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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions


JorgeA

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Startmenu can be reactivated if you use ViStart

The end result is similar but I wouldn't say "reactivated" per se. It might make Win8 bearable i.e. a Win7 lookalike with almost zero new features. I'd still rather run win7 (no need to buy it for starters)

Overall, the comments I see on the web so far (multiple sources) are overwhelmingly negative, mainly about Metro. Win9 can't come out soon enough.

I saw that method for bringing back the Start Menu. It looked interesting, until I learned that it's not totally functional. But I guess it's better than nothing.

Regarding comments on Metro/Win8 around the Web, here's a couple from maybe a surprising source:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=132&showentry=3819

Because Microsoft thinks that one OS and UI should rule them all they decided to bring the Metro UI designed for touch over to the desktop and laptop market. Essentially doing in reverse what they did to the tablet market back in 2001 /2002. In the early 2000’s they brought a mouse and keyboard UI to a tablet, and now they are bringing a touch UI to the mouse and keyboard.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1061200-windows-8-enough-after-about-2-hours/

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. Switching back and forth between the start screen and the desktop (again, in Visual Studio all day long) seemed unnatural. I instant message with my wife all day long (even though we're in the same house, I'm in my office upstairs, so it's just easier) and switching between Visual Studio, to the start screen to get a new IM was a mess. I couldn't stand it.

--JorgeA

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Perhaps the Start Menu (or the ability to uninstall exorcise Metro from your computer) will be available in one of the 9 available versions of Windows 8.

Paying a little extra for something you've taken for granted for 17 years, that would sound like marketing. Drug dealer marketing, but marketing none the less. The article doesn't mention that there will be amends for the business user, but I would expect that to be the case.

So perhaps the Consumer nomenclature was intentional.

Still, I don't see how this is going to help to 'unify' the platforms, nor how the two versions of IE10 will be able to coexist on 64-bits machines (64 + 32?). Well the idea of web standards was nice as long as it lasted.

The only market segment I see for Windows 8 doing well in is the #2 spot in the tablet market, with Apple #1. To get that they have to defeat Android. Android on tablets doesn't seem to take off that well. Not to mention the dozens of patent suits between the tablet manufacturers. I'm wondering whether Microsoft will get sucked into these ongoing court battles.

Edited by belgianguy
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Still, I don't see how this is going to help to 'unify' the platforms, nor how the two versions of IE10 will be able to coexist on 64-bits machines (64 + 32?). Well the idea of web standards was nice as long as it lasted.

x64 Windows has always had 64 bit and 32 bit versions of IE its just most people didn't use the 64 bit version cause flash didn't work.

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Windows 8 CP seems to lack the basic IDE driver when using a UEFI enabled boot on the DVD drive. Well that is virtual-UEFI as whatever 2.2TB Infinity is... emulated UEFI. Either way, the motherboard manufacturer only provides AHCI or RAID drivers (not one for IDE mode), I tried Windows 7 x64 and "Longhorn" x64 drivers and nothing worked. However, using a Windows 7 Ultimate x64 DVD works fine in this configuration without prompting for drivers.

has anyone been able to install Win8 on a GPT disk using Setup?

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Error: A required CD/DVD device driver is missing - when you start Windows 7 or Windows Vista from the setup disk

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952951/en-us

MagicAndre,

Does this article provide any hints as to why the same optical drive would not be detected by Windows 8, when it is detected by Windows 7? I didn't find anything there to that effect.

One curious thing is that, if you have a bootable CD or DVD in the drive when you turn on the computer, and then tell it to boot normally to the hard disk, then Windows 8 does see the optical drive. :blink: I tried that yesterday.

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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Those silly guys. The reason there are 4 ARM versions is because ARM has 4 CPUs on the market that aren't compatible with each other.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. I didn't see them talk about 4 ARM versions but then again I just quickly glanced. Just like everyone, they looked at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\PackageIndex\Product. That does actually list 9 unique versions:

  1. Microsoft-Windows-EnterpriseEdition~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8250.0
  2. Microsoft-Windows-EnterpriseEvalEdition~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8250.0
  3. Microsoft-Windows-HomeBasicEdition~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8250.0
  4. Microsoft-Windows-HomePremiumEdition~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8250.0
  5. Microsoft-Windows-PrereleaseARMEdition~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8250.0
  6. Microsoft-Windows-PrereleaseEdition~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8250.0
  7. Microsoft-Windows-ProfessionalEdition~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8250.0
  8. Microsoft-Windows-ProfessionalPlusEdition~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8250.0
  9. Microsoft-Windows-StarterEdition~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8250.0
  10. Microsoft-Windows-UltimateEdition~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.2.8250.0

where only number 5 refers to an ARM version. As far as ARM goes, there are several different architectures and tons of different chips from different manufacturers (it's really not that standardized outside of CMSIS) but that shouldn't change anything to the editions, very much like when we build a BSP for Win CE with Platform Builder (just use whatever works with your board).

Anyway. One ARM version on the list, a prerelease, an eval vers of enterprise... That leaves us with the usual Starter, Home Basic/Premium, Pro and Ultimate -- and also a new Pro Plus version.

Either ways I don't want any of it. I've happily ran MS-DOS (3.x to 6.x), Win3.1, Win3.11, Win95, Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win98SE, NT 3.1, NT 3.5, NT 3.51, NT 4 client and server, Win2k C&S, WinXP, Win2003, Win2003 R2, Vista (32&64 bit), Win 2008, Win 2008 R2, Win7 x64, a couple different versions of SBS in there, WinCE 5 & 6, etc. And I loved all of it. The only 2 I will have skipped will be WinME (mainly because I had moved on the NT line) and Win8. I think that's saying something. It'll be MS' biggest flop, ever. WOA even more so -- just see how well starting from scratch on other architectures worked before (e.g. Itanic) -- but here it also has none of the strengths of Windows nor any of the software for that matter (great!) Hopefully they'll learn from it. It just sucks having to wait another 4 years or so for Win9.

Edit: one funny comment from slashdot (out of numerous sites where pretty much everybody hates Win8):

As for win 8, anybody smell that? that stench of fail that is practically leaking from the thing like a silent but deadly fart? I've been running the dev preview on an Athlon X2 i have sitting in the corner of the shop, now this baby has 3gb of RAM, fast 200gb SATA, its not a bad machine at all, but everyone who has tried it, more than 200 so far, has HATED IT with a capital H!
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Those silly guys. The reason there are 4 ARM versions is because ARM has 4 CPUs on the market that aren't compatible with each other.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. I didn't see them talk about 4 ARM versions but then again I just quickly glanced. Just like everyone, they looked at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\PackageIndex\Product. That does actually list 9 unique versions:

Edit: one funny comment from slashdot (out of numerous sites where pretty much everybody hates Win8):

OK I looked at the article but didn't see where that list was coming from. Regarding the different WOA versions, it came from the initial press release that MS was going to support ARM CPUs, but that each platform is not 100% compatible with each other. This shouldn't even be a real concern in the consumer market as the appropriate versions would only be made available to the device manufacturers, so to the every-day citizen, there would only be one ARM version.

each device from each manufacturer is unique and the software that runs on that device is unique. There is of course a standard instruction set and CPU architecture, one that is always improving (for example, adding 64-bit support and multiple cores), but many of the connections between the CPU and other components are part of the innovation each licensee brings to the ARM platform. Commonality across devices can occur under the hood, but is not applicable or significant to consumers. End-users are technically restricted from installing a different OS (or OS version) on a device or extending the OS, so this is generally not possible, and rarely supported by the device maker.

From: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/02/09/building-windows-for-the-arm-processor-architecture.aspx

This page also lists 3 of the manufacturers, nVidia, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm. So its possible that there are only 3 ARM versions being worked on.

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that each platform is not 100% compatible with each other

Yep, but all these differences are abstracted away by drivers and such. Same basic instruction set, calling the same libraries.

many of the connections between the CPU and other components are part of the innovation each licensee brings to the ARM platform

That's one of ARM's biggest strengths. There's so many companies making chips to address every specific need, with wildly varying specs, different peripherals, at every price point. We buy ARM chips from Freescale and NXP here (and a whole lot more non-ARM stuff)

As far as I'm concerned, zero editions of Win8 for ARM would be enough.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yet another nice article.

99% of what I see on any website about Win8 is very much negative, and this article is no different (it has many similar links in it too).

Also, all of the popular articles on pcword's Windows 8 section are overwhelmingly negative about Win8 too, and so are the comments. Even toms' hardware are publishing similar articles now. Even the comments on anantech's few articles are quite negative. I don't recall Vista being received so badly so soon.

I think it's obvious that it's going to be such a catastrophic failure (you think Vista had bad press?) And unless there are MAJOR changes until it's released which is extremely unlikely I definitely won't be running it, neither will we upgrade at work. Totally out of the question. Win8 has already failed and is history as far as I'm concerned (along with Bob, WinME and others). I've already moved on to waiting for Win9 which MS truly can't afford to screw up so badly.

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Still Windows 8 powered tablets look very promising :whistle:

:lol:

Losing to the older iPad pretty badly IMO (not only in what was shown but overall too). Then again, most Windows tablets will probably have far lesser screens than the iPad 3 (3MP IPS LCD!), far less apps, battery life that's no better, yet without beating the iPad on the price point. But hey, at least it runs your good old x86 apps, Flash and ActiveX-based websites, right? Oh wait... :rolleyes: I don't even see what it has to offer over Android even. I mean WOA is so unlike Windows that it's practically pointless.

Then again, being far too late to the market, it seems like people don't want of a Windows tablet anymore, that they're priced to fail anyway and so on. Analysts like IDC already predict Win8 being a failure.

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I guess it depends on your needs. iOS is such a closed system that you can't even customise anything without hacking/jailbreaking it, you can't synchronise your files effectively using anything other than iTunes, etc. I'd never use such a device myself. Windows 8 looks like open source compared to it :ph34r:

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iOS is such a closed system that you can't even customise anything without hacking/jailbreaking it

WOA is hardly better. They can remotely wipe apps from your computer (that you already paid for) and all. And you can't install another OS on it ("secure" bootloaders, yay!) You can't sideload apps, it works only through the app store (which have to be pre-approved just like Apple does). It's as locked down as it comes. If you want full control (like side loading) then you will need to root it too.

But if that's your thing then Android seems like a vastly superior option still (it *is* open source, heavily customizable and thinkerer-friendly). I'd sooner buy an Android device than a WOA device for sure, but Apple has what seems like a really slick product to most people.

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