JorgeA

"Tile 1.0" is right. The CP is definitely better than the DP in terms of how quickly and easily you can get to system functions (that is, clicks or actions needed), but still not as good as Vista/Win7. --JorgeA

I tried pressing Windows key, and even clicking on the lower-left corner, it just toggled between the Search Screen and the Start Screen. Then if I clicked on the Desktop tile, the screen flicked and nothing happened, I was still at the Start screen. I hope you are not confused with my description! Aloha, Wow, I had to think about that for a while! That's very strange behavior, not at all what I would expect to happen. I'll try searching for a string that I know doesn't exist, and see what happens. Just tried it in the Developer Preview, where that PC is in now. I went into the Start Screen and typed "ghjkl". It didn't find anything, but it did let me get back to the Start Screen and then to the Desktop when I clicked on that tile. Next time I boot into the CP (it's getting late), I'll try the same thing there and report back. --JorgeA

Aloha, Thanks for the nice comment, I appreciate it. Like you, I let Windows Defender start when Windows boots up, so that it's always running in the background. But once a week I also launch Defender to do a manual scan of the whole system, just in case. So since I use it regularly, and it doesn't have a tile in the Metro Start Screen, it was a good choice to try the search function in the Metro UI. (Note that the Vista/Win7 Start Menu does list Defender.) --JorgeA

vinifera, Not intruding at all! All "angles" of this are welcome. Hmm, you drove me to look up DWM in Wikipedia. I learned something. Which programs have you used in Vista/Win7 that disable DWM? I haven't run into that issue. I've seen some where the windows and dialog boxes show up in a basic theme (without the Aero transparency), but without affecting anything else. --JorgeA

III. Internet Explorer 10 The Metro IE screen is now much more informative: The "immersive" screen lacking in controls or browser information, now sports an address/search bar that shows the URL of where you are, plus some buttons across the bottom. If you click in the address/search bar, you're shown a half-screen of "frequent" sites. Not quite a Favorites list where you can place a seemingly unlimited number of links, but it's something. In addition, under some circumstances if you hover the cursor around the middle of the left and right edges of the screen, you see a small black arrow in a light gray background that you can click on to get to the previous or next page. The icon in Metro IE that looked like a Word icon has been changed to a wrench, which is less confusing. This is still the way Metro IE10 behaves. Apparently the concept of a "home" page has been abandoned. Downloading files in Metro IE10: There is no change here. You just have to know, or figure out, that files get downloaded to the same place they go when you download via Desktop IE10. What happens when you right-click on a Web link: There are still no options to download such a file in Metro IE10. You do get four choices: Copy, Copy link, Open link in new tab, Open link. The CP SmartScreen Filter is less aggressive than in the DP: This time, I was able to download Classic Shell via Desktop IE10 without interference by the filter. Good. While better than before, this version of the browser can still stand improvement. At one point I had several pages open, but when I closed a single one, all of them became unavailable. Also, the behavior of the "black arrows in gray background" that sometimes appear, seems to be related to whether you have tabs or separate instances of the browser open. However, since Metro IE10 shows neither tabs nor windows, this distinction is lost, and so as you surf it's hard to know when or if you'll get those back and forward arrows in any given case. Moreover, from both an esthetic and a practical viewpoint, the new scrollbar used in both versions of IE10 (it's flat and gray, not standing out in relief from the rest of the screen) is harder to find quickly. More than once I found myself clicking to drag the scroll bar in what turned out to be an empty spot. Bottom line for me: I am not a fan of chromeless browsing. In fact I dislike it intensely. I rely on the status bar to tell me what's going on and what the websites are trying to do to me, and I use the toolbars to get things done. As long as I retain the choice to put up my menu and status bars and other toolbars, IE9 or 10 doesn't make much of a difference to me. If only someone would recreate a status bar that has ALL of the functionality of the IE8 status bar (displaying, for example, the Privacy Report and the SmartScreen Filter notices -- I don't want to have to look elsewhere or remember every time to click on something to see these). I can live with 9 or 10, but I'll probably stick with IE8 for as long as it works. Metro IE10 I would use once in a blue moon, just to remind myself what a constricted and frustrating experience it is. If nothing else, preparing these comments helped me to increase my understanding of Windows 8. I hope they might do the same for you. --JorgeA

II. Using Windows 8 CP Concerning the installation of new programs, and how they are listed on the Metro Start Screen: The same three programs (except that it's now Firefox 10) installed and operated just as well in the CP as in the DP. As a bonus, only three Spybot tiles showed up in the Start Screen (the uninstall executable didn't get a tile this time). Of course, avoiding the need to wade through a proliferation of icons/links in a list of programs is the point of the tree/folder structure in the classic/legacy/stale/outdated/tired/old-hat Start Menu. In this respect, the Start Menu is still clearly superior to the Metro Start Screen. Some notes on miscellaneous functions: #1 is unchanged -- Win8 CP is still not detecting an optical disc in my drive, unless a CD or DVD happens to be sitting there already at bootup. As for #2, in the CP when you insert a flash drive you hear a little tinkle sound, and a box pops up in the upper right, asking what you want to do with the USB drive. A clear improvement. However, the same movie file (which plays almost fine in Vista and on our TV) still has the audio way behind in Windows Media Player for the Consumer Preview. I also tried playing an MP3 and an MP4 file. When you double-click on an MP3 in Windows Explorer (therefore, in the Desktop), you're dragged over to Metro for a music app, which invites you to agree to a nebulous "music beta program agreement." And if you click on an MP4, likewise you get yanked over to Metro for a "video beta program agreement." Presumably, this is for a license to use some unspecified music or video app. Happily, in either case you also get the little blue box offering to play the file in Windows Media Player. Regarding #3 above, when I opened a .DOC file, now Windows 8 (in addition to suggesting the app store) offers to look for apps on the Web and in your PC. Significantly, it also gives a list of possible applications to open the file with (including Notepad), as has traditionally been the case when Windows doesn't know what to do with a file you want to open. More definite progress. But I don't believe for a minute the official BMS line that all of these improvements had been planned for the CP already when the DP came out. If the original intent were not to push the app store hard, why then would the DP have given an app store as the only choice to look for applications to open a file that it couldn't figure out? Somebody with a brain at MS must have come to realize that customers would rebel at being herded into an app store like this. With respect to the Windows Updates process: Now, in the CP, if you view the Update History and click on the info for a particular update, the browser window opens in the full-eatured Desktop IE10. Getting Windows Update information prior to downloading: There is no longer a Control Panel tile in the Start Screen. Instead, in Metro you reach the Windows Update by hovering the cursor in the lower right screen to bring up the charms, then click on Settings --> More Settings. Now that page contains a button which provides some more details about the Update. From the CP Desktop, you can get "classic" update info by putting the cursor in the lower-left corner of the screen, then right-clicking to bring up the context menu, followed by clicking on Control Panel, then System and Security, and finally Check for Updates. If you don't count moving the mouse to the corner as an action, that's four steps, or one more than in Vista/Win7. Now to the most controversial aspect of Windows 8, the (Metro) Start Screen. These did work in the DP, but not in the CP. MS has not (yet) assented to the widespread market demand for user choice in this important respect. However, they did introduce a context menu containing a variety of useful administrative tools, which you can reach by hitting the hot corner in the lower left and then right-clicking. Now you can reach the desktop Control Panel, for example, with that action. The choices include (among others) Network Connections, Event Viewer, Device Manager, and an administrative-rights Command Prompt. It even works if you're in the Start Screen. IMO this is the biggest single usability improvement in the Consumer Preview. Lastly, MS has given the user a way to actually close a Metro app: The Metro UI now has a neat feature enabling the user to close out the app: If you move the mouse cursor to the top edge of the screen, the arrow changes to a hand; you can then drag this hand down to the bottom edge and then out to the left edge, and the app image will first get small and then disappear off the edge. There was one disturbing incident during my trials. After downloading and then running and closing the F-Secure Easy Clean on-demand malware scanner, next time I went to switch from the Desktop to the Metro Start Screen, the "hot corner" at the lower left no longer brought out the Start Screen thumbnail, nor did right-clicking there bring out the new context menu; hovering in the lower-right corner no longer made the charms appear; and after hitting the Windows key and launching a Metro app, trying to close the app by dragging it down from the top edge no longer did anything. All of a sudden, the only way to shut down the computer was to hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Hmm. The next time I tried running this tool (after a reboot), it just kept scanning endlessly. I closed the program after half an hour (in my Vista system, which contains a lot more stuff to scan, it takes less than ten minutes). Fortunately, this time there was no loss of functionality, but there is evidently some incompatibility issue with this tool and Windows 8. --JorgeA

I've spent my spare time over the past couple of days duplicating in the Consumer Preview many of the things that I tried in the Developer Preview. The idea was to get a read, from an end-user's perspective, on whether and how Microsoft improved the "beta" product over the "pre-beta" version, and to get a sense of the working environment that the company intends to provide for its customers. I'm neither a developer nor an electrical engineer, so my commentary doesn't involve getting into the inner workings of the hardware or the operating system -- rather, it has to do with the "user experience" for a non-IT professional who would use Windows 8 to get serious, sometimes complex and intense work done. For context, I'll be quoting from earlier notes in the "First Impressions" and "Deeper Impressions" threads for the Developer Preview, and then compare them to how things worked in the new Consumer Preview. To make reading easier, I've divided the post into three parts, each one focusing on a different general aspect of the Windows 8 experience. I. Looks and Clicks The first sign that things are better comes right during the installation process, when at one point the user is given a choice of background colors for the Start Screen. The same old bilious green is still offered, but now you can change it to one of a variety of colors that you might find more pleasing. I chose a dark blue background. Many (including myself) complained about how difficult it was to perform certain basic operations in the Developer Preview, relative to current versions of Windows. The Consumer Preview mitigates but does not fully eliminate these concerns: It still takes four actions to shut down the system: Hover the mouse cursor at the upper or lower right edge to bring out the charms, then click on Settings, then click on Power, and then click on Shut Down. Now you can accomplish this from the Desktop, so there is no need for a fifth action to shut down. This represents a marginal improvement in CP over the DP. This is still the case, but only in the corner (which I think has been dubbed the "hot corner"). By the same token, if you're in the Desktop, taking the cursor to that lower left corner will show a thumbnail of the Metro Start Screen. To run a program as an administrator, This now works as well as in Vista or Windows 7. Open the Start Screen, right-click on the program tile, and you get a bar across the bottom with choices for various functions, one of which is to "Run as administrator." The "Advanced Settings" option has been removed, but instead now you can click directly on "Open file location," which saves one step off how it was done in the DP. However, this is still two more steps than needed to do the same thing in Vista/Win7. Launching Windows Defender: Again, this is a little better in the CP. Now you go to the Start Screen, and when you type "def" Windows Defender is listed as the top choice in the app results, which is the default category (the other categories are Settings and Files). So you can get to Defender in five strokes instead of six, but that's still a longer process than in Vista and Windows 7. Still the case, although the right-click option in Metro (as described above for Spybot) reproduces some of the context menu's functions, though by no means all of them. Navigating programs: In the CP, when in Metro you can go to the hot corner, scroll the cursor up, and a panel opens along the left edge that shows the currently open Metro apps. Much smoother than before. So there is definite improvement from the viewpoint of usability, but still plenty of room for more. --JorgeA

CoffeeFiend, Very good article, thanks. He puts another nail in the coffin of the idea of Windows tablets selling to businesses. I also like this remark in the comments section: --JorgeA

Aloha, In that case (when Search doesn't find anything), what happens if you hit the Windows key, or if you hover the mouse to the lower-left corner of the screen? --JorgeA

Yeah, it's not the optimal solution. As it turns out, apparently what it does is to create a miniature version of the Start Screen, without actually working much better. But I'm glad to know that various people are busy trying to fix what's broken in Windows 8. With any luck, one or more of them will get it right. --JorgeA

The biggest drawbacks of the existing OS recovery options are (1) you lose your installed programs, and (2) the process of reinstalling the OS and programs, which -- depending on the kind of user involved -- can prove to be a process which is overwhelming, tedious, intimidating, and/or frightening. The ideal method would be to enable a reset/refresh/reinstall/whatchamacallit that allows the user both to keep their data and all settings, and to choose which of their applications to keep intact, with the proviso that the more programs you keep installed, the less good that the "refresh" will do. Don't know if this is technically feasible, but it would be my ideal. It might be called "Windows In-Place Easy Transfer." Another possible (and not necessarily too complicated) idea would be to automatically pop up an option, right before or right after the installation of a program, to image the HDD as it is at that moment, with sufficiently detailed instructions for the less technically inclined. (Restore points often don't successfully "take" when applied IMX.) --JorgeA

This could be exciting: an application to (maybe) bring back the function of the Start Menu, if not the look. It seems to restore the Start orb and to add a Shutdown option. And -- last but not least -- it doesn't take over your entire screen, so you can still see open windows while selecting a new program. Something like this (especially if given the Windows 7 start menu look, like ViStart) could be the lifesaver for Windows 8. I'll be trying it as soon as I finish other explorations of the CP (in case Start8 messes everything up). --JorgeA

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. I tried that yesterday. --JorgeA

No... not yet, anyway. Speculation is running both ways on whether Microsoft will (or will not) eventually provide a built-in way to disable Metro, at least for business versions of Windows 8. On the other hand, there seems to be little doubt, even among fans of Metro, that sooner or later some sort of hack or workaround will be developed to at least bring back a real Start Menu and its functionality. --JorgeA

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

MagicAndre, Thank you very much, that did the trick! And thanks @Tripredacus for suggesting this approach. Now the boot screen gives three OS choices. B) You know what I'll be doing this weekend... --JorgeA

That's because you have 3 primary partitions already. Your Win7, Win8 and recovery partition are primary. So that's likely what your limit is. Try using a VHD install instead to a USB key/HDD. Tripredacus, Hmm, I've never used a virtual drive before. Not something I've explored. Guess there's always a first time, but this means learning how to do that before I can try out the Win8 CP. Bummer. Wish it were possible to try a live DVD with Windows as you can with so many Linux distros. Having downloaded and burned the Win8 CP ISO to a disc, I wonder if something like this might work. --JorgeA

Well, I ran into a roadblock trying to set up a new partition for the CP. Disk Management told me it could not create it because I already had the maximum number of partitions on the hard disk. (In addition to Windows 7 and the DP, it contains a recovery partition and a 100MB system partition.) I was following the instructions given here (for the DP, but the version shouldn't matter), using all the default settings (new simple volume, quick format, etc.) and a partition size of 40GB. Unless I can find a way around this, it looks like I'll have to either wipe out the DP or do without the CP. --JorgeA

In my Web travels I found this site a couple of days ago, that will be of interest to fans of Windows Vista. The screenshots are not organized chronologically (perhaps the blogger was putting them up as the various OS versions were leaked), but if you take the time to look at each one by build number order, you can trace how the XP desktop metamorphosed into Vista. It was neat to follow the progression -- be sure to click to the next page, where the earliest available build (3683) is shown. --JorgeA

Here's a ray of hope: --JorgeA

But the WDP will expire soon, you can't keep it for comparison for long. OK, the downloading here was finished just a few minutes ago. I've decided to install this WCP onto the WDP. I am not sure how much the registry and the user account will be changed, so I need to finish some other stuff and do some backup first. Perhaps I'll have my computer ready for the installation at weekend! I've enjoyed reading your posts and others' discussions about WDP and I'd like to read your experience of this WCP too. Thanks. Aloha, Thanks for the kind words. I didn't get a chance to actually install CP yet but hope to do it tomorrow or Saturday, and then offer some thoughts to complement what MagicAndre and CoffeeFiend have already contributed. There was a Windows Update for the DP that extended the expiration date till January 2013. I read somewhere that it's the same date when the CP is set to expire. --JorgeA

Thanks for the links Tripredacus ; I just finished downloading the ISO. @Aloha I'm not too clear on whether you need to install the CP in a different partition or if you can upgrade from DP. I've seen both positions stated. Personally, I have the DP on a partition in a secondary PC that came with Windows 7. I'm inclined to create a third partition for the CP, that way I can go back and forth to compare the versions. --JorgeA

I just found this article from 2007. It looks like MS may originally have intended to cut off Vista in 2012, including security updates. --JorgeA

belgianguy, Excellent posts you've been putting up -- welcome! Regarding what you said above, there's a ton of truth to that. I actually got a taste of what it's like for a novice PC user this weekend when I helped my aunt to set up her first computer. I can now appreciate how alien and overwhelming the experience is as a whole, as well as how a simpler user interface could help a new user to get started with less pain. That said, the long-term effect of simplifying the interface (to the point where you can't access the file system, as Metro proposes to do) will be to keep PC users stuck at that novice level, viewing the computer as basically a "black box" that performs magic for them and every so often the high priests in Redmond send new incantations (dare I say, "charms") to make the box do new magical tricks. I understand that some, perhaps even many, people don't care to explore their machines and prefer to keep their interactions with it at such a superficial level. That's fine. The solution, which doesn't seem to be winning out, is to offer users a CHOICE as to the kind of experience that they prefer. Let the novices stay in their blissful ignorance, but allow those of us who hunger for knowledge and understanding to continue being able to get into the inner workings of the OS and programs. Besides the fact that getting work done via the Metro Start Screen is more cumbersome, my concern is that the desktop has now been relegated to second-class status ("the desktop is just another app") and may be ultimately eliminated altogether, except at some exorbitant price for developers and other computing professionals. [EDIT: Apropos of this, check out this recent statement by security expert Bruce Schneier: "Closed systems designed to give users less control." With Metro, Windows is taking a big step in that same direction. end EDIT] Well said. Reading through the comments sections on the MS blogs, you can see a definite "groupie" element -- people who will fall for anything that's new, just because it's new. They label as "haters" those of us who don't care for it, but too few offer actual arguments for preferring the Metro interface. And note how the desktop is being derided as "dated" and "stale." Umm -- how, exactly, is a way of presenting material "stale"? It just IS. --JorgeA

CoffeeFiend, So the monochromatic look is "in" now, eh? Put that together with the return of tiles and limited multitasking of the Metro interface, and what we have is a regression to 1980s-era computing. Sound familiar? --JorgeA