Windows 8 Reaches RTM Status, Almost Immediately Leaked
The first part
is the introduction and "what's new" regarding getting it set up versus
our guide for installing the Consumer Preview. The following sections
are for showing off
desktop
applications and metro/Windows 8 Style UI apps. Finally, a short
conclusion and general impressions section as well as some questions for
you to answer should you want to join the discussion. Once again, I've
gone with a more informal voice for the preview as there is a lot of
opinion in here,
this is by no means a full review!
Please note that unless otherwise stated, these opinions are my own,
and not PC Perspective's. I am interested in hearing your opinions on
the RTM build as well, and you can participate in the comments below
without registration (though you get some nice benefits–like an avatar
and ability to edit posts–if you decide to).
Windows 8 RTM has leaked to the Internet, here's what's new and what I think of it
Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 operating system is well on its way
for the final public release on October 26, 2012—in fact OEMs are
starting to get their hands on the code, and it is officially in Release
To Manufacturing (RTM) status. While Microsoft
TechNet
subscribers will be able to download the Windows 8 RTM build on August
15, 2012, it has already been leaked to the Internet as is available on
various file-sharing websites.
To be more specific, the leaked build is a volume license version of
Windows 8 Enterprise (N) RTM. It is further an “N” edition, which means
that it is aimed at the European market and has Windows Media Player and
Windows Media Center
stripped out. The "N" editions are the result of an EU case relating to
alleged anti-competitive actions. From that leaked build, people have
managed to create a
bootable
ISO version for clean installs where there is no existing OS on the
machine as well as a zipped folder that can be used for upgrade
installations.
Needless to say, the news that the RTM had leaked piqued my interest,
so I set out to get my hands on it (and report my findings). I managed
to find a non-bootable image
that seemed to check out as being legitimate. I then took that 6.05 GB
folder and used the files to do a clean install from a Windows 7 x64
virtual machine I had around for testing just this sort of thing.
Unlike our previous Windows 8 Consumer Preview installation guide,
this RTM build does not require a key to be entered in order to
complete the install. As a volume license version, you are allowed a
30-day grace period to activate (I have not tested if the Windows 7
-rearm trick works to extend that yet). Other than the key issue, the
clean install procedure is the same as the steps we covered
previously. Aesthetically, Microsoft has changed to a purple background
and the beta fish logo at boot-up (when the installer restarts the
system) is gone. It is replaced by a small light-blue Windows 8 logo.
Once the installer has finished, it will restart the computer and,
upon boot will present a nice graphical OS selection list which appears
to be a new addition to the RTM build. After choose Windows 8, you enter
the Windows setup wizard which guides you through setting computer
options and configuring your user account.
The setup process in Windows 8 RTM appears to be identical to that of
the Consumer Preview version that I installed a couple of months ago
(how time has flown!). Below is an animated .gif of the setup screens,
which appears to be the same as the Consumer Preview except using a
slightly different background color.
After that finished though, I was pleasantly surprised with what came
next. After asking for some sort of tutorial ever since the Developer
Preview, Microsoft has finally provided one–sort of. Basically, after
setup finishes, the screen goes dark and then an animation pops up that
briefly shows you how to access the Windows 8 Charms bar by moving your
mouse to any corner of the screen. Then it dumps you out to the desktop.
Not exactly what I was hoping for, especially considering I was only able to find out how to actually close a
Metro "Windows
8 style UI" application without going to the task manager from a forum
post of all things. Needless to say, some of the mouse gestures are not
obvious, and I do consider myself to be at least
somewhat
technically savvy. Therefore, I can only imagine how lost some people
might be when presented with Windows 8. When I had the Developer and
Consumer Preview(s) installed on my Dell XT convertible tablet, the
touch and gesture stuff was easier to discover but it is still not
apparent. I was really hoping for a tutorial similar to what Microsoft
did for Windows XP that introduces the interface and all the new
features on the first setup (and accessible later if needed).
Still, it is a step in the right direction, and the tutorial at least
points out one of the new mouse/touch navigation features. Here's
hoping that MS adds more to that start-up tutorial by the time final
code is out and it is for sale.
Below is an animated .gif image of the brief tutorial. Note that the
actual tutorial has some fading transitions between scenes. The last two
images are two clips from a constantly changing background color as the
OS loads the desktop and Windows 8 Start Screen for the first time. It
cycles through all the colors available to choose from in the
Personalize setting during account creation.
Once Windows has finished setting up your user account, you will be
presented with the Windows 8 Start Screen for the first time. In my
case, it was an array of "Metro" Windows 8 Style UI live tiles on a dark
blue background with my name and photo in the top-right-corner. You can
see what my Start Screen looks like in the image below. Yours will look
similar but the photos and location information will be different. So
you'll have the same stock apps, but the information on the tiles will
not be the same. The information in question will be pulled from the
Microsoft/Windows Live account that you signed into during the initial
setup process.
Continue reading to see the new "Metro" apps, desktop UI, and my final thoughts
Windows 8 Enterprise N RTM build - Desktop Applications
Of course, the first thing that I did was head to the desktop to
check out some standard Windows apps. The Task Manager is a big
improvement aesthetically and functionality over the one in Windows 7.
It provides a number of options for seeing which applications–Metro or
otherwise–are using your hardware resources. One of the other tabs
offers up a history of applications opened. The Windows 8 Metro style
apps continue to stay resident in memory unless explicitly closed, which
is the same behavior they exhibited in previous beta builds of Windows
8. I am a bit uneasy about that, as someone that likes to keep
background apps and processes to the bare minimum but with enough RAM
I'm sure it won't be much of an issue.
Speaking of the desktop, the beta fish that graced the screens of the earlier Windows 8 builds is gone. The new default
desktop background is a blue sky and two daisy flowers.
Also changed is the default lock screen, which is a new landscape shot (as shown below).
As far as default desktop (non-metro) applications, you will get
Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Paint. You will
further be able to grab Windows Media Center as a separate download
(pricing is not yet final). Unfortunately, the leaked Enterprise N SKU
does not come with Media Player or Media Center due to EU requirements,
so I was unable to test those. With that said, Media Center is Windows 8
is allegedly nearly identical to the Windows 7 version, though we
should see some improvements in Media Player. Paint and IE both look
like the Windows 7 versions minus the boarder transparency, however. The
image below shows Windows Explorer and Paint in a half-and-half
configuration as well as a Metro 1/3rd app docked to the right side of
the screen. As you can see, there is no more transparency (I do miss
it). Also, the active window gets a blue border while background windows
are not colored.
The lack of transparency is one reason why attempting to use
Ubuntu
or Mint as my daily driver irks me (what can I say, I like shiny
things), but I'm willing to give it a chance. I suppose I don't really
need the Aero glass effects, but with GPU-acceleration becoming a bigger part of the Windows 8 OS it would be nice to see (and to give my GPU something to do heh).
The image below is of the new Internet Explorer, which looks like its Windows 7 predecessor.
Windows 8 Enterprise N RTM - Metro Applications
With this release to manufacturing (RTM) build of Windows 8
Enterprise, it really gets interesting once we begin looking at metro
Windows 8 UI Style apps. Pressing the Windows key (or the lower-left hot
corner) brings up the Windows 8 Start Screen. The transition and
opening of the Start Screen feel a lot more fluid than in previous
builds. Personally, I'm still not sold on the idea of the Start Screen,
but I think I've talked about that enough in previous postings. I am
happy to see that the performance of going into the Start Screen and
back to the desktop seems to be improved.
Search is fairly quick, but I will wait until I am using it on my
main machine to make a final judgment there as the stock installation is
pretty sparse, and there was no media. I'm interested to see how the
metro search scales when searching through large amounts of data–and how
it presents those results to me. I did not really like the Consumer
Preview implementation, but I did not use it that much either. I'm
hoping that using the RTM of Windows 8 on my main machine for a couple
of weeks will let me dive into those kinds of issues and try to find
answers to the usability questions that I–and likely you as well–have.
There is not a whole lot to search for in the stock install.
Of the pre-installed metro apps, I took a look at the Search,
Weather, People, SkyDrive, Games, Metro Internet Explorer, and Metro
Store apps. I have to admit that the weather app is pretty cool The Mail
application looks similar to the Outlook.com webmail client
I looked at earlier this week. Performance is pretty good, and it
automatically starts pulling down your Microsoft mail thanks to you
logging in with your Microsoft account.
The SkyDrive app seems to be the same as the version in the Consumer
Preview. It differs from the web client a bit in that it is more
tile-based and metrified.
One of the applications that I think will really add value to
touchscreen-enabled devices is the Bing Search app. Using it, you can
search the Internet and the results show up as extremely touch friendly
buttons rather than a small text link–much easier to hit. On the
desktop? It looks neat, but I don't see it as something I would use very
often.
The People app that I mentioned lists all your contacts, and it is
basically a full-screen version of the People tile I showed off in the
Outlook.com preview. It even already had the Facebook contacts that I
added during that preview added to the People metro app when I first
opened it up in Windows 8. It seems useful but there is quite a bit of
white space in this app... it doesn't feel like it really needs to be
full screen.
The last standalone metro app that I'll show off is the weather app. I
have to say that it is pretty neat? Useful and productive? Maybe not,
but it does look cool and since Microsoft is taking out Gadget support, I
need
something docked on the right side of the monitor to feel
comfortable (heh). You can see the Windows 8 metro app's one-third mode
in the images above, but the following image is what it looks like when
in full screen mode.
The Windows Store and Games application(s) are important as well, and
come bundled with the operating system. Right now the Games app is
mostly for tracking your Xbox stats, but it has the potential to give
Valve and EA some competition in the software delivery game of
delivering and selling digital games.
As far as the Windows Store, I can't really say that I'm all that
excited about the prospect of my desktop PC turning into an "app"
machine–isn't that what smartphones are for? (heh). With Windows, it's
generally been a free-for-all as far as going out and finding new apps,
and so long as Microsoft does not hamper users' ability to add third
party apps for other sources (metro is a bit more forgivable, I'm mostly
talking about standard desktop apps here) I don't really have a problem
with it. I do think that it could be a good compliment to the find it
yourself model, and could act as a showcase of the best Windows apps–if
Microsoft plays its cards right. On the other hand, it could turn into
the Android app store wild west... there has to be a happy medium
somewhere between whatever goes and full-curation, right?
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