Friday, May 18, 2012

Windows 8 - not ready for primetime

There has been a lot of talk in the tech world lately about the upcoming Windows 8. For a while now Microsoft has made pre-release builds available for people to download and install. I decided to give it a try (on a test machine) and see what it's all about. I downloaded Windows 8 and installed it onto a virtual machine. Within 5 seconds I got this.
When I saw this I had a lot of different things go through my head:

  1. Is this a new BSOD (Bliue Screen of Death)?  If so, at least they kept it blue.
  2. Did Windows 8 seriously crash before I could even fully load the installer?
  3. I thought the Windows 8 preview was designed for and tested on virtual machines.  Heck, I'm using Microsoft's own Virtual PC 2007.
  4. Are you serious Microsoft - you used an emoticon in the error dialog?  I've come to expect a certain level of professionalism from Microsoft and emoticons in error dialogs is not part of it.
  5. Continuing the unprofessional theme, there are two contractions in the screen above.  As a general rule you should avoid contractions in computers and other technical documents.
I may try again on another machine, but my initial impressions are Windows 8 is a long way from being ready.

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2 comments:

  1. Azeem JivaMay 18, 2012 at 8:45 AM

    I ran the Windows 8 consumer preview using VirtualBox (under Linux no less!). It ran fine I suppose, I'm not sold on the metro interface. I'm sure that if I had a touchscreen monitor or was running a tablet it would work great. As it stands it needs more polish, and clearly more QA (as you found)

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  2. FreezerMay 18, 2012 at 9:05 AM

    I tried again using VMWare Player which worked. Having tried Windows 8 I must say I'm not impressed! There were a few things that I liked, and a lot of things that I hated. I like the new Task Manager (in detail view). I also like that windows have squared frames, I've always hated the rounded corners of Vista/Win7. I think the thing I hate the most is Metro. I'm on a desktop computer with a mouse, not a tablet with a touchscreen. Metro is difficult and slow to navigate. This has a huge impact on my speed and performance on a computer. I seriously hope that Metro is the next Windows Vista. By that I mean a crappy product that forces Microsoft to take a step back and redo it right.

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