My primary laptop I use for development is my MacBook Air (which I love, yes, thanks for asking). I have a 750 GB Hitachi external drive which hosts my photos, some other data that I need to be portable and a Windows 7 virtual machine (on Oracle's excellent VirtualBox software).
I have a pretty big C# codebase I've piled throughout the years (Orthodontic and dental software, websites, more websites and many others). A big portion of this code is within projects I am still committed to and actively support.
This is why I absolutely must be able to run Windows, Visual Studio, MS SQL Server and some other Windows-based software. My experience with Windows 7 running on a virtual machine has been virtually flawless. The system starts quickly (actually it boots faster than the Windows on my work HP quad-core laptop), feels snappy and stable. This is even more impressing given the fact that the virtual hard drive of the machine is on the external Hitachi drive which connects to my Air through a USB 2.0 interface. Amazing. More on my Windows 7 experience here.
Because of the above, I didn't want do f*ck my Windows 7 virtual machine by running the Windows 8 setup over it. This is why I used one of the ISO setups available here.
The installation went absolutely smoothly. It took about an hour to complete (again on the external USB HDD). If you have ever installed Windows in your life, you will not find anything problematic or surprising in the setup process. The only thing that puzzled me was the product key which was not pre-filled (maybe it is in the normal non-ISO setup). Just use one of these and you're good to go.
Desktop
Nothing really surprising here. No start button orb, a (well hidden) right-side menu triggered with a point in the upper-right corner and that's pretty much all that's on the surface.
Of course, there is probably much more than that hidden under the hood. Windows 8 is a solid upgrade to Windows 7 with the normal evolutionary security and performance improvements.
Something that perplexed me was the lack of an obvious way to shut down the machine. To power off the computer you must go to the right-side menu -> Settings -> Power. Obvious, isn't it? I guess this has something to do with tablets (you don't normally shut down a tablet quite often). Also, I suppose that if I was running this on a normal machine (and not a virtual one) the power button would do the job. Still, burying the shut down button feels strange and I am sure it will confuse lots of folks out-there
Metro
The initial Metro-based screen has some Wow! factor. It looks glossy and shiny and in my case it was pretty much identical to the one you see in the demos. Some folks had complained that the tiles had looked much differently for them but in my case, as it was a clean installation it was not the case. Of course if I were to upgrade an existing system with moderately crowded Start menu, things would have been different.All of the pre-installed Metro apps have glitches but it's normal. They are still betas, more than six months from their release state.
Still, after the initial wow factor wears out (like five minutes later), things don't seem so shiny anymore. There are two main problems I see with Metro.
Touch Optimized
This is the obvious one. Everything in Metro is optimized to be used with touch screens. It would look and feel great on tablets. Controls are clean and big enough to be adequate click targets for fingers.
The problem? It just doesn't feel right when used with a mouse (or touchpad). After just a few minutes using this, you get tired traveling great distances with the mouse to do even the most trivial things.
Metro apps in general have lots of white space, which is not necessarily bad in all cases but feels like a waste of pixels many times (again it would look amazing on tablets, it just doesn't fit well on desktop).
Context Switching
Now this is pretty bad. As a desktop user, I am used to do a lot of things at once. As I write this, I am simultaneously waiting for Visual Studio to compile some code (yes a lot of code) and keeping an eye on the Twitter app. A mail comes in? I would give it a brief look to see if it is something of an urgent matter and then move on.
I know I belong to a minority group here. Obviously most people prefer doing one thing at a time. Also obviously, Apple knows that and invested a great deal of effort to have seamless full-screen experience for their bundled apps in Lion.
Still, many power users, that spend their days in front of computers are in this minority camp. And Metro is bad news for those of them who prefer or are tied to using Windows.
Microsoft uses the term 'immersive' to market Metro apps. And as long as you stay within an app, it's indeed immersive. But on a desktop you rarely live in one app only.
Disagree? How many apps do you have running right now? How many tabs in the browser? See what I mean?
I know I belong to a minority group here. Obviously most people prefer doing one thing at a time. Also obviously, Apple knows that and invested a great deal of effort to have seamless full-screen experience for their bundled apps in Lion.
Still, many power users, that spend their days in front of computers are in this minority camp. And Metro is bad news for those of them who prefer or are tied to using Windows.
Microsoft uses the term 'immersive' to market Metro apps. And as long as you stay within an app, it's indeed immersive. But on a desktop you rarely live in one app only.
Disagree? How many apps do you have running right now? How many tabs in the browser? See what I mean?
And in Metro you do a lot of context-switching. Want to see what that mail that just came is about? Switch. Want to take a look on your Twitter stream? Switch. A brief look on Techmeme headlines? Switch. The compilation finished? Yet another switch.
Sure, you do all those switches now as well. You do them no matter if you're on Windows or on Mac. But it is much more intrusive and time consuming in the full-screen Metro apps. You constantly dive from one immersive app to another immersive app.
Too much immersion if you ask me.
Things get even worse when the context switch is accompanied by a switch in the whole environment. Because inevitably, you will have non-Metro applications that you want to use. I don't hold my breath for a Metro Visual Studio app. Or Metro Eclipse. Or Metro Corel Draw...
And when you switch between Metro and classic apps, you are constantly tossed around between the normal familiar Windows desktop and the 'immersive' Metro thing.
I can't even describe how bad it feels after prolonged use. I. Cannot. Even. Describe.
It's bad. Period.
My prediction is that many desktop users will be confused by Windows 8. I guess 99% of the people will just skip the whole Metro thing whatsoever. And they will be constantly irritated when Metro is thrown at their face (because inevitably it is, every time you hit the Windows button or want to use the built-in mail or weather apps).
Add some more less relevant glitches (like the fact you have two completely distinct IE browsers that do not share history, cookies and all -- one that is Metro and a classic desktop IE) and you get the picture.
So Windows 8 is kind of a strange beast to me. One size doesn't always fit all.
