Microsoft has released the Consumer Preview edition of Windows 8 today, available for download by anyone who wants it.



You can grab the bits from Microsoft at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download or if you want to skip the "helpful" setup exe and go straight for an ISO, head to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso for your language/architecture combination of choice (go ahead, get the x64 edition of Chinese (Simplified). I dare you ).

With this release comes coverage out the wazoo of what's new since the Developer Preview released at the \\BUILD conference in September. Here are a select few links for your reading enjoyment:

• WinSuperSite (several postings here)
• AllThingsD (Live Blog of the release event)
• Windows Experience Blog (from the Windows Experience Team)

And of course several other places. I've just finished burning my ISO to disc and will be installing shortly. If anyone is playing with this also, post your thoughts and impressions here.

Hope this is better than the Developer Preview.  Though from what I hear it isnt.

Metro needs to DIAF 

First real complaint: I'm limited to using a 16 character or less password. WTF!? I know that may seem like a long password to some, but I typically use a 17 character password (and variations thereof), so a 16 character limit just kills that, not to mention the security implications. I must be missing something here. Let me see what I can find.

Edit: Ok, I think I've discovered what's going on. I am currently set to use my Live account credentials, which is limited to 16 charcters. I'm using this so my settings will automatically sync between the multiple machines I use. If I switch my account to a local account, I am able to make a password from here to eternity just fine. Only catch is that I lose that automatic settings sync. Still a bit annoyed by this, however.

Installed to separate partition so I didn't lose... you know... a working and efficient OS install.

Observations:

Win7 drivers work fine. Had to load drivers I downloaded for my KILLER NIC. Otherwise Win8 saw my hardware and made everything work right away, then windows update found stuff for my X-fi and creative webcam.

Desktop experience is.... well, it threw me for a second. Playing with it more is... interesting. Tablet interface with a traditional desktop underneath with modern game and technology support. Found that pressing the keyboard start menu button is a big alt-tab between metro (which has a big ol' START at the top, HAR HAR MICROSOFT) and the regular desktop or whatever's running. So I dub metro interface as nothing but a glorified and pretty fullscreen start menu, which... when you look at it that way, once it's figured out how to customize it, COULD be pretty nice. I would REALLY like to see animated backgrounds and/or animated shortcut icons for metro. Do that and I'll consider using it.

App store. Nothing special.

Mouse to top-left corner of screen brings what I think is the jump list? Or at least the last most accessed screens. Mouse to bottom-left corner of screen brings up clickable metro shortcut. Mouse to top-right corner brings up an overlay with start, search, share, devices and settings on the right side of the screen and current time and date in a small square on the left side.

Have dual monitors? Metro can/will automatically be running on primary while traditional desktop and taskbar are shown on the secondary. Kill metro or alt-tab from it to regular desktop and both screens will show the taskbar.

I don't see how to easily kill programs/screens/processes. I want to shut down this app store... uhh… app. How do I do that? Further with that, I don't see any blatant and immediate way to shut down your machine.

All for now, I guess.
 
Nevermind. To kill a screen that's a process in the background, bring up the jump list (top left corner of the primary monitor), put mouse cursor over it, right-click and get a single option. Close.

Call is a sadistic UI experiment.

Oh I like that!

I cant for the life of me figure out how to use Metro in a MORE intuitive way.  Im hearing all kinds of feedback across several forums I frequent.  Some outright blasting it.  Others saying "oh its just one extra click". 

My point is "SO?".  As GUI's are supposed to become MORE intuitive, the smallest step back whether it just be ONE extra click turn it into a much larger step backwards.

I think I'm all for Win8 on a tablet, and that is actually what was making me hold off on buying a table, but on a PC this interface is counter intuitive and has no place there.

I constantly press Windows Key and just start typing to get where I want to go.  Especially network shares, and Control Panel options.  In the Dev Preview that didnt work.  Luckily it does now.  Thats the one thing that REALLY bugged me above all else.

As of yet, which I havent spent much time doing, I cant figure out how to organize all the metro tiles.  It just looks like a big pile of icons everywhere.  If I can get icons organized it might make this a little better. 

Oh, and just saw this. Windows Server 8 beta.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh670538.aspx

my mom was visiting recently and the fact that the "show desktop" feature activates simply by moving your mouse to the bottom right of the screen freaked her out when all the windows all of a sudden went translucent.

I cant' imagine how frustrating it will be for the normal person to deal with Windows 8 on a regular keyboard/mouse computer with the unintuitive mess they have today.  I have no doubt it will work really well on a tablet, but damn the interface sucks for a keyboard/mouse.