I barely managed to get back from this years MVP Summit before I am on my way again. I landed in Stockholm yesterday at 11:30, and it is now 15:30 and I am back on the train to the airport…
This time I am headed to Amsterdam for a “Train the Trainer” for Windows 8. For those of you who do not know what TTT events are, they are basically a way for Microsoft to educate trainers on their new platforms, making sure that there are trainers out there ready to educate people when their new platforms launches. I personally think this TTT is going to be extra interesting as it is covering the next version of Microsoft’s biggest product (Windows…duh), which just a couple of days ago was released as a “consumer preview” version. And this time, Microsoft is handling the whole thing a bit differently than normal, so it is quite exciting…
The consumer preview contained a whole heap of updates since the developer preview, with the availability of the store being one of the most exciting once. It is not publicly open for publishing yet, so you will have to wait a bit more before you can publish your apps. But hopefully it will open a bit before launch, enabling people to get apps up in time and thus offering more apps already on the release date.
Being that I was away at the MVP Summit when the CP was released, I didn’t really have time to install it. Not to mention that I didn’t have it readily available. I didn’t feel like downloading several Gb’s of data while on a crappy WiFi… So instead, I downloaded it last night, and went through with the install this morning. I decided to both update my slate (the one I got at BUILD) and create a VM using VMWare Wokstation. Both went nice and smooth. It is by far the best Windows install experience ever. Some people even went as far as calling it sexy on Twitter, and I tend to agree. Not to mention that I am fairly certain that even my mother could get this installed!!!
I have had very limited time to play around with the CP for obvious reasons, but I have still found a few updates that I really like. First of all, the ability to change the color of the start screen is great… I wasn’t to fond of the green from the developer preview, but on the other hand I preferred the graphics on that to the new one. But all in all, it looks very good!
I have also managed to get some BSOD’s on my slate for some reason. Seems stable now, but I think there were some initial driver issues or something. And the cool thing with the new BSOD is that it doesn’t look as aggressive anymore. It has a gentler color, and gentler text. The error messages are much better, not a whole lot more informative, but less threatening. And there is a sad smiley, and we all know that if there is a smiley, it is a good error screen… :)
The included games are also the best ever. I have only tried a one of the games that comes out of the box, and with just that game, it beats every single previous Windows version. And the game? Pinball FX! A great pinball game that kicks both Solitair’s and Minesweeper’s ass!
Another thing that I loved, was that my slate automatically added my XBMC machine as a device in Explorer, which makes it super easy to find movies through Explorer. All nicely categorized and with thumbnails and everything. I like it a lot! It is details like this,that is going to make Windows 8 shine, and hopefully put it closer to OS X from a usability point of view. The only thing I don’t like, is that I couldn’t play movies from my XBMC machine in the “Video” application on the start screen. That seems to be some on-line thingy only. And to me, if you place an app on the start screen and name it “Video”, it should be the a central place to play all kinds of videos… am I wrong in thinking that?
In the “funny” department, I love the fish they have added. It is the same fish that came together with Vista (I believe…), but in a Metro version…kind of… By Metro I mean same thing but without the 3D look and feel…. I guess I might be one of the few who found that funny, but I guess I am a bit geekier than most…
I have only downloaded a few apps so far, but I am really impressed by the quality and experience of both the installation and the actual apps I have seen. I’m not surprised that it is as good as it is though. First of all, the app installation experience has to be spot on for it to become popular and used. Secondly, all apps in the store at the moment are fairly controlled by Microsoft (you have to apply to be able to publish apps at the moment), which should guarantee the quality. But hopefully it will be the same in the future as well…
Unfortunately, my slate is experiencing some problems at the moment. The WiFi is working less than optimal. It seems to work fine for a short while, then all of the sudden it looses connection, and when looking at the list of available networks, it has shrunk down to half of what was there initially. And after another couple of minutes, it just says “Not available”. But hopefully I will be able to address this with the help of the trainers in Amsterdam…
Well, that’s it for this time… I will try to add more posts as the TTT runs through its paces, covering at least the most interesting, non-NDA covered features!