Windows 8 Release Preview is Ready

[diamondd]

Wow are they really going to push this tablet monstrosity onto the PC market? The scary thing is if they continue doing this in windows 9 etc.. might be a long time 'till I upgrade from 7.

Steam Linux Client -> Problem solved

[Lumen Melano]

I'm feeling a lot better about Windows 8. I really wanted it to get better from the Consumer Preview and I think they are heading in the right direction(especially with the aeroless interface on the desktop that they revealed recently). I'm excited about the retail release, things are a bit clearer now but they still have a couple kinks to work through with usability.

Don't know why MS wouldn't want it run virtually as that's the safest way to try a new OS without screwing up what you have already.

Don't know how you could stuff anything up if your are installing onto a separate partition. A virtual machine would be a terrible way to experience a new interface.

[brokenegg]

I'm yet to get it to install successfully.
Burned two disks and both had "missing files" errors that halted instillation.

Thinking maybe something was corrupted whilst downloading the image so currently re-downloading to try again.

Fingers crossed.

[Black Patriot]

Wow are they really going to push this tablet monstrosity onto the PC market? The scary thing is if they continue doing this in windows 9 etc.. might be a long time 'till I upgrade from 7.

Not just PCs, Servers too. Server 2012 has the metro start menu. I honestly can't figure out all the people who say that it's terrible or that it's bad to use on a PC, it's not. There's a learning curve, certainly, but once you've got the start screen setup to your liking it's actually pretty damned useful.

The Metro apps are a different story, I don't think they'll catch on quite as much on a PC, but they're completely optional so I don't see the problem.

Put simply, Metro is not going away. The more you fight it the harder it'll be to adapt.

[exe3]

Put simply, Vista is not going away. The more you fight it the harder it'll be to adapt.

From a purely argumentative standpoint i'm sure that's what some people said about Vista years ago. It's entirely possible that everyone will give MS the finger with Windows 8 (for PC at least) just like they did Vista if everyone deems it to be a failure and unfit for PC use. MS then has the choice of backtracking for Windows 9 or collapsing.

[brat81]

Are people forgetting you can replace the shell ?

[diamondd]

^I think most don't realise you can in the first place

[RSOblivion]

Nope but this is the 2nd time MS have let children scrawl over the UI (XP now Win and made it a simplistic colour bonanza. It's stupid to be honest. It looks childish, feels childish and almost gives the impression that they consider the people using the PC's to be of the avg IQ of a 12yr old.

Problem is there isn't much in the way of competition with Apple's strict OS for dummies attitude, coupled with the proprietary software/hardware route (though Intel did get a foot in...). Linux hasn't developed enough yet for the home market, plus the other options are less preferable to those.

Seems like it's Win 7 for the moment, as the Win 8 lemon is about to hit.

BTW even if the shell can be edited/changed/replaced, that still doesn't fix everything. Win 7 for instance is one of the few OS's that I've used that doesn't need a **** ton of tweaking to get running stable/optimised and has very little driver trouble (unless you have an old creative sound card!). Normally I'm all for change, but only if it's good and heading in the right direction...

[Matty]

[diamondd]

Nope but this is the 2nd time MS have let children scrawl over the UI (XP now Win and made it a simplistic colour bonanza. It's stupid to be honest. It looks childish, feels childish and almost gives the impression that they consider the people using the PC's to be of the avg IQ of a 12yr old.

Problem is there isn't much in the way of competition with Apple's strict OS for dummies attitude, coupled with the proprietary software/hardware route (though Intel did get a foot in...). Linux hasn't developed enough yet for the home market, plus the other options are less preferable to those.

Seems like it's Win 7 for the moment, as the Win 8 lemon is about to hit.

BTW even if the shell can be edited/changed/replaced, that still doesn't fix everything. Win 7 for instance is one of the few OS's that I've used that doesn't need a **** ton of tweaking to get running stable/optimised and has very little driver trouble (unless you have an old creative sound card!). Normally I'm all for change, but only if it's good and heading in the right direction...

I do agree with just about everything you've said but Linux is not very far away from the home market at all IMO. After a reasonable hiatus I've just tried the new Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release on my laptop and its VERY tight. There's always going to be a learning curve but its reached a point where its more idiot-proof than Windows IMO.

[ http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/10/29/129013569047075449.jpg ]

brilliant

[cyclobs]

Wow are they really going to push this tablet monstrosity onto the PC market? The scary thing is if they continue doing this in windows 9 etc.. might be a long time 'till I upgrade from 7.

Steam Linux Client -> Problem solved

This. There are already some great games on Linux and much more currently in development.

I do agree with just about everything you've said but Linux is not very far away from the home market at all IMO. After a reasonable hiatus I've just tried the new Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release on my laptop and its VERY tight. There's always going to be a learning curve but its reached a point where its more idiot-proof than Windows IMO.

I agree, I installed linux mint on my laptop and really it's 10x more easy to install then windows.. All you have to do is put the cd in and click the install button and follow the prompts, but it installs all of the basic stuff so you can start watching movies / youtube as soon as your pc reboots. These days no standard user really needs to touch the command line like you used to. I still use it heavily only because i find it easier and faster to use.

Also you can just google anything you want to do on linux to get tons of tutorials about how to do that 1 thing.

[exe3]

Until Linux can play all the games Windows can it isn't an alternative to Windows for gamers, maybe unless you just have dual boot with Windows just for the games.

Also i'm for change when the change is good but change for the sake of change is never good and always flops.

[cyclobs]

Until Linux can play all the games Windows can it isn't an alternative to Windows for gamers, maybe unless you just have dual boot with Windows just for the games.

Also i'm for change when the change is good but change for the sake of change is never good and always flops.

sadly that wont happen until devs start porting games to Linux which will only happen if there was a more of a user base and there wont be more of a user base until more games goes over to Linux.

so we're stuck in an infinite loop here.This makes me sad. That said when steam and the source engine eventually port over to Linux as planned (well rumoured) This will start an roll on effect IMO.

On top of that, we're getting pretty close to achieving 3D accelerated graphics (we have already got them but last i heard it still needed a lot of work) in VM machines on Linux. So soon enough we'll be able to play windows games naively on Linux from a windows VM. Pretty much making dual booting into windows pointless.

[Mekon]

On top of that, we're getting pretty close to achieving 3D accelerated graphics (we have already got them but last i heard it still needed a lot of work) in VM machines on Linux. So soon enough we'll be able to play windows games naively on Linux from a windows VM.

It's not really native if you're running it in a virtual machine, though, is it? You're still stuck with an emulation layer which will hamper performance.

It would make life easier for those gamers who prefer to run Linux, but Windows will still have a substantial performance edge unless the games are coded to run natively in 'nix.

[Ash_Williams]

Most modern components give something in an emulation layer the same amount of resources and performance as the actual system. You just have to look at VMWare ESX to see that in effect.

To say that in this modern age of virtual technology that there are performance issues is just stupid. VMWare have started enabling VM's direct access to GPU hardware like any other machine.

I agree with cyclobs on this that we're close to achieving unhampered 3D graphics performance in a virtual environment, I've seen it first hand because I use it at work.