Windows Microsoft begins distributing Windows 8 to OEMs

Sweet, shouldn't be too long before its out, hopefully it'll be released before I graudate and I can get a copy of my uni's MSDN account

 

honestly i'm more interested in what might come out of the singularity / midori project. 8 looks like another point upgrade to me rather than a 'new' operating system. looks like they are kind of going the route apple did with osx. where each release is more or less a service pack with some improvements and new features here and there.
also i have no wish for them to integrate any of the live crap into the os. the os should be an os, not a social media platform.

 

Who said anything about Social Media? The idea of Live Integration is that it synchronises preferences, data and possibly even apps across your various computers. Imagine being able to go to a PC you've never used before, logging into it and having all your most important files and programs immediately available to you; basically Windows Live accounts would allow you to have a cloud-based desktop that's accessible anywhere. How far they'll push it this time round is yet to be seen.

 

You know this is what I setup similarly between my laptop and desktop with Windows Live Sync.
I have the My Documents and the Desktop folder synced between my laptop and desktop. So when I want to continue something on my laptop.. I don't need to do any transfer.. I just have it directly on my laptop, and vise versa when I go back home to my main PC.

What I do like with Live Sync.. is that when you are at home, it smart enough to know this, and syncs via network, instead of doing it via internet, so it's much faster (assuming both system is on of course, else it does it via Internet). And it's non-intrusive, that I don't feel anything.

 

We still run a lot of XP machines at work because our domain server runs OSX (dont ask why) and doesnt play nice with W7. Hope to bin that pile of crap in time for W8 and make a full upgrade then. From what i heard the backup and user settings are going to be even better for a corporate environment, which for me is a big plus.

 

after the four hour epic I had telephoning radio India to get my bloody win 7 OS registered and verified I am a bit annoyed that win 8 is now on the horizon

 

Aero lite looks exactly like Aero........ or did i miss anything?

hopefully this backup Timemachine rival will be able to use any network shared folder. i don't want to upgrade my NAS just yet.

 

What's the bet that they restrict backups to a network location to the Professional and Ultimate versions again.

Home users don't use networks right?

 

Had that in my previous firm, as long as you use very small amounts of data it's unobstrusive, though initial startup takes ages as it has to import all your stuff first.
And this is via a closed company network.
If a service is like this goes over the internet, perhaps per Wifi...may as well turn on the p100 again.

 

I don't think this is the real screen shots.
If anything, (just guessing) I see it as full Aero, but no transparency, and no animations.
Or Aero with less demanding visuals and no or different animations.

We will have to wait and see.

 

Log-in screen:

Nice! Now there is a clock!


NOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooo I hope this is not going be like this for all folders.

 

please, please no ribbon for explorer. it's okay for large programs that require multiple toolbars, but most of those buttons on explorer are just useless.

besides, who maximises their explorer?

while on the topic of explorer, please, please let us scroll left+right on the directory tree.

 

I agree. I thought that feature would have been implemented by having the side scroll wheel speed option in Vista Mouse control panel.. but nope.. not used in Windows. The result? Not only I can't do it in folders, but I notice that actually most program don't support it. Making that side scrolling wheel thingy on mouses virtually useless, other than outside of web browsers and a handle full of programs.

What I hope, is that the ribbon bar ONLY appears when you open "explorer", and not actual folders or the pined task bar explorer button. I have no problem for that. But putting this on EVERY folder... soon everyone will put their screen into portrait, as it consumes so much space in height.. even if you hide it, by double clicking the tab.

Something I REALLLY don't get. Is back in XP days, they tried to have tasks on the side column of folder to essentially remove the right-click. That failed miserably, they when back to normal with Vista and continued with Win7.. but this... why try again? It awful.
OOOOOOOOHHHHHhhh, just got an idea. Maybe there is an option to enable it, for OEM's who built tablets. As you don't have the right click it make it easier to use. Like the check box folder selection in Windows 7. Anyway, I just hope it's disabled by default.

 

i guess the picture on the taskbar allows instant knowledge of the account that is logged on, in a multi account setup this is useful

 

W7 is great and does not need replacing for years. But I suppose MS want everyones money...again.

Kinda funny really; nearly everyone I know still uses XP. Maybe they will upgrade this time?... Pffft hahaha I doubt it.

 

Windows 3.0 - 1990
Windows 3.1 - 1992 ... 2 years
Windows 95 - 1995.... 3 years
Windows 98 - 1998.... 3 years
Windows Me/2000 - 2000.... 2 years
Windows XP - 2001 - 1 year
Windows Vista 2006 - 5 years
Windows 7 - 2009 - 3 years

We can see that Microsoft always did 2-3 years between versions, the exception is Windows XP which was released in 1 years after Win 2000, and lasted 5 years. And it's not like Microsoft didn't warned you. They said it the day Vista was out, well before Microsoft saw the OS as a failure in adoption compared to other Windows releases.

And I think this is good. This forces developer to stop making OS VERSION dependent software by exploiting workaround and taking advantages of security holes instead of reading documentation on to do things properly. Something that was hugely visible when Vista was out.

Another point is many XP users simply won't change until they buy their new computer, so they will switch to Win8 when the time comes.. either early Win8 release or it's last year. Businesses are adapting to Win7. The reception slowed things down... but before they do the switch they need to adapt their specialized software or find alternatives.. and that takes time, and possibly retraining, which a decision that need to pass under evaluation, another time consuming processes (the bigger you are, the more time it takes, unless you are a business in computer market (hardware or software).

 

So Microsoft is going round 'taking everyone's money', but everyone you know hasn't bought Windows 7?

Microsoft, nor any other company in the world, makes you buy their products, they just stride to make it more compelling and useful all the time. I can't wait for the Windows 8 beta and RC to come out because what they add usually makes my life easier to some extent, and I've paid for the last two versions of Windows because of that. As I've already said in this thread, and as GoodBytes just reiterated, the realease cycle for Windows 8 is no shorter than most other versions of Windows- they're still in the early Milestone build stages, it's still about 15 months from release.

Despite thinking the Ribbon is one of the best things to come out of Microsoft in the last few years, I'm not convinced it works in the Explorer shell either. I can see why they're trying to 'simplify' the OS by giving it a more unified feel but it doesn't need that many options to be instantly accessible from the toolbar as it stands. Of course, they could be planning to overhaul Explorer's functionality to justify it, and it can technically be 'hidden' quite easily like the Office version by double-clicking on it, but it doesn't look great or pixel-friendly.

 

So the different background and desktop icons and widget don't tell you automatically?

I use a multi-user system with the gf and we never get mixed up.

I hope MS remove the limitation on language packs. Atm ONLY Ultimate can switch/install more than one language. Talk about discriminating against bi/tri lingual families. Because, you know, inter-racial marriages never happen and everyone in the same country speaks the same language. Right? You can't even buy an additional language pack for a nominal fee. All this NEEDS to change - in fact, I would rather they shipped me the bare OS for £25, then charged me for each add-on I required.

Fizzban - I suppose we should complain that Intel keeps releasing faster CPUs too Quite frankly I want to vomit if I go back to XP now as well. I can't understand the attraction unless you have phobia of learning.

 

Also a lot of things can change from now and the official release.
Windows 7 Game folder, was supposed to have the ability to add games, and have the games added be able to provide high score between other players on the same computer or your friends via Live, and also notify you on game updates. All that was scraped out. Seeing no trace on that so far on Win8, it could mean that either Microsoft felt it did not work.. or they planed about the Microsoft store so it was useless, or possibly other reasons.

Another feature was the live preview ON the task bar, it didn't show any program names... Maybe this feature, they noticed after performing testing on people reactions, to be unintuitive or complex or difficult to find what you were doing., so it did not make it.

Oh look.. here are many of these "did not make it to Win7 release" feature list:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/79-8-windows7-design-mix09.html

All pictures shown here is for amusement and curiosity sakes, not to take a decision on weather you will get Win8 or not.

 

Honestly.. give an opinion and get jumped on. Whatever. I don't use XP. I use w7 64bit, so I don't have a phobia of learning. I'm also well aware of MS's gaps between windows versions. I just don't see a need for another windows yet. Sorry if you guys disagree. You go ahead and buy the new version if that makes you happy. Also I wasn't actually complaining.