Microsoft Windows 8: Mostly A Crap Wreck

[Kano]

I did not test W8 that long to get used to Metro, it is also no real fun when your testsystem has got only a 1280x1024 tft and Metro wants 1366x768 to display more than 1 app the same time. If you try it on a system with less than 1024x768 then Metro apps do not start at all, so be sure that many netbook users will not upgrade If you see it only as start menu then this does not matter, it is not really a nice menu for mouse users, but you can use the keyboard to search. You should learn some keyboard shortcuts when you dont use a tablet anyway, using a mouse only is not optimal. I definitely prefer KDE but if you have to help others with win issues then you should know how it works as this will be the default soon.

What is really interesting are the hw requirements, UEFI for W8 logo could give a boost using that for Linux as well. On Linux there are really tricky things you can do with UEFI, i like the Linux stub support to boot it directly as boot option. I have got no fear about secure boot, most likely just a setup option far away. But: some boards (and more fun: laptops) are out there that can stop booting with just playing around with UEFI boot options. A cmos clear does not help at all now, as everything is stored in the eeprom now. I got a replacement bios chip for my asus z68 board recently as it stopped booting after changeing the boot order, but thats another story

[RealNC]

Ah, now I know what the inspiration for Ubuntu is. I think the next Ubuntu will nail it and look *exactly* like Windows 8.

[kraftman]

Ah, now I know what the inspiration for Ubuntu is. I think the next Ubuntu will nail it and look *exactly* like Windows 8.

Do you think they like shooting themselves in the feet? If they're sane they shouldn't even look at it.

[Cyborg16]

I do that for any win installs as i always have got Linux on my hd(s) as well. So instead comparing "bootspeed" you should better compare suspend2disk speed

Thanks for clearing that up. Reminded myself how unfamiliar with Windows I am now by booting my Windows 7 machine yesterday and wondering why it took so long for something to happen when I clicked on an icon.

Decent article, but lots of mention that "Metro is crap" without really explaining why.

[e8hffff]

Decent article, but lots of mention that "Metro is crap" without really explaining why.

1.) it's horrible looking
2.) it's clunky
3.) it's not as efficient as normal windowing system
4.) it will take major changes to improve it, changes people didn't want, don't want, since WinXP/NT

I use Kubuntu, so I can't discuss Unity changes.

[bug77]

One thing: Why do you use a DVD to install? If you use a recent system with UEFI you can simply put the content of the iso onto a fat32 usb key and boot it via UEFI mode. If you formatted the usb key using diskpart on win it would boot in mbr mode as well, if you formatted it on Linux you can simply use any bootloader of your choice with chainload support - for grub2 you use

ntldr /bootmgr
boot

for syslinux (syslinux.cfg) you use

default chain.c32 hd0,1 ntldr=/bootmgr

The UEFI boot trick does not work directly with W7 as you need to replace the bootx64.efi first (the default does not work with fat32). One other tricky thing is you can try with a FAST usb key/hd is Win8 to Go:

http://tweaks.com/windows/52279/how-to-create-a-windows-to-go-usb-drive/

The funny thing is: you dont need imagex, you can use 7z on linux as well to extract, but you still need to run bcdboot on win (maybe you can get the 32 bit version running with wine, no idea). It worked relatively well to boot from the usb key on different systems, just too slow with my old 16 gb usb key

With such user friendliness, I wonder how come there aren't many children using Linux

[ElderSnake]

One thing about the "bootspeed": it would be very wise to disable hibernate support when you want to use dual/multiboot. W8 is not booted the normal way usually, it is just suspended. Poweroff is now a synonym for suspend 2 disk until you do (in cmd with admin rights):

powercfg -h off

I do that for any win installs as i always have got Linux on my hd(s) as well. So instead comparing "bootspeed" you should better compare suspend2disk speed

Ha ha!

So that's why it's "boot speed" is so good. It's not even booting the way we expect >.>

I'd say Microsoft were "cheating" but, if it works, well so be it. Thanks for that info Kano. I now know why my Windows 8 refuses to shutdown.

Everytime I'm finished with my computer I basically have to "restart" it and just press the power button once it hits the BIOS so it turns off completely. "Shut down", funnily enough, does the exact same thing as Sleep in my case... i.e it doesn't do anything, it just returns to the login screen. Obviously something isn't right with my install whether it be a bug or a hardware incompatibility, but now I know why Shut down and Sleep do the same thing

EDIT: yes I know Sleep is probably suspend2ram and suspendtodisk (i.e hibernate and in this case, "shutdown") is different but I guess my Windows 8 just won't "suspend" full stop.

[ultimA]

I just thought I'd share my own personal experiances with Win8 CTP too. I'm a dual-booter and I develop applications in C/C++ for Linux and (mostly) in C# for Windows. I also use both OSs very actively as a user, not just as a developer. So as a (partially) Windows developer, I of course wanted to get earlier experiences with the new OS than my users

From a user point of view, the only thing that set me back was also the Metro UI. I absolutely share my views with Michael here, the new UI is good for phones and tablets but a PITA for the desktop for me. I've also found myself often switching back and forth between the classic desktop and the Metro UI, which made the whole thing even worse. In case you're wondering, no, Metro and the classic desktop are not integrated with each other: You have to switch around using a special key combination if you actively use applications in both UIs, because Metro requires specially written applications to fully support it. You can also switch around using the mouse, but it took me literally minutes until I've finally found out how to go from Metro to my desktop. Anyway I'm surely going to avoid Metro as a user for now. On a separate note, I can second Windows 8's fast boot speed.

As a developer, I wasn't expecting many breaking changes since on Windows I'm mainly devloping in C#. Though as XP->Vista and .Net CLR2->CLR4 migrations have both shown on multiple occasions, it is still possible to break .Net apps on system updates. Anyway, Win8 CTP was a pleasant surprise in this respect, since this time I had zero problems "porting" (well I can hardly call it porting if I had nothing to do ). The only thing I had to adjust was one of my InnoSetup installers. Of course applications developed for earlier Windows systems will not integrate with Metro (for that you'd have to start your UI programming anew from scratch as a developer), but they at least seem to work flawlessly for the desktop mode of Win8. Not just with my own apps, I also had no problems installing and using other applications from the internet. So a plus here for MS for keeping good compatibility with Windows 7.

There is one thing though that I'd like to point out in Michaels article when he writes something like "Aside from some niche device areas and graphics drivers, the level of Linux hardware support is largely comparable to that of Windows." I wouldn't like to start a flame war here so I'm not going to elaborate on that (except if somebody explicitly asks me to), but I'd do like to mention that even though I'm a happy Linux user and all my HW works on Linux *currently*, I find Michaels original statement misleading.

[kernelOfTruth]

anyone who had windows 8 installed tried to copy over around 10+ GB of data from one partition to another (or different harddrive) ?

when doing this with windows 7 all multi-tasking comes to a grinding halt

it may have been firefox' issue but I doubt that, would be interesting if they improved the i/o scheduler, too or again only some minor changes here and there and lots of publicity

at least next time I'll try it with chrome but I doubt that this would make a difference

[e8hffff]

You'd need to turn off standby image mode to test real boot modes, as the trick maybe to create a sleep/standby image when shutting down sot hat it just loads the image when booting. This is not a desirable mode for IT people as it can churn over faults into other sessions.