It's coming out in just a few days - has anyone tried it? I haven't yet, but I'm really skeptical about the shoehorning of a tablet interface in a desktop environment. A lot of developers are really unimpressed and seem to think it's going to be detrimental to PC gaming as well. I think I'll likely just stick with Windows 7 - it's my favorite version of Windows by far, and I don't see anything about 8 that makes me want to upgrade.
I've been running Windows 8 since July, and I really don't understand why people say Metro is terrible / will ruin PC gaming / etc. To me, Windows 8 simply feels like Windows 7 with some bonuses; if you already have Windows 7, and can't upgrade at a low cost, by all means, stick with it. Otherwise, however, I think you should upgrade. The new Start menu looks and feels really nice, even when using a mouse, something I thought wouldn't be true before I tried it. The Start menu apps are really nice in that when you start up your computer, you can automatically see how many new emails you have, what the local weather is, waht the latest news is, and more thanks to the Live Tiles. I might be in the minority, but I love Windows 8.
I hate it so much. I installed it as the backup on my Mac because I also hate OSX and wanted a Windows alternative and... I hate 8 more than OSX. :( http://www.pcgamesn....lling-windows-8 That article, while riddled with typos and not particularly well-written, outlines pretty much every single problem I had with Windows 8. Hopefully they've fixed a lot of them since then, since I was only using the beta/preview/whatever, but everything was so frustrating! I'm very much a fan of slick UI designs and useability and while the style previously-known-as-Metro-but-referred-to-as-Metro-in-my-post-because-I-don't-know-what-they-changed-it-to would look GREAT and so damn snazzy on a tablet, it was infuriatingly useless on a computer. There was so much wasted space and nothing was intuitive. I've heard that it's really difficult for long-time power users of Windows to get the hang of but even when I think of how relative computer newbies would use it, their design choices just baffle me. Unless they've fixed up how to switch out of Metro apps, which (as far as I remember) are only useable in fullscreen, there's no intuition to it at all. No way to see what else you have open unless you hover your mouse in a specific place (a corner, iirc?) and click. Closing programs is clunky and every Metro app I tried was so horribly designed for laptop screen real estate that I gave up on them really quickly. I will note that I haven't used it that much and my experience was definitely dampened by lack of working drivers for Macbooks at the time. (My touchpad didn't work and speakers didn't either, but plugging in a mouse and headphones made the experience as-intended.) I absolutely adore Windows 7 so I won't be upgrading any of my computers. :/ If I do feel the need for an upgrade, I'll just be switching to Linux.
I have a $15 upgrade to Windows 8 from when I bought my laptop, so I'll probably buy it, but I'm not planning on upgrading. I love Windows 7 and I don't want to break compatibility with anything just to try an OS I'll probably dislike.
I know there's an issue with WLM or something since there's a (very sucky, apparently) built-in messaging app.
I... would hope you can install the actual WLM instead of the horrible messaging service but I'm not sure. At the very least you could probably get a mobile copy of it running.
It....looks nice, but I don't see anything that really...stands out about it? Granted, I will fully admit that I'm ignorant about a lot of it's features, what it's like, etc, so I'm only going off of it's UI, and I'm really not all that impressed. Like Erica, if I had to upgrade or plan to switch to another OS, I'm leaning towards Linux if anything else.
I'll probably set aside a partition and set up a test install on my desktop once we get through this storm. Not really expecting to be impressed.
I'm probably gonna do the same. I realized the other day that I get Windows 8 for free through MSDN so I might as well take a look at it, right? I've heard it's improved since I last checked it out and if it's free, it can't hurt. And if I dislike it enough afterwards, I can just reformat the partition and finally get linux on my desktop. @_@