Windows 8 Developer Preview: First Impressions

I finally got Windows 8 Developer Preview installed on my old computer. It's an eMachine W3400 from some time ago, with an AMD Athlon 3000+ 64-bit processor. I had installed more memory, so it's up to 1GB of RAM. I had to find another hard drive, since the original one had failed. That's why I just now got Windows 8 installed.

I haven't had much time to play with it yet, but here's my initial impressions of Windows 8:

I love the tile interface. I think it's one of the most user-friendly UIs I've seen. Of course, I had used a similar interface briefly on a Samsung Focus (before I couldn't take ATT anymore). It seems to work pretty well on a desktop, although it takes a little getting used to. Live tiles update just as expected, and I've only noticed a couple of issues, which I'll come to later. Unfortunately, I'm not sure we could use it at work without a lot of training both for staff and for customers. That's a shame, because I believe it could help increase productivity in the long run. At least the standard desktop is available, although there are some differences there, too.

I haven't had time yet to install any software, other than Silverlight and Flash. Silverlight, of course, installed flawlessly. Flash was only slightly more tricky. The Adobe website didn't recognize the operating system, of course, so I had to select the correct version. I went with the Windows 7 version for Internet Explorer, and so far I haven't seen any issues. So much of everything is web-based these days, those two plug-ins were necessary right away. My next plan is to try to install MS Office 2010 and Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview this evening. If those work all right, then I'll try to install some other programs, such as Zune and Java.

At this point, I've only seen two issues. There doesn't seem to be a driver available for my ATI Radeon Express 200 video card. It may just be that I haven't had time to find one, yet, but I suspect it's just not there. However, even running in Aero Basic mode, everything looks good and moves quickly. Obviously any kind of serious gaming is out of the question. It probably would be even with a driver, though. That's not too big a concern for me at this point. I don't do any major gaming, and this is, after all, a preview.

The second issue is more irritating, but I'm sure it's just that I haven't had time to find the answer yet. If I start an application in tile mode, i.e. not from the standard desktop, I haven't found a way to close it. I'm currently using a workaround that involves going into the standard desktop, starting Task Manager (which is much improved, by the way) and ending it from there. Not very elegant, but I'm sure I've just missed something.

So that's my first impressions. I'll post some screenshots later, and have more information after I've had a chance to work with Windows 8 more this evening. If there's any questions I can help answer, please let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading, and I'll be back later.