My Thoughts on Windows 8 Developer Preview

Last night, I decided that I was going to install Windows 8 on my computer. The installation wizard took the language, country and keyboard layout details, before telling me that I am missing device drivers. Trying to make the wizard recognize drivers from Vista's system and system32 folders to no avail, I closed the installation wizard and tried again. It worked and I was offered a choice between an express and a custom installation of Windows. Choosing "Custom", I picked the 30 GB partition that I had recently deleted Windows 7 from. Then, the installation began.

I don't know how long it took, but considering that I had a 9.00 am lecture the next morning, and that the time was probably around 2 am, I was in a hurry for the installation to complete, so that I could go to sleep. Unfortunately, it seemed to go on and on. So I had to turn off the laptop without completing the installation.

After lunch today, I decided to give it another try. I did everything as before, and when it had enough input from me, I left it and came back after about 45 minutes. This time, the installation had completed successfully. Windows listed the available wireless networks for me to join, and then prompted for my Windows Live ID to log in. After providing my credentials, Windows pulled my photo from my MSN profile and created me a local account.

Windows 8 Metro Start screen

The major change I noticed was the Metro look and apps. The classic Windows desktop was still there, but the start menu was gone, replaced by the Metro interface. IE10 now sports a spellchecker and AutoCorrect like Microsoft Word. One thing that annoyed me was the inability to close Metro apps (except using the task manager). It might be to prevent the user from managing memory—after all, that's the OS's job. But it still clutters up the Alt+Tab panels.

I'll try to keep posting updates about my experiences of using Windows 8.