A Day with Windows 8

Yesterday, I made a thrifty decision and decided to install Microsoft's new operating system Windows 8 on my desktop at home. I had wrestled with the decision for a while as my Windows 7 ultimate instance has been running very well and the old saying of "why fix what isn't broken" deterred me for a total of 10 minutes before I went ahead and tried to obtain a copy of Windows 8. I will walk through my experience with it all and I have to say the experience was not as bad as any other Windows Operating System I have ever installed.

The Rig

• Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1055T
• RAM: 16GB Corsair
• SSD: Crucial M4 128GB
• HDD: 500GB WD
• Mouse: Razer Black Adder
• HID(Other): WACOM Intuos5 Medium
• Monitor Res: 1920 X 1080
• GFX: nVidia GeForce GTX 460 SE

The Pre-Install

If you visit the Microsoft Windows website, mine was windows.co.in, you will be shown all the nice little features that Microsoft has to offer with their new flagship OS but what I was really interested in was getting copy of Windows 8. I clicked the link for a INR 1,999 upgrade to Windows 8 and was asked to download a file (The Windows Upgrade Advisor). 

After about 10 minutes of the file running, it tells you what is on your system and what can make the transition over to Windows 8 safely without any harm. It will also tell you what applications have available updates and how you can go about getting them. After choosing the OS I wanted (W8PRO), the advisor then took me to a simple form to fill out my CC details and it also gave me the option of ordering a DVD for delivery to my address. I opted out of the DVD and I will tell you why later. Needless to say that purchasing Windows 8 was easier than I expected. However, some reading on the internet might prove useful to anyone making a purchase and wanting specific OS options (32bit vs 64bit). For e.g., if you own a 32-bit version of Windows 7 and run the installer from your hard-disk, you will only get a 32-bit version of Windows 8. Sneaky? I can't really say but having an option for what you wanted to download from Microsoft might have proved useful in both the install and download portion of the Windows purchase and install process.

One thing I do want to note and thank Microsoft for is that after the power department in Bangalore failing and taking my rig with down not once, not twice but seven times, the Windows 8 download and installer always resumed from where it had stopped. Yes, my OS was halted by a power failure but the OS downloader just carried on from where it had last stopped and this is after executing it from a pen-drive save of the Advisor.

The Install

Now, I was ready to start my install with the download done and Microsoft has made it a lot easier to manage how you want to go about doing the install. For a quick run-down go to the link below because I could not have explained this portion any better.

http://www.soluto.com/knowledgebase/how-to-install-windows-8

The Pros

• You are given three choices ISO, USB and Install from hard-drive
• The process is very quick on an SSD and for that matter pretty fast on a regular HDD as well
• It runs in the background downloading everything and updating what's required on the HDD without leaving you with those god-awful little snippets about what the OS is about to do and what it can do
• I was done with my entire install and started using the OS in less than 30 minutes and I could only make a coffee, eat a candy bar and chase my dog around the house
• Allows a delayed install from the hard drive (In the event that that bathroom break becomes a bathroom marathon)

The Cons

• If you are on a terribly slow internet connection, fork over the INR 1,099 and get the disc delivered otherwise its going to be a long day to get Windows 8
• If you do not choose the ISO option or the USB one, I have no idea where the files are stored on your HDD because it never shows them to you. A Google search might reveal where it is but oh-well.
• It does not do parallel installs with Windows 7 and you have to be partition savvy to do this. In this regard I give Ubuntu a high-five, it actually asks you how you want to manage your current OS and lets you keep it. Funny that Microsoft can't take better care of its older kids.

Windows 8

After getting in the first thing Microsoft does is ask for a Windows Live/Microsoft Account, I used my age-old hotmail ID that I have had for years and it started importing all my settings. A note here is that if you were using the Developer or RC Previews, all your settings from those are easily ported over to your current installation and things will set themselves up accordingly. Don't have a Microsoft ID and don't want one? No problem, there are options for a local account although you will be reminded that nothing syncs over (shrugs shoulders). I recommend using a Windows Live account ID because the experience if you do is completely different from using a local account and with all my social networks linked to my Microsoft ID it became simpler to connect all my services together.

The User Interface

I'll go ahead and say that what Microsoft has done for it's front-end is not for everyone, the tiles are well suited for someone that has an eye for grouped orientation of applications but for someone that wants a clean desktop as a workspace and then having to pick their options its going to be a nightmare. I don't really hate it and the more I use it, the more I feel that this was the right way to go for an OS that is built around an App Store for the front-end. But it is fluid and it screams in terms of how long it takes you to switch between applications. The Windows Key offers the functionality of taking you back to the Home Screen or switch back to the application you were in (W.KEY + D) for the keyboard shortcut savvy folks out there. I sometimes felt that the tiles were a little too close to each other but a little click and drag made me feel a bit more comfortable with what I was seeing. 

Contextual menus options now come in the form of a bar at the bottom of the screen on the homepage and in some application as a bar at the bottom and top. I will go ahead and applaud Microsoft for using this approach because as a mouse, touch-pad and WACOM touch interface user, it can get a bit annoying when you have contextual menus show up near objects when you want them for the entire screen space that you are in. That said, the old little context menus do show up near objects as well if you only intend on performing operations on those objects. The entire Windows 8 experience primarily resides in the four corners of your screen, moving the mouse cursor to the top right brings up the screen master contextual menu (can't remember what they call it) and from here you can change your PC settings, search, share and connect to Devices. Window switching works like it did in Windows 7 with Alt-Tab cycling through Windows in a little box telling you which window you are in and the WKEY-Tab offering you what looks like an Android-esque ribbon with all your windows neatly arranged.

Miss your old Desktop? Well don't worry its there for all those non-friendly Windows 8 applications (everything out there right now) but it did feel a little crippled. Gone is the Start button that everyone has gotten so used to and it is replaced by a Task Bar with a pinned IE and a File Explorer icon. If you are coming to Windows 8 from older versions of Windows, this is where you might feel comfortable the most before going back to the front-end but trust me if you don't ever use the front-end then you are missing the best part of this new OS. Using the keyboard to just type and find applications was quick and recommendations to install applications were almost instantaneous. I went looking for a Google Search application and was extremely pleased when the search box on the right actually told me that there was one in the Store for installation.

I could go on about the UI and how certain aspects like the mail manager, the calendar manager or the people and messaging management were just too fluid to believe but I think it really can't be explained till you install the OS for yourself.

The Mouse, Your sweaty palms, Touch-Enabled devices

This is the one place where everyone is going to have extreme opinions on what Microsoft should have done and what is going to be done. The HID (Human Interface Device) choice is what will make or break your Windows 8 experience. Before installing W8, I was a bit skeptic of how they were going to translate a finger to a mouse because lets be honest, our mice are better than our fingers (joking). I was however, very pleased with the fact that Microsoft has done a good job here. Using a mouse doesn't make you feel encumbered and after a bit of struggling to find out how to move between articles in a feed, I finally realized that the scroll button was the way to go. The rest of the contextual mappings in the UI like bringing up the settings or deleting items all worked as my mind had expected them to, with a right-click. 

I never got to use my fingers on my screen (soon), but what I did get to use was a WACOM touch-board and now I am thinking that I will never use my mouse for anything but precision work. The board connected to W8 with ease and the drive installation as a matter of telling the OS to go ahead and download what it needed to customize the driver specs for my device. After that, it was a matter of swiping with my finger and using my hand to do all the things that W8 was meant to do. Was the experience different? Try eating a chicken dinner without using your hands. Messy? Yes. Not enjoyable? Up for discussion.

Getting Connected

I'll be the first to admit that email accounts should not require special tinkering to get started because if you have your ID and password then everything else should be done by the OS. Microsoft seems to think the same way and does a pretty good job of allowing email setup to be a breeze. It even setup Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn based on my choices during my use of the DevPreview. Messaging came online in seconds and allowed me to connect to all my friends via Facebook and MSN but for some reason getting the Gtalk or IRC interfaces into the mix seemed to be a bit troublesome. I don't doubt that someone will soon release an app to get Gtalk working because I think it would work really well with the new messaging interface that Microsoft has.

The Photos application even allowed me to connect to other devices (Win7) on my network and share their pictures and videos with just a single HomeGroup password (available on Win7 too). This coupled with SkyDrive and my ginormous account size there made sharing files between non-windows devices easier as well.

 I'd say more on this topic but there are plenty of YouTube videos out there for you to go and look at.

Too Good To Be True

And now everyone that knows me is wondering why I haven't written anything bad? Well, there are some things that are rather annoying about the new OS and here they are. 

Sometimes, when you are working in application A and you want application B to come to forefront with a warning message application B just goes about showing the warning and gets completely suppressed. E.g. Installing Java SDK 7.0 was a bit confusing at first because I started the install but the install screen never came to the front. Why MS did this makes a bit of sense considering that you are in App A and don't want to be bothere by App B but unless I knew that I had to switch to the Desktop to get to App B I would have probably been clicking the file to install all day long.

The file system needs an actual File Explorer application on the home page. This will be one of the biggest cribs that seasoned Windows users will bring to the table. Why not allow a W8PRO user to browse the files or the file structure on their HDD from the home page? I mean we made a choice to use PRO right? 

The Music application is nice but I'd like a way to import my entire music folder instead of just selecting single files and then having to do that process or create a playlist with all my files everytime I wanted to load my entire music library. 

Creating a local account was super easy but when I tried to change the permissions of the local account and then switch to it, the entire UI just got completely mangled on front-end and I had to move boxes around to finally get what I wanted. I figure there has to be an easy option for setting up all the local accounts on the system with a button that says "mimic user XYZ".

A better tutorial for mouse users on what to expect on the system and how to go about making your mouse into the Master and Commander of all things W8. I didn't have any issues because I like playing around with the system but if someone who wasn't computer savvy came on-board then things might have been a bit hairy at first. I think Microsoft did this intentionally but I can't be totally sure.

My Favorites

The Sport App

Gone are the days where I need to check on my favorite football team (Liverpool). Now, W8 gives me a total breakdown of fixtures, match-timing, roster lists, etc. and its all neatly organized in the application. Furthermore, I can see sports news from around the world with just a click of a button.

The Travel App

I like checking flight ticket prices for destinations around the world and the travel app from Bing Travel is actually very good. What I would like here is to integrate more service providers into the system so that I can actually choose my service provider instead of relying on Kayak to show me tickets and their availability.

SkyDrive

I like Google Drive A LOT but Microsoft SkyDrive just gives me more and actually does a better job of space management and sharing. 

Closing Comments

Windows 8 isn't for everyone. The flush UI doesn't really appeal to everyone on first run and most people will read the internet articles and make a decision based on public opinion (we are human after all). But if you take the time to actually use the new OS and start working with it, there is a lot to appreciate with how MS has gone about trimming down all the fluff and actually offering something that is very robust to an end-user. My big gripe with this is that developers will come to it and not feel geeked-up enough to want to stay around long enough but that will change once they start putting the useful features that devs need to stay on top of their day-to-day tasks. I like the new UI and the new direction MS are heading in. I feel that the Desktop should stay the way it is because it forces everyone to change the way they think of an OS and additionally forces people to actually use the applications out there to make their daily tasks easier to handle. The Store needs more content but that will come with time because everyone is updating their content to work with Windows 8. More services for connecting to other popular sites like Pinterest, 500px, LinkedIn, Gtalk, etc. should make their appearance soon as well because having a few services is good but its not there quite yet. 

If you are a developer/system-admin then you can get around most menial tasks by using the old Windows 7 features but if that is the case then why upgrade. Microsoft offers enough accompanying software to suit the dev-geek in you (Visual Studio 2012 is an absolute treat) along with a rich UI that can be adapted to suit anyone's needs.

So, that said, I say go out and get a copy of W8 today to play around with. Whether its in a VM or as your actual OS, you will get a brand new experience and if you don't like it then just revert back to what you were always using. For now, I like it and I plan on forcing myself to use it as my only OS for the next few days (barring my work OS) till I see if I really like it not. One look and touch is not enough to make a decision on this OS and I am going to give it the time its asking for to see whether it sticks around or not.