Windows 8, enough after about 2 hours

[devHead]

How do you close/quit a Metro app? Do they stay open all the time?

Grab the App from the top of the screen and drag it down to the bottom, you'll see it fade and disappear. That's how you close them. Yes, it's kind of wonky, I agree.

I can't believe Microsoft isn't listening to this kind of feedback. We're not the only forum where people are discussing this, and I'm sure that they're getting feedback from users of the CP about the awkwardness of the Metro Start screen. I can only hope that with the RC or the final RTM version that they will somehow let desktop users switch to the classic desktop and regular start menu.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Yeah I downloaded it and played just for a minute before work and was excited. After about an hour when I got home, it wasn't for me and I've spent the night reinstalling Windows 7. I guess that'll teach me to use a VM next time.

or to make a drive image of your drive before you start

No, but do you really think a company like Microsoft is dumb enough not to know what the difference is between Desktop users and Tablet users?

Could of fooled me

[DanJamesJr]

A few weeks after the Win8 RTM release, Canonical(Ubuntu)-Apple(OS X)-Google(Android, Desktop?) will push mass-advertising compaigns to push their (new?) OS versions and crush MS's long-term desktop OS market share.

- My opinion after 2 hours of use

[Kyang]

A few weeks after the Win8 RTM release, Canonical(Ubuntu)-Apple(OS X)-Google(Android, Desktop?) will push mass-advertising compaigns to push their (new?) OS versions and crush MS's long-term desktop OS market share.

- My opinion after 2 hours of use

I dunno, if Windows survived ME, and Vista, it stands a chance of surviving Win8. And that's if Win8 is as bad as, or worse a flop than the previous two.

[TDT]

I managed to get it installed at last, I had a problem with the damn dvd so I used a usb stick and it worked. I don't know about you, but for me, being a WP7 user, Windows 8 seems very natural. Yeah, you have to get used with a few keyboard shortcuts, but that's not a problem for me. I really like it, and I'll probably stick to it till RTM and beyond. :)

[DanJamesJr]

I dunno, if Windows survived ME, and Vista, it stands a chance of surviving Win8. And that's if Win8 is as bad as, or worse a flop than the previous two.

Linux UI wasn't as advanced and Android wasn't available in the ME days and Vista was getting patched so rapid and eventually replaced by 7. The only way MS can possibly survive through this would be to have the ability to enable/disable metro or have a normal start button with Metro launcher within (like Win7 w/ Media Center launcher within).

[Wyn6]

The biggest issues for her were:

1) No ability to print in Mail

2) No Favorites in Immersive IE

3) No Search from Address Bar in Immersive IE

4) Not great for multi-tasking. She usually has multiple brower windows open, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Mail. While the multiple browsers can be addressed on the regular desktop, in that view there is no way to know if you have new instant messages or emails.

Overall it was not a great experience.

From my point of view (as a .NET developer) I was also disappointed. Doing simple things (like printing) seemed impossible and the apps are far from beta quality in my opinion.

1.) Look at the top of the mail app. It says app preview. This IS a beta. So, worry not, updates are coming. And, it will be updated as we go along.

2.)There actually are favorites in IE10 Metro. If you pin fave sites to the start screen, whenever you click in the address bar, the list of pinned sites pop up and you can just click one.

3. There absolutely IS search within the address bar of IE10 Metro. Just start typing and when you finish hit enter. For example, I just did a search for Michael Jackson (don't ask) and Bing search page popped up with results.

4. As far as multitasking goes, if you're a multi-window user then yeah you should stay on the desktop with Metro snapped or not as you so desire.

You print from inside most apps s usual. If I want to print a word doc or final draft doc, I just hit the print button same as always. And, yes... hopefully the current apps will be receiving frequent updates and MANY more apps will be hitting over the next few months.

Guys/Gals, this is what you've got to remember and understand. A.) This is just a beta and WILL get better over time. And, B.) This is a new paradigm in computer user interface. We've all grown accustomed to a certain way of computing for the past three decades. We're not going to learn all the ins-and-outs of Win8 in a two weeks let alone two hours.

I recall when I first ran Win 7, I thought the Aero Peek and Open App preview were pretty cool. But, when I looked at a preview of what was open, I would try and mouse up to click on that app. I learned you had to click the app ON the taskbar to restore/maximize it. It took me awhile to break that habit of wanting to click what I saw.

I'm finding Win 8, thus far, incredibly easy to use. And, the more you experience and experiment with it, the easier it gets. I'm finding my way around the OS pretty good now. But, I still have a ways to go. And, it can certainly do with some more polish. I, for one, would vote for having a small "x" in the corner of each open app similar to IE10 Metro so that you can close them with a mouse that way.

There's gonna be other little things that irk and frustrate I'm sure. But, I guarantee when this thing comes to its full glory it will be a grand sight to behold.

Happy hunting.

[9UnknownMen]

Learning new mouse gestures and remembering key combo's is something they can't bank on for the majority of people who will still retain their PC's.

For their new customers, the devices will come touch enabled or kinect gesture based so it won't matter. I'm as savvy and patient as they come, but this has been quite a jarring experience so far.

[Bioran]

Learning new mouse gestures and remembering key combo's is something they can't bank on for the majority of people who will still retain their PC's.

I would say this is the big, big problem with Windows 8, and I honestly hope Microsoft could address this somehow. For users like myself who have went and actively learned the new mouse and keyboard shortcuts/gestures, Windows 8 is a much better experience. However, things are simply not obvious enough and it will (and, based on responses on this forum right now, already has) cause a lot of frustration and alienate a lot of users.

Perhaps the Windows team could provide better indicators? Add back the start button (as with the Dev Preview) so that legacy Desktop users can make their way back to the Start screen without having to draw up charms (which by default is hidden, so confusion there)? Make the charms and Metro app switchers perfectly clear so that users know that such actions possible? Basically, don't assume people will know or want to learn what to do - actually show them properly.

[devHead]

or to make a drive image of your drive before you start

Could of fooled me

Could've bro; it's a contraction of could have. Like, 'you could have fooled me'. 'Could of' makes no sense.

[bryonhowley]

I really like it so far I found it to be really easy to use and navigate there is no learning curve at all. The UI is very intuitive and extreamly easy to use. My 5 year old neace got on and it only took her 5 minutes and she was able to navigate around the UI like a pro. I really can't see how people on a Tech centric site are having so much trouble with it. But that seem to be the way it is any more be it games OS or hardware some one will find a reason valide or not to complain bitch and moan! And the reason I have seen in this tread ARE NOT valid!

[jakem1]

I really like it so far I found it to be really easy to use and navigate there is no learning curve at all. The UI is very intuitive and extreamly easy to use. My 5 year old neace got on and it only took her 5 minutes and she was able to navigate around the UI like a pro. I really can't see how people on a Tech centric site are having so much trouble with it. But that seem to be the way it is any more be it games OS or hardware some one will find a reason valide or not to complain bitch and moan! And the reason I have seen in this tread ARE NOT valid!

They're just incapable of dealing with change. You see the same people moaning every time Microsoft release a new version of Windows.

[ahodgey]

windows + x gives you a nice option list in my opinion, a bit like the old start menu. More familiar at least but probably not the way microsoft want us using it.

Find the hot corners to small to use with the mouse (in my VM at least) and have to use the keyboard shortcuts. Hot corners need to be a bit larger....

[Azies]

I gave it another chance, then Windows 8 blew my mind.. The lock screen I chose on my virtual machine, imported to my dual boot install, as did all my Windows settings.. anyway, i'm giving it another chance.. despite the start screen, I'm seeing a huge performance improvement.

[MichaelAWYu]

I've installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview on two of my PCs, a tablet?Acer Iconia Tab W500?and a laptop ?Dell XPS 15?. The experience is... pretty negative, even if under the perspective of a Microsoft Fanboy. Actually the problem is not the bugs, it's the idea of design.

On my tablet, a major problem is switching among Metro apps. After opening 5+ metro apps, swiping on the edge becomes painful, especially when I want to pause the music playing in the Music app. The other problem is confusion. For example, there's two sets of Control Panel, one needs you to swipe on the right, click on Settings, then More PC Info?another one needs you to go back to Desktop, swipe on the right, click on Settings, then Control Panel. And the settings you want to change is spreaded in these two sets. It's really troublesome.

On the PC things get worse. More painful clicks and more confusions. When Sinofsky said ''no compromise'', I thought it means two design methods for two different uses, but what he really means is to create a UI works equally good for both tablets ans traditional pcs - how could that be possible?

[MattGarner]

I've been using it for a couple of hours now and will be using it as my Main OS for the rest of the week and maybe even longer If I don't come across any major problems. In regards of Metro, I haven't been annoyed by it and if you are a desktop user then you really don't spend time in the metro interface and you don't have to unless you really want to search for something. Even so, searching on it is easy and is done within seconds. I love how you can just start typing and it will start looking for you, it's great that you can separate the results between apps and files.

[georgevella]

I installed Win8 on a Dell XPS 15 (L502X). During installation, the keyboard and trackpad were not detected, I had to do everything via an external mouse. It took 25 minutes to install and start up in the desktop, which is, I think, inline with Win7 installation. It even imported the other OSes I had loaded via Boot to VHD, so that's a plus :)

I've spent the next four hour hours "re-discovering" everything. I do think it has a small learning curve but overall I am pleased. I am mostly using the keyboard to do pretty much everything: searching, launching stuff, configuration, etc. I have pasted some keyboard shortcuts that I'm finding helpful. I'd say I have completly mastered living with both metro and the desktop, switching between them has become like second nature. And from what I am seeing, I can't understand why everyone was complaining about the ribbon in Explorer when, by default, it comes minimized. Driver wise, everything installed perfectly, even Nvidia's Optimus, even though I haven't checked if it is working properly or not.

At the moment one of the things bothering me is the side scrolling in some of the default apps (the People app :@): there isn't an easy way to scroll with the trackpad (at least I haven't discovered yet; I have also enabled the synaptics feature to scroll on the edges). Edit: Another thing that's bothering me is IE10 and gmail: the gtalk widget is not connecting for some odd reason, updating Contacts also fails :/

Now off to install Visual Studio 10 and 11 and the latest SDK :)

Keyboard shortcuts:

Application Search: Win+Q

Settings Search: Win+W

Files Search: Win+F

Settings Charm: Win+I

Rotation Lock: Win+O

Bring up time/date and start menu: Win+C

Extended desktop menu: Win+X

(got these from here: http://www.itworld.c...rtcuts-and-tips)

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Thanks for the share on shortcuts

[eoes5991]

come on guys, Microsoft made this website for a reason. Go ahead and See what's new and learn something.

http://windows.micro...onsumer-preview

http://windows.micro...arted?page=vid2

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/faq

[AWilliams87]

I don't understand; Metro doesn't hard to use at all with mouse. How is sliding up a lock screen worst then how it was prior in Windows 7? It seems rather easy to switch between apps just as it was in 7.

[9UnknownMen]

People have differing opinions. Why is that so shocking to some of you who seem to take it as an insult to your mother or your 5year old niece?

[~Johnny]

I hope they bring the start menu back. I believe they said metro will be disabled by default for desktops and non-touch screen laptops, so people can transition into it.

They've never said such a crazy thing any time :p

[Calum Veteran]

I hope they bring the start menu back. I believe they said metro will be disabled by default for desktops and non-touch screen laptops, so people can transition into it.

Well see though. I hear way too many requests to bring back the start menu.

Just like many request that Facebook revert to the previous design whenever they make a change to how their profiles are designed. . . . Just sayin' ;)

[TDT]

Ok, time for some questions (and issues), maybe some of you can help. So:

- I managed to add the gmail account in Mail, but is there any way to add another IMAP or POP account?

- the messenger app only has WLM and Facebook chat? No other IMs like Yahoo?

- the video and music apps are quite unstable if I have a large collection. They simply quit back to the start menu if I try to browse trough lots of albums/files/etc.

- is there any way to remove that desktop notification with "Windows Consumer Preview bla bla"?

- is there any other way (faster way) to get to the shut down menu?

- Windows seems to auto connect to my twitter account...how can I disable this and make it connect only to the services I want?

Now some thoughts. I really really like the boot menu, but seems weird that it's showing up after that fish logo, I would expect it to pop-up right after the hardware initialization, like all other OSes. Oh well, not a deal breaker. :)

I can't get used to that picture pin, or whatever it's called. It's really weird, I thought there would be something like on Android, with those dots that you can connect through a line, but...

On the left menu (with the Settings and stuff), why does it say Unavailable to weather (or at least I think it's the weather there)?!

The overall performance is fantastic for a beta OS. And keep in mind that I don't have a high-end pc, just an ancient c2d cpu, 4GB of memory and an old gpu (8600GT). I didn't have the time to install all the usual stuff I use, but I'll start later today and get back here if I run into some issues.

[9UnknownMen]

The work around the boot menu thing is to choose your previous OS as the preferred installation in Win8. Then you'll get the boot manager right after POST as usual, instead of waiting for it to half load both OS'.

I concur with the rest of your issues. I can't even get the Metro Messenger app to connect most of the time which is quite frustrating.