Anyone Running A Windows 8 Beta?

[Ke1t]

I'm still running a Vista box as my main PC, but it's starting to show signs of either needing a reinstall or scrapped in favour of a newer model.

 

I've a couple of Windows 7 systems running, and they for sure don't drag ass like Vista does, but I've never been motivated to upgrade my main PC to 7.

 

Looking at Windows 8, and I'm not impressed with the Beta that I'm seeing on Youtube. Looks like it's designed with touchscreen in mind, with giant fuck off icons swarming all over the desktop. Doesn't look like anything I'd be interested in at all. Is it just 7 with an optional touchscren interface or is it genuinely this fucking tinker-toy IPad looking thing that I've seen?

 

If I choose to upgrade I want to know whether to skip 7, which I like, or if 8 is a major difference and all huge icons and touchscreen oriented?

 

I figure asking a bunch of pissheads on a fitba forum gives me about the same chance of a working answer as there is going on a fanboy site and asking one of the dweebs there.

[dervish]

I'm still on xp on most of my pcs, or ubuntu. Have vista too but never duel boot into it, it's like treacle. Howd you go about getting the 8 beta? Like you say have heard it's meant for even phones, get the idea that it's meant to be used on both but seems like a skin on "normal" windows. Think you can switch to "normal" windows and stuff but half the time will be spent in babyish full screen multicoloured land. Can see how it'd be good for using it the living room on the tv or something but for serious stuff not so sure. Seems a bit like mediacenter or something, which I personally have never used even though it's there.

 

So... da ken.

[Iraq_Red]

I think Microsoft see the tablet PC as they way to go and Windows 8 deffo looks the be designed for use with tablet PC's, either the outright tablet type or they 'hybrid' laptops with touch screen (ie HP2560p).

 

I moved my main PC to Windows 7 64 bit and will wait to see what Windows 8 is going to offer and when my phone contract is up for renewal, I'm considering getting a Windows 7 phone, which will in reality is what Windows 8 for a PC will be like

,

[Bobby Connor]

Am still on Vista in the office and my machine is now running like an absolute dog. I can make a coffee and pop out for a smoke in the time it takes to boot up.

 

Problem is the 2 days it will take to back up and reinstall all my software on a clean install of 7. Anyone gone down the upgrade path?

[port86]

I don't recommend the upgrade from Vista to 7. Did it at work a year or two ago, had loads of problems and ended up just formatting and going from scratch. I'm sure there are people who have had no problems with it, but it really messed up a lot of stuff for me. Visual Studio particularly.

 

Windows 8 is different. I was at a developer forum recently where the speaker guy showcased it along with the new range of Microsoft development tools. In a nutshell, the metro thing becomes the start menu on the PC mode. The normal PC operation looks like Windows 7, but you press start and metro swooshes in from the side and you go through it to find your application, then it swooshes back to PC mode. Not actually used it so not made my mind up about it yet. One thing I did like the look of, is that they've added the office style ribbons along the top to Windows explorer, with context sensitive options. All the new developer stuff looks pretty cool as well.

[Iraq_Red]

Am still on Vista in the office and my machine is now running like an absolute dog. I can make a coffee and pop out for a smoke in the time it takes to boot up.

 

Problem is the 2 days it will take to back up and reinstall all my software on a clean install of 7. Anyone gone down the upgrade path?

 

I'm the Windows 7 lead for the UK for my work and we are not going down the 'migration' install for Win 7, we are doing the 'bare metal' method.

 

Is your computer decent spec or does it need an upgrade/replacement? Depending on the spec of your PC, you could look to get a new one with Win7, then copy the data of your current machine at your own pace,so long as both are on the network, just remember to copy over your NK2 file from Outlook

[dervish]

How abouts going for an SSD putting 7 on that (as boot) then just using my old drive for the data? Would that work? Was looking at migrating my xp to 7 (student version apparently is cheap if you fudge it, not a student) about

[Bobby Connor]

I'm the Windows 7 lead for the UK for my work and we are not going down the 'migration' install for Win 7, we are doing the 'bare metal' method.

 

Is your computer decent spec or does it need an upgrade/replacement? Depending on the spec of your PC, you could look to get a new one with Win7, then copy the data of your current machine at your own pace,so long as both are on the network, just remember to copy over your NK2 file from Outlook

 

My comp is custom built by myself. It was high end a couple of years back. 4 gig DDR3, Quad Core Intel 24ghz CPU.

 

It's still a decent enough spec so am not looking to upgrade the hardware just yet so will probably upgrade the OS when I do. Kinda suspected the upgrade route would be messy.

[dervish]

Vista is gash, get rid of that soonest. Even try duel boot ubuntu what software is it you're worried about loosing?

[Bobby Connor]

Vista is gash, get rid of that soonest. Even try duel boot ubuntu what software is it you're worried about loosing?

 

Where to start? I have a heap of graphic design software and about 10 billion fonts. Migrating from XP took a day and a half. I will wait until I do a hardware upgrade.

[dervish]

Is it an i3 intel? If so overclock the fucker and your ram. Think it's the same as mine, it's running at 3ghz no worries at all.

 

Edit: Oh aye plus >do them<.

[Bobby Connor]

Is it an i3 intel? If so overclock the fucker and your ram. Think it's the same as mine, it's running at 3ghz no worries at all.

 

Edit: Oh aye plus >do them.

 

Nah, it's pre the i series. The one before. I canna mind what they called it. 2.4ghz 8mb Level 2 cache. I canna take the piss out of this machine with any sort of overclocking 'cos it is basically a workstation and represents the hub of my business.

 

I will DEFINITELY check out those tweaks tomorrow though. Cheers dude.

[port86]

Will be the core2duo\core2quad series I'd guess. The I series are a big step up, although your current processor should run Windows 7\Vista far better than what you are describing. If you don't have much luck with the tuning tips, plugging in an SSD and running Win7 off that as suggested above sounds like a fine idea. Gives you the speed and cleanliness of a fresh build, and the piece of mind that all your stuff is still on the hard disk if you've forgotten anything.

 

The concept of having a small SSD is great - Only install your OS and your key applications on it, and keep your less important stuff and all your data on a hard drive. The speed will be immense.

[Bobby Connor]

Will be the core2duo\core2quad series I'd guess. The I series are a big step up, although your current processor should run Windows 7\Vista far better than what you are describing. If you don't have much luck with the tuning tips, plugging in an SSD and running Win7 off that as suggested above sounds like a fine idea. Gives you the speed and cleanliness of a fresh build, and the piece of mind that all your stuff is still on the hard disk if you've forgotten anything.

 

The concept of having a small SSD is great - Only install your OS and your key applications on it, and keep your less important stuff and all your data on a hard drive. The speed will be immense.

 

Nope. It's quad core. Kensington I think. It's pretty old but it's running DDR 3 at 1333Mhz. GFX is 8800 GTX 512mb.

 

It's not for the scrapheap just yet. Will look into your suggestions though. It's painfully slow to start but once running is acceptable performance.

[port86]

Kensington will be the brand of your memory. Yeah it'll likely be a core2quad - ignore the 2 part of the name, the "core2" processors came in single, dual and quad core varieties.

 

Schoolboy tip but have you ever heard of Msconfig? Goto the run prompt, type msconfig and press enter. Click on the startup tab. Basically everything ticked here starts automatically when your PC boots - if this is full of crap then it will definitely slow everything down. Unticking a bunch of stuff here will definitely make a difference, but make sure its stuff that you don't need.

 

Another titbit I know of is forcing the swap file to be static. Given that you've got 4gb ram its hard to imagine why Windows needs a swap file but it will still have\use one. Right click computer -> properties -> Advanced System Settings -> performance settings. Here you can also disable the funcy windows visual effects if you want (that will make a difference too). Click to advanced, then virtual memory settings. Untick automatically manage size, click set a custom size. Normally an OS will have a swap file 1.5 * its physical ram. So in this case I'd recommend setting it to 6144 initial and 6144 max. This prevents the operating system from changing this on the fly, and will reduce the amount of background reads\writes to your hard disk.

[Big Man]

Vista takes ages to boot at the best of times, unless your dual-booting with something else:

 

msconfig > boot > timeout (the default is 30 seconds, change it to 3) - this will reduce the amount of time your computer looks for an operating system to boot from.

 

Probably preaching to the choir here i know...

 

[phoenix]

Another 'run' tip.

 

This one won't speed up your computer but if it's old and the keyboard has some letters missing , as an old 'find' of mine had recently , here's fit tae dee.

 

This een( laptop ) wis running Windows 2000 Professional , so I upgraded foc to XP , only to find I couldnae type the letter 'A' and five others so , rather than fuck aboot wi' removing broken keys and replacing with keys cannibalised from other old laptops , I went to 'run' and typed in 'osk' .

 

On Screen Keyboard.

 

Try it.

 

If ye're nae in ony hurry , it works awa fine.

 

And I'm tryin' nae tae be in ony hurry.

 

Because we're goin' naewye.

 

And niver hiv been.

[BrianFaePerth]

Eh guess Kelt whit it comes doon tae is this: Which system gives ye the quickest access tae yer porn when ye need it?

 

Everything else is irrelevant.

[phoenix]

Since Windows still costs and Android is foc( as far as I know ) , then devices running Android should be less expensive.

 

I have Android Honeycomb running on my Samsung Galaxy 10.1 and it does all I require of it. Swimmingly. It's a gas.

 

And in Q2 OF 2012 I will be getting the new version of the Android OS , Ice Cream Sandwich , to download foc.

 

The competition is good.....just like fitba( but a bitch when you are at the bottom of the heap ).

 

 

 

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