Windows 8 - Preview Just downloaded......

As you know widnows 8 preview or should i say, developer preview is out. For those who are into development. I think they are going to like one news that .NET is here to stay. I am feeling good about this because i don't have to move my stuff to linux for that. They also added HTML, JS and stuff for the metro UI. Okay before talking about the user interface stuff let me tell you that you can download the OS from the MSDN site. You can search for that in the bing. I got the torrent link and frm there i downloaded. There is nothing different in either web download or the torrent link. Same stuff. Just seeded by some another person for those who prefer torrent. I knew it was kinda hard for me to download with current connection, so moved to office connection and then downloaded frm there. Of course it took some time as it was OS. I downloaded it and tested on vmware 8 and virtualbox. For your information, vmware 7 and earlier don't work with windows 8. They trigger some hardware warnings with vmware. I don't know waht are those warning, so upgraded to vmware 8 for the time being. Also found out that i can use the same disk under virtualbox. You can choose that image for running under virtual box if that is what you want to do.

Instillation - i have 1GB of ram on my computer and allocated 746MB for the virtual machine. It took more than 30 minutes for the installation and with vmware there were many gltiches. I can tell you that if you're planning for the vmware installation, it is better to go for the virtualbox for now. It works fine under virtualbox. For vmware there are many issues which needs to be addressed. For example, vmware tools are not working under the vmwares current version. So you have to wait till they update the installation for the windows 8. Not that you are going to miss much of the vmware tools feature. But in my opinion, just forget it for now.

User interface- developer preview has metro UI fixed on the front. Boot screen and the login screen requires you to have .NET id or so called their login feature. Boot screen and the initial UI looks like xbox screen. Once you get into the desktop you'll see tiles on the screen which are made for the tablets. Tablets interface is different from the desktop and as of now developer preview has no option for switching between tiles and desktop mode. I'll see if there is an option for that. Tiles interface for the normal desktop users looks pretty much childish. I do think there should be normal desktop feature for now. But in this preview there is no such thing for now. But they may do this in future updates. Also tiles are bit annoying as the start button and the tiles both are over crowded in case if you're into app jumbling and stuff. I don't know if we need virtual desktop for the same stuff. But surely it would be great to see virtual desktop for this OS. One more thing is win 7 UI is sill there and nothing is removed from the preview of the windows OS.

Some of the apps tested on this installation are - opera 10 USB, firefox and winamp. Three of them are working fine as of now. Opera's USB installation is working good under windows 8 and nothing much different noticed for now. Firefox current version is also working on the win 8 and i don't think any less from mozzila because of this. They are going to be very stable in future updates.

Over to you, download and let me know if you like the installation of windows 8 and other features. I don't have much to comment because i can't install visual studio here for the testing and so my usage is a bit restrictive from here.

I didn't see Windows 8 in the Windows versions offered when creating a virtual machine in Vmware workstation 8.Which one did you choose ? Windows 2008?

Check this thread to see how you can run the windows 8 for your version of vmware. Some folks are running vmware server for installation and then player for the normal usage. It is working for them. Some folks are using vmware images from torrents or player images. I don't know if those are working for most of the folks. but for me the fix from the forum seems to be working fine. I am using the server edition of the vmware by the way. So my version and your in the updates are likely to have some difference. I don't know for sure what could work for you in that case. You can check out if that fix in the thread works for you. Most likely it should work for you on your version of the vmware.

Check this thread to see how you can run the windows 8 for your version of vmware.

1. Install VMware Workstation 8. 2. Create a new vm with either Workstation 8 or the included Player 4.
3. DO NOT mount the iso file, instead select I will install the operating system later.
4. Set guest OS to Microsoft Windows 7 x64.
5. Increase the RAM to 2 GB and finish the wizard.
6. Edit the vm you just created and mount the iso file to the CD/DVD.
7. Play!

By the way i was just checking the news related to the upcoming features in the windows 8 and found that there are some major changes going on with windows 8. In future, windows may be locked down for the OEM installations. That means you're not allowed to dual boot with previous versions of windows and linux installations. So basically you'll be restricted to windows 8 and that is it. Some may go with the argument of why you need older installation or linux. But these are short sighted arguments and we can see this type of hardware or vendor lockdown is going to cause some issues. I do think that independent installations that we do using our own assembled built machine will be free from this. But if they add this boot keys to all the versions of windows then chances are there that some users may move to linux for the same reason. I mean if you're not allowed to dual boot then there is hardly any choice you get like apple on their hardware machines. But here the thing is that microsoft is trying to lock the vendors by their certification and the keys. You can read more information about this here and here.
They may be doing this to stop the people from doing the another OS installation on their phones and hardware that they are selling. For example, HP pad allowed multi boot and many users tested some of the linux distros on these pads. By doing this they were tested specific versions. Granted this may be competition killer. But they want to be more of host application and that is why they are interested in locking down the hardware. It is possible that some may come up with jailbreak installations but in that case they lose the warranty and the official support frm the site and store. So till the period of hardware usage no one is going to do play with their money unless they have enough to manage for jailbreak. But considering apple phones and the tablets are jailbreaked for the linux, it is possible to do this with windows as well. Not that most of the users would like to do that. But it is good to have that type of feature if win 8 somehow forces this type of thing. I guess they're doing it for the sake of the competition with apple and want to capture the linux market where they lost some of their desktop shares. Not sure if that works for most of the users. But it is not working for me. I may switch to linux or use assembled machine and install windows that way. I don't know what most of the astahosters are going to do if they wish to purchase boxed hardware from say newegg or wallmart or some another company.