Greg’s Windows 8 Pre-Release Review

Part Zero: History of NT Version 6

The successor to Windows 7 has two options: Continue improving the NT v.6.0 based legacy that began with Windows Vista or progress into new uncharted territory. The trend up until Windows Vista was to implement new versions of Windows based on new versions of NT. The consumer computer industry called for a move away from Vista and was answered with Windows 7 based on NT 6.1 It felt like a wrong was now righted. At that time, it became the highest-grossing pre-order in Amazon's history, surpassing sales of the previous record holder, the seventh Harry Potter book. This success can be attributed in part to a successful beta release program months in advance. I personally can recall using the Windows 7 beta version as my primary operating system on a high end gaming system without issues. We arrive at another Microsoft beta period; this time Windows 8 based on NT 6.2. I got my hands on the official Microsoft Pre-Release version and installed it on my trusty laptop that has [now] seen all versions of Windows NT 6.

Part One: Start Menu Overhaul

Windows 8 is not as groundbreaking as it appears on the outside. Really, it feels like a collection of individual Microsoft products combined to suit a range of devices large and small. The most striking feature is the complete overhaul of the traditional start menu. Our new menu closely resembles Windows Media Center. Large buttons, graphic background, and apps specially designed for a full screen environment. It resembles the app drawer on start phones and behaves in a similar fashion. This makes sense for tablets and media centers, but there is some inconsistent user interface control on the apps that is frustrating. Most of the built in apps are abysmal in design and control. Some are broken and others have a completely non-intuitive layout. This could be due to the pre-release, but as of now, it is not functional. The start menu is clumsy to access unless you use the “start” button on the keyboard… and you will beat that button to death before it is over. It does load very quickly on modest hardware, but this can be accomplished via RAM caching which makes it a resource hog at best.

Part Two: The Desktop and Explorer

The desktop we are more accustomed to feels empty. Really, there are very minimal icons on it from a clean install. It relies heavily on using explorer to navigate because there is no start button and no My Computer icon. That warrants repeating —there is no My Computer icon. After the installation completed, I spent a solid 30 minutes wandering around the OS trying to find icons and creating shortcuts that would make it easy to work. It pushed the user to use the libraries more heavily, which is good from a technician’s standpoint. The ribbon bar at the top is familiar for Microsoft Office users and can be hidden so it is less intrusive than it sounds. This feels like a step in the right direction to unify menus across the Microsoft platform. Overall the OS navigates smoothly on the desktop.

Part Three: Familiar and Unfamiliar Menus

For better or worse, the start menu is the only really steep learning curve. All of the familiar Windows 7 menus are present and behave in the same fashion. No surprises in Control Panel at all. Task manager has had a major face lift and mostly for the best. Resource management is clear and concise, revealing a great amount of detail about the hardware. Best of all, categories flash red when they are critical usage making troubleshooting efficient. The applications and processes list is a mess, but functional. The good news is that we don’t have to relearn basic system menus; the bad news is that they are clumsy to initially get to. I found myself making start menu shortcuts for very basic functions like “Run” and “Devices and Printers”. They can be accessed in other ways, but nothing felt intuitive. Even finding the shutdown command took a moment to hunt down. Are we at an age where everything is in hibernate or sleep as opposed to “off”? Does Microsoft realize that some hardware does not do this correctly?

Part Four: Multi-tasking

Potentially the worst part of this operating system is switching tasks. This was previously accomplished with a combination of taskbar icons and Alt-Tab maneuvers. Windows 8 still includes both, but there is a division in multi-tasking; Start Menu based Apps and actual running Windows programs from the desktop. This is really frustrating as there is no unified menu short of Task Manager that can close out or bringing programs to the front. This is confusing because Windows 8 gives the end user the impression that the desktop itself is its own self-contained app, which is just not true. If you kill explorer.exe, nothing works. It is exactly like Windows 7 despite appearances. The App selection window (gotten by moving the mouse to the top left corner and dragging downward) is near useless. It shows you minimized apps running and the desktop, but there are no controls here other than to click on them to bring them to the front. Two glaring issues here: One, you cannot see your current full screen app on this list. Two, the option to close a task can only be done with a right-click -> close selection. This menu is the antithesis of all the new Windows 8 menus and overlays: it looks bad and handles worse.

Part Five: Closing Thoughts

I installed this OS with the motivation to give it a fair chance to show me something innovative. The way it handles the start menu is very different and looks like it has far reaching implementation in mobile devices and media center purpose PCs. It runs smoothly and the screen transitions feel fluid. There is huge potential in using a Microsoft family email services such as @live or @hotmail as these services will use the Microsoft Sky Drive for a variety of utilities. Windows 8 uses familiar menus that will ease the transition from Windows Vista or Windows 7. With that in mind, there is a list of qualms I have as a technician and an end user. The start menu is not innovative enough.