Windows 8 Consumer Preview First Impressions

Just about 3 days ago the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (beta) was released, so I am going to give you the first impressions of the software.

The Installation
After the download, I went to a HP Mini and commenced with the installation. This machine only has 1 Gig of Ram and a 120 Gig Hard Drive. It already had Windows 7 home basic Installed on it. So when the installation began, with a ISO file, it asked a few questions about getting ready, and then it was preparing the netbook for the new configuration. This part took about 10 minutes. The screen had a new interface, and a rotating circle of dots, which basically told you that it was not stuck or jammed. But my first impression of the process was to be patient.

The system did a reboot, and continued to install the system.
After about an hour the installation was complete, and the computer rebooted.

When it came up the fish icon screen came up. You can tell that it is beta because it wasn’t even a classy or showy icon, but that can get fixed.Metro Style

I also notice that some of my icons from the Windows7 configuration are on the screen. I press the Microsoft key on the keyboard (between the ctrl key and the alt key on the left side.) Ok, so now I see metro in its full glory. But where is the start button? How do I get to my applications?

Then I right clicked on the screen and a ribbon appeared on the bottom with the word “All Apps” at the left side. So I clicked that and I found this:

But there were so many icons, that another ribbon appeared at the bottom so I could drag it to the right to see the rest of the icons. All told there were about 50, and did not fit into the screen. So after I dragged the arrow across the screen I saw the rest.

I also noticed that all of my programs were still there; they hadn’t been changed or modified. Then I realized that part of the installation process was to make Windows8 backwards compatible so that users would not have concern about their current data. Clever.

How this will play out on the real version is unclear. In my case, there was room to put the new OS, but what about a new computer and a clean install, how will that work? We’ll have to wait and see. Also, the new software programs that will be installed, will that be the same as in the older systems? My guess that it is the same, but I’ll be checking that out in the days ahead.

If you are familiar with smartphone Apps, or tablets with Apps, then Metro shouldn’t be difficult to use.

I also noticed that when I tried to run Microsoft word on the system it wanted an activation key, when I clicked cancel, my document opened, but I was unable to edit it, just view it.

Conclusion on the Microsoft's Windows 8 consumer preview first impressions: The installation may take too much time, but it preserves your current settings so, it’s a plus. Metro may take some time to get used to and you have to use the Microsoft key on your keyboard. So far so good. I'll give it 4 out of 5 stars.