Windows 8 discussion

Yeah, tried that. No go.
I'm suspecting that I need to enable VM in my BIOS. I'm on with HP now to help me get into those settings, which are not selectable. Some secret HP has to enable the admin settings in the BIOS. We'll see.

Solved...

Yeas, that was it. Had to enable VM in the BIOS. Good grief.

Great! Was it disabled by default?

Anyway, enjoy the weekend.

Yes it was, indeed. HP playing Big Brother. "Don't play with sharp objects".
But, as it turned out, a nearly complete waste of time. I was so completely under-whelmed with the Win8 preview, I uninstalled it and the VM soon thereafter.

I'll be sticking to Win7 for quite some time if this is anywhere near the final product.

At least I figured out how to get into the administrator functions of my BIOS!!

My two cents worth

I know there is a tremendous mobile market out there but I think they are forgetting there is also millions of desktop users out there playing games, conducting business and so forth using programs that require a mouse and keyboard such as word processing at wpm levels you cannot obtain on a virtual keyboard, Photoshop, online games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest2, Eve online, Call of Duty, Skyrim and the list goes on. My big issue is I absolutely dislike Metro and really need the old style start menu and taskbar to operate just like Win7 for the things I use my computer for.

Soon we will be walking the streets mindlessly poking at our touch devices... minimal effort is going to be the death of us all.

Don't expect anything new evolving for MAK, as evolution in this regard has stagnated for years now. Something like MS's 3D Desktop may one day evolve into something more practical to replace MAK, but not yet.Until then keyboards and mice aren't going anywhere

Rather than stagnated, another way to look at MAK is by analogy to the shark, crocodile or cockroach: Each has already evolved to "perfection" and, therefore, no further evolution is required.

There are also psychological and emotional components to be considered in how humans interact with facets of their environments, including the electronic facets. One gets a psychic satisfaction from sitting and pounding at a keyboard that is missing when accomplishing the same task by speaking to the computer, for example. I think it will take another one-or-two generations before humans can be comfortably weaned from the old way to this new, Metro way. Even then, many will never completely abandon MAK for whatever comes next, much like I would never chose a Kindle to hunker down with and idly flip thru rather than an old Encyclopædia Brittanica.

Microsoft is shrewdly and wisely toying with us. Just look at the marketing value we are adding to their product by all this hand wringing! Windows 8 Final will include the best of the old while fostering adoption of the new; ie., it will permit us to effortlessly go from Classic to Metro, from work to play. If not, there are already dozens and dozens of safe, elegant and effective means to make 8 act like 7... and back again!

I'm not as adventurous as OP, SNGX1275, who's doing Windows 8 pure but, since 7 has been really great to me and 8 is supposedly better, with a few cheats and hacks, I'm gonna give Windows 8 a thorough looking over. Especially virtualized, it can't hurt.

Assuming you're on Proliant, will you share just how you did that?

If you position your mouse on the lower-left corner of the Desktop or Metro logon screen, and right-click you get a context menu that includes:
Programs and Features, Network Connections, Power Options, System, Device Manager, Disk Management, Computer Management, Command Prompt, Event Viewer, Task Manager, Control Panel, Windows Explorer, Run, Search and Desktop.

Really cool!

Hmmm? I may have tweaked too soon.

Windows 8 CP 64-bit Installation

When I "start" the virtual box after installation I don't get the usual blue installation screen. I get a black screen with a series of error messages about 32-bit colour setting (current setting but it says 24-bit), keyboard and mouse capture (I don't get time to follow the instructions before it moves on to the "failed" message).

The Virtual Box installation went OK following the Tech Spot guidance note. But now I'm stuck. I have a Toshiba DX1210 Win-7 Home premium 64-bit with plenty of resources.

Any suggestions?

Installing the 32-bit version of Windows 8 may eliminate that, at least it did for me with VMWare Workstation. I never got 64-bit Windows 7 to act right.

Is Hardware Virtualization enabled? If so, try disabling it in the VM's Acceleration Settings.

I just finished installing and briefly playing around with W8PC x64 on a C2Q8400 with 4GB RAM, built-in VGA with DVD / 320GB HDD (a rather old machine work machine). So after about 15 minutes of usage, I didn't hated the new UI in any way, mainly because I hardly ever used Start menu (beside the old DOS era habits are still with me, so quick search/shortcuts works just fine), so its non-existence doesn't mean much to me. IE10/Metro kinda look cool, as nothing gets in your way while surfing.

Also it feels more responsive when compared with Win7x64 (I'm dual booting Win7 with W8CP).

Anyway, I will update after spending some more time on it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8r3tHUK6v4

My sentiments exactly

Windowes 8 ofc.

Update 1: (about 1 day usage)

No stability issues so far, everything works just as it should.

I installed MSO 2010x64 as well so I can experiment how it feels while doing some work on it. Some little quirks apart, the interface is really easy to learn, it took me about 20+/- minutes or so to get used/find my way around everything (again I would point out 'Start' menu is irrelevant for me so that perhaps plays a part in this as well).

Scrolling through apps is pretty fast / easy, but instead of 'pinning' everything as tile on desktop, I would like to have a situation where I could group those pinned apps under a single tile, which IMO will lessen the clutter.

IE10 seems very fast browser without getting into your way, but one thing which is irritating me since IE9 is that on certain sites, right clicking on any link doesn't do anything i.e. not allow to open it in new tab, e.g. BBC / gsmarena etc.

Also, 'clicks' seems to have gone down, I am not sure why, but I guess mainly because I can just type/search to find stuff very easily.

Lastly, why on earth Task Manager have to open in 'classic desktop' mode?

can anyone tell if the xbox live integration has party chat enabled?

Update 2:

@SNGX
I have been able to follow stocks of a specific company in Finance App, by clicking on the heading, e.g. WATCHLIST and clicking on big + sign, I haven't been able to find a way to add other stock markets so I am too stuck with DOW/NASDAQ/S&P etc.

I just simply start typing the name of an app I want to run, e.g. type 'notepad' without doing anything else and it will be open.

Not having the famous cross button to close apps again doesn't affect me much, as I am used to Alt+F4 for ages, but for many users it would be appropriate to have one in metro apps just in case if it is needed.

Also dual booting with win7x64 goes without a hitch and big complex worksheets are taking slightly less time while loading which isn't bad.

Annoyances:
If I open some non-metro application from Metro UI and then close it, it doesn't return me to the Metro UI, instead it leave me with classic desktop, not that hitting Win key is that much of a problem, but it is one small thing which should be looked into.

If I searched for something then hit escape, screen goes blank, but the UI returns as soon as I hit the Win key, so it is either a bug, or I have no idea what purpose this is serving.

Hardware:
So far it has accepted everything I threw at it, including an old USB Wi-Fi adapter, which is kinda cool.