Have to say, trialling Microsoft’s shiny new operating system by installing it on a Mac running VMware Fusion, did feel a little prejudicial. However the install went like a breeze and it gave me a good feel for how the operating system operates in the real virtual world.
There are some good improvements under-the-hood, for me the standout features are:
However, after two days playing around with Windows 8 and the new Visual Studio development environment and then a great Windows 8 tablet demo by Lenovo UK, I’m stuggling to find any reasons for the vast majority of Windows desktop users out there to upgrade to Windows 8.
All the under-the-hood advantages of Windows 8 over 7 should (or could) already be dealt with by your business’ backup, anti-virus and virtualisation provision. Even if they’re not and you could really do with a slightly enhanced version of Windows 7, you have to stomach the crazy user-interface madness that Microsoft have introduced in Windows 8.
The new user-interface-formerly-known-as-Metro (UIFKAM) looks and feels great on tablets, but for desktop users (the vast majority), it doesn’t make any sense.
UIFKAM is another, entirely separate windows GUI. The way you open apps, move stuff around, get stuff done is completely different from classic windows. For desktop users everything you need to do will probably take longer in UIFKAM than it would do in Windows 7.
In order to make UIFKAM and Classic at least visually seem part of the same OS, Microsoft have polluted the classic windows experience to the point where some of it is broken. They’ve replaced Start menu with a dazzling Start screen that looks great but makes you completely forget what you were trying to do. They’ve tweaked the windows borders to remove shadows so you’ll struggle to see which window is in focus. There are two completely different control panels. Printers configured in UIFKAM don’t seem to work in classic… the list goes on.
That said, on tablets Windows 8 is very, very cool. Even cooler perhaps than Apple’s iOS or Android JellyBean. Until that is, you have to launch a Windows Classic app and you try and use the sexy touch tablet thing with a desktop app like Excel… it’s just painful.