official Windows 8 Consumer Preview Discussion

[Jesper Nielsen]

They said the apps were a milestone behind (made for DP)? which explains a lot

[PGHammer]

I'm just not sure how flexible that solution is really going to be. And of course, for whatever reason, I'm somehow unable to snap Metro apps to the side. I can drag the miniature preview along the top and also off to the bottom, but it won't snap to the side of the desktop. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. :/

What resolution?

I'm at my standard 1920x1080.

[Jesper Nielsen]

Does anyone know what is the minimum screen resolution for Aero Snap to work? I suspect that is the reason I can't get it to work on my 1280x800 screen.

It's the 1366x768 (the one similar too that, too lazy to look it up exactly), so no luck for you with regards to Aero Snap. Same for me :)

[PGHammer]

Just snapped Reader again.this time, to the left side. Will post a screenie in the screenshots thread.

[SMELTN]

so it kills me that every blog site out there is saying how wonderful and amazing Windows 8 is, yet everyone of them are using some tablet that was given to them to use it on.

So misleading when 97% of your user base is going to be on a desktop....... sigh

[heyitsheather]

I've done a clean install of the x64 build on my backup laptop, an HP Pavillioin dv6z which is an AMD Turion M520 with 4GB and integrated Radeon HD 4200. Not a speed demon of any sort but so far so good. The install went very quickly, 15 min I think I was seeing the start screen?

Overall the performance is great. I installed the Catalyst 12.1 display drivers from AMD (had to force Win 7 compatibility mode but it worked), wifi file transfers seem to be faster than I typically get on Win 7 as I've been copying back over my backed up data and app installs from my NAS.

Metro does seem to be much more polished than the dev preview which I admittedly only ran for a week before I grew tired of it but this time I'm determined to really give it a good try. I think my only complaint so far is I jsut don't like the integrated "People" app but simple solution there is I don't have to use it. :)

[Zain Adeel]

app are randomly crashing :s

I wished it to be more stable.

Loving the autocorrection in IE10.

anyhow... im too sleepy. will test it fully tommorrow. Im getting used to the gestures and stuff. and they are not bad. will get used to them fast.

[Syanide]

Spent the last hour in it. Nothing that I care about has been improved since DP, so I'm saying bye bye to Windows 8. What a horrible idea, slapping this phone interface on a PC... :(

[statm1]

Is there a way to separate the screen with the main taskbar and the startscreen like it was in the DP? I want to beable to see the tray and the start screen at the same time. But you can't.

Also you can't drag things onto and off of the taskbar anymore. Its either pin it or unpin it. And you can't pin anything to the 2nd taskbar either.

Thirdly, I will grant them that the mouse experience is alittle better but its very annoying using the mouse to bring up the start screen because if you don't do it right the little thumbnail of the start screen will disappear and you won't trigger the start screen.

Ohhh and %((&$#&% I picked the wrong harddrive and overwrote Win7 instead of the DP.. Thank god for the Windows.old folder.. But still..grrr..lol

[jshimmy3]

Total disaster on a desktop.

[Descartes]

Can't even boot up the installer on my desktop... it's stuck on the betta fish screen (the throbber doesn't appear either).

Installing fine on my netbook though, I'm not sure how it'll handle it... never meant to install it here in the first place, but it seems that I've no choice :p

[blaaha66]

Installed it on my MBP. The first thing I've noticed is how polished it is compared to the DP.

The only problem I have is that the brightness keeps resetting. I know its probably a driver issues as i'm using Windows 7 drivers. Anyone else experiencing this and know how to correct it?

go to power settings and disable that brightness thing

[Jesper Nielsen]

I don't get the Metro complaints. At all.

Yes, I see how Metro is not as suitable for productivity as the regular Desktop experience, but as I see it, Win 8 is the perfect merger of both, with no compromises.

If you want to work in the "old" mode, it's more than possible. Yes, there's no boot to Desktop, but I doubt it'll take you longer to get going in Desktop anyway with the performance enhancements done. All the old stuff has been improved as well.

And then for consumption, you have Metro. Even on a Desktop I think it's created. Good to control with a mouse and keyboard, and I have yet to try with touch.

[mattacular]

why doesnt it let me sign into the xbox live, music, video apps?? says not available in my region. Im from the uk, very strange.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Thirdly, I will grant them that the mouse experience is alittle better but its very annoying using the mouse to bring up the start screen because if you don't do it right the little thumbnail of the start screen will disappear and you won't trigger the start screen.

Don't try to move the mouse out of the corner to click on the preview. Just throw it in the corner and click! :-)

[BetaAddict]

Is there a way to separate the screen with the main taskbar and the startscreen like it was in the DP? I want to beable to see the tray and the start screen at the same time. But you can't.

Also you can't drag things onto and off of the taskbar anymore. Its either pin it or unpin it. And you can't pin anything to the 2nd taskbar either.

Thirdly, I will grant them that the mouse experience is alittle better but its very annoying using the mouse to bring up the start screen because if you don't do it right the little thumbnail of the start screen will disappear and you won't trigger the start screen.

Ohhh and %((&$#&% I picked the wrong harddrive and overwrote Win7 instead of the DP.. Thank god for the Windows.old folder.. But still..grrr..lol

The dragging part is definitely annoying, but I think it will subside a bit after we install everything and pin our main programs. But it's still a nightmare to organize the metro start menu having to unpin newly installed items that you don't want.

I would have really liked to see mouse gestures implemented where the user could left-click and swipe in the direction you want, essentially mimicking a finger-swipe on a tablet. Not only would it greatly improve the experience, but make it less confusing as well. I think touch mice like this one will become a lot more popular around release time, so I most likely will get one of these.

[techguy77]

Multitasking metro apps is limited to two because of their nature, what you're moaning about is old desktop apps and the desktop still works just like it did. Pin them to the taskbar, you can start them from there when you want, and you can move them around the desktop just like you can now. You can mouse between them on the desktop just like you can now. I don't see how this has changed on the desktop. Why do people get fixated on metro apps not being the same as desktop apps so much? They're not suppose to be the same, that's why they have their own UI anyways.

Because people are not running giant smart phone so they are expecting Metro UI to act as desktop and it does not which makes whole OS total failure.

[Kyang]

Drag stuff off the taskbar? Was that something in the DP? I certainly can't do that in Win7.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

But it's still a nightmare to organize the metro start menu having to unpin newly installed items that you don't want.

A change from the developer preview is that you can now multi-select in the Start view. Just right click on each item you want to unpin to add it to the selection, then click Unpin in the appbar and they'll all "whoosh" away at once :)

[Eric Veteran]

Instead the 5 votes giving it a perfect score do represent the majority of Windows users? That's a very interesting view of things you've got going on there.

Yup. Because 34 + 8 = millions of Windows users, too. What are you trying to prove?

[+Warwagon MVC]

Don't try to move the mouse out of the corner to click on the preview. Just throw it in the corner and click! :-)

Did Microsoft do any user studies to see how straight old people keep the mouse pointer when they click? They click and then jerk or jerk and then click. I can't see them keeping it that straight in the corner.

[Eric Veteran]

Brandon,

Is there a way to add POP3 e-mail accounts to the Metro Mail app? If there is, I don't see it.

[Jan Veteran]

A change from the developer preview is that you can now multi-select in the Start view. Just right click on each item you want to unpin to add it to the selection, then click Unpin in the appbar and they'll all "whoosh" away at once :)

I love that feature <3

[mrp04]

What hardware/ display driver?

Intel HD Graphics on i5 540m (2010). Same computer had instant rotation on the developer preview, without any screen flickering.

Can someone try rotating their screen and see if it's fast?

[BetaAddict]

A change from the developer preview is that you can now multi-select in the Start view. Just right click on each item you want to unpin to add it to the selection, then click Unpin in the appbar and they'll all "whoosh" away at once :)

I somehow confused that with the lack of "unpin to taskbar" when multi-selecting. But yeah, they solved that issue.