Windows 8 Developer Preview is Live | Hacker News Reader

Windows 8 Developer Preview is Live

msdn.microsoft.com

112 pointsacak53 comments

Anyone that played with it yet or watched the presentations have a quick-hit list of the things that look cool about Windows 8?

New ie + apps by interns (I didn't work on Win8 so these aren't my creations).

I've only watched the first hour and 3/4 so far as I've work to do, but here are my notes, they are rough but you asked:

Architecture

- ARM and X86

- Uses less resources than windows 7 according to screen shots (280Mb RAM footprint)

- Startup time is incredible, as well as shutdown

- Rootkit protection

- Mentioned encrypted drive while it's running? Not sure if this is default

- Touch centric interface

- Heavily influenced by the phone UI, the 'start' screen is a panel of apps and things.

- Heavily built around windows live and sharing

- If you're in support you'll be saying 'swipe to the right' a lot. Opens context start menu

- Seems to switch to a normal desktop view with a bar down the bottom when you open something like visual studio

- Actually seem to be able to switch between panel and desktop view. The panel looks like the app launcher, you'll probably be able to disable it

Development

- You can use HTML5/Javascript OR .Net/C++/C + XAML to write apps.

- App store (see below)

- CSS is extended for windows using browser specific extensions

- They also seem to have written some default APIs for things like facebook

- Pushing Blend again, still poo, but now supports windows html

- little apps are called 'metro style' apps

- Seem to be making a deal about how rich the APIs are

- Put a lot of effort into the APIs for hardware addons such as accelerometers

- Don't have to do anything to support ARM

- Everything you write will have baked in hardware accelerated graphics

- Making a big deal of 'charms', makes apps content aware and kinda embeddable in the interface elsewhere in the system. You kinda have to see this to understand them

-- They're context aware so if you're copying text ad your app is marked as accepting text then they'll appear as a charm for that.

-- They also appear in the search system if you've flagged them

App store

- Unsurprisingly closed

- Trying to make the process more transparent, shows waiting times for each review step

- Will test security, technical and content (for copyright?)

- You will be able to run the auto testing tools yourself (e.g. technical compliance make sure not abusing API)

- App store baked into the OS

- Old apps are going to be listable too (Win32)

- Sounds like it's going to be available on windows 7 too

- Will this get immediately overwhelmed with old programs?

First thoughts

- It's really bloody good. I started a skeptic on it being overly touch centric, ended impressed.

- They've made some very bold choices and it seems to have paid off

- This might be a bad thing for html5, it's possibly going to fragment standards as MS are having to push ahead some features to handle the UI without acceptance. I guess we'll see.

p.s. Looks like the other PC manufacturers are finally copying the Macbook air form factor, they look really good

p.p.s. Crowd shots are weird as everyone is a bloke! (see 2:33ish)

p.p.p.s. Windows developers are still clueless about javascript. Using null in one of the examples.

A few more notes at lunchtime.

There's a fundamental distinction between apps running windows style and the new metro style that are launched from the panel. To 'grok' that distinction see 2:57 onwards. The interface is vastly simplified for a 'metro' app and much more touch centric. Windows key switches between panel and old style desktop.

Forgot to include but at the beginning of it they mentioned spell checking everywhere. I think they meant in every textbox.

See 2:39 onwards for someone actually using windows 8 to see the new UI.

There's quite a few quality of life improvements for power users and programmers, including:

  - Task manager overhaul, much better
  - Can 'refresh' PC, restore defaults while keeping all your files and settings
  - Can Reset PC, completely wipe all settings and files
  - Can set a new baseline for the reset image, i.e. after you've installed your go to programs, VS, SQL, etc.
  - Windows assessment console included, internal tools to test computer performance in particular setups

Finally I mentioned it earlier, but this is heavily integrated with windows live id. It's supposed to be your logon anywhere, and when you logon it makes all your settings available, apps, certain passwords (like facebook login), etc. Automatically hooks up to your sky drive.

I kinda stopped watching there as the windows live guy annoyed me and I'm tired of watching it :). Also with regard to that I'd have to see the performance over the general internet before I got excited by it. I also know MS's obsession with automatically logging you into messenger and crap like that, which is annoying.

(sorry for formatting in first post, I always forget how to do lists)

I still have not seen a clear explanation of where .NET and the CLR are in this WinRT story. Anybody have a good sense for what's new, renamed, and deprecated?

One easy way to find out. Download! The code samples were all in .Net.

Seems like asking is an easier way to find out.

Maybe it is but that's not what hackers do. They just do it.

laziness impatience hubris

Here you go - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh46494...

From the article: The Windows Runtime is exposed using API metadata (.winmd files). This is the same format used by the .NET framework (Ecma-335). The underlying binary contract makes it easy for you to access the Windows Runtime APIs directly in the development language of your choice. The shape and structure of the Windows Runtime APIs can be understood by both static languages such as C# and dynamic languages such as JavaScript. IntelliSense is available in JavaScript, C#, Visual Basic, and C++.

Edit: Updated the link and added snippet

It's pretty speedy and responsive on my 2.4ghz C2D ThinkPad X200. Being a Developer Preview, it's also pretty useless. But, it does work as in today's keynote presentations. You can install apps on it.

Why do you say "it's also pretty useless"?

Many of the included apps aren't configurable, and there's just not much to the Metro side of things yet. It's good for an hour of poking around, though.

It works as in today's keynote... Does that mean it's a bit hard to navigate, and not all the apps work? They seemed to have a lot of technical problems in the keynote. My favourite was when they are holding a tablet up to the screen early on and he states "We're going to open the Bing app..." and a woman whispers over his shoulder (on a mic that everyone can hear) "No don't do that!"

The navigation is pretty easy, but as a WP7 user, I'm used to Metro paradigms.

Not all the apps work, some are just mockups and don't have any functionality (though they seem to be legitimately pulling data from the network, according to Wireshark).

It's not ready for regular use by anyone's standards, for sure. But it's very promising, very speedy, and has a pretty low memory footprint.

I'm OK with the demo goof ups.

Anyone have any idea how the new UI works with multiple monitor setups?

You should check the BUILD telecast; they showed how the new UI works seamlessly with multiple monitors!

It works on it, but it doesn't seem to span both monitors. You have to choose one or the other. It's a bit disappointing.

Great, so they fix the taskbar and break the thing that matters most :(

Eh? What do you mean?

Disclaimer: MS Employee. I did not write the new UI.

Well, it's a bit early so who knows what the plan is, but as a dual monitor user, it seems like that configuration is being left out of consideration for a complete Metro experience (as someone else mentioned you could have Metro on one monitor but there was no option to use it across both monitors).

At the same time it seems that in the desktop itself the taskbar has been updated to work on multiple monitors, which is where I was going with the above post - sure they fixed the taskbar, but windows 8 is all about Metro!

Oh, okay :) Thanks for clarifying

Has anyone had an issue on Virtual Box where you're only able to click on certain icons? For example, I can launch the control panel or desktop with a single click but when I try the IE tile it just moves and nothing happens. I can go to the desktop and launch IE without issue. Not sure what to try….

[Win7 x64 host running VB 4.1 attempting Windows Developer Preview with developer tools English, 64-bit (x64)]

This is likely because you don't have your network setup correctly. You need to be licensed, sorry activated, to run much other than control panel or desktop.

I used NAT and had to reboot a few times to get it going in Virtual Box. Eventually, someone then worked out that it could talk to Redmond, and stuff started working. It is definitely kinda frustrating to not know why the tiles are not worked, even though they 'move'.

The Native install picked up my Broadcom wireless, wired connection, and connected no problem.

Has anyone installed this as a virtual OS?

Yeah I'm keen to try it out when I get home tonight but don't exactly want to hose my home machine, hoping vmware player 64bit will play nicely with win8, if no one else has tried it by tonight I'll let you know how I went

I tried it on VMWare workstation 7. Works fine for me.

Thanks - I ran out of time last night, reading bed time stories to kids took priority

+1 for right priorities :)

Always panics on boot in VMware. Sad :(

Edit: Seems to work in Parallels.

Edit 2: Boots in Parallels but is not very usable. Hangs very often, Parallels Tools do not work. Now trying in VirtualBox.

Edit 3: VirtualBox works as good or bad as Parallels. Native install seems to be the best option. Did someone try to install onto an external drive?

got VirtualBox handy/willing to give it a try?

I tried the 32 bit one (without developer tools) on VirtualBox on Windows 7. It panics with this message:

Unknown error creating VM - VERR_VMX_MSR_LOCKED_OR_DISABLED

That looks more like an issue with your machine. Does your CPU support VT extensions? Or they might not be enabled in the firmware. You can also fall back to traditional trap-n-emulate virtualization by disabling VT and nested paging in the VirtualBox preferences.

Thanks. Virtualization was disabled in the BIOS.

I have the 64-bit Dev Tools edition running pretty good in VBox. It doesn't like the VBox Tools, though they partial install. No seamless mouse sadly.

It does seem to hang up rather a lot, but it clears after a minute or two and keeps going. No panics yet.

I only did that, since I didn't have any DL DVDs, and no Windows install to make a bootable USB.

I just installed 64-bit dev tools into VBox on OSX and seamless mouse is supported. Everything just works so far..

Damn! That's the configuration I have, and it hung, then went through once I ran it in compatibility mode. Obviously something broke, or failed because the tools are not fully working.

Did you tell VBox it's Windows 7? And what version of VBox are you using, please?

Anyways, I ended up downloading the make usb key utility from MS, making a bootable install on the key, then installing on a spare HD on my box. aside from having to slip it all the drivers at start of install, the experience running on the metal is a lot better.

Yes, I said the OS was Windows 7 64-bit, VBox 4.1.2.

http://blogs.lessthandot.com/index.php/SysAdmins/OS/Windows/...

Maybe this helps for VirtualBox

""" You need to have hardware virtualization enabled if you want to run Windows 8 in Virtual Box """

Works fine on VMWare workstation 7 for me. Installed as Windows 2008 64-bit profile.

Would you post your settings? I've tried several different configurations and it just keeps panicking :-(

Default ones worked for me. Windows 2008 64-bit. 40Gb disk. Do you haave VT-x on your CPU?

Yeah I do; I've tried manually enabling that in the settings or leaving it at automatic, along with various different memory sizes, core/cpu counts, SCSI vs IDE hard drive, also tried Windows 7 x64 as a base, and both 2008 and 2008 R2, all to no avail. VirtualBox it is then...

Thanks anyway!

Dang. Must be lucky with mine. Good luck with VBox :)

I'm following this guide and installing it on VirtualBox http://www.sysprobs.com/guide-install-windows-8-virtualbox

... and I just finished installing it and it works terrific!

edit - I installed 64bit, btw.

Additional note for networking: I had to set the virtual NIC to "Bridged Adapter" and the type to "Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop".

Besides that, the guide worked great, thanks! (I'm on Ubuntu 11.04 and VirtualBox 4.1.2)

I installed this on a Hyper-V VM - everything went pretty quickly except after install, the first time I tried to log in it sat there a while. I shut it down (cleanly) then it booted up fine the next time.

Everything pretty much works now, I've been playing around with it mostly via Remote Desktop. You'll probably want to disable some of the animated window switching transitions if you do because they don't seem to remote very well (yet?).

Just installed it under Parallels 7 under Lion on a MBPro. Installed OK, logged in and explored a bit. Performance was decent, but the Mac trackpad gestures are not relayed to the OS.

After installing Parallels tools and running one of the sample apps the screen froze with no way to get back in. Currently reinstalling. Will try it again this time without Parallels tools.

It's downloading at a ridiculously slow rate—230 kbps. Why didn't they make torrents for them as well? The load would be shared on all the developers downloading it.

If you download through the "Download Manager" then I believe that is a p2p system. Not sure this is available via non-MSDN means though.

There are burnbit links for at least the two 64-bit ISOs:

http://burnbit.com/torrent/177079/WindowsDeveloperPreview_64...

http://burnbit.com/torrent/177080/WindowsDeveloperPreview_64...

Oh, the win8 app store looks really great. 0% cut, transparent review process and support for trials.

I guess I will be writing some windows app in the future. (I'm a Mac developer.) And I hope this will force Apple to improve their app store developer experience a little bit.

Well... maybe not - http://www.istartedsomething.com/20110915/windows-store-to-p...

Then again, a lot of people think the 30% is worth it when compared to implementing your own way of selling things.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com