Windows 8

Gavin Scott · Wed 14 Sep, 2011 21.40

m-in-m wrote:I'm sorry but ME and 2000 were very different products and fundamentally came from different code bases. ME was a Windows 9x code base while Windows 2000 was under pinned by NT.

Hmm, but surely from a non-techy end-user point of view, that's a kind of meaningless detail?

woah · Wed 14 Sep, 2011 21.46

Gavin Scott wrote:
m-in-m wrote:I'm sorry but ME and 2000 were very different products and fundamentally came from different code bases. ME was a Windows 9x code base while Windows 2000 was under pinned by NT.
Hmm, but surely from a non-techy end-user point of view, that's a kind of meaningless detail?

My experience of ME is that it was very flawed and clunky - where as 2000 actually works as smoothly and reliably as Windows XP does minus the Luna UI and the support for newer programs.

Nick Harvey · Wed 14 Sep, 2011 22.11

The big problem with 2000 was that you could drive a charabanc through it's, so called, security features in exactly the same way as you could with its predecessor NT versions.

bilky asko · Thu 15 Sep, 2011 00.24

woah wrote:
Gavin Scott wrote:
m-in-m wrote:I'm sorry but ME and 2000 were very different products and fundamentally came from different code bases. ME was a Windows 9x code base while Windows 2000 was under pinned by NT.
Hmm, but surely from a non-techy end-user point of view, that's a kind of meaningless detail?
My experience of ME is that it was very flawed and clunky - where as 2000 actually works as smoothly and reliably as Windows XP does minus the Luna UI and the support for newer programs.

ME was literally the same as 98 if all updates were applied, other than the fundamentally broken fast shutdown.

Gavin Scott · Thu 15 Sep, 2011 09.29

Pete wrote:
WillPS wrote:
DVB Cornwall wrote:My understanding is that the Metro interface is OPTIONAL and that the traditional desktop is very much still there in Windows8. Metro would appear to operate as a 'driving overlay' to the underlying structure.
In this build at least, the Start menu is gone. Clicking the orb will take you to Metro UI...
Isn't getting to the old UI also achieved by selecting a tile, sort of like starting a VM (but not).

tsk @ the iso being 100mb too big for a DVD btw, am going to have to buy a new sodding USB stick.

So where's the ISO then? On a developer's site somewhere?

Typical - I'm interested in trying it now I know I could get my hands on it.

I'm just a *slave* to trends.

Finn · Thu 15 Sep, 2011 09.32

bilky asko wrote:ME was literally the same as 98 if all updates were applied, other than the fundamentally broken fast shutdown.

I ran an ME machine for quite a while after having a very reliable 98 machine - all kept up to date. And I can tell you it crashed or froze a ridiculous amount where 98 had very rarely.

I was relieved to upgrade to XP (after SP1 had settled that down - people tend to forget that was also a bit flaky until then).

Pete · Thu 15 Sep, 2011 10.27

Gavin Scott wrote:
Pete wrote:tsk @ the iso being 100mb too big for a DVD btw, am going to have to buy a new sodding USB stick.
So where's the ISO then? On a developer's site somewhere?

http://dev.windows.com

DVB Cornwall · Fri 16 Sep, 2011 09.51

This video shows relatively clearly the twin GUI approach, whilst mainly dealing with the laxk of flash support on the Metro interface browser.

Gavin Scott · Fri 16 Sep, 2011 13.56

How comes flash won't work on the Metro UI? Is it something to do with the way its generating the interface?

Pete · Fri 16 Sep, 2011 14.41

Gavin Scott wrote:How comes flash won't work on the Metro UI? Is it something to do with the way its generating the interface?

MS have taken the decision to have NO PLUGINS at all in Metro

iSon · Fri 16 Sep, 2011 19.22

Seems a bit of an odd decision. I mean Flash is mostly awful but at least be consistent in your approach. Perhaps they're hoping HTML5 will have wide acceptance by the time it launches?

I downloaded the ISO and gave it a go in a virtual machine. Although Metro looks very nice - they've bottled it when it comes to other areas. Still having the Windows 7 style interface is bizarre and there's just no pleasing integration with the Metro theme. I know it's early days and it's rare to see a pre-beta version of Windows look so different but there's a lot of work to do in order to get it integrated properly so it doesn't look like a clumsy add on that you would have downloaded off cnet in the late 90s.