

Windows 8 Developer Preview is Live - acak
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/home/

======
rkalla
Anyone that played with it yet or watched the presentations have a quick-hit
list of the things that look cool about Windows 8?

~~~
mattmanser
I've only watched the first hour and 3/4 so far as I've work to do, but here
are my notes, they are rough but you asked:

Architecture

\- ARM and X86

\- Uses less resources than windows 7 according to screen shots (280Mb RAM
footprint)

\- Startup time is incredible, as well as shutdown

\- Rootkit protection

\- Mentioned encrypted drive while it's running? Not sure if this is default

UI

\- Touch centric interface

\- Heavily influenced by the phone UI, the 'start' screen is a panel of apps
and things.

\- Heavily built around windows live and sharing

\- If you're in support you'll be saying 'swipe to the right' a lot. Opens
context start menu

\- Seems to switch to a normal desktop view with a bar down the bottom when
you open something like visual studio

\- Actually seem to be able to switch between panel and desktop view. The
panel looks like the app launcher, you'll probably be able to disable it

Development

\- You can use HTML5/Javascript OR .Net/C++/C + XAML to write apps.

\- App store (see below)

\- CSS is extended for windows using browser specific extensions

\- They also seem to have written some default APIs for things like facebook

\- Pushing Blend again, still poo, but now supports windows html

\- little apps are called 'metro style' apps

\- Seem to be making a deal about how rich the APIs are

\- Put a lot of effort into the APIs for hardware addons such as
accelerometers

\- Don't have to do anything to support ARM

\- Everything you write will have baked in hardware accelerated graphics

\- Making a big deal of 'charms', makes apps content aware and kinda
embeddable in the interface elsewhere in the system. You kinda have to see
this to understand them

\-- They're context aware so if you're copying text ad your app is marked as
accepting text then they'll appear as a charm for that.

\-- They also appear in the search system if you've flagged them

App store

\- Unsurprisingly closed

\- Trying to make the process more transparent, shows waiting times for each
review step

\- Will test security, technical and content (for copyright?)

\- You will be able to run the auto testing tools yourself (e.g. technical
compliance make sure not abusing API)

\- App store baked into the OS

\- Old apps are going to be listable too (Win32)

\- Sounds like it's going to be available on windows 7 too

\- Will this get immediately overwhelmed with old programs?

First thoughts

\- It's really bloody good. I started a skeptic on it being overly touch
centric, ended impressed.

\- They've made some very bold choices and it seems to have paid off

\- This might be a _bad_ thing for html5, it's possibly going to fragment
standards as MS are having to push ahead some features to handle the UI
without acceptance. I guess we'll see.

p.s. Looks like the other PC manufacturers are finally copying the Macbook air
form factor, they look really good

p.p.s. Crowd shots are weird as _everyone_ is a bloke! (see 2:33ish)

p.p.p.s. Windows developers are still clueless about javascript. Using null in
one of the examples.

~~~
mattmanser
A few more notes at lunchtime.

There's a fundamental distinction between apps running windows style and the
new metro style that are launched from the panel. To 'grok' that distinction
see 2:57 onwards. The interface is vastly simplified for a 'metro' app and
much more touch centric. Windows key switches between panel and old style
desktop.

Forgot to include but at the beginning of it they mentioned spell checking
everywhere. I think they meant in every textbox.

See 2:39 onwards for someone actually using windows 8 to see the new UI.

There's quite a few quality of life improvements for power users and
programmers, including:

    
    
      - Task manager overhaul, much better
      - Can 'refresh' PC, restore defaults while keeping all your files and settings
      - Can Reset PC, completely wipe all settings and files
      - Can set a new baseline for the reset image, i.e. after you've installed your go to programs, VS, SQL, etc.
      - Windows assessment console included, internal tools to test computer performance in particular setups
    

Finally I mentioned it earlier, but this is heavily integrated with windows
live id. It's supposed to be your logon anywhere, and when you logon it makes
all your settings available, apps, certain passwords (like facebook login),
etc. Automatically hooks up to your sky drive.

I kinda stopped watching there as the windows live guy annoyed me and I'm
tired of watching it :). Also with regard to that I'd have to see the
performance over the general internet before I got excited by it. I also know
MS's obsession with automatically logging you into messenger and crap like
that, which is annoying.

(sorry for formatting in first post, I always forget how to do lists)

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equark
I still have not seen a clear explanation of where .NET and the CLR are in
this WinRT story. Anybody have a good sense for what's new, renamed, and
deprecated?

~~~
barista
One easy way to find out. Download! The code samples were all in .Net.

~~~
latch
Seems like asking is an easier way to find out.

~~~
barista
Maybe it is but that's not what hackers do. They just do it.

~~~
latch
laziness impatience hubris

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runjake
It's pretty speedy and responsive on my 2.4ghz C2D ThinkPad X200. Being a
Developer Preview, it's also pretty useless. But, it does work as in today's
keynote presentations. You can install apps on it.

~~~
edkennedy
It works as in today's keynote... Does that mean it's a bit hard to navigate,
and not all the apps work? They seemed to have a lot of technical problems in
the keynote. My favourite was when they are holding a tablet up to the screen
early on and he states "We're going to open the Bing app..." and a woman
whispers over his shoulder (on a mic that everyone can hear) "No don't do
that!"

~~~
runjake
The navigation is pretty easy, but as a WP7 user, I'm used to Metro paradigms.

Not all the apps work, some are just mockups and don't have any functionality
(though they seem to be legitimately pulling data from the network, according
to Wireshark).

It's not ready for regular use by anyone's standards, for sure. But it's very
promising, very speedy, and has a pretty low memory footprint.

I'm OK with the demo goof ups.

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Qz
Anyone have any idea how the new UI works with multiple monitor setups?

~~~
rmassie
It works on it, but it doesn't seem to span both monitors. You have to choose
one or the other. It's a bit disappointing.

~~~
Qz
Great, so they fix the taskbar and break the thing that matters most :(

~~~
sukuriant
Eh? What do you mean?

Disclaimer: MS Employee. I did not write the new UI.

~~~
Qz
Well, it's a bit early so who knows what the plan is, but as a dual monitor
user, it seems like that configuration is being left out of consideration for
a complete Metro experience (as someone else mentioned you could have Metro on
one monitor but there was no option to use it across both monitors).

At the same time it seems that in the desktop itself the taskbar has been
updated to work on multiple monitors, which is where I was going with the
above post - sure they fixed the taskbar, but windows 8 is all about Metro!

~~~
sukuriant
Oh, okay :) Thanks for clarifying

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wundie
Has anyone had an issue on Virtual Box where you're only able to click on
certain icons? For example, I can launch the control panel or desktop with a
single click but when I try the IE tile it just moves and nothing happens. I
can go to the desktop and launch IE without issue. Not sure what to try….

[Win7 x64 host running VB 4.1 attempting Windows Developer Preview with
developer tools English, 64-bit (x64)]

~~~
watmough
This is likely because you don't have your network setup correctly. You need
to be licensed, sorry activated, to run much other than control panel or
desktop.

I used NAT and had to reboot a few times to get it going in Virtual Box.
Eventually, someone then worked out that it could talk to Redmond, and stuff
started working. It is definitely kinda frustrating to not know why the tiles
are not worked, even though they 'move'.

The Native install picked up my Broadcom wireless, wired connection, and
connected no problem.

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acak
Has anyone installed this as a virtual OS?

~~~
bstx
Always panics on boot in VMware. Sad :(

Edit: Seems to work in Parallels.

Edit 2: Boots in Parallels but is not very usable. Hangs very often, Parallels
Tools do not work. Now trying in VirtualBox.

Edit 3: VirtualBox works as good or bad as Parallels. Native install seems to
be the best option. Did someone try to install onto an external drive?

~~~
watmough
I have the 64-bit Dev Tools edition running pretty good in VBox. It doesn't
like the VBox Tools, though they partial install. No seamless mouse sadly.

It does seem to hang up rather a lot, but it clears after a minute or two and
keeps going. No panics yet.

I only did that, since I didn't have any DL DVDs, and no Windows install to
make a bootable USB.

~~~
apaprocki
I just installed 64-bit dev tools into VBox on OSX and seamless mouse is
supported. Everything just works so far..

~~~
watmough
Damn! That's the configuration I have, and it hung, then went through once I
ran it in compatibility mode. Obviously something broke, or failed because the
tools are not fully working.

Did you tell VBox it's Windows 7? And what version of VBox are you using,
please?

Anyways, I ended up downloading the make usb key utility from MS, making a
bootable install on the key, then installing on a spare HD on my box. aside
from having to slip it all the drivers at start of install, the experience
running on the metal is a lot better.

~~~
apaprocki
Yes, I said the OS was Windows 7 64-bit, VBox 4.1.2.

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beaumartinez
It's downloading at a ridiculously slow rate—230 kbps. Why didn't they make
torrents for them as well? The load would be shared on all the developers
downloading it.

~~~
mdaniel
There are burnbit links for at least the two 64-bit ISOs:

[http://burnbit.com/torrent/177079/WindowsDeveloperPreview_64...](http://burnbit.com/torrent/177079/WindowsDeveloperPreview_64bit_English_Developer_iso)

[http://burnbit.com/torrent/177080/WindowsDeveloperPreview_64...](http://burnbit.com/torrent/177080/WindowsDeveloperPreview_64bit_English_iso)

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leon_
Oh, the win8 app store looks really great. 0% cut, transparent review process
and support for trials.

I guess I will be writing some windows app in the future. (I'm a Mac
developer.) And I hope this will force Apple to improve their app store
developer experience a little bit.

~~~
zhwang
Well... maybe not - [http://www.istartedsomething.com/20110915/windows-store-
to-p...](http://www.istartedsomething.com/20110915/windows-store-to-
provide-7030-revenue-share/)

Then again, a lot of people think the 30% is worth it when compared to
implementing your own way of selling things.

