Anyone else tried the Windows 8 Developer Preview?
I've been tryinmg to play with it for the last couple of hours and am not impressed. I know that, since it's a Developer Preview, it's aimed at getting developers to work on programs (apps, we gotta call them all apps now FFS) for the Metro UI, but pushing them along this line is a ridiculous idea... it is exactly like using a mobile phone, only without a touchscreen.
OK, we will probably all have touchscreens in the future but honestly!
The traditional Start Menu has been disabled, so we have 'buttons' everywhere, one of which is for the desktop... so what's happened to the idea of a clean desktop that MS have been working toward for the last 10+ years? I am willing to bet that the first thing developers do is hack the registry to disable Metro!
Having run a couple of Metro-Apps, I'm a little annoyed that to actually close one, I need to open Task Manager otherwise it just sits in the background doing nothing! Is that such a great idea? That the calculator needs to be kept running just in case you need it again? Don't expect your system to keep flying along even after a few days' uptime like Win7, then, as every app you open will stay open until you shut down.
I've read a few reviews and everyone says it boots in, like, 5 to 10 seconds. Haha, I wiped a WinServer2008 install (pretty much vanilla) for the preview (clean install) and it takes longer on the same hardware. Does this mean that once these guys install all their traditional app suites they're going to change their minds?
Don't get me wrong, I'm in favour of moving forward, but MS has a habit of making drastic changes without considering consequences and half-baked implementations of great ideas. I still miss the delete toolbar button, for example. For another, the feckin' great window snapping in Win7 is ruined if you have a second display!
I'd be interested in what other people think about where MS is going with this.
Edit:
Just went to shut it down and you currently need to go into Settings and Power to accomplish it.
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