Windows 8

[jeepers01]

Unless you’ve been wearing earplugs and covering your ears for the last few hours, you’re likely aware that Microsoft finally took the wraps off Windows 8 today, and promised that a developer preview would be released today as well. Best of all, it’s accessible to everyone, not just developers.

Download the .iso and info here it's freeware for all to try out
http://www.redmondpie.com/download-windows-8-developer-preview-iso-64-bit-32-bit-now/
(the 32bit .iso is reported 2.8GB!)

How to Install Windows 8 From USB Key details here
http://www.pressbyte.com/5343/instal...ows-8-usb-key/

Looks interesting as it says it will run on any Win 7 spec machine. A little project for me at the weekend I think but not sure at this stage if it will dual boot and also the USB install does not appear to run from the stick but requires a full install to the hdd.
Further research is required......

Install report on an Eee PC 1000H netbook here

btw it's a slow download as its been reported that 500,000 copies Of Windows 8 Developer Preview have been downloaded within 24 Hours Of Release! lol

Edit: How to Dual-Boot Windows 7 and Windows 8 Side By Side here
Anyone feeling brave

Hope this helps

[Fred232]

Thanks for the info. I haven't tried it on my netbook yet, but I installed it in VirtualBox on my desktop. Had some trouble installing it, kept hanging, but eventually found a workaround and got it on.

Not sure I like the 'start' menu interface, and it appears some of the Apps opened from the new menu cant be closed (well Ive not found a way yet). Still its early days and its fun playing.
If only I had a touch screen

[jeepers01]

Fred232 - I too tried it out using VirtualBox with varying degrees of success on getting it to run on an i3 Aspire laptop with 3GB ram.
After a couple of installs it now runs well after tuning the VirtualBox settings. The key settings that worked for me were

Install the 32Bit .iso as Windows 7 on a fixed 30GB virtual partition (it does not have to be that big)
Set the available ram for VirtualBox to no more than half the machine available ram. viz: not exceeding the recommended ram amount by keeping the chosen ram values in the green on the allocation bar.

From the VirtualBox settings menu -
System > Motherboard - check Enable IO APIC
> Processor - check PAE/NX
> Acceleration - check both Enable VT-x/AMD-v and Enable Nested Paging
Display > Video - 128MB and check Enable 2D Video Acceleration



Within Win 8 change the screen resolution to 1024x768 from the desktop as the default 800x600 is very limiting.
Now full screen mode functions correctly and smoothly with no screen scrolling of Virtualbox required.

Initial observations are that the Metro Live tiles UI appears to have Win7 behind it

For others that may be interested in installing Win 8 there is a good guide here which I found after installing mine. However some of the settings in the guide did not work for me, see above.

To navigate around, the main keys are, Windows Key, Escape, Control Escape and the Mouse wheel will allow horizontal scrolling of the desktop etc. Logging in with a Windows Live ID is best as it gives a better overall user experience imo.

Took me a while to find a way to Exit, but in the end found that logging out from the desktop and then scrolling down the same screen shows the shutdown icon at the bottom.

Hope this helps and have fun

[Fred232]

jeepers01,

Thanks for that, I'll investigate how my settings are set when I next try it.

I had to drop back a version of VB as when I downloaded the latest I could not use USB devices. When I dropped back to the previous verison 4.0.12 (I think?) it worked OK. Also when I installed it on the latest version it locked up during the install unless I kept moving the mouse within the VM as it was installing. Odd. But again, this didn't happen on the previous version. Still I got it up and running albeit on the older version of VB. The newer version seems to clash with something on my PC, don't know what yet.

I think you get used to the 'metro' start menu after a while but it came as a shock to me initially, seemed well different. I guess its much better though on a touch screen.

I still haven't found a way to close the metro apps, all you seem to be able to do as far as I can see (so far, with this pre-release version) seems to be to 'leave them' and then they sit in the background ready for re-activation via Alt-Tab.

Good fun though.

[jeepers01]

Fred232 - A lot of people have also noticed that apps don't close and appear to remain running in the background (bit like Android). As far as I can see the only option is to end the tasks with Task Manager. (Desktop > right click task bar). I'm posting this reply with IE10 in Win8 and the carriage return key does not work lol happy days

[jeepers01]

jeepers01,

Thanks for that, I'll investigate how my settings are set when I next try it.

I had to drop back a version of VB as when I downloaded the latest I could not use USB devices. When I dropped back to the previous verison 4.0.12 (I think?) it worked OK. Also when I installed it on the latest version it locked up during the install unless I kept moving the mouse within the VM as it was installing. Odd. But again, this didn't happen on the previous version. Still I got it up and running albeit on the older version of VB. The newer version seems to clash with something on my PC, don't know what yet.

I first installed with an earlier version of VirtualBox and Win 8 recognised no devices at all. Second install with version 4.0.12 and all was well. Strange as that's the exact opposite of your findings, probably a compatibility issue somewhere that we'll never get to the bottom of.

btw try setting the number of processors to 4 in VB if you have double dual cores, it makes a big difference to performance and the piano app works seamlessly for example.

Hope this helps

[Fred232]

Thanks again. Ive not had another bash at W8, but I'll play with the cores and see. I did notice the piano app played with the timing of 'Les Dawson'

4.0.12 was the one I dropped back to and it worked. I started with 4.1.2 (which I think is the latest) and that one couldn't see my USB devices.

[jez]

Ooo I hadn't noticed the preview. Will set the download going and look forward to testing in a VM.

[deadkenny]

Installed the preview on a server and remote desktoped to it from the NC10 just to see how it will display on it.

Sadly all the Metro apps won't run and the resolution is claimed to be too low. That's at the native 1024x600. Sure you can make it run 1024x768 which apparently is the minimum required, but it will look bad.

So Win 8 + NC10 = No good. Unless you stick to the classic desktop, but then may as well stick with Win7 or XP (and Win7 runs really nicely on the NC10).

[jeepers01]

Microsoft has launched the most complete preview yet of its forthcoming Windows 8 operating system.

Microsoft previews Windows 8 operating system