After spending several days with the
Developer Preview of Windows 8
on a PC, it's clear that Microsoft's new operating system -- which
offers two separate interfaces, Metro and Desktop -- is a transitional
one between traditional computers and mobile devices. All of
Microsoft's
energy and creativity has been devoted to the new Metro interface;
there's very little new of note for the old-fashioned Desktop.
As I tested Windows 8, I found myself wanting to use it on a tablet
instead of my PC, because the big-tiled Metro was so much more visually
appealing than the traditional Desktop, with a more intriguing feature
set. After using Windows 8 for some time, it's clear that Metro is the
future of Windows, and the Desktop the past.
Windows 8's Metro interface is more visually appealing than the traditional Desktop.
An interesting note: You usually expect developer previews and betas
to suffer from performance woes because code hasn't yet been optimized,
and bugs may slow things down. However, the Windows 8 Developer Preview
is surprisingly fast, even on my aging test machine. I installed it on a
dual-boot Dell Inspiron E1505 with 1GB of RAM and a single-core Intel
T2400 1.83GHz CPU, which is near the very bottom of the hardware
requirements for Windows 8. Yet I found it to be extremely fast and
responsive. In fact, it feels zippier than
Windows 7 running on the same machine.
Clearly, Microsoft has done a great deal of work on optimizing
Windows 8. There's good reason for that; if it's going to work on a
tablet, it needs to be fine-tuned.
Getting used to Metro
When I first started using Windows 8, I was surprised to see that the
Desktop was no longer the command central for the operating system. You
boot into Metro; Desktop has been relegated to just another app
accessible from the Metro screen.
Metro has been clearly designed for tablets. Like Windows Phone 7,
Metro's main interface is made up of large colorful tiles, each of which
represents a different app and each of which can exhibit changing
information, such as the latest news, social networking updates, weather
and stocks.
In addition, Metro has a horizontal design, with tiles stretching off
the right edge of the screen. On a tablet, you'll swipe to uncover new
tiles; on a PC, you're relegated to dragging the bar at the bottom of
the screen or clicking navigational arrows. Even after several days of
use, I never got used to dragging or clicking to reveal the extra tiles;
I longed for a touch screen so I could swipe instead.
Metro is customizable. You can drag tiles to new locations or
customize select parts of the interface via its own Control Panel. You
can change the picture on your Lock Screen and your user tile; change
user account information; turn wireless on and off; turn on airplane
mode and change settings for privacy, search and Windows Update. You can
also change your home network settings via HomeGroup (introduced in
Windows 7) and your sync settings.
In my initial test of Windows 8, I didn't use Metro that much. But
over time I found myself migrating more to Metro when I was actively
looking for information. The constantly changing information stream,
including news stories, RSS feeds and updates from friends and
acquaintances on social networking sites, is quite useful and almost
hypnotizing. In Metro, instead of having to seek out information,
information comes to you.
Metro apps
Metro apps run full screen like their tablet and Windows Phone 7
counterparts. On a desktop, they take getting used to, because there's
no Windows menu -- although after a few days, I became more comfortable
using them. You can't change their size or shrink them, though.
Switching between them on a PC is kludgy and requires the old Windows
standby, Alt-Tab. I eventually discovered another way to do it: Hold the
mouse pointer at the far left of the screen until a small icon for the
previous app appears and then click to switch to it. All in all, though,
Alt-Tab is easier.
Unlike earlier versions of Windows, which had few consumer-level apps
built in, Windows 8 offers a plethora. The Metro screen is filled with
Microsoft-written games, social networking tools and other apps. They're
designed for a tablet or
smartphone, although they're usable on a PC as well.
The basic News, Weather and Stock apps are straightforward and simple
to use. The News app, for example, offers a list of dozens of RSS news
feeds organized by topic, including Business, Design, Entertainment,
Lifestyle, Music, Technology and News. Click the ones you want, and
they're added to your feed. You can also directly type in the URL of a
feed you want to add.
The News app offers a list of dozens of RSS news feeds organized by topic. Once
you set your apps to grab the data, you'll be able to see constantly
changing information in the tiles themselves -- mostly, summaries or
headlines -- without having to open the apps. If you see something that
interests you, click the tile to be sent straight to that app -- but not
necessarily to the specific information you're seeking. For example,
when I clicked a headline about the current Republican nomination race
on a news tile, I was sent to a page with all the news headlines and had
to look for the story. On one occasion, the headline that appeared in
the tile wasn't even immediately visible; I had to scroll to find it.
Installing the Windows 8 Developer Preview
To install it on a PC, you download an .ISO file, burn it to DVD, and
then install over a PC with Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7.
There are two versions of the 64-bit Windows 8 Developer Preview: one
with developer tools, and one without the tools. The 32-bit version of
the developer preview doesn't include developer tools. The 64-bit
version with developer tools can only be installed as a clean install --
accounts, files and settings on the machine on which you're installing
will be deleted.
With the 32-bit and 64-bit versions without developer tools, you'll
be able to retain accounts, files and settings if installed over Windows
7 or Windows Vista. You'll be able to retain only accounts and files if
you install over Windows XP. As with all previews and betas, the usual
caveats apply about not installing it on a production machine.
Installation of the preview is straightforward and requires multiple
reboots. On my machine, total installation time (aside from downloading
and burning a DVD) took 50 minutes, but it may go faster on faster
machines.
I tried a few other apps as well. The Tweet@rama app is a simple,
straightforward front-end to Twitter, and lets you create and read
tweets. It's not nearly as useful as a full-fledged Twitter client such
as TweetDeck, but for the basics, it's fine. The Socialite app performs
similar functions for Facebook. Other apps include a location-based app
called NearMe, an app for setting alarms and a paint app called
PaintPlay.
One problem with these apps, though, is that there is no standard way
to interact with them on a PC. For example, in the News app,
right-clicking brings up a context-sensitive menu -- if you're reading a
news article you'll get navigation buttons, and if you're on a summary
page, you'll get options for adding, refreshing and removing feeds. But
if you're in the Zero Gravity game app, right-clicking does nothing.
More standardization would be welcome.
Worse yet, there's no clear way to close down many of these apps. For
example, Zero Gravity, which features intensely annoying music, doesn't
have a menu or any way to shut it down -- so when you switch out of the
game to the main Metro interface, the annoying music still plays in the
background. Switch to the Desktop or run another Metro app, though, and
the music thankfully goes away. In fact, I found that my workaround for
closing most Metro apps was switch to the Desktop; after a few minutes,
the Metro app I was running typically shut down.
The familiar Windows Desktop
All that being said, when it came to doing actual work such as using
MIcrosoft Office, I ended up on the Desktop for the simple reason that
that's where the serious applications were.
After you click the Desktop tile on the Metro screen, you'll feel at
first as if you never left Windows 7 behind -- the interface looks and
works almost identically to Windows 7. You'll see the familiar taskbar
across the bottom with taskbar thumbnails, the Notification Panel on the
right, the icons on the screen and so on.
The search panel slides into place on the right side of the Desktop screen.There
are some changes, though. Most noticeable is that the Start button has
been thoroughly revamped. Clicking it sends you back to the main Windows
Metro screen rather than popping up the familiar Start menu with a
search box, folder navigation, a link to the Control Panel and so on. In
the Metro interface, however, the Start button functions as a task
switcher between the interface and any running apps.
If you want to find your various Windows options, you need to move
your mouse pointer to the leftmost bottom corner of the Desktop; a menu
pops up that gives you access to Settings, Devices, Share and Search.
When you click one of these options, a panel slides into place on the
right side of the screen to let you perform the task you've asked it to
do. Select Search, for example, and the panel shows a search box, along
with a variety of locations where you can search.
The Share button lets you share a screenshot using the Socialite
social networking app. The Devices button, designed for printing,
playing games and sending content to others, doesn't work in this
version of Windows 8. And the Settings button lets you change only the
most basic functions of the Desktop.
Metro's Control Panel also leads you to additional settings for the Desktop.One
would expect to find the old Windows standby, the Control Panel, when
you click Settings, but no -- instead, you'll have to head back to Metro
and click the Control Panel tile, scroll to the bottom of the Metro
Control Panel and click "More settings," which takes you to the old
Control Panel. If the awkward, time-consuming navigation to get to the
Control Panel isn't an indication of how little importance Microsoft
attaches to the Desktop, I don't know what is.
There are a few other tweaks. For example, Windows Explorer now has a
ribbon interface, a great improvement over its previous version.
Bridging different interfaces
Even after using Windows 8 for some time, I never got used to the
dramatic differences between the Metro and Desktop interfaces. It never
quite seemed as if it was a single operating system -- instead, it felt
like two different OSes bolted together.
Making matters worse is that Metro apps don't show up on the Windows
desktop. And although desktop apps appear in Metro, they're so
well-hidden you may never realize they're there: With the exception of
Internet Explorer, they're stuck all the way on the far right of the
tiles so you have to scroll to get to them. And even when you run
Desktop apps from Metro, they can't take advantage of Metro's ability to
exhibit information via tiles. One hopes that will change in future
versions of Windows 8.
