Windows 8 - Windows 8.1 now available!

I'll wait for far more feedback from beta testers until I fiddle about with this. I simply can't risk nobbling my tower or lappy as I need them both for work on a daily basis. I'll be interested to hear all the feed back. Win8 does look very nice, though.

The beta was over a while back. This is the preview.

BID0 wrote:The beta was over a while back. This is the preview.

Like the RC that they did for windows 7? That was pretty stable from what I remember.

That's not a growth wrote:
BID0 wrote:The beta was over a while back. This is the preview.

Like the RC that they did for windows 7? That was pretty stable from what I remember.

Yeh the same principle but they've basically relabelled is as Consumer Preview to try and steer away from the Beta (not quite finished) title.

Nice. How long can you use it for, or is there no kill date yet?

Might have to try it. I'll just check that I can restore my OS first :lol:

That's not a growth wrote:Nice. How long can you use it for, or is there no kill date yet?

It's usually 6 months.

Cal wrote:I'll wait for far more feedback from beta testers until I fiddle about with this. I simply can't risk nobbling my tower or lappy as I need them both for work on a daily basis. I'll be interested to hear all the feed back. Win8 does look very nice, though.

I thought you had an old 'crappy' Alienware tower as well.

Something Fishy

anyone had problems getting virtual box to start?

mine runs but just sits in the background a s task and never runs the ui.

seems like others have had it but i can't see a resolution to it.

[edi] solved it. My phone being plugged in via usb 2 made it unhappy.

How are people finding using Metro with a mouse? I'm kinda expecting it to feel clunky. Looks good for tablets though.

massimo wrote:How are people finding using Metro with a mouse? I'm kinda expecting it to feel clunky. Looks good for tablets though.

I'm rather more curious to see how it handles with Kinect.

Not that it's important or anything, but will all these little apps that you can get from the store carry achievements? This has absolutely no bearing on whether I'm going to upgrade. None whatsoever. :shifty:

Looks like a fantastic thing for tablet PCs, and when touch screen desktops become more common it will be a fantastic OS. But as we still live in the age of traditional mouse-keyboard PCs (the latter with stay methinks) I think its come too early.

Will be good to see where PC gaming goes if touch screen PCs become the norm though, as this is clearly designed with those/tablets in mind.

Drunken_Master wrote:
That's not a growth wrote:Nice. How long can you use it for, or is there no kill date yet?

It's usually 6 months.

Cool, cheers.

man-eater chimp wrote:Looks like a fantastic thing for tablet PCs, and when touch screen desktops become more common it will be a fantastic OS. But as we still live in the age of traditional mouse-keyboard PCs (the latter with stay methinks) I think its come too early.

Will be good to see where PC gaming goes if touch screen PCs become the norm though, as this is clearly designed with those/tablets in mind.

Actually, it seems like a touch sensitive mouse might be a good compromise. Move the mouse pointer over a window and flick left or right on the top of the mouse to change "pages"?

Something Fishy

MUst admit i can't see a lot of reason i'd want to upgrade.

I don't own a touch screen monitor and most of the extra stuff revolves around that.

I quite like the way it pulls stuff together at the start screen but it's not something i'd see as essential.

Shame the Xbox live stuff is not available to the UK yet, i'd like to try that.

BID0 wrote:
That's not a growth wrote:
BID0 wrote:The beta was over a while back. This is the preview.

Like the RC that they did for windows 7? That was pretty stable from what I remember.

Yeh the same principle but they've basically relabelled is as Consumer Preview to try and steer away from the Beta (not quite finished) title.

The RC is out later this year, and will be essentially the finished product barring a few bug fixes and tweaks. The consumer preview and this are both still betas.

From what I've used so far, Windows 8's popularity on desktops and laptops is going to depend on how successful the app store and Metro apps become. The whole thing actually handles very well with a mouse and keyboard, but using desktop apps is pretty much the same experience as Windows 7.

I was amazed at how easy it was to install on my old laptop though. I'd recently reinstalled XP on it which was a bit of a faff, and my heart sank a little when I realised how many Windows 8 drivers I'd seemingly have to track down. As soon as I plugged it into an Ethernet port though it automatically grabbed the lot and installed them for me. I realised today that its surprising Aero support is due to a generic built in display driver, which is handy seeing as Intel never bothered to release even a Windows 7 driver for this particular chipset. Good stuff!

EDIT: Oh and Metro IE10 is pretty nippy! I'm trying to stick with it to see if I can get used to the interface.

Here is a guide to setting up the Consumer Preview in VirtualBox:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/virtually ... lbox/70330

NickSCFC

Guess this answers my question as to whether you can access all your old Windows programs from the metro interface.

I can't see many businesses going for this at all.

Windows 8 - Windows 8.1 now available!

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