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... on the oldies. 
Grabbed a copy of the RTM version off Technet. That Technet sub is looking a good decision so far, got W8, W7 ultimate, W2008R2, WHS2011, all for 100 quid.
Dad was moaning about his ageing XP PC being slow and full of crap so gave him my old core2duo, 2gb ram, and 60gb SSD kit and slapped on W8 for a laugh and to see what all the fuss is about. Installation was without incident and pretty fast.
First impression was that it's very quick starting up, though the SSD will have helped with that.
Second impression was the Metro UI is a bit of a gimmick on a PC though I can see its uses in presenting realtime info in one place, sort of like all the desktop gadgets you have in Vista/W7. Having to move the mouse to the corner to bring up various options is a bit unnecessary. So is not having a start button on the desktop to get into the control panel etc.
Third impression is that despite it being RTM there's still some issues that need fixing as my dad's usb printer isn't installing properly and there's no sign of a driver for W8 or even W7. It works ok on my W7 laptop just by plugging in the cable as expected, so definately a problem with W8 and how they've rewritten the USB stack to support USB 3. Looking at the currently limited info on the issue it looks like the only option (other than hoping an updated driver is released before W8 goes public in October) is to try a Vista driver.
So will see how my dad gets on being a guinea pig before deciding whether to upgrade my stuff so soon. There's lots of improvements over W7, from file explorer to virtualisation, so it is tempting, provided there aren't more gotchas lurking.
Grabbed a copy of the RTM version off Technet. That Technet sub is looking a good decision so far, got W8, W7 ultimate, W2008R2, WHS2011, all for 100 quid.
Dad was moaning about his ageing XP PC being slow and full of crap so gave him my old core2duo, 2gb ram, and 60gb SSD kit and slapped on W8 for a laugh and to see what all the fuss is about. Installation was without incident and pretty fast.
First impression was that it's very quick starting up, though the SSD will have helped with that.
Second impression was the Metro UI is a bit of a gimmick on a PC though I can see its uses in presenting realtime info in one place, sort of like all the desktop gadgets you have in Vista/W7. Having to move the mouse to the corner to bring up various options is a bit unnecessary. So is not having a start button on the desktop to get into the control panel etc.
Third impression is that despite it being RTM there's still some issues that need fixing as my dad's usb printer isn't installing properly and there's no sign of a driver for W8 or even W7. It works ok on my W7 laptop just by plugging in the cable as expected, so definately a problem with W8 and how they've rewritten the USB stack to support USB 3. Looking at the currently limited info on the issue it looks like the only option (other than hoping an updated driver is released before W8 goes public in October) is to try a Vista driver.
So will see how my dad gets on being a guinea pig before deciding whether to upgrade my stuff so soon. There's lots of improvements over W7, from file explorer to virtualisation, so it is tempting, provided there aren't more gotchas lurking.
