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Download Now: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso
Welcome to the Windows 8 Megathread. Windows 8 is right on time, and should be expected around October 2012. Read on to find out more.
Perhaps the most talked debated feature of 8 is the new start menu.
The new start menu isn't a menu at all. In fact, it's a screen! That's right, the start menu now takes up your entire display, not just the little 400x600 area it took up before.
Many people seem to have the idea that this is the new desktop and they don't like it. It's not true! Your traditional desktop is an icon on the start screen, only a click away.
The new start screen also allows you to also launch new applications, commonly called "Metro Style" applications. These applications are full screen immersive applications - think of them as apps on a tablet, phone, whatever. These applications do not have to be touch first, however. Many metro applications work just as well with a keyboard and mouse. For example, the popular game "Cut The Rope" was modified to be a Metro application that works just as well with a touch screen as well as a mouse.
But to get to this new start screen, you must log in. There is a new way to log into windows.
Instead of the traditional logon you are greeted with a full sized picture, along with the time and a few live feeds of information. To log in, you simply tap the spacebar (or swipe from the bottom, if you have a touch device) to enter your password and / or go to the start screen. You also have the option to enter a picture password, where you can perform different gestures over a photo to login.
The next cool feature in Windows 8 is "System Refresh/Reset".
System Refresh allows you to do a format of your computer while keeping most of your data intact - your metro style applications, your files, documents, etc. It unfortunately does not keep your desktop apps.
System Reset allows you to do a complete format and restores your computer back to its out-of-box state. (Tip: You can actually create the image it uses to reset. So you can install all your games, etc and set that as the image). It's useful when you want to keep nothing - or have everything backed up to your SkyDrive account (And we'll get into that later as well).
On the desktop side of things, the Ribbon has been added to Explorer.
Don't be afraid, it looks like a waste of space, but in fact it actually fits more on the screen that the old Explorer window did. The buttons in the ribbon are useful for both computer noobs and power users alike. If you don't like it, collapse it. Simple as that. After trying it out I have found it incredibly useful.
Task manager has also been updated, providing a more detailed view to your running processes and applications - including graphs and statistics.
There is a new "file history" system to keep your files backed up - similar to Apple's Time Capsule.
There is also a new integration with Windows Skydrive - you get 25GB of storage space for whatever you want - great for backing up files before a format or just to be safe from data loss.
A webcam app is included by deafult. Exciting.
Portable Workspaces are a new feature for enterprise editions - allowing people to take their computer anywhere they go on a 32GB+ flash drive. If it can boot from a flash drive, they can use their computer on it.
There are many other small things added into Windows 8 - changes have been made so that your computer boots faster, shuts down faster, has a longer battery life, and many other performance improvements. Since Microsoft's antitrust agreement has expired, many features, such as an Antivirus program (more detail below) and a PDF reader, are now available out of the box.
A built in-antivirus, Windows Defender, now is included by default. (Windows Defender used to be only an anti-spyware application, but it has been expanded to be a full antivirus program - likely based off of the highly successful Microsoft Security Essentials.
Windows 8 went RTM (released to manufacturers, including partners like HP) on August 1st. Expect to see it hitting shelves on October 26th, 2012.
The Release Preview is available on Microsoft's website. See http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso for more info.
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I won't be buying this, the new start menu and stuff is incredibly unuseful and ugly. I see no reason to actually downgrade to this.
(User was banned for this post ("Trolling" - verynicelady))
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Thanks for bringing something meaningful to this discussion.
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Yes, the performance upgrades are absolutely useless with that entirely optional UI.
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Then why bother posting in a thread for it?
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Just stating my opinion on it and winding up some fanboys.
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oh cool a new thread
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So you're trying to start something? That is in some places known as trolling, you know.
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Which is a bannable offence.
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I actually find it quite useful. The new Start button and Metro Style makes my workspace neater and easier to use. If you don't like it, then what's the point in posting?
On the subject, I will definitely be buying a tablet PC. Windows 8 has blown me away. At first i thought the UI was a joke. But I then realised it's a nice alternative to all these glass-looking GUI's, and isn't that bad after all
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Thanks for making the new thread Panda - I would have done it but I've been so busy I haven't had the chance :)
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I would've asked but didn't figure I could have contacted you quickly and last time everyone fought to make. Would've been nice though since you always make better OPs.
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Thank you Panda for making a new thread. I will bookmark this one now on my browser so I can track it. The layout you made for the First post is rather classy, I like it. Nice and organized with the culmination of all the gathered relevant information about Windows 8 without having to rummage through dozens of pages of content in the old Megathread.
I would also like to formally thank you for your efforts put into gathering research for the old thread, and being such a supporter of Windows 8, despite all the hard-asses that cant understand how change works.
I look forward to new media and the public beta release later this month.
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Am I one of the few that likes the metro UI, and probably will use it?
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I doubt there will be a lot of apps that will make use of it, that aren't games or things I would never use anyway. But as new start menu, I certainly will. The... launcher thingy in Ubuntu 11.10 is kind of similar, although I don't like how software you haven't installed also shows up there.
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Considering it's also going to be a tablet OS, I don't see any reason why there won't be any developer support. The absolute worst that could occur is that you have a bunch of mobile-focused apps that you can download on your desktop.
It all depends on the marketing push. If Windows 8 is everywhere, and W8 tablets flood the market, it's simply going to be that there will be a lot of support for both Metro and desktop.
Still, it's hard to ignore any direction Microsoft decides to take Windows. It's still the most visible OS on the market, and they have a lot of say in where both consumers and developers are looking.
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Considering how many people use Windows and how many people develop for Windows and taking in to consideration both the tablet and desktop markets I'd bet there'd be a good many of apps available for it.
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Yes, but I also meant how none of those would be useful to me. For one because I rarely work full-screen, and because I can't imagine any advantages of applications that use the Metro UI over normal desktop applications.
Personally, that is. I don't mind having it, I just doubt it will be of any use to me.
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I know that the start menu can be disabled in Windows 8 right now in favour of the old Windows 7 start menu, but will this be possible in the final release? I quite enjoy the new features Windows 8 brings but having used the Developer Preview, this is the only features I don't want as a desktop-only user.
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This is this guys' take on what steam may look like using the metro ui.
I think it looks pretty good.
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Is there any real reasons to upgrade if you're a desktop user? Seems to me like it's all about the tablet experience.
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New file system incoming improves on data corruption handling and fault handling.
New process model that emphasizes sleeping processes so the CPU can truly sleep when idle.
Vastly lowered memory footprint.
Even more R&D into UI thread priority, in general the GUI will be fast and slick regardless of CPU load.
Reworked networking components for WiFi reconnects before the display even resumes.
Integrated generic Windows drivers for 3G/4G, USB radio cards will be fast and easy.
New redundant and multi-device storage options for high volumes of data.
Generally faster boots and sleeps/resumes (ties into sleeping processes and cutting down on memory/service processes).
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Memory footprint seems about on par with my Windows 7 installation. I see no difference with my 2GB of RAM.
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And a vastly improved task manager, file transfer dialog, explorer, etc
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all they need to do it throw away aero, and use linux's KDE instead...
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But KDE is awful looking.
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And is pretty ressource hungry
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Oh, dear lord, no. GNOME was at least a solid competitor to Aero, but KDE is god-awful.
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yes just throw away aero and slap KDE on top of windows!!
how do i computer?
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But MS should do away with Aero, the whole glass in GUI is just so superficial, and glass GUI's are getting out of fashion now (except for Apple's OSX, but then again deviantart teens love that stuff and they are the target demographic if their commercials are anything to judge by).
Edited:
I always liked the look of various Linux distros, minus the very recent ones that made them fugly.
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I think glass themes can look nice. It's just that the default Aero isn't.
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I think making glass UI's good is difficult. There's a reason OSX only uses glass for one item pretty much.
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Took me 1 and a half years to make mine.
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My bigger issue with aero is that it has those absolutely massive borders everywhere. In a way that's what I love on metro the lack of them. I know where a window ends, I don't need the system scream at me with a massive border where it is.
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linux distros have always been pretty gross looking. they still are pretty gross looking but at least they're trying now
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Just use rainmeter I suppose if you want something to look KDE-ish
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I tried to make some (mockups of) themes several times. It's really, really hard to get something nice.
Only one I was able to tolerate besides Aero was Soft7, but some of his changes made me start liking it less and less.
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I found the best way to make a theme is just start making stuff even if you hate it and revise it until you have a better idea of what'll work and can start to see the idea come to life in your head.
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Didn't matter as much back then because Linux users had a brain and knew how to modify their UI. Now that the usability on Linux is on par with Windows though, the target demographic is different and they have to work a bit more on the presentation side of thing (Ubuntu is helping a lot with this with proper documentation, good forums, etc.) which is why so many improvements are recently happening.
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