Anyone running Win 8 Pre-Release?

[DaveTN]

So what do you think?

[ironsniper1]

I checked it out on virtual box and hated it

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[Sam1]

It's going to be a slow come on if any at all. Win7 does what people need it to now, with the economy in this state and the business side just getting to implement Win7, I expect Win8 to be a fairly exciting dud.

Contrary to what they are stating, that Win8 is the most secure system they have released, and it is technically when measured against the same parameters Win7 was, but this OS does much more and it is not when you consider the new capabilities. DoD, NIST and a few other groups worked with MS on Win7 to help secure it. This time around, from what I understand, there was not as an extensive collaboration.

The premise behind this OS was to suck up more of a marketshare by standardizing mobile devices from phones to tablets all the way to the users home pc. I think it's just a bad move all the way around, but hey.. they're the multi-billion dollar entity and I'm just a random guy on the internet.

[vontar]

I am running it, at first I liked it but certain things, just aren't PC friendly. Example in this reply box, with IE 10 there is no way to drop down to the next like with enter like I can in firefox. Also when I hit post, the page does not refresh correct in IE 10 like it does in FireFox. IE 10 just sucks more then any IE I have ever used including IE 3.

[Curiousgb]

I am running it, at first I liked it but certain things, just aren't PC friendly. Example in this reply box, with IE 10 there is no way to drop down to the next like with enter like I can in firefox. Also when I hit post, the page does not refresh correct in IE 10 like it does in FireFox. IE 10 just sucks more then any IE I have ever used including IE 3.

I can't remember the last time I used any IE.

[analog_kidd]

I'm a MIcrosoft guy all the way. I make my living working with MS servers. I loved the Windows interface ever since Win95. Didn't care too much for Vista, but that was due to stability issues mostly. I think Win 7 is the best O/S they have ever come out with.

I loaded up Win8 as a Virtual Machine, and absolutely hate it! There is no way that I can use this O/S. For a power user, the interface is intolerable. I like to have multiple windows open all the time. Win 8 forces everything to run as a full screen. There is no way this O/S will work in a business environment. It may be OK for home use, but it just is not geared toward businesses.

Removing the Start button is just crazy. For nearly two decades now people have been used to the way Windows works. Now they change it so drastically that it just frustrates you to try and do anything that you are used to.

The tiled interface may be the evolution of the user interface, but I think they should have eased people into it. It's just too much all at once.

I personally won't use it, and I will be recommending that we stay away from it at work.

[Guest nysos]

The tiled interface may be the evolution of the user interface, but I think they should have eased people into it. It's just too much all at once.

I personally won't use it, and I will be recommending that we stay away from it at work.

My thoughts exactly. Have the tiled interface as an option for people to use in the next big windows release, but not the primary UI. Get feedback from those users and polish it up and then make it the standard UI in the next release with the option of going back to a classic style. Then have it next to mandatory in the iteration after that. 3 OS releases to push it out fully, not 1. By that time it should have evolved enough to where it will do what people want and they won't get blasted over it.

[analog_kidd]

My thoughts exactly. Have the tiled interface as an option for people to use in the next big windows release, but not the primary UI. Get feedback from those users and polish it up and then make it the standard UI in the next release with the option of going back to a classic style. Then have it next to mandatory in the iteration after that. 3 OS releases to push it out fully, not 1. By that time it should have evolved enough to where it will do what people want and they won't get blasted over it.

Perfectly said. I think this will be Microsoft's biggest blunder. They are not saying anything about it yet, but I predict it will be an epic fail once released.

[Sam1]

The tiled interface may be the evolution of the user interface, but I think they should have eased people into it. It's just too much all at once.

That is what I mentioned previously, the actual purpose of this is not due to some expensive research, or input from users. It is solely for them to streamline between the devices in hopes that MS can grab a larger hold on the mobile device market. They've been discussing this for over a year now, and to me it looks like they're just slinging mud on the wall hoping something sticks so they can start the battle with Apple.

The problem with this in my humble irrelevant opinion, is also what you stated, most users don't want to dumb down their computers and that is exactly what this does. If the purpose of Win8 actually is to remove the granulated controls that computers offer, then there would be no benefit from hardware advancements. We might as well all be using some old POS thin client. If I was a guessing man, MS is actually releasing this to try and steal some of Apple's thunder for the release of 10.8 this month.

[vontar]

I'm a MIcrosoft guy all the way. I make my living working with MS servers. I loved the Windows interface ever since Win95. Didn't care too much for Vista, but that was due to stability issues mostly. I think Win 7 is the best O/S they have ever come out with.

I loaded up Win8 as a Virtual Machine, and absolutely hate it! There is no way that I can use this O/S. For a power user, the interface is intolerable. I like to have multiple windows open all the time. Win 8 forces everything to run as a full screen. There is no way this O/S will work in a business environment. It may be OK for home use, but it just is not geared toward businesses.

Removing the Start button is just crazy. For nearly two decades now people have been used to the way Windows works. Now they change it so drastically that it just frustrates you to try and do anything that you are used to.

The tiled interface may be the evolution of the user interface, but I think they should have eased people into it. It's just too much all at once.

I personally won't use it, and I will be recommending that we stay away from it at work.

I agree, I cannot see it being a business OS at all. I used one of the hacks on the net to give something of a start button back but it still is not a true start button. It runs fast but that is about all the good I can say for it.

[viscero]

Imaged one of our extra workstations with it and absolutely hated it. MS has this thing where every other release of their desktop OS sucks horribly. So far they are still on track with that it seems. Win9, or whatever they'll call it, will probably be awesomesauce.

[TGO David]

We are part of the Microsoft RPD (Rapid Deployment Program) at work and one of my colleagues is part of the task force our company has assigned to put it through the wringer. He and two other guys went out to Redmond back in April or May and spent some time with other RPD partners from around the world. He's pretty impressed with it but admits that Microsoft is going to have to do something about the interface and thinks that if they do an R2 version like they did with Server 2008, it'll probably address a lot of those concerns.

What we're really anxious to begin deploying is Server 2012. That's going to be a game changer.

And just to qualify my remarks, I support an environment of approximately 5,000 Windows servers in a 90% virtualized environment as one of three VMware engineers. It's not exactly a small shop.

[TGO David]

I agree, I cannot see it being a business OS at all. I used one of the hacks on the net to give something of a start button back but it still is not a true start button. It runs fast but that is about all the good I can say for it.

You'd be surprised. I was skeptical at first but we've seen numerous demos now where the tiled interface "makes sense" for a business. Microsoft recognizes that tablets, smart phones and devices with non-keyboard interfaces are where the BIG business market is won or lost. That and they fully intend to provide a homogenous interface option across all of the various platforms on which a Microsoft OS can be run.

Again, Server 2012 doesn't even boot with a GUI by default... which rocks, as far as I'm concerned. Anything I can do via PowerShell is something I can script and automate.

[FJCrusing]

I loaded it up virtually through Parallels on my Mac and thought it was definitely more tablet friendly than PC friendly. This could be a big concern until more enterprise business solutions go this direction with tablets and keyboardless devices. I work for a large (200k employee company) and we are just now rolling out Windows 7 Enterprise. It could be years before we even consider Windows 8. It definitely still needs more work and fine tuning.

[Sam1]

What we're really anxious to begin deploying is Server 2012. That's going to be a game changer.

Two things I'm anxious to see is the hyper-v networking (going to save a massive amount of time) and the dynamic access control that modifies controls depending on what type of device is accessing the data. Could care less about most of the other stuff. It may have more in it that is useful, but have only read a few white papers on it.

[DaveTN]

Loaded it up last night. Install was really quick. It's different.