Microsoft launched the Windows 8 Release Preview build on May 31, a bit earlier than what the company had originally announced. As one might expect, the community members on Neowin's forums quickly started filling up a discussion threat with their impressions. As you might expect, the comments range from "Love it" to "Hate it."
One of the first impressions posts came from forum member Kristian, who wrote:
Liking it much better than the CP so far. Seems incredibly snappy and rock stable so far. Next step is to learn to like Metro I guess. I think for me it's just a matter of getting used to the new stuff, and then I will be fine with the Metro changes in the system. IMHO any comparison with Vista or ME is just silly!
The multi-monitor support for Windows 8's Metro interface didn't make forum member theyarecomingforyou happy. He writes:
Dragging a Metro app off one monitor will immediately maximise it to the next and you can't drag it back without clicking again. Further, whenever you access Metro Start on a different monitor it moves all Metro apps onto that monitor - any hopes of running multiple apps on different screens are gone. And Metro apps don't work with Aero Snap, meaning you can't drag a side-pinned app to the top of the screen to maximise it - you have to drag the separating bar. It's actually worse than before. I have absolutely no idea what Microsoft was thinking but the multi-monitor implementation is a complete joke and clearly wasn't put through any user testing.
Neowin forum member br0adband seems to like what he sees in the Release Preview. He writes:
Currently running the Release Preview (x86) on a ThinkPad T60 with 3GB and a Core Duo T2300, it's pretty damned snappy and responsive. Had some severe lag when it first hit the Desktop and also when I fired up the News and Weather and Finance apps in Metro but, probably just updates and downloading the most current info. Hit Windows Update and grabbed what was already there (several drivers, some patches, etc).
One forum member, Sszecret, has both good and bad things to say about Windows 8 Release Preview: He writes:
The good : It feels much faster than the CP, some of the color options for the Start Screen are actually really nice (though some of them are horrible in my view, and I would've wanted a couple more Start Screen backgrounds), there isn't such a big delay when I invoke the charms bar, the Switcher has a text label for each of the running apps, the All Apps section seems (maybe it's just me) a bit less crowded, though I installed the same number of apps as in the CP. Also, I like the tweaks to the Aero theme and I'm really digging the new cursor. The flattened ribbon is nice but I think it'll look its best when all the icons are metrofied. Other than that, it's been pretty stable.
The bad : The store seems to take forever to install an app, whenever I try to add a new account in Mail and I go to Settings > Accounts and I click Add a new account, the pane on the side (or however that's called) disappears. Just like that. I've tried it multiple times, I tried installing / uninstalling , pin / unpin and even "Refresh / Reset your PC" . Nothing works, so I believe it's a problem with the metro apps. Also, in Calendar, if I try to add a new account, the same thing happens, only this time, not only does the pane disappear, it closes the app and takes me back to the Start Screen. In Music, whenever I try to get to the playback controls (via right click), the menu appears on the bottom, stays there for like a second and then disappears. I installed all the updates, all the drivers, and I have the exact same setup I did when I installed the CP. (these apps worked prefectly for me)
Image via Microsoft
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