This isn’t too surprising considering it’s still in beta. We also don’t know how many users will latch on to the Windows 8 tablets when they arrive on the market. What is surprising, according to the report, is there are still more users of Windows 2000 and NT than Windows 8 – though only by a small margin. According to our own poll on February 15th, out of 890 votes, 82% of you said you were counting down the days until the February 29th release of Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Remember it’s completely free for anyone to download and test out. While we certainly don’t recommend using Windows 8 Consumer Preview on your main system, there are other ways to test it out. We have articles showing the following.
Run Windows 8 in VirtualBoxFresh Install Windows 8Upgrade to Windows 8 Over the WebDual Boot Windows 7 and Windows 8
Our question this week is – Are you currently running the Windows 8 Consumer Preview? Vote, then leave a comment and join the discussion! Sounds about right. Other than the highly debated metro skin, there isn’t a lot going on that Windows 7 didn’t already have. I also don’t see any reason why the Windows Apps Market couldn’t be integrated with Windows 7 via a service pack release. WinRT (Windows Runtime) is a new programming model that is new to Windows 8. WinRT enables developers to write applications that use the Windows API using C++, C#, HTML/Javascript among other languages and have the applications run on Windows 8 regardless of if you run Windows 8 on an x86 architecture, x64 architecture or ARM architecture (ARM support is new to Windows 8). If the Windows Store was available in Windows 7, all the applications you downloaded would not work because WinRT is not available on Windows 7. That being said, it is still not on my main production system. Windows 7 works quite well for that. I have gotten used to not having a “traditional” Start Menu. The Windows Key and other Windows 8 shortcuts have become my best friend using it on a desktop PC. Although I am a big fan of the Stardock Start Button alternative. https://www.groovypost.com/howto/windows-8-start-menu-back-stardock/ I have also been using it on a Dell Duo with a touch screen, but don’t find the Metro UI particularly increasing productivity. Using the Desktop on a touch screen isn’t exactly intuitive either without the use of a Stylus in my case. haven’t worked out the whs shares not showing up in the metro, also haven’t tried setting up ceton tuners yet. Comment
Δ
