So ive been using Win8 RTM on my work laptop for a little while now – and these are my thoughts/impressions

Good bits

• Boot and shutdown times
• Recently used apps in top left hand corner – like it
• being able to change the front boot up screen – I use a fallout 3 picture – but is good for corporate branding….
• General speed and zippiness
• .net 4.5 includes .net 4…. and .net 3.5 includes 3 and 2.o… good stuff
• Once you work around the new UI – many things are familiar
• iso mounting
• file copy pausing/single window for multiple copies
• Workstation-level Hyper-V….. yay!

Not so good or confusing bits

• Lack of clarity around differences between pro and enterprise
• Lack of media centre – one of the best features of Win7 – is now an paid add-on….
• screen split – good idea, but implemented poorly (e.g. I wanted to enter all my stock codes into the stock app…. so I split the screen, so I can see all the codes in an excel spread sheet while the stock app is still open…. however when its in split screen mode – I cant actually add any codes to the stock app!). Once the desktop is in the left or right pane – you cant drag/drop one of the apps into the centre pane…. which isn’t very intuitive and kinda pointless
• Need of 3rd party utility to go straight to desktop (I used stardocks start8)… sure, this is a tablet aimed OS – but give corporates the option via group policy
• I have no huge issue with metro – but don’t force it on people
• in my opinion the UI in general looks just that bit worse than Win7….
• Download on demand for windows features…. grrrr! so after making that great progress of no longer needing the media (in 7 and 2008 R2), you’ve gone back to having to manage source media…. you fucking clowns. Who cares if it uses up another 20Gb of HDD…. i cannot express how incredibly fucking stupid i think that is
• Turn UAC off, local admin, still have to run cmd prompt elevated to run all my scripts etc… im sure there is a way around this – just haven’t found it yet. Stop assuming we’re all HP employee level dumb and run task sequences that bring down banks. Having it on by default is fine – but at some stage you have to let the user claim they know what they are doing – even if they don’t.
• Why would you get rid of aero? sure, turn it off by default… but getting rid of it is just silly
• Its a “forced” OS…. its very much trying to go down the apple model of “You will use these applications and use them in this way and you will give us lots of money via our marketplace”…. apple already has the “i dont want to think for myself” market stitched up…. and even apple weren’t dumb enough to force iOS onto full blown PC’s….

Win server 2012

There really isnt much more to say here apart from “you put a tablet interface on a server product, are you fucking insane ?” (to which the unfortunate answer is yes)

i dont know what these guys are smoking, but they need to stop smoking it soon….

In summary

I”ll be sticking with Win7 on the majority of my client devices, apart from my work laptop. I dont hate Win8, but i dont really like it either

My servers will be staying on 2008R2 up until i build new ones (for example – exchange and Lync 2013) with the exception of my hyperV hosts…. there are quite large benefits in hyperV in 2012… large enough that its worth the shit interface (and it will be managed remotely the majority of the time anyway)

I’ll be hoping the MS see the common sense approach that the-interface-formerly-know-as-metro is an option, not something that should be forced…. and it is completely inappropriate for servers… and in many cases, not appropriate for desktops either….. recognise that and give us options around how to use the OS… thats what an OS is meant to be, a platform from which you can anything you want…

MS will however, do the same as vista… crap on for around 2 years about how great win 8 is and how its the fastest selling OS ever…. then when win 9 is 6-12 months off…. admit in their own way that Win8 was shit… but Win9 will be here soon!

Now that win 8 has RTM’ed…. im going to stop pkaying with it in virtuals only and install it on my main work laptop….

But which version ? Well, apparently finidng out the exact differences isn’t as easy as a quick google search….

Some of the hits bring up pages like these…

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2012/04/16/announcing-the-windows-8-editions.aspx

http://windows.about.com/od/windowsosversions/a/Which-Version-Of-Windows-8-Is-Right-For-You.htm

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/making-sense-of-the-windows-8-versions-1076505

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/253990/windows_8_which_version_should_you_choose.html

What amazes me is how incredibly vague all of these articles are – and why would you take some of these features out ? isnt that much more work ?

So – Windows 8 and Windows RT are effectively useless for anyone that is likley to be reading this blog – “cannot join to a domain”…. fair enough, most home users dont need to do this – but are you actually gaining anything by taking it out ?…. woohooo, you’ve crippled 2 versions from being able to be managed in the most basic ways – that your comsumer market are never going to use anyway. You’ve maybe stopped a few cheap-skate corporates from using the standard version…. but there is market segmentation and then there is market confusion and annoyance…. you’re engaging in the latter.

and from the windows team blog (top link) – in regards to the differences between Pro and Enterprise….

“As with previous versions of Windows, we will also have an edition of Windows 8 specifically for those enterprise customers with Software Assurance agreements. Windows 8 Enterprise includes all the features of Windows 8 Pro plus features for IT organization that enable PC management and deployment, advanced security, virtualization, new mobility scenarios, and much more. ” 

Can we have some specifics? what have you taken out? (i am skeptical that it really contains “all the features of pro”) whats the much much more? (e.g. in win 7, media centre wasnt included with enterprise – which for traveling consultants is nice to have…. is Direct Access available in Pro or only in enterprise ? etc.)

It’s all well and good to release a product – but c’mon…. you guys (MS) know what the differences are between the versions – how about publishing that info in a concise way to remove confusion, rather than vague fucking sales bullshit.

I short – provide clarity around the features of your versions at release – its not an unreasonable request – and it will stop your TAM’s from getting hammered with support calls.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/08/delivering-fast-boot-times-in-windows-8.aspx

as always – lets wait and see what it turns out like in RTM… as MS is run by marketing people and lawyers, that, well, never let reality get in the way of a good PR opportunity… but the fact that boot times have finally been seen as important is definately a good step….

The fact that they’re only looking at boot times because win8 will be componentised and partially aimed at tablets – is something we can thank the un-managable ipad for – but the result is that we get better boot times across all machines – greatly improving business productivity and OS usability in general.

http://bink.nu/news/new-copy-features-in-windows-8.aspx

a step in the right direction….. now base everything off of robocopy – the most awesome command line file copy tool ever 🙂

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2010/04/21/microsoft-touch-pack-for-windows-7-now-available.aspx

self explainatory really…

As im sure most people have already seen, office 2010 has gone RTM and will be available to download from technet on april 22nd (apparently)

We have a bunch of clients that are waiting for office 2010 to come along so they can go windows 7 and office 2010 in their moves from XP – so that fact that it has dropped a little earlier than (i) expected – is kinda handy.

<rant>

So it must be the time of year for Microsoft surveys again, filled out a few lately…

Now just in case anyone within MS does care…. what partners actually want (these are specific to my experience and therefore are likely to be Australia specific), instead of the crap asked in surveys. (how do microsoft products make me feel ?… I know how questions like that make me fucking feel…)

1) When you sub us for MCS gigs, give us POC/VIP/RDP etc funding, pay the frakkin invoice on time! Having to follow up every invoice, every time is just painful.

2) Kill the packaged services program… if you want us to write that amount of absolute shit to complete a DDPS gig, pay 60-70% of normal consulting rate and dont pay for 6 months plus – why bother?

3) PSS/CSS, whatever you call technical support services now. They may be different elsewhere in the world, but in Aus, logging a call with PSS is a complete and utter waste of time. Sure, the language barrier doesn’t help, but the technical knowledge at the other end just isn’t good – and definately not helpful. The focus is on closing the call, not helping the customer. You want partners to say good things about PSS to our clients, dont manage our expectations, fucking fix it. Give us somewhere 2 former MCS consultants can get REAL technical assistance (granted, not needed often, but it would be nice to have somehwere to fall back on)

4) Partner support – even bigger waste of time than PSS. Sure, Sarah Arnold seemed to listen to concerns, which was good, but i cant go to the top every time i have a minor question about the partner program. What a waste of her time.

5) Stop sending me a bloody fed-ex box, which contains a smaller box, which contains an A4 envelope, which contains a letter, which has got some useless piece of crap i throw out. For the amount you could save sending us (collectively) this rubbish, maybe you wouldn’t have had to sack 2 of the local guys in the Adelaide MS office when you canned the 5000+ people a while ago. Dont say your implementing cost cutting measures and then continue to do stupidly expensive and needless things.

Now i get that even if someone at MS did care about this type of stuff, no-one could actually do anything about it, as there would be 17,000 forms to fill out in triplicate and an internal tool to use which would be absolutely shithouse and managed by someone in china that didnt speak a spec of english…. but it still feels good just to let it all out every now and again. 🙂

</rant>

so there’s a story over on the MS website about windows 7 faster starting times…. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2010/jan10/01-25windows7profile.mspx?rss_fdn=Custom

I completely agree – windows 7 starting times and “time to use-ability” are quite good – especially in comparison to vista…. however the tone of the article worries the hell out of me.

“It gave me a really good feeling,” Dietrich says. “I thought, ‘Wow, it’s not just that we’re on the right path, but we’re really making a change in perception for reviewers and the general public here.'”

So it was a surprise people wanted their OS to start faster ? Are you fucking kidding me? The way the entire article is written seems to indicate the unfortunate approach MS take to their OSes… “lets cram more bloat in! – it was a real rarity to look at peformance!”

I get it, features drive sales….  but what do you think your sales figures on windows 8 would be if it was absolutely identical to Windows 7 and started/ran 20% or 30% quicker ? If people could come into work and have their PC started without having to make a coffee….  there wouldn’t be many corporates happy with that.

Maybe it is my interpretation of the articles tone… or more likely, i just come from a different planet to people that decide whats important within MS.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969084

For those of you not quite what the significance of this is – basically it means that we can use the cool features in 2008 R2 Remote Desktop services now with down-level clients, instead of having to have everyone at windows 7 to take advantage of the features.  Very handy.

Now if i can just get some of the, ummm, “fiddly” bits in 2008 R2 RD Services working properly – all will be good with the world.