Windows 8 Beta

Just got installed on my EP121 and it amazing. I can see how it will be a shock to a lot of people but wow. I'm inking this post in the new tablet input panel and the speed and accuracy out of the box is fantastic. Installing Office 2010 now. Great quality a for developer preview.
 
nobody_here said:
I wasnt even referring to apple but thats funny that we now automatically associate any hint of litigation with apple....bastards

Swiftkey has been around before either of those.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.touchtype.swiftkey.tablet.full&hl=en
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Typicsoft and the actual MS ergonomic KB (pysical KB, way back in the 1990s [still made today]) predate those feable examples :p

EDIT: newest MS ergo is this:
http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/natural-ergonomic-keyboard-4000/B2M-00012

but a few coworkers had them back when they were still beige. Only comments they have is it ruins your ability to type on a normal KB, so I haven't tried one, yet.

ASIA911 said:
Anyone try installing Firefox, VLC, CCleaner, video codec, drivers ect on it yet?
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synaptic drivers. working fine. Took a LONG time to reboot after that, lol.
 
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.
 
Anyone else having issues booting in after installing due to it not being able to configure the hardware correctly?
 
i played around with it for an hour or two, and i dont really care for it.

drivers and what not installed just fine, but its just.... its just win7 tabletfied, for the most part.
 
Just installed Windows 8 on my tm2 (currently typing this message in tablet mode). I'm liking it so far, but I'll have to wait till tomorrow to develop some thoughts about it.
 
christianw said:
anyone have any games up and running yet?
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Been gaming on it for months. Trust me, if you're asking "have you tried blah"... we have.

Firefox, chrome, drivers out the wazoo.

Funny anecdote about gaming: I had installed a new build, and mics didn't work for some reason (it was fixed a couple builds later)... anyway, I went to play some TF2, and my team seemed completely oblivious when I would ask for backup or say I was going to pop an uber or whatever.

How long is the longest you've played talking to your team before realizing that they couldn't hear a damn thing? For me, it was 2 and a half hours. I blame the whiskey ;)
 
i installed the newest cats and ran CSS and dead island for a bit.

installing ccc went fine, installing the .net framework took about 10 mins.

i only played around for a few mins, but games ran just fine.
 
christianw said:
anyone have any games up and running yet?
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Just got done playing an hour of CS:S, hardly demanding, but was smooth. The only other game I play is BC2, I'll try it and the hard reset demo later.

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.
 
Forgot to mention that I tried installing this in a VM earlier and failed just like two other posters have mentioned.

Tried it on VMware Player, Server, Workstation, and VirtualBox; Windows 8 will not work on any of them.

(x64 build BTW)
 
GushpinBob said:
Forgot to mention that I tried installing this in a VM earlier and failed just like two other posters have mentioned.

Tried it on VMware Player, Server, Workstation, and VirtualBox; Windows 8 will not work on any of them.

(x64 build BTW)
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I don't believe that's currently supported. I will check and see what I can find, and will tell you what I'm allowed :)
 
Urg. Won't expand past 3%

Anyone else get that issue? I've tried disabling VT and all other manner of weird things.

Laptop in sig, BTW. (Going to attempt a thumb drive install now. )

[edit] Works off the USB <_< Guess my DVD Drive i've used all of 3 times is dead <_<
 
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Ok this freaking suck. I try rearranging Tabs in Chrome and it wouldn't let me. It just rip it out and separate that tab into a new Window. Try placing that Tab back into the other Chrome Tab but it wouldn't let me.
 
Welp as I predicted, it looks like the Classic Theme is dead and gone from Windows 8.

About time, too.
 
I played around with it for a bit. If you don't have any type of touch based device, it feels counter productive IMO. I know it's not even beta though, and much can change. FYI for those of you without touch devices, CTRL+ALT+DEL is the quickest way to shutdown/restart.
 
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GushpinBob said:
Forgot to mention that I tried installing this in a VM earlier and failed just like two other posters have mentioned.

Tried it on VMware Player, Server, Workstation, and VirtualBox; Windows 8 will not work on any of them.

(x64 build BTW)
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Actually, if you were referring to me, I installed it to a spare 500GB HDD. Going to try sequentially unplugging stuff now to try and figure out what it doesn't like.
 
staknhalo said:
I played around with it for a bit. If you don't have any type of touch based device, it feels counter productive IMO. I know it's not even beta though, and much can change. FYI for those of you without touch devices, CTRL+ALT+DEL is the quickest way to shutdown/restart.
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wait, you mean there was another way to shut down? i spent like 5 mins looking for a way to restart.
 
another-user said:
wait, you mean there was another way to shut down? i spent like 5 mins looking for a way to restart.
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Yeah, CTRL+ALT+DEL > shutdown icon in lower right corner :) I felt lost the first time trying to restart myself. I just did a hard reset lol.
 
oooooooooooooookkkk... :/

Apparantly, my tm2's gpu(s) aren't liking Windows 8. I keep getting weird glitches where the screen will go black or not display any new windows (e.g. I hit Winkey+r and the run dialog icon will show in the taskbar, but the desktop will stay unchanged). Anybody experiencing similar problems?

Also, where the heck is safe mode? You'd think MS would have some kind of failsafe fallback option in situations like the one I'm in now.

Fake edit: Fuck, looks like I'm getting the Windows 8 version of the black screen of death upon boot up (not the fancy new one but there is literally nothing on my laptop's screen). :mad:
 
Well I installed the 32-bit version onto my netbook, from within Windows 7, and everything seemed to work just fine. However, I quickly discovered none of the native Windows 8 (metro apps) on the start screen work! Unless I'm missing something and they're all just there for show. If I click on one it presses in, springs back, and... nothing!

If I begin to type in a search, and view all the apps available, I can't launch any metro app. Same thing happens. However, once I select a standard Windows program, like Paint, Calculator, etc., the screen shoots over to the regular, old Windows desktop, and the application opens up just fine!

I thought maybe my install was messed up, so I formatted my USB drive, put Windows 8 back on it, and this time I did the installation at boot-up. Once everything was done, and I got to the Start screen, the same thing was happening. None of the programs tha were pinned will launch, and only "Show Desktop" and "Settings" work. Nothing else does (IE, Weather, etc). But of course if I go to the regular old desktop, and click the IE button there (on the taskbar), it works.

Perhaps I'll try the 64-bit version tomorrow, but if that doesn't work I'll be moving my netbook to Ubuntu, like I had planned, before the preview was announced at Build.
 
GushpinBob said:
oooooooooooooookkkk... :/

Apparantly, my tm2's gpu(s) aren't liking Windows 8. I keep getting weird glitches where the screen will go black or not display any new windows (e.g. I hit Winkey+r and the run dialog icon will show in the taskbar, but the desktop will stay unchanged). Anybody experiencing similar problems?

Also, where the heck is safe mode? You'd think MS would have some kind of failsafe fallback option in situations like the one I'm in now.

Fake edit: Fuck, looks like I'm getting the Windows 8 version of the black screen of death upon boot up (not the fancy new one but there is literally nothing on my laptop's screen). :mad:
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dxdiag please
 
Meh, to be able for the START popup you have to place the mouse exactly at the left button edge of the screen. Didn't understand why it wasn't popping up when placing the mouse on top of the START button.
 
Jerome36 said:
Well I installed the 32-bit version onto my netbook, from within Windows 7, and everything seemed to work just fine. However, I quickly discovered none of the native Windows 8 (metro apps) on the start screen work! Unless I'm missing something and they're all just there for show. If I click on one it presses in, springs back, and... nothing!

If I begin to type in a search, and view all the apps available, I can't launch any metro app. Same thing happens. However, once I select a standard Windows program, like Paint, Calculator, etc., the screen shoots over to the regular, old Windows desktop, and the application opens up just fine!

I thought maybe my install was messed up, so I formatted my USB drive, put Windows 8 back on it, and this time I did the installation at boot-up. Once everything was done, and I got to the Start screen, the same thing was happening. None of the programs tha were pinned will launch, and only "Show Desktop" and "Settings" work. Nothing else does (IE, Weather, etc). But of course if I go to the regular old desktop, and click the IE button there (on the taskbar), it works.

Perhaps I'll try the 64-bit version tomorrow, but if that doesn't work I'll be moving my netbook to Ubuntu, like I had planned, before the preview was announced at Build.
Click to expand...
What's your resolution? You need at least 768 vertical pixels to run immersive apps.
 
Ok, so far...
  • Boots up faster than Windows 7. A lot faster. From POST to Desktop, it's approximately 4 to 5 minutes for Windows 7 (non-SSD); compared to approximately 2 to 3 minutes for Win 8 Pre (non-SSD). Microsoft has definitely optimized a lot here.
  • Get ready to get used to it because Windows Live ID seems to be the default log in user name and password from this point forward. Windows 8 is now tightly integrated with Live services. This build however did not come with the integrated Live Messenger as shown in some screenshots. I am trying to figure out though if it is in this build or not especially since your user tile pic can appear in the notification area.
  • Metro UI is rather intuitive, seamless and makes the Start Menu seem dated, but... (see below)
  • UI decisions by Microsoft however make some things a bit longer or difficult to do now. For example, Shutdown/Restart/Sleep is now on a single button that's only accessible by hovering your mouse cursor over the Start button then hitting Settings.
  • UI however is all about putting more accessible items through a series of slides. This is pretty much the OS for normal everyday simple minded, non-techy people.
  • 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.
  • Only driver I've had issue installing is my Intel Gigabit CT NIC since the setup file refuses to run in Win 8 Pre-B. I've let it use the built-in Windows driver and no issues there.
  • It feels noticeable faster than Windows 7. Active processes have dropped a lot (145 to 200 in Win7 vs. 55 to 65 in Win8 Pre).
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • ClearType seems to have improved a lot now-- both on an LCD monitor and an LCD HDTV.
  • 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.
  • Driver issues that plagued Vista at launch is practically almost a non-issue in Windows 8 as Windows 7 drivers will work in 8. (That's if the program doesn't use some silly OS detection like my Intel Proset drivers. Creative drivers had a pop up and it went off without a problem.)
It feels like being on Windows 7 Beta all over again. It's taking time to figure out how everything works. On the surface, it's pretty much like Windows 7 but deeper inside, it's entirely different. Very different.
The Ribbon UI in Windows Explorer makes some advanced options more accessible to novice and advanced users.

IE 10 seems to run better than IE 9.

The Metro UI seems to work well on large screens thanks to the large font and icon tiles.

If you are used to the basic Windows interface that hasn't changed much since Windows 95-- Start Menu, etc.-- you will probably not like this OS. This is definitely pointed towards a touch-based interface future and it seems Microsoft (along with other companies) are pushing towards it. So, we'll probably have to get used to it sooner or later just like in those sci-fi flicks and TV shows.

Note: I have Windows 8 Pre x64.
 
Arainach said:
What's your resolution? You need at least 768 vertical pixels to run immersive apps.
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THANK YOU. I was getting really frustrated when none of the apps worked.

Still seems pretty laggy/crash prone in my VM though. VirtualBox, W8 64 bit.
 
Oh forgot to mention the Task Manager.

I am absolutely in love with it. It's much more simple and intuitive than the one found in Windows 7 and earlier versions.
 
I like the metro UI..

I don't like how easily you get dumped into the classic UI when the OS doesn't do a good job of telling you that it's going to happen.

However, I fully expect that sort of thing will be worked out by the time it releases.

Very impressed at the boot speed.. on a "cold boot" the windows splash screen doesn't even have time to fully display itself before the OS is loaded.
 
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