48 hours of Windows 8

Before I really get into this, please let me point out that at the time of this writing, Windows 8 is in a Developer's Preview (pre-beta) so it is VERY rough. I would also like to point out that I did early testing for both Windows Vista (Longhorn) and Windows 7 and I absolutely HATED both of them. Upon actual release, however, I loved them, so keep that in mind as you read on.

The Windows Developer Preview (Windows 8) can be found HERE for any of you brave enough to try it yourself. This is NOT a stable release however so do not expect it to run perfectly.

First Impressions
After downloading the 64-bit version .iso and burning it to a disk I performed a clean install. The very first thing I noticed was that it did not ask me for a username and password, instead it asked for my Windows Live credentials and used them.

I was not overly thrilled about that since I barely use my Windows Live account, but it's not really any different than Android using Google accounts so I played along.

Once the installation was finished, I was presented with this screen... this is the new Metro Start ...page? menu? whatever you call it, it's pretty Metro.

You may be asking why I am using camera shots, and not screenshots... at this point I still had no idea how to take screenshots with Windows 8. Here is the Start screen scrolled to the far right.

As you can see, I had already pinned Facebook to the start screen. It appears kind of like a widget on a phone OS and can be moved around to any location on the Start screen.

My first impression: I did not like it... this was not my phone it was my computer, but I decided to keep an open mind. 

Figuring Things Out

The interface was obviously made for a touch screen. The manipulation of the screen is a bit awkward with a mouse, especially when you are supposed to swipe (click and drag with a mouse). Shortly after installation the OS installed some updates and I was prompted to reboot. What appeared on reboot was a pleasant picture with a clock. And that's it. Only after clicking around did I (accidentally) figure out I was supposed to swipe the picture up to gain access to the login screen.

After a bit more fumbling around, I found the Desktop. This screenshot shows both monitors as I saw them:

here is a closeup of the watermark:

The quality is kinda bad, but that's because it was taken with the camera on my phone and the monitor sits at an angle on my desk.

I started playing with some of the Apps Yes, I said Apps, that's what they are called in this version. When you install a new program, you are told you have installed a new App (short for application). Not sure why, I guess App is more Metro than Program... but I digress...

The pre-installed apps were pretty much useless, some were little time-killer games, and some flat out refused to work...
This one is called Paint Play:

It is kind of like paint, only much more useless. As far as I can tell all you can do with it is draw... different pen sizes and colors... neato. I assume you can collaborate with friends on it, as that would be its only saving grace.


The Socialite app, on the other hand is pretty cool. Like its Apple OS predecessor, Socialite is a social networking all-in-one collaboration kind of like Friend Stream for Android. It allows you to view friend streams from multiple sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc...

This is the main page, once you connect it to accounts the pictures here are replaces with ones from your actual feeds.

Here is a picture of the screenshot sharing through Socialite, unfortunately, I never figured out how to hide the green side panel... it wasn't really a priority.

Why I Went Back to Windows 7
I never intended on leaving this OS on my system, but I wanted to use it at least a week. Unfortunately, I was unable to because I need my computer to be able perform basic functions. One of the most basic functions, that of my standard SATA DVD-RW was not working. The same DVD-RW I used to burn the .iso and install Windows 8. The device still showed up fine in BIOS but was missing in Windows 8. That was the killing blow, but not the only problem. Other problems included:

• My anti-virus would not install (Vipre)
• My wife HATED it
• My DVD-RW was not found
• iMon (my front-panel LCD software) would not load
• This:

 Seemingly random, if I walked away from the computer for a few minutes, I had about a 1/3 chance of returning to this screen. It is solid black with a clock flashing 12:00. I could not get rid of it, no matter what I tried. I always had to do a hard reboot to get rid of it.

In Conclusion
Windows 8 looks like a cross between Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7. I think it will be an interesting OS, and be great for mobile devices (tablets, netbooks, phones, etc.) but I am still unconvinced that it is going to be a great computer OS. Windows Explorer (the bread-and-butter of the file system) seems to be an afterthought. While many believe that the future of computers is cloud-based software, there are still those of us that use our computers as computers... not as internet appliances.