Microsoft Reimagines Windows, Presents Windows 8 Developer Preview

[sgreger1]

One unexpected move for Windows 8 was when I read that Microsoft drops support for Flash in Windows 8 (Tablets).


Looks like Flash is dead, with Mac and Windows dropping it, I don't see a bright future for it. Good riddance though, HTML 5 seems to work just fine.

[Crow]

Thought this was funny:

Sly boots.

[Crow]

I forgot to mention... If you would like to try out the new Windows 8 "Developer Preview" (which comes with 28 'Metro' apps, and an application from the BUILD conference), you can download it here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516

Please Note: The Windows Developer Preview is a pre-beta version of Windows 8 for developers. These downloads include prerelease software that may change without notice. The software is provided as is, and you bear the risk of using it. It may not be stable, operate correctly or work the way the final version of the software will. It should not be used in a production environment. The features and functionality in the prerelease software may not appear in the final version. Some product features and functionality may require advanced or additional hardware, or installation of other software.

In other words... It is recommended that you install the operating system on free space reserved for testing (i.e. don't overwrite your existing OS).

Here is a video that a user made showing you how to create a fresh partition for use with Windows 8 using your operating system's Disk Management utility:

Available in both 32-bit and 64-bit (Developer tools are available in 64-bit)

If you have any questions on installing and using Windows 8, feel free to ask.

Enjoy!

[shikitohno]

I've got a couple of friends who've been playing around with it for a while. A few seem to really like it, and others seem to think Windows 8 is going to be a big steaming pile. I'll stick with Fedora for now, and don't really see migrating back to Windows in the foreseeable future. I'd peg Windows as intermediate, though, in terms of required "techiness." All the claims of how mac is so much easier because you don't have to worry about anti-virus and spy-ware software has always confused me. I install a decent, free anti-virus program, and super anti-spyware and click the update button when it pops up in the system tray telling me there's an update available. Every once in a while, I'll do the same thing when the Window's update balloon pops up. Installing two programs at the very beginning, and then clicking on prompts a couple times a month doesn't strike me as very difficult, and you can generally automate those things. Linux can be fun. One of my first forays into linux, OpenOffice wasn't working properly. I told the computer to remove it, and added the -y flag so that it wouldn't answer yes to all the "Removing OpenOffice will remove OOWrite, becaue it requires OpenOffice to run, this operation will free up XXMB of space, is this okay?" questions. Learned that was a bad idea when it removed gnome as a dependent upon OpenOffice, and I was left with a black and white terminal, instead of any sort of GUI.

Linux doesn't have to be so formidable, though. For those interested, a lot of the popular distros are gradually moving towards the sort of idiot-proofing that Windows and Mac try to use. Ubuntu and Linux Mint were pretty easy to figure out when I first started, but they've been moving closer and closer to the sort of design I left Windows to escape. Still, for those who don't necessarily want to learn the ins and outs of their computer, but don't feel like running Mac or Windows they're decent options. Whatever you do, just don't try installing Arch Linux as your first distro. It's fun once you get it up and running, but I don't think the three hours of writing all your computer's config files is necessarily for the faint of heart. Especially if you've never worked with nano or vim before. Which reminds me, I need to go do all that again on my desktop, as the hard drive in it got wiped at my friend's house.

[Thraxy]

Currently Ubuntu 10.04 on all machines(excepting my Vista box), and a test install of Debian sid on a flash drive. My netbook is as far as it'll go. I'll kep Ubuntu 10.04 on it until it dies, supported or not. Next year when I would be otherwise upgrading to Ubuntu 12.04, I'll be moving to Debian sid. I had a great run with Ubuntu, but they've moved too far away from what I like in an O/S. It used to be Debian the way I wanted it, out of the box. Now, I'm changing a bunch of stuff, and if I have to do that, I might as well go to the source, and run Debian. As a bonus, I'll have a full rolling release, so I'll never have to make another full install, or a white knuckle distribution upgrade :^D :^)

Have you considered Linux Mint Debian Edition? It has flash and java and stuff preinstalled and is based on Debian, so it's a rolling release. I'm considering using it again, since I now have a machine that plays nice with Linux. It was a nightmare to get my soundcard working with Debian on the old machine.

[lxskllr]

Have you considered Linux Mint Debian Edition? It has flash and java and stuff preinstalled and is based on Debian, so it's a rolling release. I'm considering using it again, since I now have a machine that plays nice with Linux. It was a nightmare to get my soundcard working with Debian on the old machine.

Yea, I have considered it, and the option is still on the table, but I doubt I'll use it. It's based on testing, rather than unstable, so updates can be a bit slower, especially if something gets bumped back to unstable. Also, you don't really gain much stability with testing. You still have to watch what updates you install. It's both an easier, and harder way to go as opposed to using a fixed release. apt list-bugs is invaluable, and you can read bug reports before installing new packages.

[shikitohno]

Have you considered Linux Mint Debian Edition? It has flash and java and stuff preinstalled and is based on Debian, so it's a rolling release. I'm considering using it again, since I now have a machine that plays nice with Linux. It was a nightmare to get my soundcard working with Debian on the old machine.

Sound has to be one of the biggest issues with Linux. Everyone I know that's tried installing some version of Linux for themselves has some sort of story about how sound didn't play nice at first. Sort of disappointing when so many other things work so nicely out of the box, and then you have to wade through forum posts for two or three days to get sound working properly if you have a soundcard that Linux seems too have decided isn't worth properly supporting.