Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview Available

Apophis

Following up on the release of the Windows 8.1 Pro Preview, the 8.1 Enterprise Preview was made available the other day.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ ... fault.aspx

To download it you need to sign in to your MS account and fill out a silly form. Takes just a few seconds. Also, they insist you first install what they call the Akamai NetSession Interface, which is just a download manager. I promptly uninstalled it once the download was complete.

I've been playing around with it in VMware and kind of like it. I've got it set up to go straight to the desktop after booting up. The tiled screen is okay for a phone or tablet but stupid for a desktop. But as I've said elsewhere, I doubt I'll be buying it anytime soon since I don't see any immediate benefits over Win7.

someperson

noone

Apophis wrote:

Following up on the release of the Windows 8.1 Pro Preview, the 8.1 Enterprise Preview was made available the other day.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ ... fault.aspx

To download it you need to sign in to your MS account and fill out a silly form. Takes just a few seconds. Also, they insist you first install what they call the Akamai NetSession Interface, which is just a download manager. I promptly uninstalled it once the download was complete.

I've been playing around with it in VMware and kind of like it. I've got it set up to go straight to the desktop after booting up. The tiled screen is okay for a phone or tablet but stupid for a desktop. But as I've said elsewhere, I doubt I'll be buying it anytime soon since I don't see any immediate benefits over Win7.

It seems like they're being more open with previews of their next versions a bit more than before, but at the same time, I have to guess this is mainly damage control from what happened to 8.

Apophis

noone wrote:

... I have to guess this is mainly damage control from what happened to 8.

An accurate assessment. Microsoft seems to be following their routine of "crappy release, great release, crappy release, great release etc"

Having said that I'm not sure I would call 8.1 great but I do like it.

calvinb

I don't understand the hate for Metro start screen - the apps I understand (I have a few for the notifications though - it's nice seeing an orangered appear right away) but the start screen is fine, especially live tiles.

Bloody reactionaries.

Apophis

I don't know that I hate the Metro screen but I'm certainly not a fan of it, on a desktop anyway. On a smartphone or tablet it's awesome.

I think it has more to do with change more than anything else. People hate change.

stitch

ampharos wrote:

I don't understand the hate for Metro start screen - the apps I understand (I have a few for the notifications though - it's nice seeing an orangered appear right away) but the start screen is fine, especially live tiles.

Bloody reactionaries.

I would probably not have so much of an issue with it if it didn't look like a 7 year old's art project.

Ugly, just ugly. Provides no advantages over a standard start menu so, that's what I want and use.

BlueSun

I didn't like the start screen when I first saw it, but now that I've been living with 8 on my laptop for a number of months now, I have to say that I don't really mind it.

Once you pin Run to the taskbar and set up shortcuts for things like Network and shutdown, it's really not too bad. I actually like having more icons (tiles, I guess) available to me when I open the start screen. When I open the start menu on Windows 7, there's only so much you can pin to it. I can pin quite a lot more on Windows 8's start screen before I have to scroll through it. And even when I do, it just feels like a more natural thing than the start menu.

It takes a lot of getting used to and changing old habits and I won't argue that it's the perfect interface. There's still quite a lot I don't like, but I have to say that the start screen has grown on me and 8 isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be.

stitch

I've never been one to really pin things. On both Windows and OS X my primary method of application launching is start search/spotlight.

BlueSun

stitch wrote:

I've never been one to really pin things. On both Windows and OS X my primary method of application launching is start search/spotlight.

I didn't used to pin things either, but some time after I got my work VM, I found myself pinning my daily use stuff to the taskbar, just to see what all the fuss was about. Then I realized I liked it and it just carried over to my personal machines as well.

I still use search / run box heavily, but not as much as I used to.

TheRedWombat

I honestly quite like the interface of 8, and am able to navigate it as quickly as and sometimes faster than I do 7. I also find that there are some of the metro apps in the store that are handy, like a Wikipedia app that launches faster than I can launch the browser, and a YouTube downloader that isn't full of viruses. I might add that I was able to almost fully understand how to use all of the new UI changes in about 3-5 minutes, with no prior knowledge of how it worked.

calvinb

>youtube downloader that isn't full of viruses

I use youtube-dl fine - it works great.

Kirk

TheRedWombat wrote:

I also find that there are some of the metro apps in the store that are handy, like a Wikipedia app that launches faster than I can launch the browser, and a YouTube downloader that isn't full of viruses.

We'll see how long that YouTube app can stay in the Metro store... downloading YouTube videos is against YouTube's terms of service. It's usually treated as a legal gray area, and YouTube has taken legal action against video download services before.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/56100?hl=en
http://www.chillingeffects.org/weather. ... therID=571

TheRedWombat

I have had it since a little bit after Christmas.

Anonymous

well for me the problem is steam and games, steam is ilegal on any Windows 8 or more(according to ms, anything that you buy with a program in yor Windows, will be ilegal if not bought from Windows store), and about the games... lets see, 99% of them dont work!

BlueSun

Guest wrote:

well for me the problem is steam and games, steam is ilegal on any Windows 8 or more(according to ms, anything that you buy with a program in yor Windows, will be ilegal if not bought from Windows store), and about the games... lets see, 99% of them dont work!

lolno.

Where the fuck did you get that information from?

noone

Guest wrote:

well for me the problem is steam and games, steam is ilegal on any Windows 8 or more(according to ms, anything that you buy with a program in yor Windows, will be ilegal if not bought from Windows store), and about the games... lets see, 99% of them dont work!

Uh....I saw this in the moderation queue and wasn't sure if I really wanted to accept this post for publishing. Let's run it through the kid translator real quick.

Guest post automatically translated from Engrish wrote:

The problem is support for games from Steam. From what I read, Steam is illegal on any machine running Windows 8 or later, and their policy is that anything not purchased from the Windows Store is illegal, and apparently 99% of games don't work.

Even though I'm not a fan of Windows 8, I believe that is a misnomer. Granted, MS is allowing Metro apps to only be purchased from the Windows Store, but the desktop environment is not affected. I'm not factoring in RT since that's a total joke. If MS wanted to go the Apple route and force everything to be through the store only, they'd be committing economic suicide by alienating their entire userbase, and I don't think they're stupid enough to do that.

DeepFriedCookies

Microsoft are a human company. Never underestimate human stupidity. Although they would never do that, I hope..