[furball zen]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/20...s-8-editions/1

[sui_winbolo]

Question for you guys, is there any benefit of Windows 8, over Windows 7, on a non touchscreen enabled device?

I played with the very early dev release and didn't see anything spectacular on just a regular laptop.

[furball zen]

I dont think so, but Grez would be more suited to answer. I dont plan on upgrading any time soon. However i might try to put it on my HP Touchpad if i can get a cheap or free copy.

[Grez]

If it's on your gaming box or something, you're not going to see a big difference. There are lower memory and processor demands of it, so it runs more efficiently, and thus if you're trying to limp along an old machine, it may be beneficial to upgrade.

One of the biggest things will be for devs...so much direct access into the OS itself without a lot of APIs in the way. Managed AND unmanaged code will now be first-class citizens. That means if you need something to run insanely fast, you can code it up in C++ and execute directly against the OS. It's the Longhorn dream of years back, and it looks like it's finally getting here. Also, HTML5 + javascript will have direct access to the OS as well, which means all of the metro stuff is not just a shell on top -- it's an integral part of the OS. This is one of the things that enables it to run on a desktop, laptop, or a tablet without needing a different OS or needing to do anything programmatically different (such as a Macbook and iPad...completely different dev plats). This sums up why I've been waiting on the tablet thing...when Win8 and the new tablets drop, I'll get getting on board. I want my tablet to be more than a big toy...I want to be able to run Office on it and use a stylus to take notes in meetings with OneNote, so I've been waiting for a tablet to exist with a real OS on it. The Win7 tablets are ok, but the touch experience is inferior to the iPad. But with the iPad, all you can run is crap from the Apple marketplace, so that makes it an instant non-starter for me. Thus, when the Win8 stuff launches, that will be the right answer for me.

We've been told that 100% of everything that runs in 7 will run in 8, so with lower OS needs, it hopefully means quite a few performance gains for us too. Boot and wake-up times have been reported to be insane from most reviewers. So far, it looks like another really good OS.

So Sui, to your question of needing to upgrade, no, you don't. You might see some performance gains, but then again if 7 is running great, it may not be really noticable for you. I have a lot of PCs in the house, and I will probably upgrade about half at first, and slowly move the others over time.

[RcRon7]

I think I'll just wait for a new build in the house before I switch. My current mod/build is going to be Win7 64 so when thats done I likely won't have an upgrade for a while.

But, Grez, thanks again for that post. That's just want I wanted to know as well.

[furball zen]

I wasn't aware there were any Win7 tabs out. When 8 is out for tabs does that mean you can run 'any' program for 7/8 on the tab too or only 'apps' made for it?

[Blazin Trav]

I like that it is less demanding of my system and I like Metro (I think I'm one of the only people... lol) but overall I am looking forward to upgrading after overhauling my system (new CPU, more RAM, new hard drive, new vid card).

[Grez]

I personally love Metro, but I'm really only using it on my phone right now. For touch, it's a spectacular GUI, and is (IMO) more intuitive than i-anything or Droid-based systems.

The jury is still out on whether I'll like it or not as the primary desktop. On a touch-screen (such as on an all-in-one), it should be as magic as it is on the phone. However, on something like my gaming machine, I'm betting that I'll be pushing the button to switch the interface over to the tradtional Windows-7-looking desktop 99% of the time. But, you never know. Once I'm used to it, I may like it for general use as well.

@furball - to the best of my knowledge, I believe that you can run any app on the tablet since it's supposed to be a full version of Windows 8...assuming the tablet has the horsepower to handle said desktop app. We won't know absolutely until the OS goes RTM, but my understanding was that the concept is that a Win8 tablet can act like a tablet or a regular PC (i.e., you can use it as a tablet, then dock it and use a traditional keyboard, mouse, and big monitor and have it function like a PC). I'm pretty stoked about it...if it lives up to the promise, it's really a game-changer for the future.

[SacredTbag]

My little 2 cents on the Metro look. My only experience with it is running the Launcher 7 on my old phone, which was absolutely great. On my new phone... not so much. It worked (felt) much better on a smaller screen. On this one (more than an inch bigger) it just doesn't feel right at all. Not sure how I would feel about something like that stretched out across an entire monitor.

[Jamesc359]

I didn't like it on my desktop. I can't say about a touch screen, but it's just not intuitive with a KB & mouse.

It also felt like Microsoft was trying their best to isolate me from the desktop. Switching back and forth between Metro and the desktop was just too much of a hassle. :-/

[Grez]

Yeah, something that I'd like to see is an easy setting that says "look, just run in classic desktop mode all of the time unless I tell you otherwise."

You can bet that if it's not there out of the box on day one, it'll happen in a patch soon thereafter. I'm sure that there are lots of people who'd like the better performance of Win8 but aren't interested in Metro for their traditional PCs. I know it's not what I want for my default interface on my gaming box. But, I'll probably use it for my laptops (especially my old tablet PC).

[cyclonite]

The in-ability to turn off the Mertro interface on non-touchscreen computers is going to be a huge reason Win8 does not get implimented on the network where I work.

[ghost1one]

Not to mention the expensive development costs... M$ just announced their (lack of) support for developer access to the OS itself... they're trying to go the way of iOS :(

[Grez]

^^^^ Reference material? Because to the best of my knowledge, what you've just said is categorically false. There will be the tightest and widest multi-language support directly into the RT layer ever available in Win8.

Can you explain your comment?

[ghost1one]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05...11_metro_only/

Windows will no longer allow free desktop app development. Only METRO. $499 is a pretty steep price for developing apps in house without Metro.

[cyclonite]

A quick trip over to M$ site and just as I suspected...

Originally Posted by M$

To provide the specialized capabilities and tools required to develop on each platform, Visual Studio 11 Express products are platform-specific with multiple language support.

My interpretation of that statement tells me that if you want to design a standard desktop app for anyhing other than Win8 no probem, however, if you want to design an app for Win8 it will have to be towards Metro.

If there is no way to turn off the Metro interface in Win8 I highly doubt that our shop will be deploying it.

[SacredTbag]

You can switch the Metro UI for a more standard Windows look, just look at some videos on Youtube.

Idk what to think of 8 right now. For mobile devices, sure. But for a desktop environment it just feels like a gimmick. It's so... clunky and un-intuitive. And terrible looking. If I want something that looks like that I'll do it with Rainmeter. Wait. I've done that. But better looking. Then I got bored with it and made something else.

[Grez]

Ok, so a few things:

1) Yes, you can switch from Metro to the standard desktop at the touch of a button. My only beef is that I want it to be a setup option so that I can say "I want the standard desktop to ALWAYS be my default unless I'm running a Metro app." Right now, you can't do that, but I hope it changes. In any case, switching is a piece of cake.
2) Yes, you can still develop non-Metro apps for free. Keep in mind that you still have access to VS Express 2010, which will support Win7, and anything developed for Win7 will run in Win8. What isn't going to exist in the VS11 Express tools is a comprehensive free suite to target everything at once...the free tools were too close to the entry-level (Professional) paid tools. So, they've broken them up into smaller, targeted free stuff. But yes, the article clearly states that there will be free dev environments for C++, C#, and VB.NET. Now, these are not yet available as part of the VS11 beta, so today, yes, you can only use VS11 Express to target the web and Metro. If you look back at the history of 2010, it went largely the same way...additional express features were released post-launch. This is an assumption on my part, but my expectation is that we will see the tools for native and managed code to appear very soon. There have also been articles already written that it is possible to get the CLR to load even when the target is a Metro app, so in theory, you can force a desktop switch even within a Metro project...I personally haven't tried it (and don't really plan to), but it should be doable.
3) "Windows" is not disallowing anything. Your (ghost's) statement (and referenced article) has nothing to do with the OS (other than as a potential target for the apps being developed). It has to do with the next version of the developer tools and changes that are taking place. Furthermore, "access to the OS" will not only continue to be available, it will be significantly better than any previous version. http://rcpmag.com/articles/2011/09/1...-in-build.aspx
4) Stupid article is stupid. It doesn't even list the versions correctly...it mentions "Team Professional." This should be "Test Professional." It's not like this is new or difficult information...the skus are exactly the same as 2010. So much for accuracy and editing.
5) $500 is not remotely expensive for what Visual Studio does. No other IDE on the planet comes close to doing the things that are built into Visual Studio (and if you say "Eclipse" I will own you in 20,000 ways....while it is a good IDE, it is a genital wart in comparitive functionality)...generally speaking, you would need an entire array of tools to do what VS Pro can do out of the box. Now VS Ultimate costs some dinero...it's around $10,000 per seat. But even that is comparatively cheap if you understand what goes into that package. The testing functionality baked into it is very robust, and to get something equivalent for just the testing functionality would cost you significantly more from literally anyone else (try pricing HP's testing tools some time). Believe it or not, MS is the cheapest game in town when it comes to the totality of the functionality in there. This is true at the highest level (Ultimate) and the introductory paid level (Professional). If you ever want to really understand what's really being delivered in there, let me know and I can spell it out for you. Just be ready to dig in, because it's a very long conversation.

Most people think of professional IDEs in the same terms as the simple freebie stuff that a lot of people use to code up basic java, PHP, or RoR. It's not a proper comparison. Most of the free stuff is nothing more than an editor with some very basic intelligence around analyzing syntax and calling a compiler or external tools. Visual Studio goes way beyond this basic level of functionality and the major value is in tight integration of all of the things that it can do (including supporting non-MS languages...did you know you can use it for coding PHP [not that I recommend it ] and other non-.NET stuff?).

So, free tools are still available, they're just not all in one bag any more. Additionally, you should note that MS made more stuff free for this go-round...all of the database project functionality that in 2010 was only available through VS Premium (price tag: about $4K) and up has now been extracted and made a free stand-alone package alongside SQL Server 2012 (but it will target back to at least 2005). This means DBAs will have free access to this (as opposed to asking DBAs to purchase Visual Studio), and the same package will still dock into Visual Studio and function exactly as it did in the past...except now for free (and it also means that devs who just use Pro can leverage it).

All of that said, if for some reason the native and managed code Express tools don't show up, and hobbyists have to buy Pro to be able to write non-Metro/web apps, I will be pissed off too. It would be a really foolhardy decision on the part of MS to try to funnel everyone into Metro. Sure, it's a big part of the future of the UI plan from MS, but given their history of long-term support for their tech, it would be a surprising and foolish move to suddenly cut ties with so much of the rest of their stack. I don't expect that will be the case, but if it turns out that way, I will help you carry the protest banner to criticize the decision. What MS doesn't need right now is another launch like Vista...they need a launch like Win7.

[furball zen]

Hey obob, get outta Grez's account.

[Grez]

^^^^ lmao

Touché, bro.