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
Now that we’ve covered the bulk of Windows’ new UI elements, it’s time to get down to some individual apps, and there’s no app more important to Windows 8’s success than the Windows Store.
Unfortunately, at this point it's a bit difficult to tell how the store is going to work out—it seems like one of the less-finished apps provided in the Consumer Preview. There are basic categories for games, social apps, music apps, and a few others, but aside from the basic Search functionality (which is accessed from the Charms menu), there's just a sprawling "top free" list and a lot of scrolling. The Windows Store definitely shouldn't be judged on this early iteration, but a lack of polish (unlike in other Metro screens, more tiles don't show up when more screen space is available—if you look at the Store on a screen with a vertical resolution of much more than 768 pixels, you'll just see a big unused area of white space below the Store tiles) and missing features make it a rough demo at best.
As in both the Apple and Android app stores, you’ll need to sign in with a Windows Live ID to download anything from the Windows Store. If you used your Windows Live ID to create an account during Windows Setup, the OS can download and install apps without asking you for any extra information, but you can still use your Live ID even if you chose to create a local account. Once you’ve purchased an app, you’ll be able to download that app to any Windows 8 or Windows on ARM device you’ve signed into with your Windows Live ID.
All of the preview apps in the Windows Store are currently offered free of charge, but in the RTM version of the store developers will be able to offer both “Buy” and “Try” buttons for apps with demos—apps can have either timed or feature-limited demos available. Unlocking the full version of the app requires no separate download, and all of your saved data from the demo is still available. Info pages for apps also list compatible processor architectures—x86, x64, and ARM.
As seen above, when updates are available a small number will appear on the Windows Store tile. Entering the Store and clicking the "Updates" link in the upper right-hand corner of the screen will present a list of available updates, which you can install individually or all at once.
Apps submitted to the Windows Store have to make it through Microsoft’s approval process, which looks to be a more developer-friendly version of Apple's system: Windows 8 will be a curated platform, which should help curb some of the malware problems that Android is having. However, criteria for approval are clearly laid out, and developers whose apps are rejected will be given feedback on what changes they'll need to make to get approved. Microsoft is also updating its development tools to help guide developers through all the steps of the certification process.
For both advertisements and in-app purchases, Microsoft offers its own platforms but does not mandate their use. If a newspaper or magazine publisher has an existing database of its users and a pre-existing authentication system, that publisher is free to continue using them in its app. Apple began mandating the use of its systems for in-app purchases last year, meaning that all in-app purchases on iOS are subject to Apple’s 70/30 revenue split, and Google may be moving to prohibit third-party in-app purchases even as you read this.
Lastly, let’s assuage the fears of enterprise administrators: via group policies and PowerShell scripts, domain administrators can both permit and deny access to the Windows Store and to individual apps, and can also deploy Metro apps directly to PCs without using the Windows Store at all. This opens the door to volume-licensed apps, and will help IT admins to provide a consistent set of programs and features across different Windows 8 systems.
Whether the Windows Store will succeed remains to be seen—things like app discovery and user interface are important, but in the end the Windows Store is just a portal that will live or die on the quality and quantity of its apps. Those that are available are in a preview state, and while we’ll look at a few of the core Metro apps later on in this article, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to to do in-depth reviews of apps that are in beta-at-best states.
I will lay out one major concern up-front: while apps like Evernote and Cut the Rope do well on smartphones and tablets, I wonder how well more full-featured programs like Photoshop and Office will scale to Metro with their functionality intact. The Windows Store and its WinRT APIs are Microsoft’s future, but take this as a case in point: Microsoft is going to be shipping a copy of Office with every Windows on ARM tablet, but rather than providing Metro versions of Word, Office, PowerPoint, and OneNote to show developers how it’s done, it’s providing copies of those programs that will run only in the desktop environment, and it’s doing this in spite of the fact that no other developers will be able to use the Windows desktop on Windows-powered ARM tablets.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that Office apps will never get Metro styling, and it doesn’t mean that developers aren’t going to make some nice, feature-rich Metro apps, but Microsoft’s refusal to eat its own dog food in this case makes me a little nervous about the kind of programs we’ll end up seeing in Metro.
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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.