Summer Windows 'Blue' Test Build Will Be Public Preview

[susyque747]

[citation][nom]apache_lives[/nom]Totally agree mate.Tomshardware is just filled with brainless haters now, its sad.[/citation]
No, it full of tools like you who are sheep and will do anything that the man wants you do, jump through the hoop Jimmy, jump I say.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]susyque747[/nom]No, it full of tools like you who are sheep and will do anything that the man wants you do, jump through the hoop Jimmy, jump I say.[/citation]

No, it's full of people who refuse to discuss something rationally and would instead prefer resorting to mockery and insults for their disagreements.

 

[downhill911]

Already?
Last time I checked Microsoft was very confident with windows 8 metro.
Hmm, guess it is better to say that you have new product instead of having to admit that is is the old one, but without s...t that people did not like.

 

[downhill911]

P.S. Numbers do not lie, Windows 8 sales suck!

 

[irh_1974]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]I hope Win 8.1 brings back the start button[/citation]
Option 1 - Refuse to install Windows 8 as the Start Menu is not there, keep using Windows 7, if Windows Blue gives the Start Menu back you will need to pay $40 for the upgrade

Option 2 - Have Windows 8 installed already, paying the $40 upgrade and install one of about 20 different Start Menu freewares, (why pay $5 more, the free ones are just as good or better) and if the Windows Blue version is better you will use that instead, but at least you have been able to use the rest of Windows 8 without having a big moan about it

You never really specified, which one you are?

 

[back_by_demand]

Part of me wonders if the removal (and any subsequent refusal to add) of the Start Menu is to get Devs to create 3rd party Start Menus
...
They haven't prevented people from doing this by locking it down and there are loads out there to choose from
...
Very similar to when Kinect first came out and Microsoft said "We don't plan to use the Kinect for Windows" and Devs came out of the woodwork to create programs that used the Kinect for Windows, not long afterwards we got a Windows SDK for Kinect

 

[chicofehr]

They have a problem, Win 7 is so perfect that with the few improvements in 8 without the start menu thing to consider, there isn't too much to make me upgrade. Win 7 just feels refined. I am content with it. Yearly updates makes the announcements of new WIN OS lose any appeal to me.

 

[lradunovic77]

There is nothing to gain over Windows 7 with Windows 8 absolutely nothing and yet i lose productivity with Windows 8. Don't get me wrong i tried Windows 8 for over a month and yes i figured everything how it works in less than half hour. I am not talking about learning curve here and i am not gonna argue if it's hard or easy to learn new way. I don't have touch screen and i am not planning to get it because it is useless for anything unless it is phone and tablet. For me it was easy to learn Windows 8 but new way is wrong. See i could less care even about Start Menu but what Windows 8 offers breaks my workflow badly. I am not a user who stares at facebook and plays dumb games in Metro. I am type of user who does programming, load testing and all other crazy stuff and when you are in such productive environment Windows 8 GUI is terrible for it. As far as Metro apps i consider them a crap, they don't bring anything to PCs, why should i settle for less? That means that my Start Screen looked empty with desktop tile on it. Didn't pin any other app because it was useless. See the problem is when i have two windows opened side by side and i want to launch little utility i don't want my focus to be taken away where i was. it is such distraction and workflow breaker that it becomes very annoying. Start Menu was perfect solution which worked and MS broke it with half ass baked Start Screen for what? Thinking people will jump into Touch way of doing things? MS doesn't understand that Touch is a way to communicate with phone and tablet, how else you would do things on it with mouse and keyboard perhaps? I will never bitch about Windows 8 Phone (like it or not) it is just one fine solution for such device. Surface Pro is one weird device....it is like jack of all trades master of none, rather get real Tablet in form of iPad.

 

[Guest]

It amazes me the amount of idiots that have not found win8 start menu mods yet here...for instance the one on ninite.com boots to desktop and adds start menu. Waiting for a service pack to officially do this or whining about wanting one is ridiculous at this point.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]lradunovic77[/nom]There is nothing to gain over Windows 7 with Windows 8 absolutely nothing and yet i lose productivity with Windows 8. Don't get me wrong i tried Windows 8 for over a month and yes i figured everything how it works in less than half hour. I am not talking about learning curve here and i am not gonna argue if it's hard or easy to learn new way. I don't have touch screen and i am not planning to get it because it is useless for anything unless it is phone and tablet. For me it was easy to learn Windows 8 but new way is wrong. See i could less care even about Start Menu but what Windows 8 offers breaks my workflow badly. I am not a user who stares at facebook and plays dumb games in Metro. I am type of user who does programming, load testing and all other crazy stuff and when you are in such productive environment Windows 8 GUI is terrible for it. As far as Metro apps i consider them a crap, they don't bring anything to PCs, why should i settle for less? That means that my Start Screen looked empty with desktop tile on it. Didn't pin any other app because it was useless. See the problem is when i have two windows opened side by side and i want to launch little utility i don't want my focus to be taken away where i was. it is such distraction and workflow breaker that it becomes very annoying. Start Menu was perfect solution which worked and MS broke it with half ass baked Start Screen for what? Thinking people will jump into Touch way of doing things? MS doesn't understand that Touch is a way to communicate with phone and tablet, how else you would do things on it with mouse and keyboard perhaps? I will never bitch about Windows 8 Phone (like it or not) it is just one fine solution for such device. Surface Pro is one weird device....it is like jack of all trades master of none, rather get real Tablet in form of iPad.[/citation]

Most of your complaints are solved by simply not using Metro apps and all of them can be solved by ditching Metro with one of the numerous programs that have such functionality. Also, Windows 8 most certainly does have several advantages over Windows 7. Windows 8 is lighter on the resources and Tom's has proven that some workloads (such as web browsing) benefit greatly from Windows 8 over 7.

 

[ojas]

Not only is this cheaper for the consumer

How? 1 OS in every 4-5 years=$120 for retail HP version.
Now $40 per year x 5 years = $200 (Assuming they won't give it free).

Not to hate on MS (something i've been doing increasingly of late), but Windows 8.1/Blue sounds like a SP more than anything else.

Also Kevin, incremental number has never really gone away, Windows 8 is Windows NT 6.2. Though yeah, it's not in the marketed name anymore.

Also: They've released the initial platform update to windows 7 (with IE 10), i think they're recognizing that a lot of people aren't going to move to 8 too soon. Updated today.

 

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]I hope Win 8.1 brings back the start button. The firing of the person who made the decision to eliminate it is a good sign that may very well happen.Also, allowing someone to choose during install if they wish to have the Metro UI or the normal desktop as their default would also be good. I don't think people hated Metro so much because of what it was, but because it was being forced on users as the default, and coupled with the loss of the Start button in desktop mode it gave people legitimate reason to complain as loud as they have.[/citation]
What on earth makes you think they would bring it back? Yes, they canned the guy who did the initial design work on metro, but they also canned Sinofsky who was against metro, and replaced him with Ms Larson-Green who is one of Metro's biggest proponents. Steve is also big on Metro, and the MS board of directors LOVES metro as it is a great cash cow for the company. Besides, win8 has had no troubble with sales. Yes, win8 devices are not moving quickly, but all of the MS hardware is selling just fine, and OEMs have purchased enough copies of win8 to make it the 2nd best launch of a windows OS.
Add to that; MS is on a unification kick these days, and Windows Blue is being made mostly so that there is a more similar design language between all MS products. The xbox is not about to get a start button, windows phone is not about to get a start button, and winRT would be useless with a start button, so that means absolutely no start button for desktop x86 users either.

More likely we are going to see features from the phone ported over to the desktop such as voice recognition and small tiles. Then the phone will inherit some things from the desktop like an option for a vertical start screen.

On the back end they are fixing some of their code issues that have prevented the app portability that MS promised developers that plainly does not work correctly, which means that we will see more and more cross-platform apps. I also think they are overhauling the xbox services to prepare the way for xbox to become a true service rather than a hardware platform. I think we will also be seeing tighter integration of services so that you can sync things like your tile color on your phone and desktop, or be able to have a 'my apps' space in the phone store for programs that you already have on the desktop. Services like Music, skype, skydrive, and Mail will be more unified across platforms (phone, desktop, and web), and will hopefully sync better between platforms.

If your biggest complaint against win8 is the lack of a start button, then you either need to grow up, or move over to linux or mac and use their start button. I am hardly saying that Metro is the best thing ever (because it plainly isn't), but at the same time I use win8 on all my machines (none of which are touch screens) and have no problem using it. And (after organizing the start screen) I find it much easier to find things on the start screen then I ever found on the start menu. Iconography is more easily recognized than text. User order is much easier than alphabetical order. And organizing programs in categories is much easier than throwing them into a bundled mess of everything. And so what if it takes over the whole screen? How often do you look at an open program while browsing the start menu anyways? Again, Metro can and needs to improve, but I think that most people find it much easier to use than the start menu ever was.

 

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]How? 1 OS in every 4-5 years=$120 for retail HP version.Now $40 per year x 5 years = $200 (Assuming they won't give it free).Not to hate on MS (something i've been doing increasingly of late), but Windows 8.1/Blue sounds like a SP more than anything else.Also Kevin, incremental number has never really gone away, Windows 8 is Windows NT 6.2. Though yeah, it's not in the marketed name anymore.Also: They've released the initial platform update to windows 7 (with IE 10), i think they're recognizing that a lot of people aren't going to move to 8 too soon. Updated today.[/citation]
Windows Blue is FREE for those who have already purchased win8. This means that if you already paid your $40 for win8Pro +Media Center then you get the Blue update for free. If you missed the $40 sale then it means that you will be able to wait a few months and have a 2nd chance at it. That means $40 per revision every 3-4 years, not $40 every year.

 

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]lradunovic77[/nom]There is nothing to gain over Windows 7 with Windows 8 absolutely nothing and yet i lose productivity with Windows 8. Don't get me wrong i tried Windows 8 for over a month and yes i figured everything how it works in less than half hour. I am not talking about learning curve here and i am not gonna argue if it's hard or easy to learn new way. I don't have touch screen and i am not planning to get it because it is useless for anything unless it is phone and tablet. For me it was easy to learn Windows 8 but new way is wrong. See i could less care even about Start Menu but what Windows 8 offers breaks my workflow badly. I am not a user who stares at facebook and plays dumb games in Metro. I am type of user who does programming, load testing and all other crazy stuff and when you are in such productive environment Windows 8 GUI is terrible for it. As far as Metro apps i consider them a crap, they don't bring anything to PCs, why should i settle for less? That means that my Start Screen looked empty with desktop tile on it. Didn't pin any other app because it was useless. See the problem is when i have two windows opened side by side and i want to launch little utility i don't want my focus to be taken away where i was. it is such distraction and workflow breaker that it becomes very annoying. Start Menu was perfect solution which worked and MS broke it with half ass baked Start Screen for what? Thinking people will jump into Touch way of doing things? MS doesn't understand that Touch is a way to communicate with phone and tablet, how else you would do things on it with mouse and keyboard perhaps? I will never bitch about Windows 8 Phone (like it or not) it is just one fine solution for such device. Surface Pro is one weird device....it is like jack of all trades master of none, rather get real Tablet in form of iPad.[/citation]
As a user of an iPad I would think you are trolling a bit on your last comment. iPads are a pain to work with to do any real work with. They are excelent personal devices, but the minute you put them in a multi-user enviornment they become annoying very quickly. Surface pro is just an ultrabook crammed into a tablet. Anything an ultrabook can do, surface pro can do. Surface RT is a more traditional tablet... and it is just as useless as the ipad.
As for win8 having nothing new to contribute. You have got to be joking. The fact that you got win8Pro instead of Home at launch is wonderful (no arbitrary hardware limitations, better networking features). Then win8 has a much better task manager which makes hardware bottlenecks stick out like a sore thumb so that you can better upgrade and maintain your system. Win8 also has native VCD and VHD mounting, so now I have all of my CD's and DVD's imaged on my HDD, and only have to play with discs for a few games where the DRM does not work right with images. Plus win8 is a virtualized OS, meaning that down the road if you want to move to a virtual environment then win8 will play nice with minimal fuss. win8 also uses some pretty heavy caching which makes program launches quicker and smoother for your most used applications.

Win8 is not perfect, and there are plenty of genuine complaints about it... but these are not some of them.

How ADD are you that you get lost on what you are doing by opening a utility? If that utility is so important then pin it somewhere so that you do not need to sit and think about how to search for it.

 

[CaedenV]

pertinent to this discussion: http://xkcd.com/1172/

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

[citation][nom]CaedenV[/nom]... If your biggest complaint against win8 is the lack of a start button, then you either need to grow up, or move over to linux or mac and use their start button. I am hardly saying that Metro is the best thing ever (because it plainly isn't), but at the same time I use win8 on all my machines (none of which are touch screens) and have no problem using it. And (after organizing the start screen) I find it much easier to find things on the start screen then I ever found on the start menu. Iconography is more easily recognized than text. User order is much easier than alphabetical order. And organizing programs in categories is much easier than throwing them into a bundled mess of everything. And so what if it takes over the whole screen? How often do you look at an open program while browsing the start menu anyways? Again, Metro can and needs to improve, but I think that most people find it much easier to use than the start menu ever was.[/citation]
Very well put, and I agree. I would add, I don't miss the Start Menu now that I've gotten used to the new interface, and find the right-click menu even more useful than the Start Menu.
[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]... Windows 8 most certainly does have several advantages over Windows 7. Windows 8 is lighter on the resources and Tom's has proven that some workloads (such as web browsing) benefit greatly from Windows 8 over 7.[/citation]
It's nice to see another forum member, actually talking sensibly. Anybody who regularly uses a laptop on battery power should be able to see an immediate difference in run-time.
I vote for more civil discussion.

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]super d spamalot[/nom]They didn't give the choice to default to a DOS prompt when Windows 95 came out, and now you all can't live without a start menu. They have no reason in the world to put the start button back, because in 2 years everyone will adapt and it won't even be an issue anymore. The Internet idiot parade will have latched on to something new and inconsequential to hate for no good reason.If you stop focusing on the past and just learn to use Metro and get to know it, you'll likely find that it's not as bad as you seem to think it is. And even if Metro is that bad (Which it's not) putting up with it would be a tiny, tiny, tiny price to pay for all the other shit that make Windows 8 great.Here is a hint: Those of us who say it's awesome don't feel that way because of Metro. We feel that way about the OS in general. I mean, hating Windows 8 because of Metro is like hating Android because the calculator, or the default browser sucks. It's such a tiny part of the whole that you're doing yourself a dis-service by not just getting over it.Let the Tom's Hate Machine (TM) downvoting parade begin.[/citation]
There is a huge difference between the moving away from a DOS prompt and moving away from the start button.

The reason moving from a DOS prompt made sense was because computers already came with mice and people were using GUI's at the time. The Metro interface however is designed with tablets in mind, not the desktop, and having touch interface and few people have touchscreens with their desktop.

Not to mention the Metro interface is not as convenient for placing shortcuts for files, grouping them in specific areas and such as it is on the desktop. To some people this doesn't matter, and that's fine, but to many it does matter.

So you can keep making silly pointless analogies all you want, intelligent people will just laugh at them.

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]win8meh[/nom]It amazes me the amount of idiots that have not found win8 start menu mods yet here...for instance the one on ninite.com boots to desktop and adds start menu. Waiting for a service pack to officially do this or whining about wanting one is ridiculous at this point.[/citation]
People know about the mods, however, many such as myself find no reason to upgrade from Win 7 when it runs so well to Win 8 only to install a 3rd party mod to get the funtionality we have already built in with Win 7.

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]CaedenV[/nom]What on earth makes you think they would bring it back? Yes, they canned the guy who did the initial design work on metro, but they also canned Sinofsky who was against metro, and replaced him with Ms Larson-Green who is one of Metro's biggest proponents. Steve is also big on Metro, and the MS board of directors LOVES metro as it is a great cash cow for the company. Besides, win8 has had no troubble with sales. Yes, win8 devices are not moving quickly, but all of the MS hardware is selling just fine, and OEMs have purchased enough copies of win8 to make it the 2nd best launch of a windows OS.Add to that; MS is on a unification kick these days, and Windows Blue is being made mostly so that there is a more similar design language between all MS products. The xbox is not about to get a start button, windows phone is not about to get a start button, and winRT would be useless with a start button, so that means absolutely no start button for desktop x86 users either.More likely we are going to see features from the phone ported over to the desktop such as voice recognition and small tiles. Then the phone will inherit some things from the desktop like an option for a vertical start screen.On the back end they are fixing some of their code issues that have prevented the app portability that MS promised developers that plainly does not work correctly, which means that we will see more and more cross-platform apps. I also think they are overhauling the xbox services to prepare the way for xbox to become a true service rather than a hardware platform. I think we will also be seeing tighter integration of services so that you can sync things like your tile color on your phone and desktop, or be able to have a 'my apps' space in the phone store for programs that you already have on the desktop. Services like Music, skype, skydrive, and Mail will be more unified across platforms (phone, desktop, and web), and will hopefully sync better between platforms.If your biggest complaint against win8 is the lack of a start button, then you either need to grow up, or move over to linux or mac and use their start button. I am hardly saying that Metro is the best thing ever (because it plainly isn't), but at the same time I use win8 on all my machines (none of which are touch screens) and have no problem using it. And (after organizing the start screen) I find it much easier to find things on the start screen then I ever found on the start menu. Iconography is more easily recognized than text. User order is much easier than alphabetical order. And organizing programs in categories is much easier than throwing them into a bundled mess of everything. And so what if it takes over the whole screen? How often do you look at an open program while browsing the start menu anyways? Again, Metro can and needs to improve, but I think that most people find it much easier to use than the start menu ever was.[/citation]
You seem to be taking things personally to tell someone grow up over a personal preference.

I am not the sole reason that Microsoft has taken such a PR hit on Windows 8. Yes, Win 8 has some advantage, but nothing overly compelling and yet, perhaps you are the one who needs to grow up and realize Microsoft has put forward, intentionally or not, an attitude of "Change your habits to what we want or stop using our product". This is not good business sense, and it's one you have actually expressed in a childish manner yourself.

I have tried Win 8 on friends' computers. There is no denying Metro was designed for a touch interface. That's absolutely fine, but whether or not you want to admit, Metro is a bit of a "downgrade" experience for desktop users.

So please grow up and have a reasonable discussion and don't revert back to 5th grade platitudes like "don't like it then go away!!!".

 

[anti-painkilla]

[citation][nom]apache_lives[/nom]Totally agree mate.Tomshardware is just filled with brainless haters now, its sad.[/citation]

Wrong. Toms Hardware is full of people that live in the real world. Can you imagine working in an environment where you have to support the change over from Win7 to Win8.

Our users would complain and struggle. Most people comfortable with computers do struggle with small changes. All small changes take time to over come, even office 2010 change with the ribbons confused a lot of people. We don't just look at ourselves, we look at the end users that cannot customise and the business environments that Metro will effect.

Small changes are what businesses need not massive overhauls.

Did you know that the HP Envy's ship with a piece of paper informing the user how to shut down the laptop?

I do not mind Win8, but it far from easy to get used to.

 

[wildkitten]

[citation][nom]anti-painkilla[/nom]Wrong. Toms Hardware is full of people that live in the real world. Can you imagine working in an environment where you have to support the change over from Win7 to Win8.Our users would complain and struggle. Most people comfortable with computers do struggle with small changes. All small changes take time to over come, even office 2010 change with the ribbons confused a lot of people. We don't just look at ourselves, we look at the end users that cannot customise and the business environments that Metro will effect.Small changes are what businesses need not massive overhauls. Did you know that the HP Envy's ship with a piece of paper informing the user how to shut down the laptop? I do not mind Win8, but it far from easy to get used to.[/citation]
The sad thing is they are what they refer to us.

No one brainlessly hates Windows 8. Win 8 does have some good points to it, however, it does take away some functionality that people rely on and still enjoy. When this is pointed out, people like Apache_lives has to call names proving he is the one who hates any reasonable criticism.

 

[soundping]

Windows 8 is a disaster.

If Microsoft wasn't a monopoly and had to compete Meto would have never happened.

 

[apache_lives]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]No, it's full of people who refuse to discuss something rationally and would instead prefer resorting to mockery and insults for their disagreements.[/citation]

+100000000000000000000000000000000000000000

 

[nikolajj]

[citation][nom]downhill911[/nom]P.S. Numbers do not lie, Windows 8 sales suck![/citation]

From Vista to 7 = from crap to gold
From 7 to 8 = gold to gold

Ofc the sales vont be the same.

 

[apache_lives]

[citation][nom]wildkitten[/nom]The sad thing is they are what they refer to us.No one brainlessly hates Windows 8. Win 8 does have some good points to it, however, it does take away some functionality that people rely on and still enjoy. When this is pointed out, people like Apache_lives has to call names proving he is the one who hates any reasonable criticism.[/citation]

LOL when did i call names? How about you go check your facts before pointing fingers.

Good one, no really -- gold.