Windows 8 Release Preview

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another dual monitor flaw.

there is a taskbar now, that's cool... but why no clock or any of your other... what ya call them icons?
yeah the clock etc... only appears on the main monitor which is dumb. (you can change the main monitor by going to your screen resolution page).

this and not having the ability of running metro applications on more than one screen at once are probably my biggest pet peeves with the OS. The not being able to run the applications on multiple monitor I assume is coming in the future, it is a obvious feature that is missing because of the schedule, the clock thing seems more of a design decision that was made.
 
isn't that like a fullscreen thing? I just want a decent desktop twitter app i can have at a corner.
Used to use tweetdeck, but it kinda became shit. meh.

No, it's just a beta version of their desktop app that they update very frequently. They've updated that one to work without an issues with Windows 8. You won't even notice the difference except that the app logo is yellow instead of blue.
yeah the clock etc... only appears on the main monitor which is dumb. (you can change the main monitor by going to your screen resolution page).

this and not having the ability of running metro applications on more than one screen at once are probably my biggest pet peeves with the OS. The not being able to run the applications on multiple monitor I assume is coming in the future, it is a obvious feature that is missing because of the schedule, the clock thing seems more of a design decision that was made.

Agreed, my biggest complaint as well.
 
Is it possible to pin 'shutdown' or 'sleep' to the start screen? Or is charms the only way to turn off my computer?

I know I'm late with this, but if you do really want to pin shutdown to the start menu then you could always just create a shortcut to shutdown.exe

Just right click on the desktop, point to New --> Shortcut, and in the "Type the location of the item" box type "C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe -s -f -t 00".
Click next, name it what you want and click Finish.

Then just move it to your documents library or wherever, right click it and select "Pin to start". Clicking it should shutdown your PC instantly.
 
Excuse my ignorance, but is Windows 8 gonna have an ebook reader for the hybrids? What's a good one?
 
You don't want a desktop nor mobile OS to run your e-reader. Unless you're one of those people who thinks iPads are e-readers too.
 
I see, why is that?

Because running a full mobile or desktop OS requires a lot of processing power and that means a lot more expensive components. E-ink screens with low refresh rates are not suitable for the things usually people do on those OSes. Why make a device more expensive for no good reason?
 
Yeah... can't get this damn razer thing working :(

razer.png
 
Because running a full mobile or desktop OS requires a lot of processing power and that means a lot more expensive components. E-ink screens with low refresh rates are not suitable for the things usually people do on those OSes. Why make a device more expensive for no good reason?

I would agree with that, if a person was only going to use it for reading. If said person was already getting a tablet/hybrid, then a book reading application is obviously a plus and the benefits of paying for a second device become much smaller.
 
I wish somebody would make a W8 hybrid where the tablet would have LCD screen on one side and e-ink on the other. Not only for reading, but using laptop with e-ink scren would make for a glorious mobile typing machine that would last dozens of hours on battery.
Yeah, it would be niche as hell device, but still would love to see it.
 
Which hybrid do you guys like the best till now?

From the announced ones: Transformer book by far, assuming it has good keyboard (like their gaming laptops do) instead of how early Zenbooks and other Transformers are.

I'm still holding out for a true x86 Thinkpad hybrid though. I've been using Thinkpads for almost a decade now and can't imagine ever going back to regular brands.
So what I'm hoping for is either a Transformer-like hybrid with detachable screen or the next convertible Thinkpad with swivel screen being made ultrabook like.

If neither of those happen I will propably just get x220t and wait few years to see how the market will look after the dust settles.
 
So... is there any benefits to upgrade your old laptops to win 8 outside of performance and battery enhancements?

Do all those trackpad gestures stuff work for kinda recent laptops?
 
Hmmm - don't know if this has happened to anyone here.

Went something like this -

» update crappy Dell Latitude ST to Win8 32bit(it's basically an Atom netbook)
» sign in with outlook.com account created last night
» play Wordament for 10 minutes
» gf wants to play on her 360 gamertag
» go to xbox.com and sign in
» notice there is already a gamertag associated with this new outlook.com account
» try to change to new email address on 360 - gets rejected because of above
» trawl some support forums
» find out that windows 8 automatically creates a gamertag without notifying the user and links it to the outlook account
» MS support has no resolution for this issue

So I'm sort of sort of stuck with no way to resolve the issue.
 
Hmmm - don't know if this has happened to anyone here.

Went something like this -

» update crappy Dell Latitude ST to Win8 32bit(it's basically an Atom netbook)
» sign in with outlook.com account created last night
» play Wordament for 10 minutes
» gf wants to play on her 360 gamertag
» go to xbox.com and sign in
» notice there is already a gamertag associated with this new outlook.com account
» try to change to new email address on 360 - gets rejected because of above
» trawl some support forums
» find out that windows 8 automatically creates a gamertag without notifying the user and links it to the outlook account
» MS support has no resolution for this issue

So I'm sort of sort of stuck with no way to resolve the issue.

I'm pretty sure there was a way to link an XBL account to a different email address. So using a third email address one could first get the undesired XBL account to the other mail address and then switch the real XBL account over to the new mail address.
 
I'm pretty sure there was a way to link an XBL account to a different email address. So using a third email address one could first get the undesired XBL account to the other mail address and then switch the real XBL account over to the new mail address.

Yeah have tried that. The roadblock is the outlook.com address I created for her now has a gamertag that was auto generated by windows8 attached to it. So I can't change the email address on her account because of that.

I'm pretty sure just signing up to outlook.com doesn't automatically create a gamertag, neither does installing windows8. Maybe triggering the Games app or possibly downloading and playing a game(in her case Wordament) does that. Don't really know, no one does at MS support so far either.
 
I wish somebody would make a W8 hybrid where the tablet would have LCD screen on one side and e-ink on the other. Not only for reading, but using laptop with e-ink scren would make for a glorious mobile typing machine that would last dozens of hours on battery.
Yeah, it would be niche as hell device, but still would love to see it.

I have the new nook ereader and its so light and small that i don't see the problem with carying a dedicated device with me along with my other stuff.


I'd gladly give up carying an e-reader + laptop + tablet and switch to just a hybrid and a e-reader.

What you propose just seems so fragile (its italian) and impractical . They need to get the protype e-ink/lcd screens out asap but thats still a few years away at the very least
 
What you propose just seems so fragile (its italian) and impractical
Why? You already can get swivel screens and you've got ASUS taichi with two screens. I don'r see how it would be fragile in any way, when the current solutions aren't. Of course, such device would be too niche to make production profitable. I'm just wishing somebody would do it anyway :)
 
Yeah have tried that. The roadblock is the outlook.com address I created for her now has a gamertag that was auto generated by windows8 attached to it. So I can't change the email address on her account because of that.

I'm pretty sure just signing up to outlook.com doesn't automatically create a gamertag, neither does installing windows8. Maybe triggering the Games app or possibly downloading and playing a game(in her case Wordament) does that. Don't really know, no one does at MS support so far either.

Here is what I had to do.

Had a Hotmail account with a dummy gamertag for some reason, don't know why, it was not my Gamertag I used. Switched that Hotmail over to Outlook.

Had a Yahoo email that was tied to my gamertag that I actually used. Decided to take the hit on having to reset the phone to make the change, but the skydrive I actually use is on that Hotmail account.

I had to create another dummy email, changed my Outlook gamertag(the one I don't use) to the dummy email. Then I changed my real gamertag to the Outlook gamertag. Had to wait 30 days after I converted from Hotmail to Outlook though as they considered that as a gamertag account change. But everything switched perfectly after the 30 days.

Try changing the it through a 360 if you have one.
 
So my DreamSpark just activiated (going to school this year), and I can download Windows 8 right now.

I have Windows 8 Release Preview on my PC and Windows 7 Home Premium on my MacBook. I want to update Windows 7 on my MacBook Air but I don't know how to do it. Can someone help me please?
 
So my DreamSpark just activiated (going to school this year), and I can download Windows 8 right now.

I have Windows 8 Release Preview on my PC and Windows 7 Home Premium on my MacBook. I want to update Windows 7 on my MacBook Air but I don't know how to do it. Can someone help me please?

it's simple. dl win 8 iso on your win 7 partition. Extract it (or mount it or burn it on a dvd) and click setup.

Go through procedure and you should be done within an hr.


Yeah, I'm not the biggest hater for win 8... but when i had to google "how to shut down windows 8" and "My computer windows 8". Something is wrong here no?

At least during that process I learned about win + E.

Never knew about that!
 
it's simple. dl win 8 iso on your win 7 partition. Extract it (or mount it or burn it on a dvd) and click setup.

Go through procedure and you should be done within an hr.


Yeah, I'm not the biggest hater for win 8... but when i had to google "how to shut down windows 8" and "My computer windows 8". Something is wrong here no?

At least during that process I learned about win + E.

Never knew about that!
i guess you never used start search much with 7 or vista. Or libraries in 7.
 
it's simple. dl win 8 iso on your win 7 partition. Extract it (or mount it or burn it on a dvd) and click setup.

Go through procedure and you should be done within an hr.


Yeah, I'm not the biggest hater for win 8... but when i had to google "how to shut down windows 8" and "My computer windows 8". Something is wrong here no?

At least during that process I learned about win + E.

Never knew about that!
Come on son the libraries icon is already pinned in the desktop.
 
My parents always click My Computer from the start menu. It's not that hard to believe that others do versus clicking on the libraries icon.
 
it's simple. dl win 8 iso on your win 7 partition. Extract it (or mount it or burn it on a dvd) and click setup.

Go through procedure and you should be done within an hr.


Yeah, I'm not the biggest hater for win 8... but when i had to google "how to shut down windows 8" and "My computer windows 8". Something is wrong here no?

At least during that process I learned about win + E.

Never knew about that!

You didn't have to go straight to google but you did... it answered your question but hopefully you learned something vulable about win8: You never have to search for any metro app setting ever again because it's always in the same place. Same applies for searching, sharing, etc... Pretty nice paradigm shift wouldn't you say?
 
Come on son the libraries icon is already pinned in the desktop.

lol yea never noticed. I guess I just had some kind of file explorer open all the time with win 7 that it just 'blended in'.



You didn't have to go straight to google but you did... it answered your question but hopefully you learned something vulable about win8: You never have to search for any metro app setting ever again because it's always in the same place. Same applies for searching, sharing, etc... Pretty nice paradigm shift wouldn't you say?

True... it's just one of the... idk, it shoudn't be something i have to google search in the first place.

I'm ok to google search obscure stuff like show file extensions and what not... but to power off your computer?


Is there a way to make the 'window key + type search item' not just default to apps? Like is it possible to search apps + files?

I know win+ F searchs files, but you'd think just window key would search everything.

But I guess I never really got start bar search to work 100% on win 7...

Always been more of a open up my local drive than search.
 

Why the f do you even upgrade if you can't accept change and hate metro so much that you can't stand to see it when you first boot your machine? Beyond stupid. Just stick to win7. The speed differences aren't worth it since all of the new development opportunities will be in the Metro space. Hardly anyone is developing for win32 anymore for non-custom apps.
 
Why the f do you even upgrade if you can't accept change and hate metro so much that you can't stand to see it when you first boot your machine? Beyond stupid. Just stick to win7. The speed differences aren't worth it since all of the new development opportunities will be in the Metro space. Hardly anyone is developing for win32 anymore for non-custom apps.

Mr. Freeze says, "Chill."
 
I heard it's possible to downgrade from W8 to W7 for free. Will the product key be the same or do you get a new one? Because I'd like to give my current W7 license to my Vista-using sister and replace it with my W8 license, but stay on W7 to start with, until I want to upgrade.
 
I heard it's possible to downgrade from W8 to W7 for free. Will the product key be the same or do you get a new one? Because I'd like to give my current W7 license to my Vista-using sister and replace it with my W8 license, but stay on W7 to start with, until I want to upgrade.

It's possible if you have W8 Pro. What I don't know is if the downgrade process is incorporated into the W8 install, or if you get a product key then have to reinstall using a W7 image or disc.
 
I heard it's possible to downgrade from W8 to W7 for free. Will the product key be the same or do you get a new one? Because I'd like to give my current W7 license to my Vista-using sister and replace it with my W8 license, but stay on W7 to start with, until I want to upgrade.
Read this
 
You have a link to that? I thought they only specified display resolutions?
MSDN Blogs - Collaborating to deliver Windows RT PCs - Building Windows 8
the different PC form factors themselves, which include both tablets and laptops, screen sizes that vary from 10.1” to 11.6”
AnandTech - Microsoft Reveals First Battery Life Specs for Windows RT Tablets
Windows RT Launch Tablet Specification Range
Screen Size (Min) 10.1-inches (Max) 11.6-inches
 
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