Windows 8 Release Preview Discussion

[Luis Mazza]

Yes, but with Windows Phone, it's not always on screen creating clutter. When I want to check my signal, the indicator is only a swipe away. I don't need every single control, icon, or indicator on screen at once.

Thanks god I don't use Windows Phone then. What you call "clutter" I call basic info.

well, it would be good if the status rectangle (time+network+battery) would appear for a few seconds in case network got disconnected (something WP7 does in it's own way).

but still, if you have bad signal, what can you do about it? sometimes apps have troubles with connection even when you do have max signal, so I think it's not that relevant.

Knowing the signal and battery status is very important. Less is not always better.

If you have bad signal you can wait for a better one, knowing that now you can do whatever you wanted to do.

MS is simplifying everything to whom, exactly? Babies, I think.

[Vice]

Your past two replies have next to nothing to do with what I'm saying. It's like me asking "What time is it?" and you replying with "The color of the sky is blue". Anyway, Vice rephrased what I'm referring to:

The funny thing is that him full screening Neowin on his 22" is the same as me running it in a window on 25% of my total screen real estate. I don't think people will ever understand or care about others experience with Metro. This is the first Windows release where one size doesn't fit all, it only really caters to single small screen owners. Those of us with Dual or Triple displays or a single high resolution display would be better served by Windows 7, Linux or OS X.

I don't think they will ever ever add multi-screen capability to Metro. I mean why should they, Tablets don't have two screens. There isn't a single app I use that would benefit from Metro which begs the question, why can't I turn it off? That is the only "feature" I want.

[Dot Matrix]

Thanks god I don't use Windows Phone then. What you call "clutter" I call basic info.

Knowing the signal and battery status is very important. Less is not always better.

If you have bad signal you can wait for a better one, knowing that now you can do whatever you wanted to do.

MS is simplifying everything to whom, exactly? Babies, I think.

Geez, you make it sound having to do a simple swipe is such a task.

[Luis Mazza]

The funny thing is that him full screening Neowin on his 22" is the same as me running it in a window on 25% of my total screen real estate. I don't think people will ever understand or care about others experience with Metro. This is the first Windows release where one size doesn't fit all, it only really caters to single small screen owners. Those of us with Dual or Triple displays or a single high resolution display would be better served by Windows 7, Linux or OS X.

I don't think they will ever ever add multi-screen capability to Metro. I mean why should they, Tablets don't have two screens. There isn't a single app I use that would benefit from Metro which begs the question, why can't I turn it off? That is the only "feature" I want.

Microsoft has no idea of what they're doing. First, the Market would not accept non-Metro Apps. Now they say they will...

You can't disable Metro because this way nobody would use it on a desktop and Metro would become Windows Media Center: useless replicated crap, but beautiful. Thus the Market would become useless if nobody has to care about Metro.

See the mess MS has put itself? Someone has to stop Steve Ballmer while it is time (unfortunately, I think it is too late now).

[Luis Mazza]

Geez, you make it sound having to do a simple swipe is such a task.

It is like having to swipe to be able to see objects that are farther away from my eyes' main focus.

[scratch42069]

+1 for Power on the charm bar below Settings. I still don't understand why the shut down options needs to be 3 or 4 mouse clicks deep.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Not sure if anyone else noticed but, the current rumor mill from canouna over at that Winunleaked forum is that Windows 8 could RTM by end of July. Now, while I may find that somewhat unbelievable, another thing that I did notice when I installed the Release Preview a few hours ago was - by scrolling to the end of the EULA statement - the tagline for the document version, and was somewhat surprised to see:

EULAID:Win_RC_3_PS_R_en-us

That's RC3 for those not in the know, and even though this is just a document, Microsoft has never gone past RC3 aka Release Candidate 3 stage for an operating system release. The last time they did 3 full Release Candidates was Windows XP iirc. So...

If Windows 8 Release Preview is Release Candidate 3, we're almost home people.

This tends to lend a lot of credibility to the canouna statement about RTM coming as early as the end of July, maybe a bit sooner. From RC3 to RTM it's typically 1-2 months so, let's hope this all pans out accordingly. Microsoft appears to have Windows 8 on a very fast track indeed, especially considering there was no "advance warning" officially about this Release Preview coming out except the "early June" rumors - they never offiically said it, and that little booboo on the blog yesterday well, that could have been part of the plan all along. ;)

July is the typical RTM time frame.

[Dirk]

I have an OLD OLD 3ghz P4 with 3gb of ram..is it even worth it to install?

[Dot Matrix]

+1 for Power on the charm bar below Settings. I still don't understand why the shut down options needs to be 3 or 4 mouse clicks deep.

There's power options all over. I've written this countless times, but shutting off isn't as important as it once was. But if you want to continue shutting down, ALT-F4 on the desktop still works, and Windows 8 by default, configures your PC's hardware power button to turn the machine off as well. I, personally, have my button configured to put my machines to sleep.

[.Neo]

I don't think they will ever ever add multi-screen capability to Metro. I mean why should they, Tablets don't have two screens. There isn't a single app I use that would benefit from Metro which begs the question, why can't I turn it off? That is the only "feature" I want.

Realistically there's not much of a reason to "upgrade" to Windows 8 if you're disabling Metro. Unless you're a real sucker for the Windows Explorer Ribbon and new theme.

[Vice]

Realistically there's not much of a reason to "upgrade" to Windows 8 if you're disabling Metro. Unless you're a real sucker for the Windows Explorer Ribbon and new theme.

Valid point.

[NEVER85]

I really want to install this, My want to stay in front of the OS versions is urging, But I know how much I'm not a fan of the Start screen and I know I'll end up putting Windows 7 back on after a couple of days :(

If you wanted, you could unpin/uninstall all the Metro apps, and just pin what would normally be in the Windows 7 start menu, i.e. Documents, Computer, Control Panel, etc.

Anyway, my only issue so far is with the new bootloader. It won't let me boot back into Windows 7, at least right away. When I click my 7 install, the computer reboots first, THEN boots into 7. Got pretty annoying so I had to put the older Vista/7 bootloader back.

[Squuiid]

July is the typical RTM time frame.

July is the typical RTW time frame ;-)

[Detection]

Microsoft has never gone past RC3 aka Release Candidate 3 stage for an operating system release.

They never stuck post-it notes all over the start menu before either

[Squuiid]

Anyway, my only issue so far is with the new bootloader. It won't let me boot back into Windows 7, at least right away. When I click my 7 install, the computer reboots first, THEN boots into 7. Got pretty annoying so I had to put the older Vista/7 bootloader back.

EasyBCD will fix any Bootloader issues. Free for personal use too.

http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/

[Som]

How long do i have to keep using this before i can say i don't like and don't think its very good.... and not be given out to...

..... why is there no search option in the Store??

[scratch42069]

There's power options all over. I've written this countless times, but shutting off isn't as important as it once was. But if you want to continue shutting down, ALT-F4 on the desktop still works, and Windows 8 by default, configures your PC's hardware power button to turn the machine off as well. I, personally, have my button configured to put my machines to sleep.

That's what I have been doing is ALT-F4 to shut down but it would be mighty convenient to have the options a couple levels higher.

[Detection]

How long do i have to keep using this before i can say i don't like and don't think its very good....

..... why is there no search option in the Store??

There is sorta, search for the app in the start screen and click on Store on the right side to search in the store

[Squuiid]

..... why is there no search option in the Store??

Hit the charm bar on the right and you can search the store, but I agree, there should be a search bar in the top right. It needs something a bit more obvious than having to resort to the global search in the charm.

[NoneAvail]

Any help guys? I've tired installing it with Windows 7 x64 option and "other 64bit" option none work!

I have an AMD A8 CPU, with virtualization enabled.

Has anyone got it to work with VMware Player? Thanks

[Som]

Hit the charm bar on the right and you can search the store, but I agree, there should be a search bar in the top right. It needs something a bit more obvious than having to resort to the global search in the charm.

oh yeah i remember i asked that in the last release and forgot, shows how intuitive that is,... also if you've searched for something before you go into the store it keeps the history and looks like you are still searching your start screen

what exactly has changed in this compared to the last release, someone please tell me? (ok its a bit faster, but after that...)

[xendrome]

Found another issue... in the remote desktop app on a tablet there is no way to invoke the on screen keyboard... so it is useless.

[ObiWanToby]

The font rendering is so much better than Windows 7. I like the flatter fonts. This is a great improvement.

[x.iso]

oh yeah i remember i asked that in the last release and forgot, shows how intuitive that is,...

if you get used to it, then it's better than rely on independent search bars on each every app. and it works in context, if you're running Store, then by default search results you get are for Store.

[drazgoosh]

Someone please tell me if there are any "hacks" that'll let me snap Metro apps against desktop apps. It was possible to do so in the Developer Preview, but I haven't found a way for the RP.