[WIN8] Windows 8 Thread

[elvis]

Originally Posted by gcflora

The question is, why even put the OS on an SSD?

My OS, full install including graphical desktop environment, office/collaboration suite, multiple graphics editing suite, multiple development IDEs, multiple web browsers, mail clients, and a host of other tools take up 4.5GB of space.

$ df -h /
Filesystem              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/local-root  9.3G  4.5G  4.4G  52% /

I'm happy to have them on an SSD, because they take up bugger all space. OSes that require a partition ten times that space for a base install are just ridiculous.

[millsy_c]

Originally Posted by gcflora

For all intents and purposes, yes.

I really, really doubt it caches everything. I heavily doubt that an ssd means little for windows responsiveness once it's booted. Hell I know it makes a difference, I don't need to guess

[elvis]

Originally Posted by millsy_c

I really, really doubt it caches everything.

Since Vista, Windows has done a much better job at file caching (including the added "SuperFetch" which attempts to pre-cache commonly used files).

It freaked a lot of people out when Vista first appeared, because they all thought their memory had vanished. Linux/UNIX/MacOSX users are used to this, however, as they've seen it in action for a decade before hand (including their own pre-cachers and pre-fetchers, as well as much more aggressive file caching).

All the same, an SSD helps. SuperFetch works on regularly used files. But if you open something irregular, you suffer disk fetch latency. And lowering latency is exactly what SSDs excel at. I doubt you'd get much argument from anyone about the concept of putting an OS on an SSD.

[gcflora]

I didn't mean to be argumentative. But, in my case after the OS is loaded there is SFA that actually gets read from the disk. This assumes a couple of things:

(a) I don't care about boot times
(b) I have enough memory for the entire OS kernel to be in memory, including critical device drivers

That's really about it. If the kernel is regularly swapping kernel or driver code to/from disk [or other storage] (for the kernel itself and drivers) then it's a performance problem (and potentially a bigger problem).

Anyway, it's just a personal opinion.

Edit: I guess what I am saying is that there are certain parts of the kernel and certain drivers that HAVE to be in RAM anyway (e.g. it's no good if the code that manages the swap space is swapped out of RAM... that wouldn't work). On *my* system the entire kernel and all regular drivers are loaded during boot into RAM and stay there. It's not very often that another "OS" file is loaded after boot (yeah, yeah, there are exceptions: I doubt, in Windows case, that cmd.exe is pre-fetched, although it might be). The vast majority of things being loaded off disk, in my limited testing, are installed applications and not OS files.

[RAtSAcK]

Just put Windows 8 x64 on my laptop.
The start menu is still confusing as hell for me. I'd hate to see an office user try and navigate through it. I do wish I could use the thumb button on my mouse to go back/forward through it all (similar to webpages). Will see how I go, I guess.

[BluBoy]

Originally Posted by RAtSAcK

Just put Windows 8 x64 on my laptop.
The start menu is still confusing as hell for me. I'd hate to see an office user try and navigate through it. I do wish I could use the thumb button on my mouse to go back/forward through it all (similar to webpages). Will see how I go, I guess.

Took me a while to find the shutdown option :s
Also, I actually like the desktop mode... Is there a way to add the 'startmenu' there?

[elvis]

Originally Posted by andyroo54

My win 7 SOE is 10GB.

Including all the apps I mentioned in my post? Or is that just the bare OS?

I'm talking 4.5GB with a huge volume of functional applications. What apps are in your SOE?

[Rusty X5]

Well...just installed W8 on piece of shit machine and all i can say is that i'm impressed. Much snappy then my W7 machine that has better cpu/ more ram/ and ssd. Start menu takes a while to get use to....people with only absolute basic windows experience will struggle to work it out....took me 5 minutes to find system properties .

I can see why some ppl could be annoyed with W8...but you cant blame MS moving in this direction so they can have the same OS on all platforms from deskop-tablets-mobiles. Will I upgrade now?... probably not, depends on the situation but it looks promising and W9 can only be better.

Question..is ther a quiker way to shut down?..or must you log out, then sht down? (one of my annoyances atm )

And...when the consumer review run out?

[andyroo54]

Originally Posted by Rusty X5

Question..is ther a quiker way to shut down?..or must you log out, then sht down? (one of my annoyances atm )

And...when the consumer review run out?

You might want to try this:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/win8shutdown/

I made it for that very reason. So you only have to click Start>shutdown.

I was thinking I might try to make a metro style app that does the same thing.. but would have nice full size metro tiles.

And I'm not sure it's probably a little while after release. But you can 'upgrade' from release preview to Win 8 pro for $40.

[mareke]

I still can't see desktop computers with touchscreens becoming popular but the following suggests that Microsoft sees a big future for touchscreens. Make an upgrade to Windows 8, which is touchscreen friendly, only cost $40 and buy a company which is at the forefront of touchscreen technology and make money from it is looking ahead. My mouse will do me for my desktop computer however.

http://www.infopackets.com/news/busi...uchscreens.htm

Microsoft Acquires Firm to Make Huge Touchscreens
Microsoft has acquired a firm that produces massive computer touchscreen displays. According to reports, the company plans to reduce the price of those screens, making them far more affordable for both businesses and home consumers.

Perceptive Pixel, which was founded in 2006, specializes in designing and manufacturing giant, wall-mounted, touchscreen displays as large as 80 inches across. The screens have advanced capabilities that allow multiple users to operate them at the same time.

The company received a major boost four years ago, when CNN used its touchscreens during broadcasts covering the 2008 Presidential election.

The screens allowed studio hosts to access a wide range of information in a way that could be seen by viewers, quickly, and without the need for background staff to decide in advance what data to show or to create special graphics. (Source: microsoft.com)

The Perceptive Pixel displays use multi-touch technology, which allows them to be controlled on the fly by a wide range of swipe, drag, and pinch gestures.

Microsoft Could Slash Thousands From Touchscreen Costs
Tech analysts forecast two main goals for Microsoft as a result of the buyout. First, the acquisition will likely drive down prices on existing Perceptive Pixel screen products.

At the moment, the largest screens cost around $80,000, which severely limits the company's potential customer base.

Second, Microsoft could adapt the devices into self-contained computers. This could be done by attaching an internal processor and hard drive, which should be easy to do given the size of the screens' enclosures.

Giant Windows 8 Touchscreen PCs Now A Possibility
It's already been reported that Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer has an 82-inch screen running Windows 8 in his office.

While this size of device may be out of reach for most buyers, Perceptive Pixel does offer 27 inch touchscreens that could become the basis of a similar consumer product. (Source: nwsource.com)

Another potential benefit from the acquisition is that Perceptive Pixel holds patents for several touchscreen technologies that could now be built into Microsoft's other products, most notably its new Surface tablet, a rival to the iPad.

Perhaps the most important Perceptive Pixel patent includes a technique that allows the screen to respond accurately to both fingers and styluses, which produce very different types of pressures.

Many manufacturers have struggled to accomplish this, because styluses tend to be much firmer than the soft flesh on fingertips.

[andyroo54]

Originally Posted by mareke

I still can't see desktop computers with touchscreens becoming popular but the following suggests that Microsoft sees a big future for touchscreens. Make an upgrade to Windows 8, which is touchscreen friendly, only cost $40 and buy a company which is at the forefront of touchscreen technology and make money from it is looking ahead. My mouse will do me for my desktop computer however.

http://www.infopackets.com/news/busi...uchscreens.htm

Yeah I don't need touch screen on my pc. Laptop maybe. Tablet, yes.

[303-Acid]

So, Windows 8 hey!

I popped it on my Dell Mini 10 for my trip to Bali but it's not really suited to that device. The screen res isn't high enough for the Metro apps, not that I care to use those. One weird thing that happens upon cold boot it would get to the welcome screen, then reboot itself once and be fine. Seemed to happen every time on a cold boot. It seemed to perform OK on 1GB of RAM. It worked well enough for me to check mail, maps, backup pics and vids, which any OS could do anyway.

[pantner]

Originally Posted by Rusty X5

Well...just installed W8 on piece of shit machine and all i can say is that i'm impressed. Much snappy then my W7 machine that has better cpu/ more ram/ and ssd. Start menu takes a while to get use to....people with only absolute basic windows experience will struggle to work it out....took me 5 minutes to find system properties .

I can see why some ppl could be annoyed with W8...but you cant blame MS moving in this direction so they can have the same OS on all platforms from deskop-tablets-mobiles. Will I upgrade now?... probably not, depends on the situation but it looks promising and W9 can only be better.

Question..is ther a quiker way to shut down?..or must you log out, then sht down? (one of my annoyances atm )

And...when the consumer review run out?

WIndows key + I and then select shutdown

[Glide]

Well I just upgraded my laptop. Metro is useless with a touchpad?

Also seems a lot more sluggish than win7. I went in with an open mind, but it falls sharply in the dislike category. Its totally geared towards media.

I don't have videos, photos, social networking on my laptop. I use it for work and some coding projects on the side. So metro is a waste.

Also, why should I wait for the spinny thingy to load an app when iOS seems to be able to load things near instantly?

I think MS still have a lot to learn in this new frontier of UI.
New users should not have to google how to shutdown or change the city in the weather app.

Unfortunately I think this will flop, which is a shame as im usually pretty eager to embrace change and really thought they could pull a rabbit out of a hat here.

[Rusty X5]

Originally Posted by Glide

Well I just upgraded my laptop. Metro is useless with a touchpad?

Also seems a lot more sluggish than win7.

What specs on your lappy...maybe it metro is sluggish with a touch screen (useless) lol. Like i said..i found it quite snappy for the shitty machine i put it on...task manager said only 400mb of 2gb being used when W8 was on idle doin nothing else...thought that was pretty good considering my W7 using near 2gb doin nothing (bearing in mind that my W7 machine got 8gb, and the W8 machine only had 2gb..still that's a better ratio in my book)