Microsoft has made Windows 8’s final release available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, so if you are one of those – have fun. The 90-day trial has also been released, so us mere mortals can have a go at it as well. The evaluation version is Windows 8 Enterprise, so it contains a number of features regular users normally won’t see. As far as I can tell – it’s a bit unclear – the trial version cannot be upgraded to a final version a few months down the line. Happy testing!
For the first time, I will pass
Same here. I wouldn’t even run it if they gave me a free copy + $200.
What if they gave you more than that, say a big house and a fancy car, but you must actually use the OS day in and day out exclusively until a newer version is released, would you change your mind?
I would take the 200 dollars and never run it. xD
I will gladly pay 200 dollars not to be forced to use Metro on the desktop.
As a Mac user who is tempted to jump ship after giving the 90 day trial an install, I can’t work out where what all the hatred is about – honestly. I’m sitting here on my iMac running Windows 8 and sure it is a bit different but holy shitballs the way some people react around here is as though Steve Ballmer with Steven Sinofsky in tow both took pot-shots at your mother. Compared to previous releases it finally appears that Microsoft understands the concept of fit and finish rather than previous releases looking little more than quasi distributions resulting from the haphazard amalgamation of different groups works into a single distribution.
Wow, what a forum of pathetic cowards – voting down a comment and can’t even be bothered making a reply outlining where the individual disagrees; once again it goes to show what a pathetic bunch of ingrates visit this website.
Don’t worry, I voted it back up.
Individual votes mean nothing – the system is too smart for that. Don’t worry about a few downvotes – although I can understand it (that stupid number underneath every comment invites so), which is why that number will disappear in the redesign anyway.
Also, have an upvote. Both of you.
Edited 2012-08-16 10:22 UTC
Cheers!
“Compared to previous releases it finally appears that Microsoft understands the concept of fit and finish”
Seriously? you have two totally different GUIs running at the same time. You jump between them depending on which app you are running. One of these GUIS is really inconvenient on a desktop PC and its best “feature” is that it shows you less information instead of more on the screen.
In addition to that, the only Windows 8 style applications we’ve essentially seen so far are from Microsoft. We’ll have to wait and see how polished and unified the new start screen and user interface feels once the market is flooded with third party applications.
Sorry I should have been more accurate in what I meant by ‘fit and finish’ – what I meant was in regards to previous releases. Yes, it can be a bit jarring moving between the ‘Metro’ interface to the traditional desktop but in terms of the desktop theme it is a lot better than the gaudy Windows Vista and the marginally improved Windows 7 appearance but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the icons are out of place, the inconsistent usage of different GUI elements from various generations of libraries give a rough experience when compared to using Mac OS X.
I’m back on Mac OS X again and my brief experience has re-enforced why I’ve a Mac user because the more I used it the more my OCD went crazy to the point that I wanted to punch a box of kittens. Maybe it was my optimism that clouded my judgement but now that I’ve come down from my ‘two day high’ having used Windows 8 (used the leaked RTM then tried the 90 day trial) and faced the problems that I initially looked over in my excitement of trying a ‘new toy’ out.
My theory is that all the positive reviews about Windows 8 are by Mac users. Most of the computer media people at theverge, engadget, TWIT… use Macs and they are the ones writing reviews of Windows 8. So, my theory is that since they don’t see it as something they actually need to use, they are looking at it like a new interesting different gadget that they play around with and it looks cool to them. If they actually replaced their Mac with Windows 8 I believe they would have the same experience you had.
In the end we may all end up jumping ship to Mac OS or Linux (if they go ahead with Metro in future versions and Windows 7 gets too long in the tooth)
Wow…you should be really modded up as that’s actually really insightful. Come to think of it I’ve noticed all the reviews seemed like…well the reviewers didn’t actually use Windows day to day so it came off more as someone playing with a new toy. They also almost always were playing with it on a touchscreen and frankly I’ve yet to meet a Windows user with a touchscreen, its just something that has never sold well. Finally I never read them trying to run serious Windows programs to see how the day to day was, like Quickbooks or Photoshop, it was always just fiddling with the built in apps.
So I think you may have nailed it friend, many in the media are Mac users and this is just them playing with a new toy, like handing someone who has never had one a new Android tablet.
In my opinion Windows 8 has about the worst “fit and finish” of any Windows version released in the last 20 years.
The Windows 8/Metro UI just doesn’t fit in alongside the traditional desktop. Using the two together has the feel of an unnatural Frankensteinian creation, patched together from different UIs designed for different purposes.
It’s much less consistent, both visually and functionally, than the mix of Classic and Aqua apps back in the early days of Mac OS X. And unlike that situation, Metro/Win8 is too limited to be a full replacement for the desktop. Because of that this inconsistent mix of user interfaces will hang around indefinitely, rather than just being a temporary issue as people transition from the old to the new.
Of course this isn’t a big issue if the only Win8/Metro component being used is the Start Screen, but Microsoft seem determined that this restrictive tablet interface is the future of the desktop OS. My main negative reaction to Windows 8 is down to the thought of eventually having to use crippleware full-screen mobile apps on my large screen mouse+keyboard desktop PC.
I disagree – Windows Vista had to be the worse; mixture of different elements, different ways the control panel items worked etc.
True; I think what they’re trying to do is create a Metro operating system where by the desktop is the optional extra rather than it being the other way around hence the feeling that the way the desktop operates is as though it is an uninvited guest that really doesn’t work well with how Metro operates. One wishes there was a way to fine tune things but alas it appears that Steven Sinofsky ‘knows best’.
Which is my biggest problem – I don’t think Metro will even be able to scale up to handle complex applications like Photoshop or Microsoft Office which leaves me asking what is Microsoft going to offer to desktop application developers? Yes I was lamenting the possible demise of the Mac Pro due to the long refresh cycle but at least one is still confident in Apple not doing something stupid of merging the two operating systems into a single entity. Cross pollination yes, merging no.
If the move is to kill of win32 and the desktop then God help those customers who are the enterprise, engineers, designers, office workers that integrate data from multiple software packages etc. I only hope that maybe this over attention on Metro is to make up for years of neglect when it comes to tablets and with Windows 9 we’ll see a more balanced focus back on desktop applications. I’m hopeful but realistic that Microsoft isn’t above making stupid decisions.
OT: I’m jealous of your confidence here. If I believed this I would have already bought a new MacBook (Pro) rather than struggling with finding another platform to move my daily use to when my iMac and old Macbook Pro finally give out in a few years..
While we’re here if anyone at Apple would even say that they are going to preserve Macintosh it would help some. Or spin off the Mac BU, in my dreams… /OT
Back on topic, I still plan to “upgrade” the Win7 on my touchscreen netbook (Lenovo Ideapad S10-3T (RIP)) to Win8 and see how it goes. I can always boot back over to Android if I have to long enough to reinstall.
Already addressed directly by Steve Jobs and Tim – both regarding touch interfaces on the desktop (Steve said no, it doesn’t make sense – great for demonstrates but crap in real life) and then further expanded where each platform will retain their uniqueness due to the specific task they’re designed to do based on the input equipment used (touch vs. mouse/touchpad and keyboard). The only people pushing this merging crap have been the likes of Peter Misek whose idiot customers pay for his ‘wisdom’ that is little more than pissing into a stream then basing ones investment strategy on the direction in which the said urine is dispersed in the water. Why anyone would listen to so-called ‘analysts’ for issues relating to technology is as stupid as going to a crystal ball gazer as to whether or not they should get their oil changed in their car – the top executives at Apple have been pretty candid about the direction, I’m more confident in listening to them over so-called speculators and analysts.
Edited 2012-08-17 16:39 UTC
This is why the OEMs need to get together and support ReactOS because that is what it will take to finally break free of MSFT. Imagine a desktop that can run Windows drivers, Windows programs, Dx11 games, and had your choice of XP or 7 DE by default but could run even KDE or GNOME if it suited your fancy.
Trying to RAISE the price of PCs in a dead economy like MSFT and Intel are doing is suicide, just look at how few of those ultrabooks are selling. I can tell you as a retailer the sweet spot you HAVE TO HIT if you want decent sales is the crucial $350-$550 price point and there is just no way to throw in a decent touchscreen at that price, just no way. And with margins razor thin as it is there is just no fat to trim to add a touchscreen and still hit the crucial price point required to move units.
In the end though I have a feeling its gonna be Vista all over again, where Dell trotted out Ubuntu units and started to advertise them…only for MSFT to cave and let Dell and everyone else continue to sell XP. I think like Vista you’ll see “Win 8 system…with Win 7 preinstalled!” and a Win 8 DVD sitting in the bottom of the box that everybody chunks and when ballmer fails yet again the board will end up getting him out of the big chair.
If they really want a shot at mobile they are gonna have to spin it off, trying to shoehorn a cellphone UI into an OS being used on HD widescreens? Just doesn’t work.
ReactOS or any clone would be a patent nightmare where as I’d sooner see a vendor take some of their cash and invest it into FreeBSD (stable driver API and ABI thus making closed sourced drivers realistic), implement OpenGL 4.3 in Mesa, replace Xorg, implement a system like upower/udisk/udev where the OS can talk to the desktop thus make mundane tasks such as mounting/unmounting volumes or installing new hardware a lot easier, then fund the movement of FreeBSD to LLVM/Clang along with the third party software sitting on top from other software projects. There needs to be a clean break but unfortunately we have vendors unwilling to look long term and invest money right now in unshackling themselves from Microsoft and dependency on the Windows release cycle as to boost sales.
Nothing wrong with pushing customers up the price point as long as you as a vendor can justify the extra price – right now Apple has no problems selling in this so-called ‘dead economy’ because lets get one thing straight, not every economy in the world is dead. Regarding touchscreens – they’re a fad on the desktop whose only real benefit is when one is using a tablet. It appears that once again we have Microsoft throw all the usability studies out the window in favour of focus group feedback and telemetric data that quite frankly mean nothing in the end but it appears that managers rely on said faulty information because it gives them something/someone to blame when things don’t turn out as expect (as we all knew was going to happen).
I think the biggest rebellion will be from third party desktop software developers wondering whether they’ve been abandoned by Microsoft through their lack of something to replace Win32 going forward. From an outsiders perspective you have a brand new shiny WinRT and Win32 more or less on life support thus doesn’t give one confidence about the future. Believe me, if I was Apple right now what I would be doing is investigating how one can speed up the refresh of the Mac Pro and bring it down in price, update OpenGL to 4.3, refresh the iMac, how to get some major engineering applications like Solidworks on Mac OS X and so on. This is the opportunity for Apple to really make hay whilst things are quickly turning to shit in the Windows world right now – the question is whether Apple can even be bothered taking advantage of that opportunity.
Why not just have Windows NT + WinRT with the desktop stripped out of it for the phone? why do desktop users have to put up with metro that really has no relevance on the desktop? why not have a ‘boot straight into desktop’ thus allow the traditional menu but warn end users that it would mean that they can’t launch Metro applications from it? I can’t wait to see the whole thing crash and burn because it would re-enforce what Steve Jobs said regarding the stupidity of merging two operating systems for two different devices that are targeted and different audiences, different uses and different ways of interacting with the device.
Edited 2012-08-20 02:55 UTC
Wait, but you just described how Windows 8 feels like. (bold text in the quote above) Jumping from non-Metro to Desktop and back from Desktop to non-Metro feels just that bad.
Windows 8 has a lot going on for it, especially in the performance department, but the user experience is a downgrade compared to Windows 7, unless you are happy with the limited UX from tablets.
Edited 2012-08-16 15:20 UTC
I have been quick to disagree with you in the past but I also want to show I can be just as rapid in agreement.
I also find it a pain in the wotsit that people vote one down instead of replying. I also don’t get the hysteria.
On the Windows 8 issue itself, I am genuinely undecided – but if what I have read on there being a $40 upgrade from Windows 7 Home Premium is true, why not just try it out? It’s not much more than the money I have voluntarily donated to Linux Mint in the recent-ish past, so it seems pretty reasonable on the face of it.
Keep posting, naysayers or no!
Unfortunately what I’ve seen online has gone from people disliking some aspects of Windows 8 to the almost fever pitched hysteria by some whose reaction is as though someone had just punched their mother. It is great to have disagreements and dislikes but I think the position by some regarding Windows 8 has blown the problems way out of proportion to the point that I don’t think many of these people have a clue on what they’re actually raging about – that is, the ability to clearly articulate the problems in a reasonable adult way besides resorting to an online hissy fit.
If I was a Windows user I really can’t understand what the hatred is regarding consistency – I mean, if one has put up with 20 years of inconsistency why is there suddenly an expectation in 2012 that after 20 years of it that Microsoft is suddenly going to clean up their GUI and deliver something better? I guess where I stand as a Mac user I spoilt a bit when it comes to the GUI but if I were a Windows user I’d upgrade without too many reservations.
Well, I am a bit of a hobbyist OS tramp so I am technically agnostic, and merely say what I see as someone who wants a smooth work experience.
In any case, just upgraded my trusty 4-year old Toshiba so I am prepared, at least hardware wise, to move up (requirements for 8 advertised as 7’s but always better to have some spare grunt).
Orf.
Mac also has its history of inconsistencies and weird UI decisions… (ejecting media by moving it into trash? Insisting for so long on that one-button-mouse silliness, and even the puck for some time?)
Anyway, Win9 might be very well adored, just like Vista SE “let’s use ‘lucky 7’ PR trick” is.
Here is the short list:
Infrequently used start menu items
Recent documents
Being forced to boot into the metro
VM hot spot problem
Poor organization of start menu items
And worst of all, the malware Metro screen that animates every time you want to do something simple like search or run a program from the start menu.
But if you spend all day in a browser then you won’t notice the difference.
You see, that’s the problem: we are Windows users and this one seems to be a release targeted at Mac users & demographics, that’s why we hate it so bad.
Well I admit I am tempted but they would have to go along way before I even consider trading in my iMac and MacBook for a Lenovo Thinkpad and ThinkStation running Windows 8. Unfortunately for Microsoft half baked seems to be in their blood and I don’t see it changing – where as Mac users will raise hell if an icon isn’t perfectly alined where as in the Windows world it seems that users are happy to allow 20 years of crappy inconsistency be passed off as ‘something to be addressed later’ but 20 years later not only never actually addressed but amplified in some cases – open up several core GUI components such as the device manager, mouse control panel and Internet Explorer to see what I mean.
Ahh, yes, reminds me what kind of POS Final Cut Pro always was… (NVM inconsistency – I’ve never been on an official Apple presentation where it wouldn’t crash at least once; just joked aside)
Also, WRT attention to detail: http://eugenia.queru.com/2009/04/11/stay-the-f–k-away-from-imovief…
(though I guess to me it’s also more than about sugar coating)
Edited 2012-08-23 00:15 UTC
Challenge accepted.
Oh Windows 8 how do I hate thee? let me count the ways: 1.- Tile UI quickly becomes a mess if you actually install any programs, 2.- Many of the “apps” (oh how I hate that word now) including those by MSFT are low res crap that looks bad even on my 1600×900 widescreen, 3.- Last one I used (CP, haven’t had a chance to try it in RTM) you had to fricking download a 200Mb “app” and wanted an XBL account to play freecell… it’s fricking freecell not an MMO! 4.-Without touch the UI is clunky as hell, 5.- Locking out the ability to just go to desktop means I’m trapped in TIFKAM (The Interface Formerly Known As Metro) whether i want it or not, 6.-Most of the under the hood changes could be trivially ported to Win 7 but I’m sure they won’t, 7.-The new “faster boot” is actually an ugly MSFT hack (hybrid boot) that will cause problems down the line I’m sure, 8.- The MSFT appstore makes GFWL look good, 9.- After installing more than a dozen programs TIFKAM goes so tile crazy that the only way to use the OS is to bypass TIFKAM using the keyboard making the whole new UI completely pointless, 10.-The “one app at a time” full screen garbage wastes too much space and the low res tablet UI design makes it look just nasty as it wastes my monitor.
That enough for ya? If I spend another 30 minutes in Windows “LOL Hai! I IZ A Cellphone now LOL!” I could probably add a dozen more but then I’d probably pull an Elvis on my monitor and I don’t want to buy a new one. As one of the poor bastards that will have to support this turkey (Although from the reaction of my customers the only “support” will be in the form of “Kill that ugly thing and put win 7 on!”) I’ll buy the $40 Win 8 Pro and run it in a VM just to learn how to fix the turd but that is gonna be about as pleasant as Vista with its constant “Cancel/Allow?” broken UAC mess.
My current laptop was bought after Windows 7 came out, but it has a Windows Vista license (Read: I bought a second-hand laptop). So, I am still running Vista Business.
If Microsoft comes through with the upgrade incentive in my country, I will gladly upgrade to Windows 8, at a fraction of the cost of buying a new license.
I tried the RP ISO and was able to make it work for me by doing the following:
1. Uninstalled all the Metro apps.
2. Learned a few new keyboard shortcuts.
3. Installed Vistart.
I can live with seeing the new startup menu before clicking on the Desktop icon.
Granted, if my current laptop came with Windows 7, I would be sticking with that.
Well I’ve tried it on around a half dozen machines here at the shop so I’m probably pretty well qualified to give a pretty unbiased review so here goes:
Is the device a netbook? Say 10 to 12 inches? If so Win 8 will work just fine since your small screen won’t really allow more than one thing at a time anyway. Touchscreen on it? Even better. Do you rarely install more than a half a dozen programs? if so TIFKAM (The Interface Formerly Known As Metro….thanks El Reg posters) won’t drive you batty with its clutter. Only use one program at a time? Preferably on a screen 15 inches or less? Ditto.
For everyone else? RUN. Run as fast as you can and grab a copy of Win 7 and hang onto it like a fatty hangs onto the last piece of chicken at a buffet because TIFKAM will make you want to pull an Elvis on your PC. More than a half a dozen programs and the TIFKAM UI becomes this giant tiled mess, so bad that its often easier to use the Winkey and type what you want rather than slog through it, the few “advantages” I’ve seen so far are just cheats, such as the “faster boot” which is really just a form of hibernate, it feels like you have to fight the whole OS to do any task, and the TIFKAM “apps” are just pathetic and are quite obviously just a way for MSFT to further monetize you with an appstore.
If you do get stuck with Win 8 for some reason use a program like Classic Shell to kill TIFKAM like Raid kills bugs, dead, but even then frankly you’ll have a worse experience than Win 7. The fact that Win 7 Pro is $140 while Win 8 Pro is $40 should tell you what kind of stinker it is, they are practically giving it away. Its a mess folks and as someone who has used every MSFT OS since Win3.x I think its the worst OS they’ve ever had, even worse than WinME which could be hacked to fix or Vista which wasn’t bad once UAC was turned off.
That’s not really how unbiased tests are set up, one tester (the same person as the ~researcher) on many machines…
Yup. Same here. But don’t worry… I tried the release preview and trust me, you’re not missing much. Except maybe getting pissed off and banging your head against the wall at the stupidity of the interface if you attempt to run it on a machine with a normal screen, keyboard and mouse.
Is there anything you really need that it does noticably faster or better than Windows 7?
Going from XP or Vista to 7 is a move I can understand. Going from 7 to 8 .. not so much.
Ideas?
Well, there’s a little more to Windows 8 than Metro:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_8
Granted, this isn’t mind-blowing stuff, and you can get most of this functionality with 3rd party apps, but for a $40 upgrade, I’ll probably bite. At least it’s a few less apps I’ll have to install, and I’m sure there’ll be a few interesting apps for Metro… er, I mean Windows 8 over time
If it’s not any slower than Windows 7, I think it’ll do all right. If you install a launcher or something, you’ll never have to look at Metro once you’re booted into classic.
I will definitely be doing the $40 upgrade from Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 8 Pro.
Hyper-V, Remote Desktop host, and Bitlocker FVE are well worth the upgrade price for me.
I think a more telling list is this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_8
Especially the removal of WMC and gadgets as this lets them turn right around and charge you for what was once a free part of the OS, no different than how game devs will rip pieces of the finished product out and turn right around and sell it as “on disc DLC”.
Also if you used the “previous versions” feature in Vista or 7 be advised you will HAVE to have a shared drive on another system to use the feature in Win 8, as it will no longer work on local drives…yay. take good ideas and break them, thanks MSFT.
Media Center comes free with the $40 upgrade. And gadgets? Who the hell uses those? Besides, Metro is like one big gadget, if you’re into that kind of thing
Well, looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_8 the only thing on that whole list that matters to me is faster boot, nothing else; I don’t care about integration with Microsoft-accounts, about Windows Store, the new family safety – features or anything else on that list. Increased performance wasn’t mentioned on that list and that’s the second thing that matters to me. Basically, not much.
But really, you should look at that list and see if there is anything that matters to you. No one else can quite tell you what you need or don’t need.
In a reply to myself: it actually seems Windows 8 isn’t an upgrade over Windows 7 even performance-wise, atleast according to various benchmarks. http://www.techspot.com/review/561-windows8-vs-windows7/ was a good read if anyone else happens to be interested.
Not sure it needs to be – “clean” & bug-free are probably more important, and Win7 is plenty fast enough on any sensible system.
With “performance” in general, there’s probably plenty of ~placebo going on – why would computers be immune to such http://news-service.stanford.edu/pr/2008/pr-wine-011608.html effects?
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Mouse_vs._keyboard/index.html – this seems like one of them. Or note how many people swore by trackpoints, but rigours of actual research seem to suggest that touchpads are superior: some examples linked in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick#Comparison_with_touchpa… (conversely, note how the views and links supportive of trackpoint seem to be “subjective opinion” in character) & http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18522893 external link.
(and I even personally do like trackpoints, I’m used to the concept; but…)
Once I even tested an overclocker buddy, who claimed big noticeable improvements …thing is, in a controlled test, he wasn’t able to reliably tell when the CPU was clocked at half the speed; his guesses were not statistically better than chance.
You don’t use multiple monitors?
The new multi-monitor taskbar is, by itself, worth $20. That’s what third-party taskbars sell for — and they aren’t as good. (Not necessarily out of any fault of theirs, but owing to the fact that developers will test against the built-in Windows taskbar, but not against third-party add-ons.)
Be advised Werecatf that the “faster boot” is an ugly hack that could cause problems down the line. The way it works is it does NOT actually do a clean boot but instead loads the kernel and userland in a hibernate file at the front of the drive and from what I’ve seen unless you pull the plug or battery it doesn’t do a full RAM flush either, but instead does more of a hybrid sleep kinda thing.
Its a pretty ugly looking hack and if your OS gets flaky it’ll be that much harder to get a true clean boot. No telling what those extra I/Os are gonna do as far as wear and tear if you go SSD either. That said at $40 I’ll pick up a copy of Pro just in the off chance I run into a program that requires Win 8 for some reason but I’m advising my customers that they’d be better off picking up one of the Win 7 Family Packs where you get 7 HP for $40 a copy for 3 installs and then if they need XP Mode simply use Virtualbox.
It’s also a fast boot into metro.
You mean TIFKAM, The Interface Formerly Known As Metro? Well you can kill it like Raid kills bugs with Classic Shell friend.
That said the ONLY reason i’m getting a copy is because its cheap and I’ll end up having to repair the retarded mess so having a version in a VM would probably be smart but for my day to day? Windows 7 is a little slice of heaven.
While that’s true, it’s still much cleaner than hibernation, as most users practice it. That’s because the user session is logged out before the system is hibernated for hybrid boot.
It’s been my experience that full restarts are rarely necessary to clear state. People just do it habitually, but logoff-logon will usually do the trick.
Also note that many driver changes and Windows Updates will still trigger a full reboot. Thus, they’re not throwing away clean boots entirely. They’re just reducing the frequency to roughly once per month.
Practically nothing. There’s no write amplification from the sector size mismatch, because the hibernation file is written sequentially in one large block.
In any case, SSD “range anxiety” has long ago been debunked as exaggerated. If you’re running a transactional database for a web server, then you should worry about SSD lifetime. If you’re just using a computer as a normal user — or even a power user — then you have little to worry about.
Thus far, the track record of SSDs suggests that they’re much more likely to suffer a controller failure or experience a firmware glitch than hit the flash lifetime.
Worrying about flash lifetime is like driving to the airport and worrying about dying in a plane crash. The drive is more dangerous than the airplane ride.
As a consultant I want to get some skills in,
– WinRT
– C++/CX
So yeah, I will eventually get it.
Could someone check the status on PAE/NX requirement this time around and report back?
Here’s the official story:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh975398.a…
PAE/NX/SSE2 are enforced requirements now.
Interesting that PAE is mandatory which will probably mean that any drivers targeting Windows x86 and looking for certification will have to be PAE compatible – I wonder what pushed that, customers wanting to keep with Windows x86 but needing support for more than 4GB?
PAE is enforced as many companies still have to work with 16bit PLC devices with correspongind software and the 64bit systems does not support that. So this is just a way to enforce that the drivers are compatible with PAE. You might say that dosbox or some virtualization might do the trick, and indeed in some cases it will, but some devices and industrial hardware indeed need direct contact.
It is not only about the ram size, but also about the exact placement of registers available with old un-updated software (Siemens, i hate you for being the biggest culprit in this) in direct access to the named industrial hardware. In PAE 32+extra bits the initial bits for the conventional memory is in the same place, in a x64bit system this is not always the case.
Have a lovely day.
Thanks for the information – I’m really suprised that they don’t have a custom system from the ground up with custom hardware where as what it seems is a hodge-podge of off the hardware with a butchered installation of Windows
The cost savings from this approach are enormous.
Besides, hardware companies are rarely good at writing software. The “butchered installation of Windows” might actually be better than whatever they’ll come up with.
Well, it’s not available via MSDN-AA yet.
EDIT: Well, Ars says that it’ll take time for it to propagate through all of Microsoft’s mirrors, so that may be why.
Edited 2012-08-16 03:21 UTC
Here is an very high level overview of the new APIs available to developers.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/desktop/hh920512
I’ve installed the W8 preview release on a spare laptop and I didn’t particularly like it. It gave me no reason whatsoever to move from W7 or OS X. When you are trying to do something as clean&simple as Metro, sorry, Windows 8 interface, there is a fine line between clean&simple and simplistic. In my opinion many of the built-in W8 apps cross that line.
Even more, after a couple of days the W8 PR laptop would only boot into a black screen and I had to put W7 back on it just 3 days into the trial.
So thanks, but no, thanks.
Edited 2012-08-16 10:12 UTC
>> “As far as I can tell – it’s a bit unclear – the trial version cannot be upgraded to a final version a few months down the line.”
One of the first bullet points on the page linked to in the summary says “The evaluation edition will expire and cannot be upgraded.” Seems pretty clear. If you run the evaluation provided and you decide to purchase Win8 later, you’ll have to perform a fresh install.
Yes, but it’s followed by: “To upgrade, the evaluation must be uninstalled and a non-evaluation version of Windows must be re-installed from your original installation media.”
…which made me think of the original installation media – which, at this point, is Windows 7.
Unless you buy a original Windows 8 medium I guess.
Still, it’s a bit weird the mighty Microsoft can’t code something that allows you to turn a time limited demo in to a full product, because well, it already is a full product with a timer.
My guess is the timer is made so hacker proof that it just can’t be removed/deactivated without blowing up the computer.
Yeah it’s ridiculous. I mean, why not just offer up a enter-your-serial when the 90 days run out? Shouldn’t be too hard.
Talking of which, has anyone noticed that Microsoft has improved the serial number entry process over the years?
It would be even better if it also had auto correct. If you make a mistake entering the code it would correct it for you.
I miss the times when a Windows serial made up of only 1’s would work.
I dunno, the change-your-serial-number interface still seems to be present. I don’t know if it works, because I don’t have any serial numbers to test with. But it may very well work with a serial number for the Enterprise SKU.
The problem may be that there is an upgrade mechanism, but no downgrade mechanism. Enterprise is the highest edition of Windows — it’s essentially Ultimate plus a bunch of enterprise-only features.
Is anything ever truly hacker proof though?
Well, someone will probably post a tool on The Pirate Bay disabling the timer.
Doubtless, though imagine the lowish price for upgrades might encourage a lot more to go legit and probably roll in more cash for MS than otherwise.
A low price probably will make more people go ligit.
But even 99 cent apps get cracked and downloaded by many people.
Though crackers don’t need to worry about support calls, disabled machines – for them, 99% success rate is a reason for celebration; for MS, that would be a disaster.
Women and social relations come to mind
If you didn’t know this is why Secureboot is required of OEMs, as it allows the BSA to catch pirates easier. If you go to TPB and look up “Win 7 all versions pre-activated” you’ll see that thanks to the bootloader hack they have had a version of Win 7 that passes WGA for a couple of years now, it even greys out the Windows Update that would upgrade WGA and catch it, pretty slick those pirates.
Personally I think the whole thing is retarded because even a humble PC repairman could wipe out Windows piracy in the west in a week. watch how easy it is to wipe out piracy…Win Starter $35, Home $50, Pro and Family Packs $100. with those prices nobody would bother to pirate and that would cover every use case, from those on older P4s that need to get off XP to those that are building their own systems. I know they are currently selling Win 8 pro for $40 but that’s a time limited deal like they did with Win 7, whereas my plan would kill piracy dead.
I’m fairly certain “original” in this case means unique, not previous.
I find it interesting MS claims Windows 8 will run on any hardware which supports 7. My hardware came with 7 pre-installed and Win8 won’t boot on it.
Yeah, I’ve also seen some hardware-related bugs. For example, the motherboard on my home-built machine causes a timeout during Windows 8 setup. You can successfully complete the install after it times out, and Windows 8 will run just fine — but you’ve got to wait 15 minutes first.
What they probably mean is that the hardware meets the minimum system requirements for Windows 8. There may be driver incompatibilities that will have to wait for the hardware manufacturers to catch up on.
I’d expect compatibility to be about as good as Vista-to-7. Not perfect, but a whole lot better than XP-to-Vista.
It’ll still have to be wiped as Win 7 won’t be able to upgrade and keep the Win 8 apps. Its not really surprising as frankly the few times I’ve seen an upgrade from Vista to 7 tried it ended up a flaky mess so it’d probably be better to just clean install it anyway.
I would do a real upgrade instead; installing linux
I will not waste my time or money on windows.
“Where is the power off button?” roflol
Why down-vote this person? Too many Winblows lovers here, isn’t it?
I agree with what you said, so I up-voted you.
f–k Windows, Linux for life.
Edited 2012-08-17 17:47 UTC
Yeahh….
Linux is great. For me, I use Visual Studio 2010 every day for my education needs. I could run linux and write php, sadly if I did, then there would be no help from my school at all… No support.
As I said. Linux is great. Sadly there is no vs for linux. So I need to run win7.
I use Win7, VS2010, SQL 2008r2 enterprise, photoshop cs4 and so on… So… Win8 is bad for my computer.
I’ll stick with Win7.
You know, those things will likely run without issues under Win8 too…
You’re quite disconnected with reality, little child (seriously, “Winblows”?), if you think the problem of this site is too many Windows lovers (hence presumably also too few OSS circle-jerkers).
And “Linux for life” sounds a bit like a sentence…
Edited 2012-08-23 00:11 UTC
Yeah, because present primary Linux DEs are so much better… (the one primarily used in ~serious scenarios also moving away from power button, maybe even pioneering that)
For most people, Windows is likely less costly – they just get it with new machines, which is used until it dies & with the same Windows version, anyway.
First thought was to pass Windows 8 due to its dreadful interface on desktop but as I gave it another thought I’ve realized it is easy to hack Windows 8 and write and add-on to provide classic start menu & interface.
So when someone will release such an add-on either for free or for 5-30€, I will be happy to switch.
In fact I didn’t research but after a quick google I’ve found: http://www.howtogeek.com/107711/how-to-get-the-classic-start-menu-b… so I will probably switch to Windows 8.
Just found a good and free start menu alternative for windows 8:
https://code.google.com/p/power8/
Well, one good thing can be said about Windows 8:
Task Manager is the best task-manager-style-app I’ve ever seen or used on a PC:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Win8_TM_compilation.p…
Aside from that, the windows store might be a nice thing to publish and get apps, but it’ll have it’s own problems as android and appstore do…
After working with Windows 8 for a month or so, the bottom line for me is that Windows 8 is ill-suited to conventional desktops and laptops. While it might be great for touch capable tablets and net appliances (which I don’t have broad experience with yet,) I truly believe the masses will find its interface befuddling and non-intuitive on the majority of PCs. Sorry Microsoft. I’m not sure why Microsoft thought that 17 years of Windows customers’ familiarity with traditional WIMP / conventional desktop would just be easily tossed aside in favor of Metro (or whatever they’re calling it these days.) My recommendation to folks who ask my advice will be to stick with Windows 7 and hope that Microsoft comes to its senses with Windows 9.
True.
Metro is suited for tablets. I want one of those microsoft tablets that they showed off…
Anyway.
Win8 SHOULD have had a feature, where it detects if the hardware is a computer or a tablet.
If it’s a laptop/desktop, then metro could be a type of app launcher, just like mediacenter is.
If the hardware is a tablet, then the normal old fashioned desktop, should be beleted up on installation, leaving you with no way of running conventional software. Yes you would be stucked with metro apps only.
Then again. Metro IS the desktop, that microsoft want’s you to have on windows8.
Again… It would be stupid to have a conventional gui, on a nokia lumia phone. Just look how it went with the older phone os’s from ms. Allmost everyone bought nokia and sony ericsson…..
Or something like that. Just not with Windows mobile os 6 and down.
I just don’t see, why they want us to have a sort of windows phone 7 experience, when we want to be productive. That’s not going to work in some way or another. Just as if apple wanted osx to look and feel like a clone/mix/something ios look a like on a macbook or imac.
Good for who?
Well… Good for tablet owners/buyers.
I will not run it on my laptop though.
Only reason for me to buy a win8 tablet, is when vs2012 is out….. Why win8 first???
Why ohhh why? I want vs2012 NOW.
The only reason I was interested in Windows 8 was due to the optimizations under the hood which made it run smooth on older hardware. However, because of the PAE/NX nonsense (security reasons, my a..), my Pentium M laptops are unable to run it.
So I will be passing on Windows 8. The Metro UI is utterly flawed. It doesn’t bring anything new and exciting to the user, other than moronic restrictions.
Edited 2012-08-19 17:05 UTC
Would you stop beating that dead horse? Intel is the one who you should blame for your small (it’s not like the laptops will stop working) issue.
The benefits of supporting such old (and pretty much purposefully castrated by Intel) chips don’t justify the effort, when virtually all Windows OS are “sold” with new machines.
Edited 2012-08-23 00:05 UTC