Windows 8 Consumer Preview

We have been running the Windows 8 Developer Preview build on a couple of desktops and more recently on a laptop with some good experiences.

Although our computer repairs workshop is busy, we have created time to upgrade the test Windows 8 laptop to the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

It's a new installation procedure in that you download a small .exe and run it on the intended host. The Windows 8 app check for compatibility with the hardware and the currently installed OS which in this case is the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

Said Windows 8 installer cheerfully reported that the hardware should works and that 8 of the current Apps would work with the new version of Windows 8.

The only slight concern is that the only Apps on the laptop are Windows 8!!

The installation is working as a download :( which means our broadband connection is being thrashed and despite it being a 10 meg connection, the installation is citing 1hr 25 to complete!!

We'll update this post as things hopefully progress but in the meantime we are going to get back to repairing all these sick computers and laptops.

Well the new installation finally completed some 4 hrs later and the test laptop seems to be stable enough.

If you are interested or even mildly curious, pop into our computer repair shop in Perth and give Windows 8 Consumer Preview a go!

Windows 8 Beta Running in Computer Repairs Center, Perth, Scotland

Installed on a test system for first look.

Boot time is very impressive:

There are updates already!!!

Have to stress that this is a BETA copy of Windows 8

Metro Interface

Windows 8 feels fastish based on the hardware that we are using for the Beta version. However you must remember that the system does not have any extra software or drivers installed.

The system has very clearly been designed for touch screen and tablets.

We were very surprised but the fact that there is no option to shutdown or reboot from the interface. The only way we found was the physical power button.

Windows 8 did offer to reboot in 2 days time once it had installed the updates !!

Here is just a quick video of Alex playing with the interface, be kind, this is his first try at it and he gets a little lost sometimes (Apologies for the background noise, this was shot in the workshop):

Funky looking weather app:

Underneath the eye candy, the core is very very Windows 7 like as can been seen from these screen shots:

No real comment at this stage as we need to spend some time with it but at this time, it has not really rung our bell BUT we'll see how we get on once we have a decent play with it.

We have now updated onto the Windows 8 Consumer Preview Edition. We have a system running the latest version of Windows 8 in our computer and laptop repair workshop

A laptop running Windows 8 Consumer Preview is available in our laptop sales area for anybody who wishes to have a look at the new Windows 8 interface