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!