Windows 8 Release Preview Now Available To Download 363
MrSeb writes "Microsoft has announced the immediate availability of Windows 8 Release Preview. Unfortunately there isn't a Consumer Preview > Release Preview upgrade path — you'll have to format and perform a clean installation. After downloading the ISO, simply burn Windows 8 RP onto a USB stick or DVD, reboot, and follow the (exceedingly quick and easy) installer. Alternatively, if you don't want to format a partition, ExtremeTech has a guide on virtualizing Windows 8 with VirtualBox. After a lot of fluster on the Building Windows 8 blog, the Release Preview is actually surprisingly similar to the Consumer Preview. Despite being promised a new, flat, Desktop/Explorer UI, Aero is still the default theme in Windows 8 RP. The tutorial that will introduce new users to the brave new Start buttonless Windows 8 world is also missing. Major features that did make the cut are improved multi-monitor support — it's now easier to hit the hot corners on a multi-monitor setup, and Metro apps can be moved between displays — and the Metro version of IE10 now has a built-in Flash plug-in. There will be no further pre-releases of Windows 8: the next build will be the RTM."
Re:Linux on the desktop, now? (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows 7 is still good, and it's the next "XP" - the version Enterprise customers will be keeping until Microsoft finally shuts the doors on it, so we have a good 10 years or so left - and Microsoft has time to pull its collective head out of its collective ass and being back a GUI that makes sense in a desktop world.
If the Linux world can deliver an operating system that won't give my mother fits to use, maybe it can make inroads while Microsoft tries to shove WinMetro down people's throats, but I gave up holding my breath for that years ago.
Nothing new here (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly Linux won't take over anything (at least not now). Think Longhorn revolt followed by the success of W7. You gotta take a shot in the dark sometimes and if this turns out to be a ton of crap, they'll listen and go back to what's right. That's generally been the way MS has done things.
Microsoft Vanishing From Average Person's Life (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course Microsoft will still get the massive number of automatic installs due to their lock on OEMs and corporations locked into Microsoft tech, but for every single person I know Microsoft has become a non-entity in their lives.
Over the past few years it has rapidly become cellphones and tablets. No one goes home after work to sit in front of their computer checking their email and webbrowsing. They do that all day long now on their Android phones and tablets or iPhones and iPads. Ten years ago I would hear all the time about what computer someone was planning on buying or what they were doing with their computer. Now it is all about what Android or Apple cellphone or tablet to buy. And in the rare occasion someone actually does talk about buying a new computer it is almost universally a Mac to replace their old Windows machine.
Experiment then refinement... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a lot of people are missing a few really smart choices it would appear Microsoft is intentionally making. First, they realize that corporate customers like their long term anchor software. They have done that with Windows 7 as the successor to XP as frequently mentioned. Second I think they are going to a release plan of Experiment followed by a Refinement release.
Consider first that Microsoft supports too many customers with too diverse of requirements to be doing miniscule yearly feature releases as with OSX and Linux. OSX can because they have fixed hardware to support and a vastly smaller software library. Linux can because the community doesn't have anywhere near the hardware support of Windows and software is not binary compatible a requires recompilation.
Faced with this issue, it only makes sense that Microsoft will release an OS filled with experimentation to find out what users and customers do a don't like and then make the next version the refinement, enhancement, and trimming of those features. Vista was full of UI experiments which were great ideas but only marginally implemented or just didn't flow easily. I couldn't stand Vista and only used it a few hours before going back to XP. I know I am by far not in a minority in having this experience. Windows 7 was taking all those features and fixing them, making them flow and interact together and getting rid of the development cruft. Windows 7 is great for many users, myself included.
Windows 8 is filled with great ideas. It's filled with original ideas and people are complaining. Sure, Metro came from WP7 development, but nobody else considered using the metaphors for desktop use or how to adapt them. Again the number one complaint is incompleteness or not enough UI interoperability with the manners in which users have become acclimated. If Microsoft continues the pattern, then sure, some consumers will be forced to be guinea pigs with Windows 8, especially if the Windows tablet market takes off appreciably. In the same stroke, Windows 9 could easily come as the refinement stage where it all makes better sense.
Who cares if Windows 8 is a dog. Vista was a dog and it led directly to 7. Give some credit to a company that could sit on it's old style of business like IBM in the late 70's, but instead challenges itself with products which can fail and are interesting and different.
Linux by comparison has no consistent desktop metaphors. You have to test drive at least 3 different distros before you are sure which one will work. The only nearly consistent interfaces are the ones released at the same time as XP in stripped down distros. Unity is not bad, but it's just not for me. The more recent release is really getting there though. It's great experimentation in a different direction for fusing the desktop, laptop, and tablet UI segments.
OSX is the opposite of where Linux and Windows have been experimenting. There is an extreme lack of interesting change since 2001 and only very small incremental refinements. Oooh, we just got a notification system, but really it's the one from our phones because we couldn't stand the thought of using a functional desktop one like in Windows 7 or Linux. You could actually load identical machines with OSX from 10 years ago and the latest Mountain Lion side by side and the average user wouldn't notice that they were different. If you think I am full of it, check this out: http://macgateway.com/featured-articles/a-decade-of-mac-os-x-a-retrospective/ [macgateway.com]
Re:Linux on the desktop, now? (Score:3, Interesting)
The last time I got the call to fix my parents computer I backed up all their data and installed ubuntu I think it was version 9 or 10. Installed Open office and copied back their data. Set up their email, tested a few things that I didn't test before I went there. They thought they were on windows for about 4 months. They did not like having to use a password at first. But for what they do, ubuntu worked fine. The hardest part was finding an application that let them do what print shop did.
Re:Linux on the desktop, now? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
You know what would be funny?
Let's assume (okay, state) that Windows 8 is a direct, reactionary response to the iPad and the whole "Post PC" thing.
What if Apple did it as a fake-out? What if, say, they pushed on tablets, but knew it would only go so far, yet pronounced that it would be the end-all, be-all? Microsoft spends all this time and treasure in a panicked reaction, turning their monster ship around to sail towards the mobile UI, overreacts (well, they already did IMHO), and commits irreversibly to the Metro UI thing. Once Windows 8 has been out for awhile, Tim Cook mounts the stage at the next Apple event, and proclaims that from here on in OSX would be sold retail for use on select Dell/HP/Lenovo OEM models, at reasonable prices. Furthermore, let's say that Apple would (from its rather massive war chest) pay OEMs more than Microsoft pays (at a ratio of 2:1 or perhaps 3:1) in "co-marketing" money in order to promote OSX over Windows.
Any takers on how big of a brick Steve Ballmer would shit out at the news? As an alternate bet, how much time do you think it would take him to call those OEMs with dire threats?
(I know - impossible, etc etc... but now with Jobs gone, maybe not so impossible? It would certainly liven up the OS wars a bit, and would be fun to watch. As a bonus, I could stop having to bother with the PITA efforts I usually expend in hackintoshing each new machine I get...)
Re:Linux on the desktop, now? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linux on the desktop, now? (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh please, what a stupid comment. I can understand where you're coming from, but it's still pretty stupid. Linux needs more users; that's how you get more mindshare, and more willingness by hardware mfgrs to provide specs or even drivers so we Linux users can use their hardware without a lot of trouble. With most things except for (Nvidia and ATI) video, Linux is pretty much "plug and play": you just install a mainstream distro and everything just works, without having to go hunt down drivers like you do for Windows. There's still problems, however, namely video drivers as mentioned before, and a few other things (all-in-one print/scan/copy devices, etc.). To rectify this situation, we need more mindshare and more users. More low-end, "grandma" type users is helpful here.
The key to keeping both grandma and the geeks happy is to have different distros aimed at each, or different distro versions at least.
However, the main problem the Linux world is having right now is all the UI changes in the forms of Unity and Gnome3, which are supposedly to be easier for the grandmas, but in reality aren't easier for anyone, not for power users, and certainly not for anyone who's familiar with Windows. Add in the fact that most distros use one of these UIs and the situation isn't looking good. With more users moving to KDE and distros that use it, however, this hopefully will get better.
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
I keep thinking they must have something else up their sleeve.
You may be right - they do have a history of using Queen's ducks to distract reviewers.
There was the mandatory Vista startup sound http://slashdot.org/story/06/08/31/2347201/vista-startup-sound-to-be-mandatory [slashdot.org], 3 app limit for W7 starter http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/04/21/1356245/windows-7-starter-edition-3-apps-only [slashdot.org], etc etc.
It's vaguely possible Microsoft is floating the horrible W8 desktop interface in front of reviewers to generate the buzz, but then release an (expensive) "Enterprise" version that works exactly like a cosmetically enhanced W7. They'll release it with a fanfare saying "we listened to our adoring fans, and this is the result.".
MSM "journalists" will lap it up, comparing it favorably to the Metro'd atrocity doing the rounds now, and conveniently forgetting they'd just been presented with a lukewarm rehash of the OS they'd already paid for many years earlier.
Of course, the alternative view is that sales of Android rocketed past Windows licenses last year, and are looking set to double W7's sales figures well before the end of this year. That's got to be terrifying to a company structured so heavily around lock-in. Maybe W8 is the result of raw panic after all...
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)