Anybody downloaded and installed the Windows 8 customer preview?

Did this yesterday, very different windows platform from the norm, you can download the OS from their website as a kind of BETA. Very little support but if you know what you're doing you can make it work well. Very confusing at first, be interesting to hear your opinions.

I DL'd it and been playing with it in a VM for a few days. It makes me weep for the future of Windows as an OS.

I guess it's a good thing, the more people shun it for *nix distro's the better driver support we'll get and hopefully people will be able to move away from Windows fulltime.

Would of used it on a VM myself if I knew I wouldn't be able to roll back to 7.

Now counterstrike wont work!

I read that they are awaiting feedback from us the public to home in on the final release.

I may give it a download tomorrow on a blank Hdd.
Im sure win 7 will be the last of windows as we knew it.

Im trying out ubuntu and mint of the linux kind.
But windows love it or hate it, is my preferred choice.

Just wish the compatibility with linux for desktops would speed up and the utility names become more human lol

I would love to love desktop linux.
Its not too far away.

Windows 8 jury is out. (for now).

Any ideas how long the preview will last? If I can't roll back, then id just be stuck with an expired version of a preview of 8? Hmmmmm

Windows 8 will self distruct before the final release. Thats the norm with previous versions.

Ive not downloaded it yet,
Did you install 8 over 7 or into 7 using vm or clean install?

Going to look for the download now,
Try it out tomorrow.

http://www.forumswindows8.com/windows-8-download/

If you want to give it a try.
You should download the consumer version. (its said).

I`ll stick with 7 thanks, if it`s not broken don`t fix it

Fresh install over 7 on my laptop HDD.

You're screwed =p Just format and chuck win7 on top.

More like if its broke and you cant fix it, bring out another

i have not had any problems with 7 (apart from certain old games not working which is to be expected), only operating systems i have liked are Win Me, win XP and 7.

Vista was a total joke, having bought a new machine with Vista installed it was removed right away and replaced with XP (few years back).

The likes of NT etc are of no use to me so i cannot comment on those operating systems.

Vista is just fine, I run both and neither are perfect, but Vista with all the updates edges over 7 in terms of functionality and also there is a memory bug in 7 (32bit) that does not seem to affect Vista. More pointless GUI changes in 7 make it harder/tedious (out of the box) to use. Fortunately, a lot of these changes can be reverted, but only with a big of digging, to the average user, 7 is very alien and Microsoft's dictatorship means they don't know how to change it back.

Vista was bad when it first released though.

Windows 8 will excel on tablets thanks to the Metro (Windows Phone) interface. Microsoft insist they are going to make Metro the compulsory start-screen on non-touchscreen PC's and laptops as well, which if they do, they will get ridiculed for.

The future is more cloud based services, though as we've seen over recent years with various services, including Microsoft's own Sidekick mobile phones in the US, cloud is not to be relied upon if your data is important. Broadband also needs to improve (across all technologies and companies) if a true cloud service is to be introduced. Personally, I think the concept is good, the reality is a whole different ballgame however.

may take a look at it in the next week or so

I just installed it on a Spare HDD and its flowing, i can see the benefits of a Tablet enviroment but after a 20min play i think its OK, only beacuase i cant use it properly its took me 5 mins to work out how to shut it down lol

I think i will like it, but my concerns are over this ARM thing, and to my understanding (I'm probably wrong) apps and such cant be migrated between computers, im not sure if im understaninding that as a tablet phone install and confusing it with what would be a Desktop install. Is this goodbye to a Physical Disk and everything is from the App store? I just dont know, and if that's the case then i wouldnt not be purchasing 8 i'm happy with 7. I like the potential of 8 its a new look.

Its worth a download.

I like what i see, but will it be what i want it to be

Apart from having to format my laptop to install correctly, and apart from slowing my laptop down by about 30%, apart from having hardly any programs that actually work correctly, and having the worst interface of any windows OS.... it works great

That's why its a "preview" - it's still under development.

Not really sure why people download things before they are at least at RC stage or even preferably at final if they can't grasp there will be issues.

I think it's a case of shouting "I've got it already"... there is at least 6 months worth of development (and then probably a further 12 - 18 months of development until all the bugs and issues are ironed out, providing MS have not backtracked by then), during which there will be many revisions and much refinement take place.

People do make me laugh, it has this wrong, it has that wrong, haha it's a dev build, I have lost count the amount of times TopUp TV dev builds have broken more things than they have fixed, have corrupted every existing recording on dev boxes, have even totally wiped out boxes on occasion. This is the reason we never released dev builds to the general public and never encouraged the public to use them, because they inherently run a high risk of breaking things, or at best, running shite.

If you are not comfortable with the idea of testing a development build, don't download it, simple as. I won't be bothering, because a. it's not worth my time to bother my arse and b. it's very rare Microsoft get anything right upon public release, nevermind a build currently in development. Since they're not paying me to test their software etc, I won't be working for free.