Microsoft has just released a consumer preview version of Windows 8. You can get it here.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516
I've been using it for the last hour or so, and I'd like to offer a first impression. To make a long story short, it is still too early to call it, but it might very well be the worst thing to ever grace my harddrive. I include spyware, viruses, tubgirl pictures, and shemale porn in this running. I genuinely like Microsoft as a company and I want them to succeed, I want to like Windows 8. But I just don't understand what they were thinking when designing this operating system. Let's take a journey into the experience I've had with Windows 8 so far:
- The install isn't as quick as windows 7, but it was still very quick, and it's not a release version.
- Horay it's done installing! The first thing we do is pick a background color. I choose green!
- I go through a few more screens of setting everything up. Wireless internet automatically works, I simply need to enter in a password. I think I had to install drivers for my laptop wireless to work in windows 7, so this is pretty awesome.
- And now I'm done setting everything up. It shows me the metro screen. It's empty. Then it slowly starts filling in the boxes with app names. It's not a very elegant first introduction to have the boxes load in empty and then randomly fill up, but still, who cares.
- Let's try out the maps app! The Metro menu goes away and is replaced with "Maps App Preview" centered in the screen. Cool, I guess. And...... Okay, is it going to do anything? No? All right then. Lets get out of this thing. Apparently right clicking on this screen makes you leave the app. Righto.
- Let's try out email, I guess. Most of the screen is taken up by .. Well, I don't quite remember what 80% of the screen space was, let me go check really quick.
Okay, I'm back. A good 1/3rd of the screen is taken up by an accounts tab (Why? I only have one email address), the next 1/3rd of the screen is taken up by a block where you can choose to view the inbox, and the last bit of the screen is the first email in your inbox. Okay, let's try to scroll over to see the email. Scroll wheel doesn't do it huh? Clicking in a random spot does apparently. All right. Well the inbox thing is still taking up a good 50% of the screen. Is there any way I can make the interface reasonable? No? Okay. How do I get out of this? What's that? I don't? No, come on, there has to be some way. Hmm, I have no idea how to get out of this app. It's a full screen app and there's no visual cue to leave. Let's try pressing esc. Oh, okay, that worked. Righto.
LATER ON THAT SAME DAY: I'm in the desktop at this point, and I open up the task manager, and I notice not one, but two instances of mail open, even though I thought I closed them before. I also see Internet Explorer still in the memory, even though I Xed that out before. Apparently closing applications doesn't really take them out of memory. I switch back to the mail app. Yeah, it's still pretty terrible. Okay, let's get out of this thing. I hit escape. Nothing happens. This ******* thing is not consistent. If you open the mail tab through metro, pressing escape will bring you back to the metro menu. If you somehow get to the mail app through the regular desktop, pressing esc does nothing. You have to alt tab back to the desktop. Be consistent.
- The desktop makes me sad. To start things off, they've removed the start button. If you hover over that area, a preview pane of the metro menu appears. Clicking it will bring you to the fullscreen metro menu. Okay fine. I can get used to that. If you click in the top left corner, you will go to.. well, I'm not really sure. I think it cycles you to other apps. But this is very annoying. There is no visual cue that this functionality exists. Furthermore, it gets in the way of regular desktop applications. I installed firefox and wanted to change my homepage, so I try to click on the orange firefox button that's in the top left, and it starts cycling through apps. What the ****? That's not what I want!
- I wanted to get to the old windows 7 style start menu. I'm still not sure how to do that, but if you hover over the bottom right corner, yet another menu will appear. This has a settings, devices, start, share, and search buttons. Great, my start menu is right there! Except that's not the ******* start menu. They made a start button and what is does is bring you to the metro app. This menu also blocks the date and time, but it's fine, because the date and time is redisplayed in a huge box on the left when this menu is open. They've also removed the visual cue in the bottom right hand corner, the button that lets you minimize all applications so you're back at the desktop. Why would they remove that visual cue?
Metro is completely unintuitive. **** multitasking, let's make everything fullscreen. I want my start button back. Also, I wanted to add a My Computer button to my desktop. There's no obvious way like there was in Windows 7 to do this. I made a shortcut to it and threw it on the desktop no problem, but in windows 7, you right click on computer and there's an option in the menu that says show on desktop. I'm sure there's more that I disliked, because I was pretty frustrated when installed it, but I think that's all for now.
edit: One last thing. Searching your computer for stuff is now not obvious either. Pressing the windows key brings you to the metro app, from there you can type and it'll search for anything you type on your computer. In 7, there was a search at the bottom of the start menu, it was obvious you could do it. There's yet again no visual cue that tells you that this functionality exists. What the **** microsoft?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516
I've been using it for the last hour or so, and I'd like to offer a first impression. To make a long story short, it is still too early to call it, but it might very well be the worst thing to ever grace my harddrive. I include spyware, viruses, tubgirl pictures, and shemale porn in this running. I genuinely like Microsoft as a company and I want them to succeed, I want to like Windows 8. But I just don't understand what they were thinking when designing this operating system. Let's take a journey into the experience I've had with Windows 8 so far:
- The install isn't as quick as windows 7, but it was still very quick, and it's not a release version.
- Horay it's done installing! The first thing we do is pick a background color. I choose green!
- I go through a few more screens of setting everything up. Wireless internet automatically works, I simply need to enter in a password. I think I had to install drivers for my laptop wireless to work in windows 7, so this is pretty awesome.
- And now I'm done setting everything up. It shows me the metro screen. It's empty. Then it slowly starts filling in the boxes with app names. It's not a very elegant first introduction to have the boxes load in empty and then randomly fill up, but still, who cares.
- Let's try out the maps app! The Metro menu goes away and is replaced with "Maps App Preview" centered in the screen. Cool, I guess. And...... Okay, is it going to do anything? No? All right then. Lets get out of this thing. Apparently right clicking on this screen makes you leave the app. Righto.
- Let's try out email, I guess. Most of the screen is taken up by .. Well, I don't quite remember what 80% of the screen space was, let me go check really quick.
Okay, I'm back. A good 1/3rd of the screen is taken up by an accounts tab (Why? I only have one email address), the next 1/3rd of the screen is taken up by a block where you can choose to view the inbox, and the last bit of the screen is the first email in your inbox. Okay, let's try to scroll over to see the email. Scroll wheel doesn't do it huh? Clicking in a random spot does apparently. All right. Well the inbox thing is still taking up a good 50% of the screen. Is there any way I can make the interface reasonable? No? Okay. How do I get out of this? What's that? I don't? No, come on, there has to be some way. Hmm, I have no idea how to get out of this app. It's a full screen app and there's no visual cue to leave. Let's try pressing esc. Oh, okay, that worked. Righto.
LATER ON THAT SAME DAY: I'm in the desktop at this point, and I open up the task manager, and I notice not one, but two instances of mail open, even though I thought I closed them before. I also see Internet Explorer still in the memory, even though I Xed that out before. Apparently closing applications doesn't really take them out of memory. I switch back to the mail app. Yeah, it's still pretty terrible. Okay, let's get out of this thing. I hit escape. Nothing happens. This ******* thing is not consistent. If you open the mail tab through metro, pressing escape will bring you back to the metro menu. If you somehow get to the mail app through the regular desktop, pressing esc does nothing. You have to alt tab back to the desktop. Be consistent.
- The desktop makes me sad. To start things off, they've removed the start button. If you hover over that area, a preview pane of the metro menu appears. Clicking it will bring you to the fullscreen metro menu. Okay fine. I can get used to that. If you click in the top left corner, you will go to.. well, I'm not really sure. I think it cycles you to other apps. But this is very annoying. There is no visual cue that this functionality exists. Furthermore, it gets in the way of regular desktop applications. I installed firefox and wanted to change my homepage, so I try to click on the orange firefox button that's in the top left, and it starts cycling through apps. What the ****? That's not what I want!
- I wanted to get to the old windows 7 style start menu. I'm still not sure how to do that, but if you hover over the bottom right corner, yet another menu will appear. This has a settings, devices, start, share, and search buttons. Great, my start menu is right there! Except that's not the ******* start menu. They made a start button and what is does is bring you to the metro app. This menu also blocks the date and time, but it's fine, because the date and time is redisplayed in a huge box on the left when this menu is open. They've also removed the visual cue in the bottom right hand corner, the button that lets you minimize all applications so you're back at the desktop. Why would they remove that visual cue?
Metro is completely unintuitive. **** multitasking, let's make everything fullscreen. I want my start button back. Also, I wanted to add a My Computer button to my desktop. There's no obvious way like there was in Windows 7 to do this. I made a shortcut to it and threw it on the desktop no problem, but in windows 7, you right click on computer and there's an option in the menu that says show on desktop. I'm sure there's more that I disliked, because I was pretty frustrated when installed it, but I think that's all for now.
edit: One last thing. Searching your computer for stuff is now not obvious either. Pressing the windows key brings you to the metro app, from there you can type and it'll search for anything you type on your computer. In 7, there was a search at the bottom of the start menu, it was obvious you could do it. There's yet again no visual cue that tells you that this functionality exists. What the **** microsoft?
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