[Blazkowicz]

ugh, you would end up running a 3rd party launcher (maybe a metro app even, or just a start menu replacement for the desktop)
I didn't dare try windows 8 (I could, if I could be arsed plugging an old stray IDE drive and doing the dance) but if I understand how it works you will end up with a Metro screen with over one thousand items, a lot of them being Readme.txt and Uninstall XYZ for all your stuff (add "set up max payne", "wolfenstein multiplayer", "visit our crappy website" as many times as needed)

it's a big non-issue, either you use Metro and like it enough and get over it, either you use a 3rd party program that allows you to stay in desktop permanently, or you do a mix of both.
XP was a big issue for me back then, but you could disable the crap and so entirely ignore it (fisher price, "smart" menu that hides your programs, crippled search with dog assistant, system restore, hibernation file eating 2GB on your C:\ : all of that goes away once you figure it out)

[UniversalTruth]

Originally Posted by Davros

Windows 7 Service Pack 2 is Win8

Very "funny", indeed.

Let GOD be with us and save us from this misapprehension called w8. Amen.

[Davros]

Originally Posted by Blazkowicz

a lot of them being Readme.txt and Uninstall XYZ for all your stuff (add "set up max payne", "wolfenstein multiplayer", "visit our crappy website" as many times as needed)

I have a "c:\Stuff\startmenu\shortcuts" folder where all that crap goes

[Kyyla]

I personally don't see any reason to upgrade my Windows 7 installation. Win 7 does all I need and is fast, unobtrusive and stable. My opinion might change when the final version is out and we get to read all the reviews. I'm interested in all the under the hood improvements.

[Blazkowicz]

an XP to 8 upgrade is interesting. there are many hold outs esp. people who build their own PC, or just using their six year old computer.
I know I want to, part of me wants to stay under linux, part of me knows I'm missing out so much on freeware and games.

windows 8 has good apects : the desktop seems very blank, and the flat window dressings remind of windows classic. Metro is bold, but I think the vista/7 start menu was flawed anyway. Windows 8 looks "lightweight", and it is. it's five years into the Vista line, so it feels like when XP was the perfect OS with tight drivers and many years of patches.

[Babel-17]

I'm hoping that SP1 for Windows 8 will offer the option to bypass Metro.

I can even see the logic of waiting, from MS's viewpoint.

What MS really wants is to get a lot of potential customers familiar with the UI of their phones/mobile devices.

After that is accomplished, once Windows phones look familiar and easy to use, MS can then start luring in power users who've been hanging on to their perfectly fine Vista and 7 installs.

And corporate customers usually wait for a service pack or two before buying a new OS so MS has lost nothing there.

My theory presupposes that MS will put a lot of effort into ensuring that SP1 will allow one to scrape Metro off and still have the OS be stable. Metro is not just a wallpaper.

[Blazkowicz]

it's easy to run the OS with one thing less, you don't even need explorer.exe
even on XP you can change the registry setting that launches it and end up with cmd.exe for example, you only have a terminal window above a blue background and can probably launch a browser and stuff from there.

[Arwin]

I think the biggest draw of Windows 8 will be the 'App Store'. I think when the consumer version is out I'll go for it and use my $15 upgrade option, get an SSD (postponed that just for this) on my new PC and see where I end up.

Is it possible to change the boot setting so that if I boot from SSD, I get Windows 8, and if I boot from my main drive, I get my current Windows 7 setup?

[Gubbi]

Originally Posted by Arwin

Is it possible to change the boot setting so that if I boot from SSD, I get Windows 8, and if I boot from my main drive, I get my current Windows 7 setup?

In most BIOSes you can press F8 to get a boot menu, pick a drive and have it boot using the MBR on that particular drive.

I have a Win 7 on SSD, Ubuntu 12 on an old 400GB HDD and Win Vista on a 1TB HDD, all bootable.

Cheers

[Arwin]

Originally Posted by Gubbi

In most BIOSes you can press F8 to get a boot menu, pick a drive and have it boot using the MBR on that particular drive.

I have a Win 7 on SSD, Ubuntu 12 on an old 400GB HDD and Win Vista on a 1TB HDD, all bootable.

Cheers

Cool, that was just what I was wondering - if the MBR depends on the startup drive, or it just searches for a drive with an MBR regardless of your startup drive. Now I realise that wouldn't make any sense, because then you couldn't boot from USB or DVD, but hey, I'm tired.

[Blazkowicz]

Old BIOS did not let you choose individual drives, it was primary IDE master and that's all, maybe checking further drives. There's also a rule I don't remember about DOS, maybe it wanted to be on a primary partition on the first drive. But the BIOS is dumb, if it lets you choose the drive it will probably believe it's the first one..

I kept a DOS partition for long, a custom MBR made by a freeware partition tool would allow a very crude multiboot. I was so proud of this because I could flash BIOSes very easily, and thought having the swapfile on fat32 was marvelous, of course in the end I would update graphics card's BIOS which would not change anything, and I would make my computer swap when running the heaviest games.

[Davros]

dos = primary partition on 1st physical drive, primary partition on 2nd physical drive ect
then logical drives on extended partitions.
the goes back to the 1st physical drive and looks for additional primary partions, then does the same for additional drives.

[pjbliverpool]

Originally Posted by Arwin

I think the biggest draw of Windows 8 will be the 'App Store'. I think when the consumer version is out I'll go for it and use my $15 upgrade option, get an SSD (postponed that just for this) on my new PC and see where I end up.

Is it possible to change the boot setting so that if I boot from SSD, I get Windows 8, and if I boot from my main drive, I get my current Windows 7 setup?

I'm pretty much in the same boat, I.e waiting for 8 before getting an SSD. I always try to wait for an os upgrade to coincide with a hdd upgrade. Great idea about dual boot though, I'm definately not ready to give up 7 yet but want to give 8 a proper chance to win me over. First new os ever though that I'm not completely certain about wanting to upgrade.

[Davros]

surely when you install win 8 it will see your previous o/s and give you the option of what drive to install to and dual boot with a menu of which o/s to start much like previous o/s's. No need to invoke the bios boot menu
the only thing i didnt like about the vista install was I had xp drive 1 c: and a blank formatted drive d:
previous o/s's would install onto the second drive and be labeled d:,
so old os = c: new o/s = d:

when I had xp on c: and installed vista onto the second drive, I would boot into xp and it would be c: then boot into vista expecting it to be d: but vista would re-label the drive c:
so I had the following
xp =c:
vista =c:
instead of
xp = c:
vista =d:

even though vista was installed onto the second drive, I wasnt happy with that
It also put a hell of a lot of files onto c: with the permission set to owner/creator and the were a nightmare to delete

[Blazkowicz]

I'd be tempted by a 32GB ssd, though the idea would be more to run linux mint cinnamon on it

But seeing how 8 scales down to tablets it would be very interesting if it was lightweight enough to run on 32GB. I don't hold my breath though, tablets will actually lack the desktop and win32. But Windows 7 can be run at that size ; only I wonder how much it would creep up under the weight of updates and .dlls

Win 9x was better, you could better choose components at install so if you didn't want e.g. wordpad you unchecked the box!
Ideally give me Metro IE if you need but not desktop IE, no wordpad, no windows media player and even no notepad if I feel like using some freeware or opensource with features like line numbers, tabs, syntax coloring and opening damn unix text.

[Bludd]

WinSxS folder in Windows bloats the install size without actually using that space using hard links so files are counted twice. Is this fixed in 8?

[(((interference)))]

Hmm, I'm debating whether to virtualize Windows 8 on my Retina MacBook Pro or just stick with Win 7 (I have keys for Professional editions of both).

I dislike the removal of the start menu, however is it true that Win 8 has much better support for multitouch than 7? So scrolling, pinch to zoom and other gestures are much more fluid than they currently are (which is spotty, at least on my intuos5 touch tablet)

[Blazkowicz]

I was amazed to find out I had some multitouch operation on an old (but amazing on its own ways) piece of crap, an eee PC 901 with 4GB + 8GB ssd. It's on linux mint 12 lxde and a buddy, its owner, told me I could use two fingers and simulate the scrollwheel this way (and even middle-click).

I was dumfounded so in my opinion, go for recent software. I know windows 8 has two start menus already, Classic Shell and Start8, even though I never used windows 8.

[Babel-17]

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/w...sic-shell.html

Hopefully MS will get around to officially giving us such options.

[Blazkowicz]

Classic Shell would be perfect if it had "favorites" in the menu, as in 98 and XP. For a few years I totally relied on that feature, I would always use it to get to the music folder, the movies, the collection of tools and drivers etc.

[UniversalTruth]

Originally Posted by Bludd

WinSxS folder in Windows bloats the install size without actually using that space using hard links so files are counted twice. Is this fixed in 8?

Is it me or the clock loses synchronisation all the time and needs to synchronise very often with time servers?
Is it connected somehow with stop responding of this service or somehow connected with how the central processor executes.

In Windows XP the problem is not so emphasised - it gets a little bit inaccurate but not that much as in Windows 7- dozens of seconds...

[BRiT]

Sometimes large drifitng clocks are an issue of your cmos battery so you might want to check or replace that. I haven't had those extreme drifting clock issues since switching to higher quality motherboards.

[V3]

Just a question, can you not install the Apps store or uninstall it in Win 8 ?

[Blazkowicz]

If you have $882 to blow you can use the full version, called Server 2012, it's more flexible in how you install and use it.
Else you probably have to hack it away.

[V3]

You can do it in Server 2012 ? How many licenses do you get for $882 ? More than one I hope.