Windows 8 - First Impressions
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Dan Sutton wrote:
(remember I only have 2 Gb in the machine in the first place)This was very impressive to me.
Good to hear this. I am interested to know how fast was the startup (boot) time? Nice post, BTW :thumbsup:
I have an old HP DV7, Centrino 2 4Gb RAM. Windows 7 took around 1 minute to start. I counted around 20 seconds to be able to log into Windows 8. Take in account I only have installed VMWare Player :)
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I have an old HP DV7, Centrino 2 4Gb RAM. Windows 7 took around 1 minute to start. I counted around 20 seconds to be able to log into Windows 8. Take in account I only have installed VMWare Player :)
Please, come back and let us know what's the boot time once you've installed everything you need in your brand new W8 installation. Looking forward to know what the results are. ;P ;P
Juan José Arana. ;o)
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Here, if you're interested, are my first impressions of Windows 8: So yesterday, Windows 8 was released to developers on MSDN. I took it home and installed it on an old Athlon 64 machine with 2 Gb of RAM, just to see how it would perform on a slow piece of hardware. The installation took hours... and then, when it was done, the experience began... and it was an experience - I can tell you that much. Windows 8 is the John Forbes Nash of operating systems: utterly schizophrenic and completely brilliant. I can state unequivocally that you've never seen anything like it: the thing is years ahead of anything else on the market, and it completely redefines what a computer is supposed to be used for. The first thing it wants you to do is to bind your user ID to a Microsoft account, on the understanding that if you do, you'll have access to a bunch of online stuff that would normally appear opaque to you, or at least difficult to get at, such as their App store, and so on. So I did this. The setup program said confusing things like, "If you log in using your Microsoft address then you'll have access to....[a list of stuff]", so the first thing I did when I'd managed to get it to start was to open a command prompt and say, "whoami" -- it responded "dsutton"... so it had managed to retain my Windows user ID, and at an operating system level, that's who I remained. Much has been made of Windows 8's tiled interface, and that's where the fun starts. The operating system is built around the concept of feeds: a feed can be anything: a news feed, a mail server, Facebook... you name it. If you're a programmer, you can write your own feeds, or get your programs to hook into existing feeds. Microsoft (and WIndows) makes the distinction between old-style applications and "Apps", the latter being applications which run off tiles in the new "Start" screen (Windows' new RT mode). All Apps run full-screen: there's no windowing at all -- in this respect, the thing is like a phone or an iPad. The old Windows desktop is an App, as well, and with it, you get to run all the programs you're used to, and to see Windows the way you're used to seeing it. The Start screen is in some ways analogous to the main panel of the old Start menu: you can pin programs to it (they appear as "Tiles") and if you move the mouse into the corners, it starts doing stuff. You can get an "All Programs" list, which is a 2D view of the old Start Menu's hierarchy, separated into groups: right-click on anything in that, and you can pin it to the main Start
As a business user, I don't like Windows 8. I do not need to use Apps for tablet or phone at work. I like to work in a familiar environment. If the interface of Windows 8 is similar to Windows 7, it will be ideal. A better approach is that Microsoft should name Windows 8 as Windows Metro mainly for tablet, phone and home users and the name Windows 8 is reserved as the upgrade version of Windows 7. I am even more disappointing that Windows 2012 Server uses Interface similar to Windows 8. System Administrators usually have to work with different versions of server. Forcing them to work with less familiar interface will make their lives more difficult. They want better functions or performance, not beautiful interface.
petersgyoung
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Please, come back and let us know what's the boot time once you've installed everything you need in your brand new W8 installation. Looking forward to know what the results are. ;P ;P
Juan José Arana. ;o)
W7 alone took more than half a minute to boot, so it looks promising. If the boot performance worsens at the same rate as W7, within a month instead of needing 2 minutes to boot my laptop I will need just one, so I'm really happy :) :)
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As a business user, I don't like Windows 8. I do not need to use Apps for tablet or phone at work. I like to work in a familiar environment. If the interface of Windows 8 is similar to Windows 7, it will be ideal. A better approach is that Microsoft should name Windows 8 as Windows Metro mainly for tablet, phone and home users and the name Windows 8 is reserved as the upgrade version of Windows 7. I am even more disappointing that Windows 2012 Server uses Interface similar to Windows 8. System Administrators usually have to work with different versions of server. Forcing them to work with less familiar interface will make their lives more difficult. They want better functions or performance, not beautiful interface.
petersgyoung
I quite agree we should never have moved from Windows 3 to all these other UI's , I am considered reactionary, many think MSDOS was perfect and should never have been replaced.
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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I was actually also going to ask what the Windows keys on the keyboard do when you are in the RT/Metro environment. Do their actions seem to make perfect sense or do they feel more like something that had to be massaged in there to fit? Alright, I will take a crack at installing the darn thing as soon as I have a little bit of time :-O Soren Madsen
The hardest thing to do is shut it down. It needs a degree in upside down thinking to figure it out. I just removed the Windows 8 partition from my PC. Personally I hated it.
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Here, if you're interested, are my first impressions of Windows 8: So yesterday, Windows 8 was released to developers on MSDN. I took it home and installed it on an old Athlon 64 machine with 2 Gb of RAM, just to see how it would perform on a slow piece of hardware. The installation took hours... and then, when it was done, the experience began... and it was an experience - I can tell you that much. Windows 8 is the John Forbes Nash of operating systems: utterly schizophrenic and completely brilliant. I can state unequivocally that you've never seen anything like it: the thing is years ahead of anything else on the market, and it completely redefines what a computer is supposed to be used for. The first thing it wants you to do is to bind your user ID to a Microsoft account, on the understanding that if you do, you'll have access to a bunch of online stuff that would normally appear opaque to you, or at least difficult to get at, such as their App store, and so on. So I did this. The setup program said confusing things like, "If you log in using your Microsoft address then you'll have access to....[a list of stuff]", so the first thing I did when I'd managed to get it to start was to open a command prompt and say, "whoami" -- it responded "dsutton"... so it had managed to retain my Windows user ID, and at an operating system level, that's who I remained. Much has been made of Windows 8's tiled interface, and that's where the fun starts. The operating system is built around the concept of feeds: a feed can be anything: a news feed, a mail server, Facebook... you name it. If you're a programmer, you can write your own feeds, or get your programs to hook into existing feeds. Microsoft (and WIndows) makes the distinction between old-style applications and "Apps", the latter being applications which run off tiles in the new "Start" screen (Windows' new RT mode). All Apps run full-screen: there's no windowing at all -- in this respect, the thing is like a phone or an iPad. The old Windows desktop is an App, as well, and with it, you get to run all the programs you're used to, and to see Windows the way you're used to seeing it. The Start screen is in some ways analogous to the main panel of the old Start menu: you can pin programs to it (they appear as "Tiles") and if you move the mouse into the corners, it starts doing stuff. You can get an "All Programs" list, which is a 2D view of the old Start Menu's hierarchy, separated into groups: right-click on anything in that, and you can pin it to the main Start
Shutting down is easy - I do it the same way I have always done it in Windows, as far back as I can remember: Alt+F4
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Here, if you're interested, are my first impressions of Windows 8: So yesterday, Windows 8 was released to developers on MSDN. I took it home and installed it on an old Athlon 64 machine with 2 Gb of RAM, just to see how it would perform on a slow piece of hardware. The installation took hours... and then, when it was done, the experience began... and it was an experience - I can tell you that much. Windows 8 is the John Forbes Nash of operating systems: utterly schizophrenic and completely brilliant. I can state unequivocally that you've never seen anything like it: the thing is years ahead of anything else on the market, and it completely redefines what a computer is supposed to be used for. The first thing it wants you to do is to bind your user ID to a Microsoft account, on the understanding that if you do, you'll have access to a bunch of online stuff that would normally appear opaque to you, or at least difficult to get at, such as their App store, and so on. So I did this. The setup program said confusing things like, "If you log in using your Microsoft address then you'll have access to....[a list of stuff]", so the first thing I did when I'd managed to get it to start was to open a command prompt and say, "whoami" -- it responded "dsutton"... so it had managed to retain my Windows user ID, and at an operating system level, that's who I remained. Much has been made of Windows 8's tiled interface, and that's where the fun starts. The operating system is built around the concept of feeds: a feed can be anything: a news feed, a mail server, Facebook... you name it. If you're a programmer, you can write your own feeds, or get your programs to hook into existing feeds. Microsoft (and WIndows) makes the distinction between old-style applications and "Apps", the latter being applications which run off tiles in the new "Start" screen (Windows' new RT mode). All Apps run full-screen: there's no windowing at all -- in this respect, the thing is like a phone or an iPad. The old Windows desktop is an App, as well, and with it, you get to run all the programs you're used to, and to see Windows the way you're used to seeing it. The Start screen is in some ways analogous to the main panel of the old Start menu: you can pin programs to it (they appear as "Tiles") and if you move the mouse into the corners, it starts doing stuff. You can get an "All Programs" list, which is a 2D view of the old Start Menu's hierarchy, separated into groups: right-click on anything in that, and you can pin it to the main Start
great post. I've been running the Consumer Preview (and then Release Preview) as my *sole* OS since they were kicked out. People were always surprised and then I simply explained it's Win7 + goodies. I would show them the lack of a start button, and you could see the panic wash over their face. My advice to everybody I've ever talked to about Windows 8 and whether or not they'll like it, if it will succeed, etc has simply been this: Use Windows 8 for 40 hours total - not 5 days where you sit down a few hours at a time, but 40 hours total before you make a judgement. Until you've done this, you haven't immersed yourself in the workflow of Desktop <-> RT, how they *can* interact (clipboard, etc) how they can't, what RT apps bring to the table, etc. So for anybody thinking about getting the RP or RTM and trying it out to see how they like it, keep this in mind before writing a post :) :cool:
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:thumbsup: Thank you for sharing this. I have not really looked for Windows 8 reviews before, but whenever I stumble upon one, they don't seem to have thought of the "desktop mode" as having Windows 7 in a VM. It seems like a great way to describe it. I was wondering what [Ctrl][Alt][Del] does under Windows 8. Is it not possible to shut down the PC that way? Soren Madsen
Actually, everyone seems the Metro interface as a GUI on top of the old Desktop, and not the other way, just as Windows was a graphical layer on top of MS-DOS, i think.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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great post. I've been running the Consumer Preview (and then Release Preview) as my *sole* OS since they were kicked out. People were always surprised and then I simply explained it's Win7 + goodies. I would show them the lack of a start button, and you could see the panic wash over their face. My advice to everybody I've ever talked to about Windows 8 and whether or not they'll like it, if it will succeed, etc has simply been this: Use Windows 8 for 40 hours total - not 5 days where you sit down a few hours at a time, but 40 hours total before you make a judgement. Until you've done this, you haven't immersed yourself in the workflow of Desktop <-> RT, how they *can* interact (clipboard, etc) how they can't, what RT apps bring to the table, etc. So for anybody thinking about getting the RP or RTM and trying it out to see how they like it, keep this in mind before writing a post :) :cool:
I've running it as my primary OS (almost sole OS) since the Developer Preview and i found it quite good, it got me a little job to get used to the interface (specially when they quit the Start Button), but now i can be very productive with it.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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Here, if you're interested, are my first impressions of Windows 8: So yesterday, Windows 8 was released to developers on MSDN. I took it home and installed it on an old Athlon 64 machine with 2 Gb of RAM, just to see how it would perform on a slow piece of hardware. The installation took hours... and then, when it was done, the experience began... and it was an experience - I can tell you that much. Windows 8 is the John Forbes Nash of operating systems: utterly schizophrenic and completely brilliant. I can state unequivocally that you've never seen anything like it: the thing is years ahead of anything else on the market, and it completely redefines what a computer is supposed to be used for. The first thing it wants you to do is to bind your user ID to a Microsoft account, on the understanding that if you do, you'll have access to a bunch of online stuff that would normally appear opaque to you, or at least difficult to get at, such as their App store, and so on. So I did this. The setup program said confusing things like, "If you log in using your Microsoft address then you'll have access to....[a list of stuff]", so the first thing I did when I'd managed to get it to start was to open a command prompt and say, "whoami" -- it responded "dsutton"... so it had managed to retain my Windows user ID, and at an operating system level, that's who I remained. Much has been made of Windows 8's tiled interface, and that's where the fun starts. The operating system is built around the concept of feeds: a feed can be anything: a news feed, a mail server, Facebook... you name it. If you're a programmer, you can write your own feeds, or get your programs to hook into existing feeds. Microsoft (and WIndows) makes the distinction between old-style applications and "Apps", the latter being applications which run off tiles in the new "Start" screen (Windows' new RT mode). All Apps run full-screen: there's no windowing at all -- in this respect, the thing is like a phone or an iPad. The old Windows desktop is an App, as well, and with it, you get to run all the programs you're used to, and to see Windows the way you're used to seeing it. The Start screen is in some ways analogous to the main panel of the old Start menu: you can pin programs to it (they appear as "Tiles") and if you move the mouse into the corners, it starts doing stuff. You can get an "All Programs" list, which is a 2D view of the old Start Menu's hierarchy, separated into groups: right-click on anything in that, and you can pin it to the main Start
The Anti-virus is still there, it's now part of the base install. It's under the guise of Windows Defender. Call it up from the Control Panel and you'll see it looks just like Security Essentials. Maybe this is just me, however, I did like the fact that in previous versions of Windows, you could see Security Essentials running down in the taskbar and easily view its status, not so in this version.
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The Anti-virus is still there, it's now part of the base install. It's under the guise of Windows Defender. Call it up from the Control Panel and you'll see it looks just like Security Essentials. Maybe this is just me, however, I did like the fact that in previous versions of Windows, you could see Security Essentials running down in the taskbar and easily view its status, not so in this version.
Yeah - I found that out later... of course, Windows is so friendly now that it doesn't bother to "worry" you about such trivialities!!
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Shutting down is easy - I do it the same way I have always done it in Windows, as far back as I can remember: Alt+F4
Huh. I tried that but it didn't work. So, because I'm too lazy to keep doing it the way Windows wants me to, I created a CMD file which says, "shutdown /t 0 /s" in it, so now I can just double-click on it.
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Huh. I tried that but it didn't work. So, because I'm too lazy to keep doing it the way Windows wants me to, I created a CMD file which says, "shutdown /t 0 /s" in it, so now I can just double-click on it.
What works for me is to click on the desktop first, and then hit Alt+F4. Personally, I like Windows 8 WAY better than Windows 7. As a user, it's the first time I've liked an OS as well as the old Macintosh (from 20 years ago). As a developer, it's the first time I've been as excited about a new programming paradigm ("Metro" with C# and XAML) as I was with Delphi when it first came out, and for the first decade or so after that. Now, I'm converted: Windows 8, C#, and XAML all the way!
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What works for me is to click on the desktop first, and then hit Alt+F4. Personally, I like Windows 8 WAY better than Windows 7. As a user, it's the first time I've liked an OS as well as the old Macintosh (from 20 years ago). As a developer, it's the first time I've been as excited about a new programming paradigm ("Metro" with C# and XAML) as I was with Delphi when it first came out, and for the first decade or so after that. Now, I'm converted: Windows 8, C#, and XAML all the way!
ROFL - I think you might be me. I had exactly the same thoughts - about the old Mac, Delphi - everything. C# is a beautiful language; Delphi (and obviously, in the DOS days, Turbo Pascal) was the previous beautiful language for me, and before that, Algol-60 [Dijkstra: "A great improvement upon many of its successors"]. C# goes to show how limited the thinking of the creators of Java was: they did invent the basic idea... but so much is missing in Java, especially at low levels, that after C#, programming in Java feels like trying to swim in glycerine with your hands tied behind your back. I'm excited about the XAML thing, too -- most especially because it's something to learn which will translate well to phones and things... it remains to be seen (for me, anyway) what it's like to program with, especially when stuff starts getting complicated... but it's interesting - that's for sure.
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Here, if you're interested, are my first impressions of Windows 8: So yesterday, Windows 8 was released to developers on MSDN. I took it home and installed it on an old Athlon 64 machine with 2 Gb of RAM, just to see how it would perform on a slow piece of hardware. The installation took hours... and then, when it was done, the experience began... and it was an experience - I can tell you that much. Windows 8 is the John Forbes Nash of operating systems: utterly schizophrenic and completely brilliant. I can state unequivocally that you've never seen anything like it: the thing is years ahead of anything else on the market, and it completely redefines what a computer is supposed to be used for. The first thing it wants you to do is to bind your user ID to a Microsoft account, on the understanding that if you do, you'll have access to a bunch of online stuff that would normally appear opaque to you, or at least difficult to get at, such as their App store, and so on. So I did this. The setup program said confusing things like, "If you log in using your Microsoft address then you'll have access to....[a list of stuff]", so the first thing I did when I'd managed to get it to start was to open a command prompt and say, "whoami" -- it responded "dsutton"... so it had managed to retain my Windows user ID, and at an operating system level, that's who I remained. Much has been made of Windows 8's tiled interface, and that's where the fun starts. The operating system is built around the concept of feeds: a feed can be anything: a news feed, a mail server, Facebook... you name it. If you're a programmer, you can write your own feeds, or get your programs to hook into existing feeds. Microsoft (and WIndows) makes the distinction between old-style applications and "Apps", the latter being applications which run off tiles in the new "Start" screen (Windows' new RT mode). All Apps run full-screen: there's no windowing at all -- in this respect, the thing is like a phone or an iPad. The old Windows desktop is an App, as well, and with it, you get to run all the programs you're used to, and to see Windows the way you're used to seeing it. The Start screen is in some ways analogous to the main panel of the old Start menu: you can pin programs to it (they appear as "Tiles") and if you move the mouse into the corners, it starts doing stuff. You can get an "All Programs" list, which is a 2D view of the old Start Menu's hierarchy, separated into groups: right-click on anything in that, and you can pin it to the main Start
I've been using the Windows 8 Release Candidate fairly regularly for a couple months now, and I just installed the Windows 8 RTM bits. The Win 8 user experience took a little getting used to, but overall I like it. I do find myself spending most of my time running legacy applications (Office, Visual Studio, Evernote, etc.) in the desktop view, but I think as more useful and fully baked apps become available in RT, I'll spend more and more time there. The key will be getting the tools I use regularly "metro-ized" (or whatever Microsoft is going to call it now that "metro" is a no-no). Some of the biggest Win 8 positives: speed to boot (blazing fast), cloud-service integration, and stability. Also, I'd sure like to get my hands on a Surface tablet when they come out--I think it will be a joy to use.
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Thanks! Startup is fast: I'd say it boots in about 60% of the time it takes Windows 7. I also get the feeling that, rather like Services, it starts initializing some stuff long after you've actually logged in: it takes the Feeds which push info at the tiles a while to kick in; for a minute or so, you can see them coming to life...
Impressive :)
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I have an old HP DV7, Centrino 2 4Gb RAM. Windows 7 took around 1 minute to start. I counted around 20 seconds to be able to log into Windows 8. Take in account I only have installed VMWare Player :)
Thanks. That's nice to know.
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Here, if you're interested, are my first impressions of Windows 8: So yesterday, Windows 8 was released to developers on MSDN. I took it home and installed it on an old Athlon 64 machine with 2 Gb of RAM, just to see how it would perform on a slow piece of hardware. The installation took hours... and then, when it was done, the experience began... and it was an experience - I can tell you that much. Windows 8 is the John Forbes Nash of operating systems: utterly schizophrenic and completely brilliant. I can state unequivocally that you've never seen anything like it: the thing is years ahead of anything else on the market, and it completely redefines what a computer is supposed to be used for. The first thing it wants you to do is to bind your user ID to a Microsoft account, on the understanding that if you do, you'll have access to a bunch of online stuff that would normally appear opaque to you, or at least difficult to get at, such as their App store, and so on. So I did this. The setup program said confusing things like, "If you log in using your Microsoft address then you'll have access to....[a list of stuff]", so the first thing I did when I'd managed to get it to start was to open a command prompt and say, "whoami" -- it responded "dsutton"... so it had managed to retain my Windows user ID, and at an operating system level, that's who I remained. Much has been made of Windows 8's tiled interface, and that's where the fun starts. The operating system is built around the concept of feeds: a feed can be anything: a news feed, a mail server, Facebook... you name it. If you're a programmer, you can write your own feeds, or get your programs to hook into existing feeds. Microsoft (and WIndows) makes the distinction between old-style applications and "Apps", the latter being applications which run off tiles in the new "Start" screen (Windows' new RT mode). All Apps run full-screen: there's no windowing at all -- in this respect, the thing is like a phone or an iPad. The old Windows desktop is an App, as well, and with it, you get to run all the programs you're used to, and to see Windows the way you're used to seeing it. The Start screen is in some ways analogous to the main panel of the old Start menu: you can pin programs to it (they appear as "Tiles") and if you move the mouse into the corners, it starts doing stuff. You can get an "All Programs" list, which is a 2D view of the old Start Menu's hierarchy, separated into groups: right-click on anything in that, and you can pin it to the main Start
I guess some might to hear my experience as well. I recently bought a new laptop to use on talks and on travel and I installed Win7 Home Edition, Office 2010 and VS2010 on it. After VS2012 RTM got released to MSDN I installed it on this machine as well. Then last friday I thought a good idea to upgrade this to Win8 - after all not much to lose - right? Well install was rather fast (got a SSD in there) and the system seemed to boot right - BTW a strange thing is that you can only upgrade your installed apps if you upgrade to the same language (wanted to switch language there - but then you can only take your files and settings and not your programs with you). As was mentioned: the anti-virus had to go ... well feels kinda unsafe ... Ok - played around a bit and the first think that crased was the Mail-App - yeah I could add my Hotmail/Windows Live ID account but the apps just showed a blank screen (and still does). Well who needs Email right? After all there should be Outlook hanging around - but I did not come this far. Next thing I wanted to try (because this is my main thing) is to run VS2012 ... but well this crashed on startup ... WTF? Ok I thought - maybe it's a bad idea to upgrade this from Win7 so let's run the setup on VS2012 again and choose repair - but behold: setup crashed as well (as did *EVERY* normal application) ... so do the windows-solves-it-all-thing (aka restart) ... so I ended frying the hole installation by simply rebooting ... yes that's right I see the ugly metro-window-picture but then the screen blanks and the system hangs... So insert the Win8 disk again and try the various *repair* routes (there are a lot - seems trouble is expected) and yeah in the end one worked ... the one that uninstalls all your old apps and brings you to basically to a first-install OS (well there is a page with all your old applications so you can see what you have to reinstall again - thank you very much). And BTW: Mail is still not showing a damn thing. End of the story: I shut the laptop down and put it somewhere I did not have to see it all weekend. In the next days I will format the HDDs and make a new clean Win7 install (or maybe a Ubuntu / Win7 dual installation) and that will be all I will ever see of Win8 if I have any say in it (ok maybe I might buy a surface just to see if this systems can show any email - 199$ right?).
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I guess some might to hear my experience as well. I recently bought a new laptop to use on talks and on travel and I installed Win7 Home Edition, Office 2010 and VS2010 on it. After VS2012 RTM got released to MSDN I installed it on this machine as well. Then last friday I thought a good idea to upgrade this to Win8 - after all not much to lose - right? Well install was rather fast (got a SSD in there) and the system seemed to boot right - BTW a strange thing is that you can only upgrade your installed apps if you upgrade to the same language (wanted to switch language there - but then you can only take your files and settings and not your programs with you). As was mentioned: the anti-virus had to go ... well feels kinda unsafe ... Ok - played around a bit and the first think that crased was the Mail-App - yeah I could add my Hotmail/Windows Live ID account but the apps just showed a blank screen (and still does). Well who needs Email right? After all there should be Outlook hanging around - but I did not come this far. Next thing I wanted to try (because this is my main thing) is to run VS2012 ... but well this crashed on startup ... WTF? Ok I thought - maybe it's a bad idea to upgrade this from Win7 so let's run the setup on VS2012 again and choose repair - but behold: setup crashed as well (as did *EVERY* normal application) ... so do the windows-solves-it-all-thing (aka restart) ... so I ended frying the hole installation by simply rebooting ... yes that's right I see the ugly metro-window-picture but then the screen blanks and the system hangs... So insert the Win8 disk again and try the various *repair* routes (there are a lot - seems trouble is expected) and yeah in the end one worked ... the one that uninstalls all your old apps and brings you to basically to a first-install OS (well there is a page with all your old applications so you can see what you have to reinstall again - thank you very much). And BTW: Mail is still not showing a damn thing. End of the story: I shut the laptop down and put it somewhere I did not have to see it all weekend. In the next days I will format the HDDs and make a new clean Win7 install (or maybe a Ubuntu / Win7 dual installation) and that will be all I will ever see of Win8 if I have any say in it (ok maybe I might buy a surface just to see if this systems can show any email - 199$ right?).
Interesting: mine worked perfectly. I also did it to an Alienware M17X (figured it would have problems with some of the more esoteric hardware) and found that this, too, worked pretty well, except for the ATI video card (had to download something from ATI for that) and some of the Alienware system-level stuff (for things like the keyboard lighting effects). One hopes that most of the manufacturers will have updated drivers by the "real" release date; for now, the Windows 7 drivers work most of the time, and I was able to "convince" a few of them to install by hacking the MSI file with Orca, and removing the operating system version check from it. The Mail app isn't perfect: mine works, but I've noticed a few problems with it. Using it against an IMAP server, while, at the same time, running Outlook on the desktop, I noticed that Outlook keeps up much faster with what's happening; the mail app is also a bit crashy at the moment and occasionally exits spontaneously; hopefully, they'll fix it up a bit by the final release. VS2012 works perfectly for me. I can only assume you're having some driver issues: if I were you I'd download the latest Windows 7 drivers and install them, even if the system thinks it's just fine: I've noticed a few instances where (a) reinstalling a driver over the top of itself fixes problems (especially true with the Alienware stuff I mentioned above) and (b) ATI (AMD) now has Windows 8 drivers for its screens. Also, remember to re-run the Windows Performance Index thing: that does tell Windows a few things about how to keep the hardware going, and I noticed that after I re-ran mine, the numbers changed, and Windows performed more seamlessly.