Windows 8 Consumer Preview

[isiolia]

Sorry for the confusion, I knew the hardware would run it decently, I was talking about how the "betaish" OS would run.

To be fair, the ARM version of the OS is a different version, and will require apps compiled for ARM CPUs. NT 4.0 came with PowerPC and Alpha versions on the disc, but they still needed native apps.
Still, from what I've read, it's actually less resource intensive than 7.

The beta seems fairly solid - the release preview is coming out next month I think anyway.

IMO, for tablets, it'll probably be nice. I really don't like forcing touch-centric UIs and tiny-screen design on everything though. You can get used to it, but very little of it seems optimal, or even logical. I foresee sticking with 7 on my desktop.
Having a tablet-oriented OS that can still run all/most of my Windows software library is attractive, but I do wish that it wasn't an all-new shell we have no choice but to use (and need new apps to stay inside of anyway).

[MrPopo]

Sorry for the confusion, I knew the hardware would run it decently, I was talking about how the "betaish" OS would run.

To be fair, the ARM version of the OS is a different version, and will require apps compiled for ARM CPUs. NT 4.0 came with PowerPC and Alpha versions on the disc, but they still needed native apps.
Still, from what I've read, it's actually less resource intensive than 7.

It is a different version by virtue of the fact that it's compiled into a different set of machine code. But it's not like the codebase was forked for ARM. You're right about needing native apps, but my point was all the graphical transitions and whatnot are designed to work well on ARM, so if it'll be performant on ARM you better believe it'll be performant on a better desktop.

[isiolia]

It is a different version by virtue of the fact that it's compiled into a different set of machine code. But it's not like the codebase was forked for ARM. You're right about needing native apps, but my point was all the graphical transitions and whatnot are designed to work well on ARM, so if it'll be performant on ARM you better believe it'll be performant on a better desktop.

There are more differences than just that. Windows RT is only able to run new style apps. It only supports a narrow range of hardware. It's only going to be able to get apps from select sources. It's a smaller, more focused version of the OS, which will lend towards running it well on lighter hardware.

If you mean simply running the Metro UI lag-free and so on, then sure, absolutely, it's not particularly hardware intensive. It just wouldn't surprise me if, for example, comparisons between cheap x86 systems and ARM systems see the ARM version performing better in Metro apps, with the x86 machine having more overall capability.

[casterofdreams]

This is amusing to say the least: It crapped out on me. So here's the thing.

I set up a partition with my HP laptop (running Windows 7, clean installed from Vista). Installed Windows 8 on that partition no problem and everything worked. After a couple of days I decided to do some work on it and wouldn't load.

When you first install the OS after the install and restart, you were asked to run which OS. This came up with the new UI. Now it isn't giving me the options and the place where the tiles were suppose to be are missing.

Fine. I tried to use the recovery options provided by Windows 8 to try and get into Windows 7 but to no avail. Fine again. I tried to do a reinstall on that same partition and nadda. All hope was lost. Fuck. Funny that I did my monthly back up the day before and did this OS nonsense on my normal use laptop and not on my gaming rig.

So I used my Windows Vista recovery disk and I wouldn't even waste the Windows 7 Pro license again on something that has hardware problems and is 4 years old (HP dv7 1245-dx for your researching needs).

Ohh well. I'm sure there was a way to actually recover it but didn't have the patience really. I bet it would have been a simple fix too.

[CRTGAMER]

Betas are bound to have issues however, Microsoft has a two step history in previous Windows.

Win3.1<Win3.11
Win95<Win98
WinNT<Win2000
WinMe<WinXP
WinVista<Win7

Maybe wait for whatever is after Windows 8?

[isiolia]

Betas are bound to have issues however, Microsoft has a two step history in previous Windows.

Win3.1<Win3.11
Win95<Win98
Win2000<WinXP
WinVista<Win7

Maybe wait for whatever is after Windows 8?

Minor correction, while Windows XP did replace Windows 2000, 2000 was a very solid release. I think the more typical logic there is the 98->ME->XP progression for the "every other release" thing. At the time, ME was the consumer Windows (and was terrible), while 2000 was a huge improvement over NT 4.0.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Betas are bound to have issues however, Microsoft has a two step history in previous Windows.

Win3.1<Win3.11
Win95<Win98
Win2000<WinXP
WinVista<Win7

Maybe wait for whatever is after Windows 8?

Minor correction, while Windows XP did replace Windows 2000, 2000 was a very solid release. I think the more typical logic there is the 98->ME->XP progression for the "every other release" thing. At the time, ME was the consumer Windows (and was terrible), while 2000 was a huge improvement over NT 4.0.

2000 was great on release. XP was meh and gradually got better.

[CRTGAMER]

Oops. Okay hows this?

Win3.1<Win3.11
Win95<Win98
WinNT<Win2000
WinMe<WinXP
WinVista<Win7

Still seems to follow thru my point about waiting past Win 8, maybe fixed in the following release?

[Jrecee]

Very happy with Windows 7 64-bit. Biggest complaint is issues with older games. Ultimate Doom and Lode Runner: The legend returns simply don't work on 64-bit. I'm sure there's plenty more that won't work either.

I'm honestly tempted to try and get ahold of a windows 98 machine just to play old windows and dos games without hassle.

[isiolia]

2000 was great on release. XP was meh and gradually got better.

Depends, I guess. For me, 2k was missing some graphics support on release, which took some time to see implemented (which is kind of sad, since I was using NT 4.0).
XP probably depended on what you were coming from. Compared to 2000, it was obnoxious (UI by Fischer Price, product activation, etc), but supported more stuff (minus things like Appletalk printer support that it dropped). If you were using 98 though, there was a fair chance that things got broken because you were jumping to the Windows NT platform.

Still seems to follow thru my point about waiting past Win 8, maybe fixed in the following release?

Oh, definitely.

It's a very large turning point though, and may be hard for MS to undo/fix if it proves to be unpopular. More likely, they'd have so much invested in pushing the Metro API that they'll stay the course regardless.