Four new Betas released today

[Tripredacus]

Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISOs (English, Chinese simplified, German, French and Japanese) in x86 and x64:

Microsoft.com: Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Windows Server 8 Beta x64 and VHD!

Microsoft.com: Windows Server 8 Beta

Visual Studio 11 Express Beta for Windows 8 with Windows 8 SDK and Blend:

Microsoft.com: Visual Studio 11 Express Beta

Visual Studio 11 Ultimate Beta:

Microsoft.com: Visual Studio 11 Ultimate Beta

Repost from frontpage:

http://www.msfn.org/_/windows/microsoft-windows-beta-bonanza-r8886

Update: Installing Windows 8 Consumer Preview:

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2012/02/installing-the-windows-8-consumer-preview-a-visual-guide.ars

Edited February 29, 2012 by Tripredacus

[Aloha]

Thanks for the announcement and the links. It will take time to download the setup. I must try it as soon as the downloading has finished.

Do you install it too? I'm afraid I'll need some suggestion. How should I install this version? By upgrading from the current WDP or installing it on a different partition? Which choice do you think is better?

Thanks again.

[JorgeA]

Thanks for the links Tripredacus ; I just finished downloading the ISO.

Do you install it too? I'm afraid I'll need some suggestion. How should I install this version? By upgrading from the current WDP or installing it on a different partition? Which choice do you think is better?

Thanks again.

@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

[CoffeeFiend]

There's never been an OS I disliked as much as Win8 so far

-It makes multitasking a nightmare

-The dual metro/desktop thing is as a lot of people put it "disjointed" at best

-Metro apps are surprisingly quite slow to load (the weather app often fails to load the default city altogether as well)

-Using metro apps with a mouse is an exercise in frustration (just drag this thing across the entire screen!) which only the keyboard can only somewhat tame

-Most of the included apps seem to be little more than using a "MS Live" web page but launched via Metro, but without any advantages

-Why do I need to signup for Live for everything? Mail? No thanks, I'll just go to gmail.

-Calendar? I have to sign in on Live for this? Well, we've got Outlook already for that at work, and at home I'd sooner use Google's

-Maps seems to be just Bing maps and Google's are far superior (and yet again work on any OS by opening a tab in your browser), etc

-The video player seems pretty much worthless

-The search results on the Metro screen sucks quite a bit compared to Win7's start menu search results (nevermind the UI is beyond awful)

-Everything seems to take more clicks to get at in general, it just gets in your way of getting work done

-Everything feels a bit clunky (scroll up and down to side scroll the Metro start thing? Seriously?)

-Even on a touch device, using corners for start/charms just sucks

-Metro is little more than something that gets in the way of the desktop

...

This is the very first Microsoft OS which not only offers no actual improvements whatsoever but is also a big step back in so many ways. I definitely won't be using it either at home or work.

[Aloha]

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.

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.

-Metro apps are surprisingly quite slow to load (the weather app often fails to load the default city altogether as well)

Then I guess I'll have to uninstall and unpin almost everything on the Metro Start again! Thank you for the very first preview.

Edited March 1, 2012 by Aloha

[Tripredacus]

This is the very first Microsoft OS which not only offers no actual improvements whatsoever but is also a big step back in so many ways. I definitely won't be using it either at home or work.

I think MS would be wise to create a workstation version of the next OS for people like us.

Some preview articles I have read say there is a hidden start button in the lower left that can get you access to the standard desktop.

No I haven't tried it yet. I may tomorrow. Although I do not actually use the Desktop interface anymore in my day-to-day work, I do make use of the taskbar.

[MagicAndre1981]

the VS11 looks soooooooooo ugly

[Tripredacus]

the VS11 looks soooooooooo ugly

Hmmm does it support the achievements?

[MagicAndre1981]

this strange addon? I don't know. I uninstalled it already. 107 points for nothing. I don't see any real sense in this addon.

[Tripredacus]

this strange addon? I don't know. I uninstalled it already. 107 points for nothing. I don't see any real sense in this addon.

I think it was just supposed to be a joke.

[CoffeeFiend]

the VS11 looks soooooooooo ugly

Hmmm does it support the achievements?

Well, VS11 needs new archievements like Compiles code that doesn't run on XP. Seriously, I don't know how they think they can get away with it.

But yeah, it's quite a let down as well.

[JorgeA]

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.

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

[CoffeeFiend]

I think MS would be wise to create a workstation version of the next OS for people like us.

Yes. With a sane user interface, not this Metro garbage.

Oh, and here's another idea: have some actual improvements too. That would be a great idea IMO. Every version of Windows before that had some, so why not this one too?

I mean, yes, they there are new features but:

-Metro? That's totally a huge step backwards. I'd rather use crappy old XP's shell over that, or GNOME 2, or KDE, or OS X, or... just about anything else.

-IE10: Yes, Chrome/Firefox downloader version 10 is a must have

-Hyper-V which almost nobody uses, is no match to VMWare's offerings, and that requires SLAT support on your CPU which means you basically need a new computer, and it just might be only available in the enterprise/ultimate editions

-Reset: you still have to backup everything, and a solid OS shouldn't really need this often anyway. Besides, you really can't trust it if your machine is infected with malware (virus infected the reinstaller). And then you still need to reinstall everything and apply all the updates and reconfigure everything. Not much gained over just using a clean system restore point either.

-Windows To Go: seemingly only in the enterprise edition, and it's not so much a "feature" but just a way to boot

-WOA: This will be a complete disaster, pure and simple.

I dunno. How about some actual improvements instead?

-Canceling print jobs that actually works! Even if it requires new driver model. And how about it supporting things like ink levels natively or better color management?

-Reading from damaged CDs & DVDs without the system freezing -- and while you're at it, give us a decent burning app for once

-Windows Media Player/Center supporting subtitles, lossless audio formats (like native FLAC support with seeking), or not having to edit the registry to get media center to see MKV files?

-Something better than notepad. See notepad++, notepad2, ultraedit, editplus and many, many others.

-Something better than paint. Seriously. I don't expect Photoshop here.

-A better explorer. How about dual panes? Being able to pause/resume large file job/move jobs? Generating lists of files as text, csv or html? File hashing?

-How about adding version management to the OS? Like a built-in TortoiseSVN of sorts, or like Apple's "versions"?

-A duplicate file finder (or as an addon to explorer). A comparison tool would be nice too.

-A better photo management/viewer app, like Adobe Bridge, Aperture, Acdsee, iPhoto and many others

-A better system cleaner (see CCleaner, nCleaner, fCleaner, etc) and why not a secure ease function?

-A better shell than cmd.exe

-Something less ghetto than the built-in zip file thing for archives. See 7zip, WinRAR, etc.

-Something along the lines of Apple's mission control/exposé/spaces, virtual desktops and all that, done right

-Better speech synthesis voices. Seriously, Anna sucks. As a developer you need to rely very heavily on SSML to make it say things.

-Have remote desktop be usable for at least one remote user when someone's logged in, or having the "host" in home premium? Even Apple lets you do this for free

-Some sort of unified updater for all your software (like the current Update thing in Win7, but where ISVs could add updates to their own apps too)

-Supporting more filesystems, including something not as crappy as FAT32 but which *all* devices can use i.e. not exFAT

-getting rid of thumbs.db and desktop.ini files all over the place

-How about some nice extras like the "Plus!" pack had back then, like nice screen savers and themes, new fun games and what not

-Centralize and restructure everything management and administration related (Control Panel + MMC + various other dialogs and places)

-A system-wide spellchecker everywhere you type

-Improve the modern but extremely awful windows dialog for scanning documents (I'll take TWAIN again over this any day)

-Something to synchronize files, a basic but decent FTP client, and a good download manager too

-Make Windows media player actually find relevant results when it searches for an album by artist & album name online

etc. There could be *so* much more stuff on this list really.

There's tons of stuff that needs improving rather badly and almost all of it goes ignored (the *only* thing they seem to have addressed is mounting ISO images). Meanwhile, we get a phone touch-based interface that simply doesn't work crammed down our throats, and we'd have to pay $100+ for the privilege too! Work on issues like those on this list, then possibly add some sort of *optional* touch interface and it would easily be the best Windows ever, and by far.

[nitroshift]

Installed in in a VM, deleted the VM within 5 minutes. I just don't get this Metro hype Microsoft is trying to push on us. I'm using a PC, not a magnified tablet! And there are many, MANY other things I could complain about, but CoffeeFiend already summed them up pretty well. I am going to be using Windows 7 that actually DOES THE JOB, both at work and at home until the next Windows will come up (IF it will ever come up before Microsoft will leave the scene).

nitroshift

[JorgeA]

Yes. With a sane user interface, not this Metro garbage.

Here's a ray of hope:

As promised the first thing I looked for was a way within Group Policy or otherwise to set the desktop as the default UI. I’d been privately told by a couple of ‘softies that such a feature would indeed exist, but no matter how deep I looked I couldn’t find it. However references to the ‘classic’ Start Menu still exist in Group Policy so it is only a matter of time before some hacks appear to allow you to set the desktop as the default UI and, no doubt, have a selection of on or off Start Menus.

--JorgeA