Windows 8 consumer preview gets reviewed

which console came with a harddrive or online service

TBF for the Reg that's not a bad write up.

You don't have to invent to innovate, you can take what was already there and make it better or work. The Dreamcast had an online component but MS have done something with the online experience that no other console maker ever did or has infact.

a few more gesture controls. being able to read mail while waiting for a page to load is interesting.
apart from that it seems like a lot of bells and whistles.

i'll be getting my first tablet over the next couple of months, so we'll see how the ipad 3 compares to this.
haven't had a windows anything since 2005. gonna take some serious convincing.

iPad is the only tablet worth getting at the moment but that could change in the next year once Microsoft get it's products on to the shelf.

This seems to be more like them telling it like they normally do.

No disagreement from me.The 1st xbox was a pc in a box

The Dreamcast had an online component was rarely used
I can only remember one game that used the online bit

Do they expect a lot of these incidents then?

I sell break or lunch out so many PCs I can see that 6 minutes being a real advantage.

Another reviewer commenting on the Metro vs traditional UI experience.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2012/mar/05/windows-8-desktop-experience

Still can't install it myself. I get the fish, then some error code, in hex.

Oooh, if I use QEMU rather than KVM as the hypervisor something else happens!

I get a spinny thing under the fish. Looks like it might be working...

prepare for disspointment


yeah its nice and fast etc etc but i still havnt found anything compelling enough to make me want to switch from windows 7.

I am speaking here as someone who is normallyone of the first to jump on a new O/S btw.

It didn't install. I got a blue screen saying that "Setup is starting". It didn't.

works fine in vmware player from an iso btw

I was running win8 beta for a while and I can honestly say that I don't think that there is anything amazing about it. The Metro interface is based on HTML5 and looks very pretty, but functionality wise it does not appear to have any advantages over Windows 7 and it has a lot of disadvantages (Where's the start menu?!(Yes, I know where it is, why do I have to look for it?)).
Windows 8 is an experimental release and showcases a lot of new tech. I believe that, as was the case with Windows Vista, there is only so much that a beta testing team can reveal and it will take until the next release to polish the new technology and have it reach its full potential. Until then, I'm with Windows 7.

(Incidentally, Microsoft releases tend to go "Buggy one, good one, buggy one, good one" Windows 2000=good, me=bad, xp=good, vista=bad, 7=good. . . )

See post #54

I think this version is really aimed at making serious inroads into the tablet market rather than making a new experience for the desktop

I know the new interface is the big selling point and all that, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that you'll get used to it.

However, what would compel me to upgrade from 7 other than the interface? What new features are there that actually matter? Wiping the PC clean in 6 minutes does not matter to me, or to most people.

They should have named it Windows 7 Tablet Edition, or Windows TE or something. It seems like it's not a logical progression from 7 for most devices.

The Windows tablet thing - someone told me once that the reason iPads have such better battery life compared to windows ones is something to do with the processor windows needs, is this true?

If so, will this still be the case with Windows 8 on a tablet?

No as Windows 8 will run on ARM.

If Asus make a Windows style Prime version with compatibility to a desktop with things like Office they will be on a sure fire winner.

I'm going to hold out.

You mean a laptop with a removable keyboard then?

I beleive that is a self-evident given if one knows what the Asus Prime is. I would dispute the term 'laptop'. Rather a tablet with a keyboard accessory.

If you really want to know details have a read through the build blog but basically they have rewritten everything in the OS to provide better performance all round, thats why it can run on some quite old kit.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/

There wasn't really anywhere else to go was there?

Annoyed that when I try to install in VirtualBox under Linux it says there's some error with my PC. This is the latest VirtualBox which has Win8 in the menu.