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Windows 8 / RT |OT|

K

kazinova

Member
toddhunter said:
It is windows 7 with a shit new menu and a shit new store. Both can be completely ignored.

Nothing changes.

If you get it for nothing, the "upgrade" is quick and painless.
Click to expand...

Can we all agree that we are beyond this kind of weird MS hate? We are in a post XP world, this kind of juvenile, infantile animus is pretty passé, amirite.
 
A

Auron_Kale

Member
SPDIF said:
From the OP:

Can my computer run Windows 8?
Windows 8 takes up less resources than Windows 7 so it should run even in older computers.
If you want to make sure, you can use the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant which will check
to make sure your PC is ready for Windows 8.

Here's a comparison.

ibzktM0sKMMjFM.png
Click to expand...

Cool thanks. I was kinda figuring it'd be okay to upgrade but wanted to make sure from those that have been running the preview.

I'll think about upgrading as though I don't mind W7, I'd be okay with W8 on my netbook since I have W7 at work.
 
Y

yn-neko hates a cat

Banned
Auron_Kale said:
Cool thanks. I was kinda figuring it'd be okay to upgrade but wanted to make sure from those that have been running the preview.

I'll think about upgrading as though I don't mind W7, I'd be okay with W8 on my netbook since I have W7 at work.
Click to expand...

Hopefully your netbook has the resolution and video capibility to run windows 8 right. You need to support at least DX9 graphics and a resolution greater than 800 x 600.
 
F

Franklinator

Member
Dang it, the Computer Science and Engineering buildings of my school are enrolled in DreamSpark, but not the Business Building. Oh well, I may take advantage of the $15 upgrade since I just bought a laptop.
 
Y

yn-neko hates a cat

Banned
Auron_Kale said:
Yeah, it's running at the weird resolution of 1024 x 600. So I think I'll be okay, right?
Click to expand...

Ooooooooh..... I don't know man. You may not get more than the desktop. I never ran that low of a resolution so I can't say for sure but I think I read somwhere that you needed at least 1024 x 768 to even see MUI apps.
 
B

brotkasten

Member
SeaOfMadness said:
Well, that's true, but what does "all" mean? If you look at the search menu, it has dozens of apps you could potentially search across. Would it include all of those too? Or just some? If some, which ones? See what I mean?
Click to expand...

Oh no, it's very simple. Give me the option (even if it's not by default) to search across files, settings and apps, like it was in Vista and 7.
 
S

SPDIF

Member
Auron_Kale said:
Yeah, it's running at the weird resolution of 1024 x 600. So I think I'll be okay, right?
Click to expand...

That'll be fine if you plan to use it just like Windows 7, but like yn-neko said, if you are planning on using any of the Modern UI/Metro apps then your resolution is too low. You need at least 1024 x 768 for that.
 
A

Auron_Kale

Member
yn-neko hates a cat said:
Ooooooooh..... I don't know man. You may not get more than the desktop. I never ran that low of a resolution so I can't say for sure but I think I read somwhere that you needed at least 1024 x 768 to even see MUI apps.
Click to expand...

Hmmm... Well, I guess I'll wait for more impressions and google around. If not, I'm okay with not upgrading obviously, but thought it might be fun.

Thanks!

SPDIF said:
That'll be fine if you plan to use it just like Windows 7, but like yn-neko said if you are planning on using any of the Modern UI/Metro apps then your resolution is too low. You need at least 1024 x 768 for that.
Click to expand...

Ahhh, gotcha. And yeah, probably more like W7 would be my usage. Otherwise, I'm looking to get a new comp (probably an Air or iMac if it's refreshed) and then boot camp it.
 
A

alphaNoid

Banned
Im currently running Windows 8 Pro at home, and have been for several weeks now. Its my main OS and runs everything flawlessly. Big upgrade from Windows 7 and I won't be going back. I've also upgraded my work laptop from Windows 7 Enterprise to Windows 8 Enterprise and have no compatibility issues thus far with any work applications. Also running Lync 2013, Office 2013 and a few other new suites of MS applications as well.

I've been running variants of Windows 8 and 2013 suite applications for awhile as one of 6 companies world wide participating in the Super TAP program. Everything has come such a long long way in the past 18 months, and these final builds are ready to go. It will be interesting to see how things go from here, SDKs out there and all and developers starting to release WinRT applications etc..

I would have told you 1 month ago that Windows 8 would seem like the slowest adopted Windows OS yet, based on some of the feedback I read online. But, to the contrary most family and friends around me are interested in upgrading the OS or buying a Surface very soon. Shocking to have even my parents excited about the changes and new OS.. technology really has become a mainstream consumer electronic. People want the 'new' thing so I think Windows 8 will do just well.

That won't stop a few bitter PC enthusiasts upset with change, from making as much noise as they can online. MS will do just fine.
 
S

SeaOfMadness

Member
brotkasten said:
Oh no, it's very simple. Give me the option (even if it's not by default) to search across files, settings and apps, like it was in Vista and 7.
Click to expand...

Meh. I see what you mean, but it gives you the number of each of those types found, and then you just have click or arrow key down to see the results. Maybe a tiny bit more work, but it's rare for me that what I'm looking for could be in any of those 3 places.
 
S

SeaOfMadness

Member
alphaNoid said:
Im currently running Windows 8 Pro at home, and have been for several weeks now. Its my main OS and runs everything flawlessly. Big upgrade from Windows 7 and I won't be going back. I've also upgraded my work laptop from Windows 7 Enterprise to Windows 8 Enterprise and have no compatibility issues thus far with any work applications. Also running Lync 2013, Office 2013 and a few other new suites of MS applications as well.

I've been running variants of Windows 8 and 2013 suite applications for awhile as one of 6 companies world wide participating in the Super TAP program. Everything has come such a long long way in the past 18 months, and these final builds are ready to go. It will be interesting to see how things go from here, SDKs out there and all and developers starting to release WinRT applications etc..

I would have told you 1 month ago that Windows 8 would seem like the slowest adopted Windows OS yet, based on some of the feedback I read online. But, to the contrary most family and friends around me are interested in upgrading the OS or buying a Surface very soon. Shocking to have even my parents excited about the changes and new OS.. technology really has become a mainstream consumer electronic. People want the 'new' thing so I think Windows 8 will do just well.

That won't stop a few bitter PC enthusiasts upset with change, from making as much noise as they can online. MS will do just fine.
Click to expand...

If you have 2 monitors, you will *really* appreciate the full screen metro apps. You can move them back and forth from monitor to monitor with WIN+PgUp/Down and if you have a big monitor, you can snap them alongside the desktop. I love having a twitter feed snapped while the rest of the space is used by a desktop app.
 
N

nan0

Member
Any possibility to get the Windows Defender/MSE on-demand scanning from context-menus back? The various *.reg files that float around the Internet don't cut it, since they either won't work or do so only on folders.
 
Jzero

Jzero

Member
NotTarts said:
Just tried it tonight, actually. Works really well if you set it to high DPI mode (AKA "Make everything on your screen bigger" in settings). Full 1080p. Here are some shots of it:


This is on a 50" display. Mind you, it's not perfect, as you still have to sit a bit closer than usual, but it's far better than having to use the desktop.

You can forget about navigating it with a remote though. Play/pause works in Xbox Video (using the Windows Media remote) but nothing else does.
Click to expand...
This looks pretty good.

yn-neko hates a cat said:
James Bond movie director creates Lenovo Windows 8 video

So good...
Click to expand...
Awesome.
 
Y

yn-neko hates a cat

Banned
Dreams-Visions said:
really cool.

still far, far from sold on the exposed keyboard on the reverse.
Click to expand...

I do hope the edges and keyboard surfaces (generally all locations acting as surface contacts) are treated to be scratch and scuff resistant in addition to being durable otherwise it would suck to see your $1200+ piece of tech not lasting as advertised :(
 
Y

yn-neko hates a cat

Banned
kazinova said:
In lieu of the expensiveness of the Surface RT. I'm thinking either Ideapad Yoga 13 (i7, 8gbRAM, 256gbSSD) or the Surface Pro, whichever can run TF2/League of Legends better.

I like the laptop replacement factor for the Yoga though, ridiculous commercial aside.
Click to expand...

Having been seeing Hybrid laptops adverised with discrete graphics but I'd imagine those will be the ones you'll want to jump at should they come. I think think Surface Pro is integrated graphics but maybe that's all you really need. People have been showing some interesting bench marks of the HD4000 integrated stuff at work on a 1366 x768 screen and AMD is rumbling about it's APU offerings as well.
 
Y

yn-neko hates a cat

Banned
Lynn616 said:
Can Windows RT play any video format? I have a ton of m4v files that I encoded for my iPads.
Click to expand...

Here are the formats 8 and RT supports natively.

It doesn't say M4V or example but remember that Windows 8, like Windows 7 doesn't ship with many formats but there are plenty of free Codec packs that fix this so Windows 8 is no different from Windows 7 in that regard. Windows RT is where it becomes interesting because you'll only have a two (possibly 3) options:
  • Download an app from the market place that implements the codec natively within the app. I have to imagine someone at MPC is all over this
  • Stream it using an extender of some sort. I'm not aware of which ones are available but I know there are certain things I can stream over Skydrive for example.
 
D

Dreams-Visions

Member
kazinova said:
In lieu of the expensiveness of the Surface RT. I'm thinking either Ideapad Yoga 13 (i7, 8gbRAM, 256gbSSD) or the Surface Pro, whichever can run TF2/League of Legends better.

I like the laptop replacement factor for the Yoga though, ridiculous commercial aside.
Click to expand...

well an i7 is going to run shit better than an i5.

that said, neither League nor TF2 require much in the way of power, so there is probably little benefit to the i7 for those games.
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
Lynn616 said:
Can Windows RT play any video format? I have a ton of m4v files that I encoded for my iPads.
Click to expand...

It can play any format. The platform itself already comes with some default ones (Mp4, wmv... You can see the full list here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/06/08/building-a-rich-and-extensible-media-platform.aspx)

Mpeg is available on the Pro with the Media Center addon, but not on RT, but any metro app can use their own codecs (even with hardware acceleration).

The downside is that you can't install codec packs in metro, it has to be on a per app basis...

But i hope once the platform is released there will be a few open source / free choices so developers can add new formats painlessly. It is supposed to be very easy to add new codecs to metro apps. The app in theory could inclusive add support for mpeg without the need of the Media Center add on.
 
Y

yn-neko hates a cat

Banned
It just occured to me: There isn't a Windows Marketplace accessable through a browser is there? If I'm wrong or it's just not being made available till launch then disregard but given all the things they've done with the Xbox store and accessability, it seems like there's value in a Windows Marketplace that's accessable outside of Windows.
 
T

Troll

Banned
For you Enterprise people out there Windows 8 also has a feature called Windows to Go.

You can essentially boot Windows from a mass storage device, an example being a USB.

Here are the differences between WtG and Windows 8 Pro.

Windows To Go workspace operates just like any other installation of Windows with a few exceptions. These exceptions are:

Internal disks are offline. To ensure data isn’t accidentally disclosed, internal hard disks on the host computer are offline by default when booted into a Windows To Go workspace. Similarly if a Windows To Go drive is inserted into a running system the Windows To Go drive will not be listed in Windows Explorer.

Trusted Platform Module (TPM) isn’t used. When using BitLocker Drive Encryption a pre-operating system boot password will be used for security rather than the TPM since the TPM is tied to a specific computer and Windows To Go drives will move between computers.

Hibernate is disabled by default. To ensure that the Windows To Go workspace is able to move between computers easily, hibernation is disabled by default. Hibernation can be re-enabled by using Group Policy settings.

Windows Recovery Environment isn’t available. In the rare case that you need to recover your Windows To Go drive, you should re-image it with a fresh image of Windows.

Push Button Reset isn’t available. Resetting to the manufacturer’s standard for the computer doesn’t really apply when running a Windows To Go workspace, so the feature was disabled.

Store is disabled by default. Apps licensed through the store are linked to hardware for licensing. Since Windows To Go is designed to roam to different host PCs access to the store is disabled. You can enable the store if your Windows To Go workspaces won’t be roaming to multiple PC hosts.
Click to expand...
 
S

StudioTan

Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
yn-neko hates a cat said:
It just occured to me: There isn't a Windows Marketplace accessable through a browser is there? If I'm wrong or it's just not being made available till launch then disregard but given all the things they've done with the Xbox store and accessability, it seems like there's value in a Windows Marketplace that's accessable outside of Windows.
Click to expand...

There is but it's not really accessible at the moment.

It's http://apps.microsoft.com/ but it doesn't work. However if you google (or bing!) that with an app you can find it. For example "http://apps.microsoft.com/ solitaire" brings you to something like http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/simple-solitaire/7910c30b-4933-443d-8b04-c57fe5f1cc12.
 
Y

yn-neko hates a cat

Banned
StudioTan said:
There is but it's not really accessible at the moment.

It's http://apps.microsoft.com/ but it doesn't work. However if you google (or bing!) that with an app you can find it. For example "http://apps.microsoft.com/ solitaire" brings you to something like http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/simple-solitaire/7910c30b-4933-443d-8b04-c57fe5f1cc12.
Click to expand...

Sweet! Let's hope they launch something official when they pull the giant fake switch (those sorts events generally call for) because it'll be more in line with where they say they want to take the business and it's always nice to buy things when all you have is the internet and not necessarily your platform of choice at hand.
 
D

dwebo

Member
Lynn616 said:
Can Windows RT play any video format? I have a ton of m4v files that I encoded for my iPads.
Click to expand...

it can play .m4v, which are basically just .mp4, out of the box - I tried mine out recently in the metro player in win8. however, if you've got a lot of files with multiple audio tracks or subtitles, you'll probably need to wait for a dedicated app in the store as I couldn't get either to work (both work in ios natively)
 
Q

Quick

Banned
I have a dual boot of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 8 Professional (thanks again, Sethos). Haven't had the time to go through Win 8, but Start page is both awesome and somewhat annoying.

Awesome because Microsoft made the OS more simple and stylish, somewhat annoying because I'm still not used to going the extra step (not a difficult one) to access the desktop.
 
B

brotkasten

Member
yn-neko hates a cat said:
Sweet! Let's hope they launch something official when they pull the giant fake switch (those sorts events generally call for) because it'll be more in line with where they say they want to take the business and it's always nice to buy things when all you have is the internet and not necessarily your platform of choice at hand.
Click to expand...

They already have the Windows Phone Store on the web. You can expect the same for Windows 8. I'm not sure if remote install will be available at launch, though.
 
M

Majine

Banned
I like that it seems lighter and more secure. Can do without the metro, and the Windows Store tho.

Will try it on an external HDD, but I like Mountain Lion. It's a well-balanced OS.
 
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