Windows 8 Preview.

[Tandum]

There's a Windows 8 Preview up for download (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/home/).

It's a developers download and is a beta for testing but anyone can download it.

[Omaroo]

LOL

Weird, but promising. Different for different's sake? A little, but like Macs and iOS, at least they're doing something about integrating desktop and mobile devices. I think that it's quite a leap for Microsoft, and it shows that companies do not have to blatantly copy already successful touch interfaces to come up with something else that works.

Besides, it runs under OSX/VBox nicely... doesn't want to work with Fusion3 tough. Trevor?

[mill]

I did install win8 on a spare drive on this laptop.
It looks weird and feels weird if you're used to win7.
Running the 64bit version and it is very fast (as usual with a fresh install of windows).
Now installing some astro progs to see how they will run.

[mill]

Untill now win8 took everything i threw at it and programs that had to be run in xp sp2 mode on win7 run straight away.
Big test tonight when doing imaging :P
It takes a while to get used to but it works good until now.

[supernova1965]

Wasn't very impressed to be honest, Why have a Start menu that doesn't have much functionality no program entry which means the ribbon will quickly fill up with program icons. It may as well not be there and finding the administrator tools was not easy took around 10 min's to find device manager. And some of the programs on the ribbon style app launcher didn't have any obvious way to shut them down and there was no indicator as to what app's were running at any time. Unless they left alot of the functionality out of this early version I can't see it being taken up I certainly would not switch if it stays as is. On a plus it has an inbuilt 16 bit application mode.

[mill]

Warren i think a lot is taken out but all the programs are hidden in the windows directory like calculator.
I think that the start bar might be functional in a later build (unless they want to make an ass out of themselfs :P ).
Once you get used to the interface it is ok and fairly fast.
I agree with the programs as blocks on the right hand side of the screen as soon as you go there (it looks messy).
I will use it and see what happens.

Martin.

[multiweb]

Would the test build run within a VM? (VMWare on Win7 64bit)

[Zaps]

http://i.imgur.com/vd2WA.jpg

[mill]

Good question Marc.
I dont know, i just have another hard drive in my laptop to test and fit the original if i dont like win8.
Win8 has virtual machines build in :)

[Omaroo]

I have it running on my Mac - as you can see. It would NOT run on VMware, but does very well on Sun's (Oracle) VirtualBox - so I guess that the Windows version will run it just as well.

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

[multiweb]

Yeah I was reading about VirtualBox on the Win8 site But I thought I'd ask first as I have VMWare already running two WinXP and one CentOS box. Will try that - thanks.

[Omaroo]

Likewise, and I'm about to upgrade to VMware Fusion4 for Mac which has just been released. Maybe it will work... Trevor? ;)

[multiweb]

You're right. I'm using Workstation 7 and 8 is out now released two days ago. Downloading it now. Will call Trev now and find out.
PS: just talked to him. He reckons Fusion 4 or Workstation 8 will run Win8. Not 100% sure but he thinks it would because the new versions would have taken the new microsoft OS into account. Having said that no problem updating because the old VMs will run on the new versions. Just make sure the VMs are off when you run the installer and it's just an upgrade. No need to uninstall previous version.

[supernova1965]

I tried on Virtual Box and Microsoft Virtual PC and it wouldn't even install I ended up taking it to a mate with a PC with nothing on it to test it.

[kustard]

I don't want to hijack the thread but can you tell me how Fusion4 runs Chris when you get it running. I'm not doing a lot in the VM's I've installed but I would like to give win8 a play. I'm pretty much boot camping into windows if I feel the need to play some games... err, I mean use windows productivity software ;)

[Omaroo]

No probs Simon. :thumbsup:

Bootcamp? Eek!

[Omaroo]

Interestingly, I've just read that as Microsoft releases IE10 under Windows 8, it won't be supporting Flash any more.

[tlgerdes]

Sorry for not chiming in earlier.

If you want to run Win8 Preview under VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion you will need the lastest versions - V8 for Workstation and V4 for Fusion.

[Jules76]

Just to clarify, they are dropping support for Flash in IE10 when using the "Metro" (not a fan of that name) interface. You can still run Flash in IE10 under the Windows desktop just as you do now.

It's due to Microsoft taking the stance that IE in Metro should be plug-in free. Therefore all plug-in's, not just Flash, won't be running under Metro.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/14/metro-style-browsing-and-plug-in-free-html5.aspx

[multiweb]

Well Win8 will run on VMware Workstation 8.0.0. Install as Other 64 bit OS. Very fiddly to set up though. Had to dig some info online. First you need to run VMware as administrator, keep the RAM under 3GB, 30GB HD, 4 processors, 2 core/proc. Those settings seemed to work for me. I got the BSOD for win8 a couple of times which is now a giant white sad smilie : ( with a light blue background.
It's running now. Will play with it tomorrow.

PS: I downloaded the 4GB file (developer version). The other smaller ISO didn't work for me. It is also reported to work fine on a MAC with Fusion 4.

[Glenhuon]

Running the 32bit version on a spare HDD "as we speak". Very much like 7 so far. Has run most things I've tried. Spat it at a couple of old programs, but that is to be expected. Not tried any astro programs yet, but looks good. The touch screen doesn't work, but this is an older machine. Connected to my WiFi internet easily too and seems to be holding the connection better than my Win7 machine.

[kustard]

I've got it running on Fusion4. I initially had it running on virtual box and converted the virtual drive over to fusion.

It runs well, haven't done a lot with it but it seems speedy though that "start" button gets a little annoying and at one stage I was unable to exit a program.

[tlgerdes]

You're a man after my heart Simon:love::love:

[kustard]

Hehe thanks Trevor, and I'm liking the new features of Fusion4 (sorry for hijacking the thread).

One thing I've noticed about Win8 is that the weather app is showing the temp in F and not in C even though I've changed all the settings and locations I can see, not that it's really important but it is a bit off putting when I see temperatures above 60 degrees and I'm wearing a jumper hehe.