My thoughts:
- Windows 8 is a grab bag of other ideas. I've been talking to a LOT of Microsoft Staffers past / present and they're a mixed bunch on this one. The feeling is at the core the OS has potential to do a lot but it still comes up short in comparison to the competitors - namely, Google OS, JavaScript Compilers via Goolgle, Apple iOS Perf Comparisons etc. Its hard to really pin down the specifics as they def know more about the inside mechanics of MOSH suffice to say there is a very mixed opinion on its technical merits from the groups i've spoken to anyway. - Metro-Style or MOSH apps are not as polishes as they could be. The entire UI apps were done mostly by interns to abstract the secrecy from the rest of Microsoft staffers (leak prevention etc) and it somewhat shows (all the power to interns of course). The UI itself is practically a year or so old, and not much has been done it since its initial show & tell back then. There is also a huge departure in UX/UI Principles from the early days when Industrial Innovation Group put the original ideas to digital form (we saw sneak peaks of this via the Microsoft Health videos etc). - The term re-imagined is a little cheesy but bold imho. That is to say that its clear in a lot of ways that the iPad and iPhone have had strong influence in the imagination pipeline, so its really a case of taking an existing baseline and improving it for the sake of improvement at times (ie dragging the box left/right with one finger on hold and the other back and forth, great, you fixed a bug in iPhone UI?...but really? thats the golden WoW moment... ?? i was hoping for more of a anti-pattern here). - Its unclear how legacy plays a role going forward. Metro-Style apps live in a very secure lowbox area where they have limited access etc to your OS whilst at the same time the security is optimised mostly around Payment API's to verify you purchases the app (metro-anti-piracy). In order to inject legacy into the store is a little murky or unclear even though it was stated they will still play a role. It's also unclear on what this means going foward when you have "Windows 7" apps working on "Windows8" and is it a case of switching between the two Hyper-v layers (Appx vs Legacy) to get that running? - Speed Performance - Given the simplicty of the applications and UI so far, its kind of tongue in cheek thinking that speed now is lighting fast. More tests def need to be done specifically around how does the Operating System handle what we refer today as "Windows Rot"... as even with a fresh install of Windows things are snappy and fast. Its only over time you start getting additive variables and speed decrements or gets a bit heavy in parts. The UI is using a lot of vector so i can see why the emphasis is on hardware rendering and optimisation but also its fair to say the UI's at the moment via metro approach are attacking it from a "let it breathe" simplistic user interface design. - Trust us, use our templates. Hands up those who have never been burnt by Microsoft Templates / Code Gen in large scale situations or apps that have importance beyond quick dirty hello world. I'm nervous about this the most, in that its a case of don't think just use.....this never ends well in the past (who knows new blood? new room for improvement?) - Silverlight / WPF Today. .NET 4.5 is unclear on how it increases perf other than a bit more threading automation. I'd be curious to see how existing apps can gain in perf here going forward and if its an actual fix to WPF or is it just a abstraction / token of faith fix. It's also very unclear the future of SIlverlight going forward especially while we wait 1-2 years min for Win8 to start hitting consumer hands. Given Enterprise / Businesses don't adopt aggressively and that market conditions have significantly changed between Windows XP -> Windows 7 transition how does one foresee Windows 8 working here? ...in that there's no duress upgrade here, unless they retract Windows 7 from sale at the time of Windows 8 go-live?. Is it a case of Windows 8 being an addon to Windows 7? .... no matter what, Silverlight appears to have end of life given majority of the staff have moved to different areas of Microsoft (most left) and lastly there's no mention of a vNext beyond Silverlight 5. For me, there are way more Questions left on the table other than a high-five for a technical preview (which was scheduled to be a beta not a technical preview - so appears they're already behind on schedule). Normally you'd let this slide if it was just an isolated product like Silverlight, Access, IIS, VS etc.. but this is Windows!... the main flagship product and for me it came off a little underwhelming in terms of specifics... everyone's probably in a natural tech high, great, but at some point you gotta sober up and look at this thing in the light of day. --- Regards, Scott Barnes http://www.riagenic.com On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 12:53 AM, David Burela <david.bur...@gmail.com>wrote: > For those wanting to play with it inside a virtual machine, i'd recommend > you instead boot directly into Win8 as a VHD instead. > Here is a guide from Scott Hanselman > > http://www.hanselman.com/blog/GuideToInstallingAndBootingWindows8DeveloperPreviewOffAVHDVirtualHardDisk.aspx > > > One of those "annoying things" I'm finding with the new tile interface, is > trying to swap from one app to another. You need to keep flicking your > finger from the left to cycle through the apps. It makes it really difficult > to know if your app is still actually in the back stack, or where exactly it > is. I keep flicking through, cycling through twice only to discover that my > app isn't open any more, or I keep missing it and need to keep cycling > through again. > Having a way to switch apps with say, similar to how you can quick switch > on iOS would make it so much more functional. > > -David Burela > > > On 16 September 2011 16:33, Grant Maw <grant....@gmail.com> wrote: > >> No, Win7 64 bit host. x64 Win8 preview. >> >> >> On 16 September 2011 14:36, Winston Pang <winstonp...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Grant, were you doing it on a 32bit host environment? installing the x64 >>> Win8 preview build? >>> >>> >>> On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 2:27 PM, Grant Maw <grant....@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> To get it working on VirtualBox (assuming you had the same "unexpected >>>> error" that I got) you need to do this : >>>> In the settings for your virtual box, motherboard tab, make sure you >>>> have selected "Enable IO APIC", then on the Processor tab, make sure >>>> "Enable >>>> PAE/NX" is selected. >>>> >>>> I have also read somewhere that people are having trouble getting the >>>> networking to work properly. I didn't have this issue but the current >>>> wisdom >>>> for this is to go into settings and on Network-Adapter1-Advanced choose the >>>> generic (Intel PRO/1000 MT) network card. >>>> >>>> Hope that helps >>>> >>>> Grant >>>> >>>> On 16 September 2011 14:19, Winston Pang <winstonp...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Ah, nice, thanks Ken, I was using virtual box, but it crapped itself. >>>>> So I thought it was across the board. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 1:27 PM, Ken Schaefer >>>>> <k...@adopenstatic.com>wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Applications like VMWare Workstation will let you run 64bit VMs even >>>>>> if the host OS is 32bit**** >>>>>> >>>>>> ** ** >>>>>> >>>>>> Cheers**** >>>>>> >>>>>> Ken**** >>>>>> >>>>>> ** ** >>>>>> >>>>>> *From:* ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto: >>>>>> ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] *On Behalf Of *Winston Pang >>>>>> *Sent:* Friday, 16 September 2011 10:58 AM >>>>>> >>>>>> *To:* ozDotNet >>>>>> *Subject:* Re: Microsoft BUILD / Windows 8**** >>>>>> >>>>>> ** ** >>>>>> >>>>>> Man it totally sucks.**** >>>>>> >>>>>> ** ** >>>>>> >>>>>> I wanted to install x64 on a VM but forgot that my current install of >>>>>> windows is 32bit, so it wont run the Windows 8 x64 version, which is the >>>>>> only version that has the VS2011 express dev tools, GAHHHHHHH**** >>>>>> >>>>>> ** ** >>>>>> >>>>>> And that link requires MSDN subscription only.**** >>>>>> >>>>>> ** ** >>>>>> >>>>>> ** ** >>>>>> >>>>>> On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 12:01 PM, David Kean < >>>>>> david.k...@microsoft.com> wrote:**** >>>>>> >>>>>> Please also play around with the developer tools, I’d suggest >>>>>> downloading the Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview ( >>>>>> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/2011/09/14/announcing-visual-studio-11-developer-preview.aspx) >>>>>> over the Express edition.**** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> One thing you should be aware of is that we only have a certain amount >>>>>> of time to react to feedback before the Beta – so please, please tell us >>>>>> what you think.**** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> Although Windows 8 seems to be getting the most attention, if you use >>>>>> TFS, there’s a bunch of goodness in this release which I’ve been >>>>>> dogfooding >>>>>> for the past 6 months; Agile tools to manage stories and tasks, *My >>>>>> Work* which is basically a Pending changes on steroids, and a new >>>>>> built-in Code Review tool.**** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> *From:* ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto: >>>>>> ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] *On Behalf Of *Stephen Price >>>>>> *Sent:* Thursday, September 15, 2011 6:23 PM >>>>>> *To:* ozDotNet >>>>>> *Subject:* Re: Microsoft BUILD / Windows 8**** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> I installed it on my Asus eee slate last night. First attempt left me >>>>>> in an endless boot loop telling me there was a problem. Maybe it was >>>>>> because >>>>>> I installed it in a pub? Backed up hard drive and formatted it, >>>>>> installing >>>>>> from scratch. Went much better second time. **** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> It makes my slate so much nicer to use. Windows 7 was not fantastic >>>>>> for touch input. Windows 8 makes it so much nicer. It gives my slate two >>>>>> modes of use, walk around the house, drive with finger mode (classic >>>>>> tablet) >>>>>> and then keyboard and mouse (bluetooth) to do any desktop stuff. **** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> Really fast to shutdown and start up. Its like less than 5 seconds to >>>>>> get to the login screen. **** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> Unfortunately my slate has an problem where it just powers off >>>>>> randomly. Hardware issue, it started doing it a week ago and is still >>>>>> doing >>>>>> it. need to send it back for repair :(**** >>>>>> >>>>>> On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 9:18 AM, William Luu <will....@gmail.com> >>>>>> wrote:**** >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks David. **** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> That's one of the better summaries I've read thus far.**** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> On 16 September 2011 01:12, David Burela <david.bur...@gmail.com> >>>>>> wrote:**** >>>>>> >>>>>> I'm surprised there hasn't been any discussion around this on the >>>>>> mailing list yet.**** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> I've got some notes about the day 1 & day 2 keynotes**** >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> http://davidburela.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/build-keynote-day-1metro-experience-with-jupiter-xaml-and-html5js/ >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> http://davidburela.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/build-keynote-day-2windows-server-8-and-developer-tools/ >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> *Some quick thoughts:***** >>>>>> >>>>>> *Development***** >>>>>> >>>>>> The new functionality for the immersive apps is cool. The "charms" >>>>>> that allow you to share data between applications (edit an image in an >>>>>> image >>>>>> editor, then have another app directly upload it to twitter) is cool. >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> User account syncing across desktops is also interesting. Syncing >>>>>> combined with the "Credential locker" allows a user to log in to an app >>>>>> on >>>>>> one computer (e.g. using Facebook or Google credentials to log in via the >>>>>> Azure ACS), the credentials are saved in the locker and synced to their >>>>>> other computers. So later if they pick up a tablet and launch the app, >>>>>> they >>>>>> will just be logged in straight away. and it only takes ~3 lines of code. >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> *as a desktop***** >>>>>> >>>>>> The new tile start screen is cool. and the new immersive apps in the >>>>>> metro themed style is cool**** >>>>>> >>>>>> However I am finding it really frustrating to use it as a general >>>>>> Operating System, as I keep getting mentally confused between the 2 >>>>>> different contexts (Tile interface, classic desktop).**** >>>>>> >>>>>> I keep hitting start to bring up my list of programs, but that takes >>>>>> you back to the tiles.**** >>>>>> >>>>>> I also don't see how my traditional multi monitor setup with >>>>>> multitasking is going to work in this world of new "immersive" style >>>>>> apps. >>>>>> Reading a webpage in the chromeless immersive app and then trying to chat >>>>>> with someone on MSN, is a jarring experience.**** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> -David Burela**** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> **** >>>>>> >>>>>> ** ** >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >> >
