T60 Running the Developer's Preview of Windows 8

[Totoro-kun]

For you personally.

Do you work with a default configuration then?

[sir_synthsalot]

Yep. Unless you consider changing desktop icons tweaking.

[Totoro-kun]

And why do you work with a default configuration? Did you experiment with possible ways to configure your interface and found that default is best? Or just gone with it because you didn't want to waste your time on this? I am just curios.

I think really it must be all about time. Good configuration lets you work faster, there for saving you some time. Not a lot, maybe part of the second at a time, but it all adds up. So now one can save time by just going with default. But then end up working "slower" in the long run. Then more time is lost than saved by using default. If we add "human factor", then everything depends on which configuration person is most used to. So in my personal case, as I am most used to classical interface, I would have to spend more time adjusting to the new interface than I use to configure and tweak it for my needs.

Now going back to the topic, Windows 8 interface is changed so drastically, that I think, I would have to waste a lot of time to configure it into something fast, productive and visually acceptable, plus I fear I even might not succeed which renders my time wasted and this leaves negative review to the new windows.

Generally I should not care about this at all, since Linux lets me do anything I want, but sadly windows is still a dominant system in pc world, so I will have to deal with such things when windows 8 will come out. Majority of my clients are conservative people and I am sure very few of them will appreciate this ugly interface of windows 8, so if I cannot adjust it, I'll simply sell a tiny bit (by the world scale) less windows, yet everything adds up. However this might be a good thing and I should ask to leave this metro interface as only choice?

Eh well, I am confused. Must be tea time

[jdhurst]

I can usually bring an operating system to heel and make it work correctly. I am apparently one of the few people on the planet who made Vista work correctly.

However, it appears to me that Windows 8 will be non-starter as a working system (it will do fine as an iPad knock-off).

1. Small form factor machines (which I am wanting to get) will not run the applications (x86) that I have. I already spent hundreds of dollars adjusting to 64-bit and have the newest of everything. I am not up to replacing it all again.
2. The default interface is designed to work without a mouse and I understand some machines will not come with a mouse. Try changing a named range in Excel without a mouse - it is not possible because cursor keys change the whole range.
3. It appears that Windows 8 will not support dual boot. So if one needs to keep Windows 7 or Windows XP in order to work while adapting to Windows 8, they apparently will not be able to.

For better or for worse, there appears to be fewer knowledge workers as structural unemployment and under-employment increases. So Microsoft sees no market in us and is abandoning us. ... JDH

[WilsonF]

You can revert to the classic interface in Windows 8 with a registry hack. You can find it with a search engine; I don't have it with me now. I think it enhances performance almost as much as an SSD although I haven't actually tested.

[Neil]

To get back the old start menu, open regedit, go to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

change value of RPEnabled from "1" to "0"

close regedit, you get your old start menu

[sir_synthsalot]

I tried it today, and the Metro interface is horrible to use on a PC. I could kinda see it working well on a tablet device, but on a PC it's just horrible. I can't even do basic things like turning off my PC without searching how to do it on Google. It shouldn't be the default interface on a PC, and it should be easier to switch between the two rather than a registry hack. Although you have to keep things in perspective since this is a developer's preview which is probably not intended for general users, so hopefully the UI is not finished yet. So I would perhaps reserve some of these super-pessimistic posts until we know more about how the final product will be.

And why do you work with a default configuration? Did you experiment with possible ways to configure your interface and found that default is best? Or just gone with it because you didn't want to waste your time on this? I am just curios.

I tried switching to classic, basic, and messing around with some of the settings, but I found the default setup is good. Unlike in XP the animations are easy on the eyes, and I like the taskbar changes.

Eh well, I am confused. Must be tea time

I'm having a cup of lapsang souchong myself.


This is an interesting blog post from Microsoft trying to sell the new start menu:

"As we wrote about in our post on evolving the Start menu, after studying real world usage of the Start menu through a variety of techniques, we realized that it was serving mainly as the launcher for programs you rarely use. As more and more launching takes place from the task bar, the Start menu looks like a lot of user interface for programs you don't use very frequently. And the Start menu is not well-optimized for this purpose. It affords limited customization, provides virtually no useful information, and offers only a small space for search results. We found that people “in the know” who valued efficiency were moving away from the Start menu, and pinning their frequently used programs to the taskbar so that they could access them instantly in one click.

...

In light of these realizations, we stepped back and reimagined the role of Start in Windows 8. We knew that we already had a powerful launcher for desktop programs in the taskbar. The Start screen is not just a replacement for the Start menu—it is designed to be a great launcher and switcher of apps, a place that is alive with notifications, customizable, powerful, and efficient. It brings together a set of solutions that today are disparate and poorly integrated.

..."

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011 ... creen.aspx