nonexistent monitor connected to the VGA or HDMI port. Weird, but I guess it's a quirk with laptops containing a hybrid ATI+Intel gpu.

Update: I went ahead and installed the ATI Windows 7 drivers provided by HP to regain the GPU switching functionality. The secondary/primary display glitch seems to be gone, [strike="option"] but CCC and the dialogs responsible for manual switching crash and spit out some .NET error.[/s] Updated the drivers to 11.8 and CCC now works along with switching. Now to get the brightness controls to work...

(pending updates)
 
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i don't know what to make of it.

the interface is clunky, and not really for kb and mouse.

are they anticipating that we'll all have touchscreen laptops in the next few years ?

and from a VM, booting up win 8 isn't any faster than win 7.
 
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CCC won't run without .net 3.5.. I was able to install the 11.8 catalyst drivers and CCC on my desktop.. and they do work fine after .net 3.5 is installed.

It said "Hey, i need .net 3.5".. and windows offered to add it.. went to windows update, downloaded and installed it for me.
 
CCC won't run without .net 3.5.. I was able to install the 11.8 catalyst drivers and CCC on my desktop.. and they do work fine after .net 3.5 is installed.

It said "Hey, i need .net 3.5".. and windows offered to add it.. went to windows update, downloaded and installed it for me.

I got that dialog too and installed everything,[strike="option"] but CCC still won't work.[/s] Updated the HP supplied drivers from 9.10 to 8.11 and CCC works now.
 
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Wow I'm impressed. I was never able to play the 1080p around 10GB video properly with any video players with my Asrock Ion 330 but Windows 8 play them no problem!! Windows Media Player is able to play some 1080p format but some without audio.

There's no Dolby Digital decoder included.
 
I'm thinking of throwing together some spare parts as a Windows 8 test bed.

Q9650
8GB RAM
SSD
HDD
5870
DVD Burner

Think a Seasonic 520Watt is enough?
 
They aren't kidding that its a developer preview. Compared to the Win7 M3 builds, this is far from usable as a daily driver. I really hope some of the more idiotic decisions - like dropping the user back into fullscreen Metro from classic mode whenever I hit the Win key, even if it was for a shortcut, will get revisited.
 
my favorite part is how a bunch of people that arent developers are expecting things from a developer preview.
 
They aren't kidding that its a developer preview. Compared to the Win7 M3 builds, this is far from usable as a daily driver. I really hope some of the more idiotic decisions - like dropping the user back into fullscreen Metro from classic mode whenever I hit the Win key, even if it was for a shortcut, will get revisited.

it's made for the Tablet...
 
Wish horizontal scroll from my multi touch track pad worked.

It's definitely pretty, and fun enough. but daaaaamn navigating metro without it is a bitch.

if you have multitouch touchpad, normal vertical scroll will work fine. If no drivers, install them.
 
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