In-Depth with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview
by Andrew Cunningham, Ryan Smith, Kristian Vättö & Jarred Walton on March 9, 2012 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Microsoft
- Operating Systems
- Windows
- Windows 8
What comes next?
Microsoft released the beta version of Windows 7 to the public in January of 2009. At the time, it was basically feature-complete, but Microsoft made some tweaks and incorporated them into a release candidate build that it released in early May. The OS was then released to manufacturing in July, and public availability followed in October.
Microsoft’s stated goal for Windows 8 is to ship later this year, and using Windows 7’s timeline as a reference we can see that they’re still more or less on track for that. What we don’t really know is whether Windows 8 is as far along in the Consumer Preview as Windows 7 was in its beta—that will be the main factor in determining how quickly the rest of the development process goes by.
We also know nothing about product editions or cost at this point. Now, we didn’t know these details at this point in Windows 7’s cycle either, but if you’ll recall, the evaluation copy of Windows 7 offered in the beta and release candidate stages was clearly branded as “Windows 7 Ultimate,” suggesting that the multiple product tiers introduced in Vista would stick around to at least some degree. Everything in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview is branded as, well, a Consumer Preview, meaning that Microsoft could really go anywhere with respect to product editions at this point.
In an ideal world, I’d love to see the company sell one edition of Windows that did everything Windows was capable of doing, but in our flawed reality I would settle for the death of the Ultimate edition, which has always had trouble justifying its existence (remember Ultimate Extras? Neither does anyone else). The few extra features it does offer (Bitlocker, primarily) would roll nicely into the Professional edition, and would be a suitable answer to the new version of FileVault introduced in Lion last year.
Unfortunately, I think Microsoft is all-too-likely to maintain the status quo in this case. People who do apples-to-apples comparisons of the OS X and Windows pricing structures are missing the point a bit—Apple has a nice high-margin hardware business that helps to subsidize its software development, which means it can more easily offer upgrades where $29 gets you a new OS that you can use for every computer in your house. Microsoft is a software company, and its bottom line depends on Windows—drastic price cuts would be awesome, but I don't think they're in the cards.
Conclusions
I was a huge advocate of Windows 7 when it came out, both personally and professionally. I immediately upgraded all of my systems just after release, and shortly after I started pushing it on my friends and family (I spent most of Thanksgiving 2009 upgrading systems). I spearheaded a migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 where I worked at the time, a small shop hesitant to change and frightened of the new. I thought it was a great upgrade—it provided a host of much-needed updates with few of Vista’s real or imagined shortcomings—and I thought that any computer that could be upgraded to run Windows 7 should be upgraded to run Windows 7, from the fastest multi-core desktop workstation to the lowliest netbook.
My reaction to Windows 8 is more tempered, assuming that what we see here in the Consumer Preview is more or less representative of the final product. I think it has the potential to be a killer tablet operating system, and for my part I think it’s quite usable on a laptop and desktop, but I have my doubts that more skittish users and businesses are going to be able to see past the newness of Metro.
The other problem Windows 8 is going to have is that, while it offers some nice under-the-hood updates, and while Metro is much more usable with a mouse and keyboard than some pessimists will lead you to believe, it’s not the essential upgrade for PCs that Windows 7 was. Thanks in part to the user-facing and under-the-hood improvements in Windows 7, desktops and laptops don’t need a new operating system like they did three years ago when their only options were the aging XP, the flawed Vista, or the alien landscape of Linux.
If you’re reading this, the chances are good that you’re a technology enthusiast with a decent system, and you’re the ones to whom Windows 8’s under-the-hood enhancements will appeal the most. Give the preview a test drive, evaluate whether you’ll use the new features, and give Metro a fair shake—like it or not, it’s the future of the platform, and it’s well-implemented here. If you’re happy with Windows 7, though, this isn’t the must-have upgrade that its predecessor was, and Microsoft’s long-term support cycle—mainstream support until 2015, extended support until 2020—means that you’ll still get significant software updates (new DirectX and IE versions and a handful of other backported features) for awhile and security updates for even longer. You’ve got time to wait for Windows 9.
We'll continue to cover changes in Windows 8 as it progresses toward its eventual release, at which point I'd like to post an updated version of this article covering new stuff and any features we missed this time around. If there's something missing in this review that you'd like to see covered, you can contact me at andrewc@anandtech.com, or find me on Twitter (I'm @Thomsirveaux).
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Sabresiberian - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
I downloaded and installed Win 8 CP last night (on a second partition, for dual boot). I must say, my fears about how hideous Win 8 would be are gone. There are no changes that are insurmountable, or even really difficult to understand, though it takes a bit of getting used to at first - as anything new does.As far as looks - I was surprised to find the big squares on a solid background weren't as hideous as I thought they would be, but it hardly matters because you can pretty much live in the desktop environment, in which you can install whatever background you like, just as has always been the case with Windows. There are things you will want to do that will bring Metro up, but it was no problem for me once I monkeyed around a bit and found out what to do.
There is a nice guide on MaximumPC for creating and installing Win 8 either dual boot or using Virtualization, if you are interested. Note: if you are installing on a RAID, you can't resize your partitions and create a new one from Vista (not sure about Win 7), you will need to use a third party app. I'll get back with the one I used, which worked nicely.
MaximumPC has several other excellent articles about Win 8, and I recommend reading them. One article had a method for starting Win 8 in the desktop mode, not Metro, so it has less impact on your sense of beauty. (I haven't tried it.)
Do yourself a huge favor and approach Win 8 with an open mind, and the knowledge that you WILL have to do some things differently - but it really will make sense in the end. Don't insist that things should work the old way, that just leads to frustration and deciding Win 8 is broken somehow; it is not.
There are a couple of things I don't like, such as not being able to make the rectangles smaller (2 sizes only). It's a minor quibble though since I will hardly ever have Metro up. There's no changing the Metro background beyond some solid color changes with different textural artwork, but the shades chosen by Microsoft for background colors actually displayed nicely on my screen. I wasn't fond of some of the tile colors and didn't see a way to change them in my poking around, yet anyway. (I actually like the tile that you click - or touch, if you have the hardware - to bring up the desktop, which looks like a miniature version of the desktop complete with whatever cool background you have installed.) As I said though, the desktop can be prettied up just as Win 7 could, and that's what I'll have up when I'm doing something that isn't fullscreen (such as posting in this thread).
Remember, too, that what we see in the Preview isn't set in stone and final; with enough constructive input, Microsoft could well change some things before release. I want to underline the "constructive" part of that, no one listens to flaming.
Give it a shot yourself! If you have any room on your hard drive, it's not hard at all to set up dual boot.
;)
jabber - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
Oh no doubt those of us that dont like will persevere because our jobs/careers depend on being able to support it going forward.However, I still feel that using Metro should be a choice.
All it needs is an option for those that want to use Metro or have a touch enabled desktop PC (yes thats you Jeff in Florida, nice to see you) to enable it and those of us that just dont have the time, inclination or need to do real work to earn a living to carry on as we were.
It's not like 8 is a total ground up clean sheet OS. Its just Windows 7 with this dog show assault course called Metro shoehorned into it.
If it was all new then I'd be more inclined to embrace it as it wasn't going to be able to change.
I'll change if I really have to due to real compelling reasons or benefits, that's life but not because some bum-fluffed faced developer at MS that's main daily IT work is typing tweets tells me to, simply on the justification that "it's cool"..
Sabresiberian - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
The program I used to resize the existing partition (because I have 2 hard drives set up in a RAID 0 configuration and Vista's "Shrink" will only work properly with a single disk. It appears to work at first, but does not.) and create one for Win 8 is called "Partition Wizard 7" Very nice, and the Home Edition is completely free. Nice little video tutorials on the site if you need help.I've never done dual boot before, so I thought I'd add a note for others new to the system. Once Win 8 was installed, my computer didn't give me an option to start on the different logical drives like I thought it would when I pressed "F8" (may be "F12" or something else on your hardware); it booted normally, I saw the Win 8 stylized fish, and then a screen popped up to allow me to select which OS I wanted to boot. Selecting "Vista" instead got me a restart into Vista.
Your computer might do something different, my mainboard is an Asus Rampage II Extreme, with Vista 64 Ultimate and now the Win 8 CP installed.
;)
klmccaughey - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
Well I have had it installed for a few days now, and as a power user, multimonitor, DESKTOP user, I find it is all but unusable.The reason for having multiple monitors and desktops is to make use of that space.... SPATIALLY and not have all this crap getting in the way. It takes ages to find things you need to use, it is ANTI-productivity and a total DISASTER for business and power users.
It's basically a very smooth running piece of shit (POS).
Surely they could create a business version where we can continue to have a desktop and easy ways to jump from one activity to another.
As it is you have a tablet interface that gets RIGHT IN THE WAY of trying to do what you want.
How much money were Anand given not to give it a bad review is what I am wondering. You cannot seriously tell me people in business, programmers etc are going to be able to use this POS?
B3an - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
Just STFU and go back to Windows 95 then.And oh no you have to learn new things with a new OS? Who would have thought!! Thats just shocking.
It takes about an hour at most to learn the new stuff, then maybe a week to get used to it. After that... you dont have to learn it again! And you'll find that most things are actually FASTER to do if you use the new OS the way it's intended.
jabber - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
Yeah you've never worked for a company with 10000+ staff have you? Ranging from Brandi in HR to Steve in Accounts etc.Corporations dont have that amount of time and productivity to lose to an OS designed to run fart apps and Angry Birds.
It's a grown up world out there. It's not just about catering to skinny jeaned hipsters who only use Twitter and Facebook while sitting in Starbucks.
Business as usual rules.
noname3 - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
Nobody has problems learning new things; the only person with learning difficulties seems to be you, based on your language.Learning new OSes is something some of us do for a living, but to do so we need to be rewarded with increased productivity. Metro UI kills productivity and it sucks, you want to learn something useful, go learn foresting or something.
klmccaughey - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
At a guess I would say I am able to learn substantially more than you would be able to. It is not a matter of learning something new, it is a matter of the interface, as is, getting in the way of productivity.I can see how it would be great on a tablet, but for me working it is a nightmare. Judging by the reaction worldwide it seems that other professionals are seeing the same iceberg.
I like the spanglies, and I am delighted for MS that they have caught up in this respect. But someone has dropped the design ball when it comes to productivity and any vision of workflow for the average person.
Hopefully there will be a bit of a rethink on the interface so that I can continue to program in Windows (tm) using "Windows", with easy access using mouse and screens. I want to upgrade, and I have spent hours enjoying Windows 8 on my tablet, but it isn't even close to usable for my day job. That is a real shame in my opinion.
Valahano - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
Judging from your other posts on this article, I take it that you are some kind of a big Metro zealot. It's very hip, congratulations.However, this does not change the fact that this new interface is a major step back in usability on a desktop for anything beyond viewing lolcat pictures.
But don't worry, Win 8 is really great OS in at least one aspect - the Up button is back (Ctrl + Up still doesn't work though).
BehindEnemyLines - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
I think it's still the same Windows with all the desktop. In a multimonitor environment, you can have all your screens to be the desktop. The Start Screen is nothing more than a fullscreen start menu, and I actually find it more useful. The primary monitor will always be the screen with the Start Screen, so you can just click on the Desktop tile and use the desktop as it has always been. You can also access all of the power user resources by right-clicking on the bottom-left corner hot spot.And for a multimonitor setup, I suggest that you offset your left & right monitors slightly away from the bottom-left and top-right corners. That solved most of my problems.
I understand that businesses don't want to retrain employees, which is why all businesses should have an upgrade cycle and plan. Most businesses are NOT going to touch a new operating system at initial release. There's a ton of testing before deployment.
I had initially the same reaction with Windows 7 superbar. I thought MS was insane to remove the names from the taskbar and replace with just icons. And yet, I was amazed how much BETTER it's once I've learned it. I am just saying most things in life require some learning.