Windows 8: Going the Metro Style

I was delighted at the opportunity to attend a Windows 8 product training. I had tried the Developer preview previously and wasn't too keen on the new interface and have not intended to explore it in more detail. My product buyer had submitted my name and a few others for the training which was held in Microsoft Singapore's computer lab. I must say the environment is great. The view from the 22nd floor is simply incredible.

I hope to be involved for more such trainings in future. It really takes your mind off the regular work stress. Anyway, back to Windows 8, the attendees were given a Release Preview DVD which is the final version before the product will be officially launched. I have installed firstly on my mid-2012 MacBook Air which did not went as smooth as I thought. I did a fresh installation of Windows 7 x64 using Bootcamp and proceeded with an upgrade to Windows 8. The upgrade took less than 30mins however upon reaching the start menu (now called as Metro interface), my touchpad won't work. I could adjust the brightness and volume controls but the Bootcamp control panel would not launch. This explains that there were no official drivers for Windows 8 from Apple at this point of time. I managed to get the trackpad functioning after installing a 3rd party software, however there is no right-click function.

Start-up time and shut down times were faster than I thought - even beats OSX Mountain Lion. This is due to minor tweaks in the Operating System's start up and shut down process. Compared to Mountain Lion, Windows took just 3 seconds less for both startup and shutdown. However, these speeds can only be achieved if your primary OS resides on an SSD, otherwise, you may not notice much of an improvement. Let my recorded videos below speaks for themselves: Despite these improvements, there are other more important factors that needs to be address. The OS crashes ever so often even if left untouched and sometimes failed to boot after a normal restart. These are expected of a beta OS so hopefully the official release will be seen as an improvement instead of a burden. If you ask me should you upgrade - my answer would be try out the Release Preview first on your system. However be sure you back up all your data and set aside a recovery disc. Because you cannot roll-back or uninstall Windows 8. To go back to your previous Operating System, you will need to perform a full re-installation. A hassle, but if you are willing to sacrifice some time to try out this new OS, by all means. Better if you have a spare PC or notebook lying around. Just make sure your processor is a Core 2 Duo or higher. I have installed on Acer touchscreen PC, and some other major notebook manufactures and have yet to see signs of any incompability. Go ahead and get your beta version today: http://www.windows.com .

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