Win 8

[Ddrak]

Running the public beta now. Can't really say I'm enjoying the metro part of the interface (so I spend most of my time on the regular desktop). Maybe it will grow on me. Been stable/fast so far though, so no real showstoppers.

Edit: Firefox is crap on Win8 (the buttons and tabs are all broken) so I've switched to Chrome for the meantime.

Dd

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Edit: Firefox is crap

Dd

fixed.

I love Firefox, but its really gone to shit with this rapid deployment model.

[Taxious]

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Pretty much.

[Kulaf]

I find myself incapeable of agreeing that Windows 3.1 was good. Perhaps 3.11.

[Ddrak]

It's pretty far from complete as well - no mention of NT 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, Win2000, Win95 OSR2, Win98 SE, WFW 3.11, or the versions prior to 3.1.

Generally speaking though, their "big changes" versions are less desirable and the "consolidation" versions are better.

Dd

[calleagh]

i was reading about win8 the other day and it seems to be pretty much specific to touchscreens. true?

[Ddrak]

i was reading about win8 the other day and it seems to be pretty much specific to touchscreens. true?

Not really. The new home screen is certainly geared for touch but it's very usable with mouse and kbd. I like the concept a lot but it clashes with the feel of the classic windows environment.

Dd

[Minute]

Meh... I don't see it being necessary. It has a couple nice features but most of those have already been accomplished with 3 party software. I see this as being a stepping stone of creating a more unified OS. I'll get familiar with it, but don't see it being a big player in the bidnezz world.

[Ddrak]

I agree with Minute - Win7 will be the corporate desktop for the next decade, same as XP was for the last decade. Win 8 is definitely a stepping stone to a unified and smooth tablet/desktop OS.

Dd

[Arathena]

It would be awful nice if we finally upgraded from XP / IE 7 here. Just saying.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

I switched to Win7 the day it went RTM. Literally the same day. I don't see doing the same for Win8. And Minute is right. It's great that MS is making the UI uniform across all devices, but the corporate world is mainly desktops and laptops. That uniformity isn't really significant for people who use Windows for a living. I had to switch to Win7 because Vista was killing me. I wonder if Win8 will be the next Vista...

[Ddrak]

I tend to switch at RC0 (since Win95 days), and I'll do the same with Win8. I tend to not use the metro side of Win8 so far - literally treating it as a big fancy start menu. Still not convinced it's better than Win7's UI for desktops, especially given that I avoid it...

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

My advice has always been that it's a bad idea to develop production software for an OS that could change dramatically by the time it hits the shelves. I've been with companies that have been burned big-time targeting an unreleased OS. By "big-time" I mean that I've seen whole projects scrapped because they depended on key features of the OS that weren't there at release. Not as big of a deal in this day and age of web apps, but still...

Now, if you're installing an RC OS just to get a reality check on how your software might run on an OS which will be released soon, then that's probably fine. But I wouldn't develop a production system on an RC OS and I certainly wouldn't specifically target it or make any concrete assumptions about what will or won't be contained within it. IMHO you're just begging for problems.

The one exception is that if you have such a close relationship with MS that you have some influence over the OS's design and features. I used to work for a company partially-owned by Paul Allen, and we had a "bat phone" straight to Redmond.

[Ddrak]

Nah, it's a reality check thing. We still have to support XP (which annoys the living shit out of me), so it's really just making sure there's no nasty surprises.

Totally agree on the "not targetting the latest and greatest" thing.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

That's what I figured. I know you kick ass, but for a split second I pictured that one project manager years ago that made the whole company switch over to an RC version of Windows and totally fucked us.

[Ddrak]

Our test guys would really enjoy themselves if I tried that. No way they're gonna switch off whatever our customers are running and they love nothing better than taking the piss out of devs that go off the reservation.

...and quite frankly, testers scare me.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

I've been running it for a while now, and we just got two new laptops that came with it.

There's really no reason I can see why not to run it. The missing start button is no big deal, and yeah, the Metro interface pretty much blows, but overall it's a worthy successor to Windows 7 for a few compelling reasons.

The main reason I like it over Windows 7 it is that they kept the trend of slimming Windows down. Windows 8 is leaner and meaner than Windows 7. They kept with the optimizations and performance enhancements they started with Vista. I see a noticeable performance difference between the two. I also think it looks better "flat." Aero glass always seemed idiotic to me. Part of what I do for a living is design user interfaces, so I appreciate the minimalist design trend I see with Windows 8. Ok, other than them starting to put the menus in CAPs - that's just lame.

There's a couple other neat features like the product key built into the BIOS now for new Windows 8 machines. Take a brand new machine and blow out Windows and when it re-installs, it won't ask you for a product key.

The missus has used hotmail for 15 years, so having it built into Windows is perfect for her. She actually likes Metro, which isn't surprising because it was pretty much designed for her.

So ... it's a compelling upgrade just for the performance tweaks alone, but we'd probably run it either way. There's no stopping progress, and I'm already almost a dinosaur

I had some problems early on with VMWare running Windows 8, but I have those issues mostly solved, mostly by just running VirtualBox instead. But I now have perfectly stable and badass installs of Server 2012 and Windows 8 for development.

Hmmm, this just became a blog post.

[Ddrak]

I upgraded my work machine to Win8 over Christmas (home gaming box has been Win8 since RC). Also went to Office 2013. Win8 - definitely leaner and meaner than Win7 even if the metro screen does annoy me a little (need cascaded tiles, or tile groups or something) so I'd rate it "do not avoid, but not the Vista->7 upgrade". Office 2013 though... really not enjoying it much. Lots of fun new eye candy, but I still feel more comfortable with 2010. Outlook 2013 is particularly odd if you're not using Exchange.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

The Metro UI doesn't really get in my way as much as I though it would. When I boot up, I just click the desktop tile and that's usually the sum total of my interaction with it.

Haven't played around much with Office 2013. Jeez, I can't stand all that stuff in caps, same with Visual Studio 2012. I looks like one of their programmers got the capslock key stuck and they did a build like that and shipped the product on accident.

I've always designed user interfaces using something called "the principle of least amazement" and I think for the last few versions of their flagship products, they should take that principle to heart. Cheeky bastards.