Testing Windows 8…
So far, as advanced user, software engineer and such, I’ve liked it.
Windows has been always much better with keyboard accessibility (greatly valued by advanced users) than other operating systems. And in Windows 8 keyboard accessibility has actual improved, compared to Windows 7. For example, new start screen is really great for accessibility for advanced user.
I.e. Just hit windows key or CTRL + ESC and you get into start screen. There you simply type few letters from the name of program, and most often then just hit enter to launch desired app, which is found by quick search. Compared to earlier Windows versions, this is huge improvement.
Still testing a bit more and see what I really feel like
So far ….
PROS
- New start screen
- Improvements in keyboard accessibility
- MUCH more cleaner and usable L&F than cluttered Windows Vista/7
- Improved task manager
- Switching between applications works smoothly
CONS
- Still new system, still lacking support of various software (like VirtualBox)
Clearly winners in Windows 8 are touchers and keyboarders. Mousers are gonna be sore losers with this new version of Windows. I.e. from reviews in net I’ve accumulated knowledge that ”mousers” have had problems with new Windows, since there ain’t ”close X” everywhere and such. As ”keyboarder” I don’t even notice lack of such ”X”, since I’m always just hitting ALT + F4 and be done with it. And also with switching between applications: I could only see improved accessibility in Windows 8, compared to 7. Why so? Since I always have used ALT + TAB for switching between applications. As side note, ALT + TAB logic was rather broken in Windows 7, which was in books extreme usability disaster. So far, with quick testing, this logic has worked better in Windows 8. Major problem with version 7 was that focus was constantly somehow ”stolen” and tabulation cycle didn’t work at all as expected.
26.11.2012
After initial impression comes some hard truths.
- With new metro apps, actually everyone else, except touch users are somewhat lost.
- New metro apps are too simplistic for ”desktop” use. They are fine for some touch screen tablet, but not for laptop/desktop. For example, I ended up uninstalling metro version of Skype and installed normal desktop version instead. Initially metro apps feel nice, but lack of settings is killing me. For example, there appears to be only 1 (one) settig in metro email app. Problem is that I would have needed to change font size in email display, since it’s too small in my high resolution display. Well, no luck for me, so back to using GMail via web interface in Opera
- Managed to get VMWare Player running, so at least some virtualization is possible (note: not using ”pro” version of Windows 8)
- Java development tooling seems to work, which is good for my usage scenearios.
- Since I’ve already bound myself into GMail ecosystem, bindings into M$soft ecosystem are more of nuisance than benefit for me.
- Windows 8 uses plenty of memory. It seemed that almost initially, without yet doing anything system was churning almost 3GB of memory.
- So far haven’t encountered many crashes (two kernel crashes occurred due to lack of support for Nokia Suite (grrh, not good in my books. Seemed to work fine initially, but attempting to upgrade firmware in my phone caused whole Windows to crash and reboot). However, I encountered few freezes, which are either due to Windows 8 or specific laptop what I’m using.
- Few times wireless refused to connect my router. In second time I noticed that turning ”airplane mode on/off/on resolved issue. This is related either to windows 8 or laptop hardware.
- If ignoring new metro appps, desktop side is very similar to Windows 7, except various defects of Vista/7 are fixed.