Anybody using the Windows 8 Dev Preview as their daily driver?

Brian

My W7 desktop is immensely slow to boot lately. Not the OS's fault, I'm sure, but I was thinking that if I were to go for a fresh start it might be worth giving W8 a go.

Serephucus

Tried it. Hate it. Sticking with Win7.

Leaving aside Metro for a moment, the under-the-hood changes that have been implemented in Win8 are pretty neat, and I'd love to have them in Win7. Particularly the new task manager - that's very nice. Unfortunately, this is never going to happen, because I won't be installing Win8 as my daily OS any time soon. Why?

Metro.

It is the most unintuitive, clumsy, cluttered, messy, disgusting excuse for an interface I have ever seen. With a touch screen it might be different, I'm not sure, but with a keyboard and mouse, it's just horrible to use. It detracts that much from the experience that I can't stand to use the OS at all, and believe me, I've tried to get rid of it.

In the words of someone on another forum:

It's like taking a nice big juicy steak. That steak is all the memory, code and etc improvements in Win8 that everyone (including me) wants and are getting giddy over.

Now imagine taking that big juicy steak and smearing it with dog ****. That dog **** is Metro UI.

What M$ is telling me is that if I want the big juicy steak I have to eat though the dog ****. I don't want the steak that bad.

TonyM.

I use it everyday I see Metro as an extra and use the old desktop its just one click away no big deal .
I also have IE10 which is a problem the flash players will not work on it.

luyolo

Is it free to download? and can you play games on it?

Serephucus

Yes, and yes.

luyolo

Serephucus wrote: »

Yes, and yes.

Thanks for that link. I'm gonna use it for my rig in around a week then.

Tij da feen

I completely forgot about Windows 8. I know I won't like so I'm just giving a download and I'll just put it onto VMware.

Serephucus

luyolo wrote: »

Thanks for that link. I'm gonna use it for my rig in around a week then.

You'll most-likely only be able to use it up to a couple of months after the release of Win8, then you'll have to buy it.

luyolo

Serephucus wrote: »

You'll most-likely only be able to use it up to a couple of months after the release of Win8, then you'll have to buy it.

I don't mind as long as I can game on it and it works and it's free. I'll buy win7 when I can afford it and an ssd as my boot drive. Ordering my rig this week, if Ulster Bank gets the finger out and sends me my pin. Been waiting for it for 6weeks.

ShadowHearth

so is there any value for gamers over win 7?

Brian

I heard mention of +10% FPS increases around release, but nothing properly substantiated. I've also read that W8 is much more capable of using Bulldozer CPUs' power than W7, something to do with better multi-core/threading management.

Serephucus

I don't have hard numbers, but I know a couple of people that tested out a game or two, and they didn't notice much of an increase in performance. I did hear something about Bulldozer benefiting from Win8 alright, but I can't remember much on it. I do know battery life suffers a bit (anywhere from 10-20%), maybe something for future laptop buyers to consider.

deceit

Serephucus wrote: »

I don't have hard numbers, but I know a couple of people that tested out a game or two, and they didn't notice much of an increase in performance. I did hear something about Bulldozer benefiting from Win8 alright, but I can't remember much on it. I do know battery life suffers a bit (anywhere from 10-20%), maybe something for future laptop buyers to consider.

I really dont like the metro crap but I would deal with it if it improves bulldozer to the performance seen with them on linux systems.