Windows 8. Read this title as if it were in Segoe UI

Dehumanized

Windows 8
Let's talk about the new hotness out of Redmond. Windows 8. Notable for being all kinds of buzzwords that Steve Ballmer probably said in his keynote. Let's get down to business.

Metro UI
From the current Developer Preview (which is basically a public alpha), this is the biggest change from Windows 7. It's bold, shiny, EXTREMELY touch friendly, and bound to irritate the shit out of dinosaurs who still live in the classic Windows 95 style start menu, crying about how much they hate ribbons.

If you've used Windows Phone 7, you know what you're getting into. If you've seen the new fall Xbox 360 update, you know what this will be like. If you've ever wandered into Windows Media Center, that's where this all began. Welcome to Metro.

Classic UI
This still is a thing that exists. Anything that runs in Windows 7 now will run here just fine. Let's not talk about this much more; Windows 7 is great and we all love it already!

Cloud integration
Windows 8 will integrate deeply with Windows Live ID. This means all of the following if you choose to associate your Live ID with your Windows 8 PC:
-Customization and settings can be shared across PCs.
-Windows SkyDrive (25GB free storage) will seamlessly integrate with the operating system
-If you let Windows Live know about your Facebook, Twitter, etc. accounts, then log in on a new PC, you will automatically be logged into those services
-Applications can be coded to access your Windows Live account. This means you could open up Paint, then directly open a picture from Facebook without having to save it to your local file system.

Xbox Live
Yeah, it's probably just a GFWL rebrand. Let's move on for now...

Other stuff
Here's a few other things in Windows 8:
Faster boot times
A new and improved Task Manager
Hyper-V Host support
Better malware support
Unobtrusive update notifications
Windows Marketplace
Vertical integration endpoints for developers
Frowny faces on your BSOD


So, let's talk about Windows 8. The developer preview builds are available here. You can install them on an old computer, or in a VM, or boot directly from a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) if you so prefer. Spin it up and try it out!

Morskittar

I'm using the dev preview on a few devices. One of which is a two year old netbook with 1024x600 so I can't run Metro apps... it's still worth running 8, 'cause the performance improvements are notable.

Conversely, I'm dual-booting on one of my work machines (I work for MS, so can get away with running pre-pre-pre-beta builds on the domain) and Metro is pretty functional with mouse and keyboard. IE10 is stupid fast. I suspect that the new Start screen will be much like the Ribbon. Well received in general but utterly loathed (until they start using it regularly) by old school power users.

I'm really tempted to dual boot on a multiple monitor desktop to try out the new taskbar options. Only showing applications displayed on that screen? Yes please!

Mr_Rose

Wait, peeps who are still stuck on W95 are dinosaurs? What the hell does that make me and my fond memories of Windows 3.11 (yes, the extra 0.01 is important dammit!)? :P

That said, Metro looks hella neat. Finally, a use for my stylus.

syndalis

Metro will be great on touch devices, but it is fucking GODAWFUL on a 27 inch screen in the same way that Lion's Full Screen Apps are.

It is a terrible waste of space. I am glad both modern mainstream OSs are not enforcing it as the only way of the future, and are leaving windowed environments alone for people like me who at any point may have 20-30 things going on.

iTunesIsEvil

The metro stuff (since it seems to be part of the default Desktop version of 8) needs to be a little more kbd/mouse friendly (there doesn't seem to be any indication of how you exit a Metro app, Alt+F4 works, but that's not ... optimal). It'd also be great if it would show what programs you're running from the Metro interface in the taskbar on the desktop.

Dehumanized

Metro apps enter a suspended state when not currently in-view on the screen. While suspended, they consume 0% CPU, and only hold enough memory usage to save their current state. Essentially, you shouldn't need to ever manually close them.

Now, I'm not sure whether there's a system process to reclaim memory consumed by suspended Metro apps if required, but my assumption would be that they could tombstone them more fully if necessary. I'll have to run some tests...

Stormwatcher

guys
post more pics
I love new windows versions.

Make me love Win8 too.

iTunesIsEvil

Dehumanized wrote:

Metro apps enter a suspended state when not currently in-view on the screen. While suspended, they consume 0% CPU, and only hold enough memory usage to save their current state. Essentially, you shouldn't need to ever manually close them.

Now, I'm not sure whether there's a system process to reclaim memory consumed by suspended Metro apps if required, but my assumption would be that they could tombstone them more fully if necessary. I'll have to run some tests...

This is one of those things that OS's are beginning to do that bugs me. That a process consumes no processing power and a smaller amount of memory while not given focus means diddily if I want the process to end, or if I want the window closed so I can do something else.

I'm concerned that Microsoft is introducing a really big change to it's Desktop OS UI by trying to force tablet/touch-device UI into it. I'm pretty sure even people familiar with Windows are going to wonder "how do I switch to my desktop/browser/email/whatever from this full-screen app with no window controls?" I'm pretty sure of that because I use Windows daily (I write Windows apps for a living) and I was pretty confused about their new paradigm. I mean, the Start menu is pretty much completely gone, and it's now a full-screen display of ... stuff.

Also, it took me about 5 solid minutes of Googling to figure out how to access the shutdown/restart menu/popup. Gah.

@Stormwatcher I'll try to post some screenshots from my VM when I get home this evening. If I remember. :P

Aioua

Yeah metro right now is shit with a mouse. I'll give them some slack for it being an alpha, but I'm not too hopeful. The thing I don't get is the need to hide all the commands. ON the lock screen? There's no button to put in your password, you have to drag it up. You want to reboot the computer? Move to the bottom left corner to pull up the menu. Switch between metro and desktop? Right edge. But there's nothing visually to indicate this. Seem like a holdover from phone UIs where screen real estate was so precious they couldn't include any onscreen cues. But if they want us using Metro on a desktop with a mouse why would you do it this way?
Its like... gesture shortcuts are great, like keyboard shortcuts on a regular UI, but I don't want those to be my only options!

I think it could be good. I like the idea of the start menu being this overlay that's pretty. But it seems like there's been no thought on how to make it useful with a mouse. I understand the want to have a consistent UI across your platforms, but shouldn't the desktop version of metro be a bit beefier and full featured?

On the plus side, boots in like 10 seconds on my old EeePC 1000HE. Also the ribbon is fine. Its nowhere as shitty as Office 2010's implementation.

also HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RPEnabled
Set to zero to take the blue pill. Metro goes away, though so does the ribbon. I did it since none of the metro shit works on my 1024x600 screen anyway. Also hoping that particular issue is a bug and not a feature.

DiannaoChong

So will it be possible to install new 3rd party metro stuff while this is going on? The stuff they provide is nothing more then toys, but I can see the metro stuff being pretty good for push notifications of email, or little widgets. I am not happy with the size limitations of them on my laptop though. at least half the screen is just background and its so completely unnecessary, and I know that is what is coming to the xbox 360 and I am already furious from the wasted screen space I see there. I actually do enjoy it right now on the laptop, but I feel like I am still running into wonky stuff.

One thing that bugs me, Zune is basically dead, but they make a new media player setup and its basically using zunes UI, instead of just using the zune software. I assume its part of antitrust laws but its basically creepy overall. kind of a "your ui is awesome and a big hit, but you are still unsuccessful so heres the axe.

Dehumanized

You could install anything you want on the system. The marketplace doesn't exist yet, though. Right now this is mostly meant for developers to make stuff; I doubt much third party software will end up actually distributed for this release.

I'm not sure what you're on about with the Zune thing... alongside still existing to support existing Zunes, it's still the primary sync platform for WP7... Microsoft isn't getting rid of that any time soon. There's certainly no reason for them not to incorporate the best features of the Zune client into WMP. It would probably make sense for them to merge the two sometime down the road. Zune is far superior in a lot of ways, but there are plenty of features that WMP has that Zune doesn't.

Dritz

It's pretty neat. A VM on a Macbook Air probably isn't the best way for me to use it though.

I'd like to see more Metro apps before making a definitive judgement. The labyrinth game is pretty cool though.

Aioua

I'm putting it into a VM on my main machine now. We'll see if having a high enough rez for metro to work and using a mouse instead of a touchpad will soften up my opinion.

DiannaoChong

Dehumanized wrote:

You could install anything you want on the system. The marketplace doesn't exist yet, though. Right now this is mostly meant for developers to make stuff; I doubt much third party software will end up actually distributed for this release.

I'm not sure what you're on about with the Zune thing... alongside still existing to support existing Zunes, it's still the primary sync platform for WP7... Microsoft isn't getting rid of that any time soon. There's certainly no reason for them not to incorporate the best features of the Zune client into WMP. It would probably make sense for them to merge the two sometime down the road. Zune is far superior in a lot of ways, but there are plenty of features that WMP has that Zune doesn't.

Yeah I know that "anything" from win 7 works on 8. I mean more metro apps, and was curious if anyone knew of a hub for them.

Dehumanized

nothing exists like that so far, but windows 8 has only been in developer hands for 3 days. Not sure if something will pop up; anything made is probably doomed when the windows marketplace comes out.

bigwah

I have it installed and I like what I see so far. Very quick with the transitions between metro apps themselves and between metro and the old desktop(they said something in the build conference about everything being accelerated by graphics hardware, and I can definitely tell even on my crappy laptop).

Nakatomi2010

Only thing that irks me about this right now is that it Windows 8 nor Server 8 will run in my ESX environment at home. It'll run in Workstation 8, but not ESX 5. So the true use I was hoping to give it will have to wait till VMWare releases an update.

That, or I blow away my ESX environment in favor of a Hyper-V box, but I kinda prefer ESX...

Server 8 by the way, is amazing. One of the guys at my office has a Hyper-V lab and installed it in there. The new server manager allows you to manage roles and features on other servers remotely. Made our jaws drop and our geekness come out.

One server to rule them all.

And the Metro UI follows to the Server land, so take it as you will.

Skoal Cat

Fucking ribbons

Dehumanized

you shut your dirty mouth and read the office 2007 bible

it's scientifically better

JohnDoe

I like Ribbon on Office, but I'm not convinced about it for Windows Explorer. It might grow on me though.

JohnDoe

I just don't understand the Windows 8 UI though. Metro is great, but I don't think the halfway Metro/halfway classic approach works.

My list of issues so far (I don't know how many of these are because I haven't set it up right or don't know how to do them)
- I'm running dual monitors, and so the Metro stuff only appears on one monitor. The other monitor is always classic Windows. Which means I can't run 2 Metro style apps at once? Or run them at less than fullscreen? Seems totally weird.
- There's no sort of indication if something is started up or running in the Tile/Start menu view
- Going to the standard desktop view is jarring. The Metro style apps and completely separate from the classic apps. Event with new MS stuff, like Internet Explorer. So now we've got 2 IE modes depending on how you start them up, and they'll both be running concurrently? And when I'm on the normal desktop. I can't see Metro apps, and when I'm on the Metro start screen, there is no indication that standard apps are running
- The Metro apps themselves seem like barely useful flash games

However - This isn't even a beta, just a developer preview, so I'd expect that things will change over time.

Dehumanized

Metro apps can be run side-by-side on a single monitor. You do this by opening multiple apps then right-clicking on the left edge of the screen and dragging apps into your viewport. It's a simple drag action in touch. This doesn't work if your horizontal monitor resolution is lower than 1366px. Left-clicking on the left side of the screen will do the equivalent of alt-tabbing.

I'm not sure if they have plans to extend Metro across two monitors in the future.

As far as the scope of the apps, everything that's included in the preview is basically stuff they had their summer interns do. I watched the platform tools demonstration today, and honestly the tooling that they are providing will make it extremely easy to make stuff that's a lot more complex... but it will also make creating phone-style apps extremely easy as well.

WinRT (the new runtime which essentially is the successor to Win32) provides a bunch of APIs that are very close to bare metal and essentially treats C, C++, VB, C#, and Javascript as first class citizens that can choose to either implement XAML or HTML (also both as first class citizens) as a presentation layer. GTI doesn't exist anymore; if you want to make graphics calls you will call DirectX (which is also a first class citizen; this shit is insane). I could make a HTML/CSS/Javascript application, then have another developer create a C++ WinRT extension that did some stuff with DirectX, THEN apply his C++ work to my Javascript. It's pretty impressive stuff, and honestly when Microsoft said they reimagined Windows they were not lying.

The Anonymous

Dehumanized wrote:

Metro apps can be run side-by-side on a single monitor. You do this by opening multiple apps then right-clicking on the left edge of the screen and dragging apps into your viewport. It's a simple drag action in touch. This doesn't work if your horizontal monitor resolution is lower than 1366px. Left-clicking on the left side of the screen will do the equivalent of alt-tabbing.

I'm not sure if they have plans to extend Metro across two monitors in the future.

As far as the scope of the apps, everything that's included in the preview is basically stuff they had their summer interns do. I watched the platform tools demonstration today, and honestly the tooling that they are providing will make it extremely easy to make stuff that's a lot more complex... but it will also make creating phone-style apps extremely easy as well.

WinRT (the new runtime which essentially is the successor to Win32) provides a bunch of APIs that are very close to bare metal and essentially treats C, C++, VB, C#, and Javascript as first class citizens that can choose to either implement XAML or HTML (also both as first class citizens) as a presentation layer. GTI doesn't exist anymore; if you want to make graphics calls you will call DirectX (which is also a first class citizen; this shit is insane). I could make a HTML/CSS/Javascript application, then have another developer create a C++ WinRT extension that did some stuff with DirectX, THEN apply his C++ work to my Javascript. It's pretty impressive stuff, and honestly when Microsoft said they reimagined Windows they were not lying.

Are...are you telling the truth? Am I dreaming?

Someone tell me I'm dreaming. Because this has to be a dream.

Dehumanized

Here's the platform presentation I mentioned in that post. It's a bit on the long side, but super interesting.

Platform for Metro style apps

edit: this one comes right after it; I haven't watched it yet

Tools for building Metro style apps

Morskittar

I'm finding more and more that I don't hit Metro often when I'm actually working. I spend my time in the classic UI, and Metro becomes some sort of control panel/casual app launcher/search pane. Win+1 (where it's pinned) becomes my work keystroke for IE, Win+"int" for when I want to take a break and bring up PA or something where I'm going to be focused on the screen. Then Win+D or Win+1 and it's back to the work environment.

It is pretty jarring when I don't expect it, like clicking a web link in mail and it pops up Metro/IE10.

Mr_Rose

I think a lot of that is just because the work apps you use haven't got a Metro UI yet. I expect that sort of flipping back and forth will ease away as outlook and office etc.get metro-enabled previews too.

Morskittar

Yeah, though full on multitasking isn't as efficient (or maybe it's just less familiar) despite the cool two pane thing. I can't see using Metro-Outlook or the like for full on work. If I'm using a couple of pivots and putting charts into ppt, I can't see doing it outside of the classic interface. Or using multiple monitors in any way.

Aioua

So from talking with my friend who's over at MS this build is pretty raw, and is missing basically all the desktop/metro integration stuff that's being planned for desktops, this is basically just the touch interface, and not even a complete one at that. It's more complete on the dev end, basically to help them start programming metro apps. I guess that's why they call it Developer Preview. :P

So that tables some of my concerns. I still like the idea of a fancy schmancy fullscreen start page, just not with touch controls on a desktop XD

Donovan Puppyfucker

I'm really looking forwards to this.

I'm about as far removed from the phrase 'power-user' as one can be and still know how to turn the computer on unassisted, and what little I've seen of W8 seems absolutely fantastic.

floobie

Aioua wrote:

Yeah metro right now is shit with a mouse. I'll give them some slack for it being an alpha, but I'm not too hopeful. The thing I don't get is the need to hide all the commands. ON the lock screen? There's no button to put in your password, you have to drag it up. You want to reboot the computer? Move to the bottom left corner to pull up the menu. Switch between metro and desktop? Right edge. But there's nothing visually to indicate this. Seem like a holdover from phone UIs where screen real estate was so precious they couldn't include any onscreen cues. But if they want us using Metro on a desktop with a mouse why would you do it this way?
Its like... gesture shortcuts are great, like keyboard shortcuts on a regular UI, but I don't want those to be my only options!

I think it could be good. I like the idea of the start menu being this overlay that's pretty. But it seems like there's been no thought on how to make it useful with a mouse. I understand the want to have a consistent UI across your platforms, but shouldn't the desktop version of metro be a bit beefier and full featured?

On the plus side, boots in like 10 seconds on my old EeePC 1000HE. Also the ribbon is fine. Its nowhere as shitty as Office 2010's implementation.

also HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RPEnabled
Set to zero to take the blue pill. Metro goes away, though so does the ribbon. I did it since none of the metro shit works on my 1024x600 screen anyway. Also hoping that particular issue is a bug and not a feature.

This is sort of the impression I've been getting. Full disclosure, I don't have it installed... I'm just going by articles and videos I've seen. But, the keyboard and mouse metro implementation seems pretty... meh... so far.

Everything looks very nice, but I find it all very confusing to look at. The way tiles are organized, the tiles themselves... I find it pretty difficult to figure out what does what. I have the same gripe about WP7. I don't really like the tile thing in general. I don't want everything constantly spewing updates at me. All I want doing that is a weather widget, really. The way the tiles are configured, I just find it difficult to figure out what I'm looking at. A grid or a list with more or less static icons requires way less thought on my part. And, like you said, there don't seem to be any cues or hints on how to do some pretty fundamental things. If the goal is to make this all intuitive, I think they have some work to do. Granted, this is a preview, and they have loads of time to do that work. So... get to it!

Oh, and you can count me as not a fan of the ribbon

Cyvros

Of possible interest to others: revised keyboard shortcuts for W8. The most annoying change for me was Win+Space for Aero Peek being changed to Win+Y.

JohnDoe wrote:

I like Ribbon on Office, but I'm not convinced about it for Windows Explorer. It might grow on me though.

When I first saw the screenshots of the ribbon in Explorer, I thought, "This is a terrible and stupid design decision." Less than a minute after actually using it, my mind was completely changed.

Currently enjoying the fact that I can set a PIN for my account. And the fact that I don't have to press Enter after having entered said PIN. And also the fact that pressing any key will swipe away the lock screen and go to the login screen.

Another awesome thing: I set W8 up first in a VM on my desktop, then on a netbook. Pleasantly surprised when my wallpaper migrated across. After I finished setting up my netbook, I decided to install it on my desktop (running through my 32" as a half-HTPC). I was very pleasantly surprised when I had to do about half the initial setting up I usually do for a brand new Windows install; it had synced my settings from my netbook.

Third awesome thing: it went from booting into the installation USB to usable desktop in under twenty-five minutes on my netbook, and under twenty minutes on my desktop. And then cold boots on my desktop have been, I shit you not, under ten seconds including BIOS.

Stormwatcher

Guys, so what should a heavy user who knows little about back-end stuff know?
And would it be a good idea trying the alpha?
Can I use office and shit with W8 right now?
Is dual-booting a good idea?
what other kind of goodness should I expect?

Synthesis

I've gone through two DVDs with the client's CD burning program--until they release an installation executable, I think I won't be trying this. No idea if its the disks or the file, and what's the say the next time I download the file it won't have the same problem.

Mr_Rose

Try making a bootable flash drive with unetbootin or something?

Dritz

The download site lists checksums for the files as well so you can verify your files. Not sure how to do that exactly though.

Beltaine

I wonder if this will install on my HP Slate... and actually make it useful. As it is now, with Win 7 it's slow as shit.

Will find out in about an hour, I guess.

bigwah

"The new interface is primarily designed for 16:9 screen resolutions, with 1366×768 and larger screens able to display two Windows 8 applications. 1024×768 screens can display one Windows 8 application in full-screen, and 1024×600 screens can only use the traditional Windows desktop." The HP slate runs 1024 x 600 as its native resolution but it can run 1024 x768.

Let us know how it works Beltaine!

Beltaine

That sounds disappointing. Loading the install onto a USB now.

TwinIon

I just installed it onto a fujitsu convertible tablet pc. Unfortunately the touch screen doesn't seem to be working at all. Trying to find a fix, but I'm having a hard time.

So far I'm unimpressed with the usefulness of Metro as a mouse based OS. Also, I hate hate hate hate hate that there isn't a search bar in the desktop. In Win7 I hit the windows key and start typing all the time. If it's not pinned, and there isn't a keyboard shortcut (device manager, for instance), I type it into the search bar of the start menu. It's possibly the best thing about windows 7 and I hope they bring it back soon.

Morskittar

Search is the same. From the desktop, hit the Windows key and start typing. From the Start screen, just start typing.

Resorath

I'm glad there will be a way to uncouple all these touch features for Windows 7 using dinosaurs like myself who like a mouse and keyboard still.

Aside from the metro UI, I haven't seen too much else that is very exciting. So far I'll be skipping Windows 8, which is consistent in me skipping every other version of windows (sorry Vista and ME).