A few hints & tricks for build 8102

[George P Global Moderator]

Heh, guess it's just me, I clicked away on the charms to get an idea of what they can do right after I installed it. Heck, cuz it's in VM I haven't installed any apps for it either.

[NerdyTech]

Impossible. Metro only has about 1/10 (or less) the shortcuts that are in the standard start menu from a clean install. Want to run notepad? It's not shown in Metro! Want to run wordpad? It's not shown in Metro! And on, and on, and on. I can only imagine how far out the damn thing will have to scroll right once someone has a decent number of programs installed. As it stands now in it's current state in this dev build, Metro is full of fail.

Windows Key + R

[George P Global Moderator]

All, or most of the old KB shortcuts work, as was just pointed out winkey+r brings up the run box. Hell, just type notepad and hit enter. Or just type wordpad. Hell do, iirc, Winkey+q and do a search. Or, move the mouse to the lower left corner to bring up the charms menu and then click on search and do it that way. In the final default setup it could very well ask you what apps you want pinned to the start screen OR MS might just pin those up there for you.

[MidnightDevil]

Okay so... I'm trying to personalize this metro UI since I'm giving it a real try. I removed what I dont need, moved most used apps to initial group, but would be nice to have a start menu without loosing all the new features.

Also, I'm having a small headache with Remote Desktop Connection.

It seems that when I estabilish a connection to my server, I dont have the upper bar to close it... so Im kinda lost, either I close it with task manager, or gets suspended somewhere in memory :| any tips?

[Soulsiphon]

this is exactly what i was trying to find!! :D thanks for the info

i think Microsoft should keep all the settings to each app in this charm menu

keeps everything consistent :)

Same here! Very helpful indeed. I finally gave up on the 'start menu' thread since it was pretty much no help and the usual neowin wiseasses had completely hijacked it for no particular purpose other than to be dickwads.

[George P Global Moderator]

Well I didn't try this before but it seems you can have task manager on-top of a running metro app, and the snap-to left and right still works, but the metro app stays in the background like it was a wallpaper. Hmmm.

[Robbie Ride]

I installed Windows 8 DP late last night and so far I'm very impressed with it, there are a few bugs and issues but i wouldn't say that it's "too buggy",

I like the new immersive UI but it obviously needs allot of work but it shows potential.

I enabled the Classic Start menu and one thing i noticed is that it disables the new Task Manager and re-enables the old which was weird.

Some bugs that i have encountered are

a text bug, whenever I'm typing it would miss out certain letters but its a good way to test the new inline spell checker.

I have had issues where i could not connect to my network shares but I had no issue connecting to my media server which is a network share.

Finding network printers via devices and printers is an issue but i can install a networked printer via a network share.

[George P Global Moderator]

Ok, it seems like metro apps, at least the ones in the preview are killed on their own after a bit of time, like if you alt-tab to another one then after like, 30sec they're closed. Do this guys, open task manager, with the Always-on-top option so you can see it on the start screen. Then open 3 or so metro apps and alt+tab to one and see what goes on in task manager.

This might just be these demo apps and this could be left up to the dev ofc, but it's kinda interesting in the end.

Edit: Yup, just like I figured, you don't have to close metro apps, the system will close them after about 30sec on it's own. After 10sec it suspends them but if you don't go back into them after that they're just killed on their own.

[+Chsoriano Subscriber²]

Did I miss how to customize the weather location?

[svnO.o]

Ok, it seems like metro apps, at least the ones in the preview are killed on their own after a bit of time, like if you alt-tab to another one then after like, 30sec they're closed. Do this guys, open task manager, with the Always-on-top option so you can see it on the start screen. Then open 3 or so metro apps and alt+tab to one and see what goes on in task manager.

This might just be these demo apps and this could be left up to the dev ofc, but it's kinda interesting in the end.

Edit: Yup, just like I figured, you don't have to close metro apps, the system will close them after about 30sec on it's own. After 10sec it suspends them but if you don't go back into them after that they're just killed on their own.

Awesome thanks for the clarification. With that system that feature now makes sense.

[George P Global Moderator]

Did I miss how to customize the weather location?

When you're in a metro app, like the weather one, just right click on it with your mouse, doing so brings up ti's app bar at the bottom. The weather apps options are there for you.

I forget how to do it with the KB, there's a shortcut for it, it's Winkey+ something, i'll have to look for it again.

Edit, it's Winkey+Z btw, that also brings up the app bar/command bar for apps.

[htcz]

Hint : If you are installing on vmware workstation and get the nasty message "windows cannot read the <productKey> setting from the unnattend answer file", just disable the floppy drive on the vmware settings.

:-D

tried with VmWare Workstation 8, Windows Developer Preview 8 x64 as Guest, Windows 7 professional x64 as Host

On that note, you need at least VMWare Workstation 8 to install Windows 8 Windows Developer Preview in a VMWare virtual machine. It does not work on 7 (another fun fact: Version 8 of VMWare Workstation was released the same day as the Windows Developer Preview of Windows 8 :p )

Little thing I found when installing it as I downloaded the full iso image 4.8GB or whichever wouldn't fit on standard DVD so went the USB route but was too lazy to do whole manual copying and making USB stick bootable so tried using the Windows 7 USB software from Microsoft and what do you know, it works so if anyone's in similar boat it's easiest solution.

4.8GB? Is that the developer tools or something because the 32 bit iso of the WDP was 2 something GB.

Another question while we are at it: Why only a 64 bit version of the developer tools? If so, then Windows 8 should be only 64 bits (which I something I approve as it is neccessary that Windows is 64bit only). Makes no sense for 32bit developers and their users....

[MrIgoe]

I'm really digging this so far, but I've noticed now that I've restarted it boots right into WDP, and I get no boot manager asking if I'd like to go back to win7. Browsing the forums said to boot into the CD and get it to detect the old MBR in the repair utility, but I'm not sure I follow what that means. I have not installed WDP over win 7, they are on entirely different partitions, it just looks like WDP doesnt know the other partition is bootable for some odd reason.

Has anyone encountered this before, and if so can they provide any useful tips?

[Eric Veteran]

Win I - App settings

Win F - Search files

Win W - Search settings

[FaiKee]

I'm really digging this so far, but I've noticed now that I've restarted it boots right into WDP, and I get no boot manager asking if I'd like to go back to win7. Browsing the forums said to boot into the CD and get it to detect the old MBR in the repair utility, but I'm not sure I follow what that means. I have not installed WDP over win 7, they are on entirely different partitions, it just looks like WDP doesnt know the other partition is bootable for some odd reason.

Has anyone encountered this before, and if so can they provide any useful tips?

I would suggest you to use either VistaBootPro or EasyBCD, if you have not installed .Net3.5 in win8, then you have to do it inside win7.

1. click the "Manage BootLoader", then choose to "install the Vista BootLoader"

2. Then go to the manage OS, it will show you the win7 and win8(WDP) entries, do your settings,

3. reboot to see if you get the bootmenu and check you can enter these OS's.

Edit: sorry just realized that you are unable to enter win7, so you need to do it in win8. If you have not installed .Net3.5, goto "turn windows feature on/off", choose .Net3.5, it will install thru windows update.

I found that VistaBootPro cannot run in 8102, install EasyBCD.

[MrIgoe]

That was effortlessly easy, thank you very much!

I am very grateful.

[BeeJAyP]

Okay so... I'm trying to personalize this metro UI since I'm giving it a real try. I removed what I dont need, moved most used apps to initial group, but would be nice to have a start menu without loosing all the new features.

Also, I'm having a small headache with Remote Desktop Connection.

It seems that when I estabilish a connection to my server, I dont have the upper bar to close it... so Im kinda lost, either I close it with task manager, or gets suspended somewhere in memory :| any tips?

I had the same problem with RDP, what I do is disconnect from the remote pc by going to Start, then clicking the right arrow next to log off, then click disconnect, it automatically closes and returns to the selection screen.

[George P Global Moderator]

Wow, I just noticed how old this build actually is from the build string. No doubt the version they had in the keynote is probably whatever internal build they made a few days before the event.

[FaiKee]

Wow, I just noticed how old this build actually is from the build string. No doubt the version they had in the keynote is probably whatever internal build they made a few days before the event.

MS was careful this time not to show any build tags, but they showed "Windows-to-Go", it's definitely a new feature which is not present in 8102.

[~Johnny]

Wow, I just noticed how old this build actually is from the build string. No doubt the version they had in the keynote is probably whatever internal build they made a few days before the event.

It's only two weeks old :p Though it's quite possible they didn't merge every branch and feature when they built this preview, whereas the builds they've running they probably do.

[Eric Veteran]

Scroll wheel lets you select which screen will be dragged from the left side of the screen while the thumbnail is visible.

[Detection]

Anyone got Office 2010 installed on 8102 ?

If you do, can you crop and resize a JPEG using Office Picture Manager, and save it, and see if it puts purple stripes right through the image ?

[tp2215]

I just wanted to post a reply because I have seen it posted a few times around the forums that people cannot close the apps that are launched from Metro. I get a feeling that Microsoft is planning to control them similar to how Android does. That is they automatically kill themselves when the system requires the memory. So that way you can multi task and switch directly back to where you left off in the app. This is why people have developed task managers for android to kill these processes. Therefor, the new revamp of the task manager in Windows 8. Think about it.

[George P Global Moderator]

I know it's only 2 weeks old but they tend to do new builds often, even if the build # doesn't change each time.

Anyways, it's clear that they used a newer one at the keynote because the tab grouping and naming feature isn't in the dev preview either. I think more people will start to like it once you get things like that going in the start screen. A better way to switch apps or a way to do alt+tab with touch is needed though, someone brought this up already, though flicking in from the left works when you have a few apps going it starts to take long when you have more open. It'd be nice if they added the new task switching that WP 7.5 brings, which is like what WebOS does.

[Quillz]

Is there a much quicker way to shut down your PC? In Win7, all you do is tap the Windows key, move to the arrow key to the right and press enter (as it defaults to "Shut Down," although you can also have it do a restart.) It seems in Win8, I have to press the Start button, load up the charm menu, click on "Settings" and then go to "Power," and then pick "Shut Down" from the list. Doesn't seem very quick or elegant.