I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting pretty excited to finally get my hands on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, hopefully on the 29th of February when Microsoft has promised to unveil it at MWC. However I’m not entirely sure what to expect if I’m perfectly honest. I never got hold of a developer preview edition of Windows 7, so I only had experience with the Beta’s and Release Candidates. As I’m sure many of you may remember, the beta of Windows 7 was extremely stable which is why Microsoft were able to bring out a Release Candidate and ship Windows 7 earlier than expected.
With Windows 8 it’s a new experience for me. I have had a chance to play around with the developer preview of Windows 8, and while I was slightly impressed by the new Metro UI, I haven’t been completely blown away by the whole experience as I was with Windows 7. I haven’t really used the Windows 8 developer preview OS for a while now as I didn’t see much point in it, and it kept causing trouble for me.
However I’m hoping that this first consumer preview of Windows 8 will be similar to the beta build we had for Windows 7. In regards that it actually runs smoothly and doesn’t crash every time it feels like it. When I bought my laptop it was running Windows Vista, the first thing I did was reformat it and install the Windows 7 beta and later the Release Candidate as my primary OS, that’s how stable they were.
Now you can be sure I won’t be formatting my laptop again for Windows 8, but I certainly will be dual booting Windows 8 with Windows 7. Of course I’ll have to make myself familiar with Windows 8 so I can get a good opinion of it as well as a few guides together for you guys.
But what’s going to be different in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview vs the Developer Preview?
Skydrive:
Martin recently covered a story of who Windows 8 is going to be closely integrated with SkyDrive. We didn’t really see this in the Developer Preview of Windows 8 so this will certainly be something new to the Consumer Preview. Be sure to check out his post for more info on that
New Logo:
As most of you probably know by now, Microsoft have come up with a completely new logo for Windows 8. This new logo has been designed to reflect the new Metro UI that Windows 8 is bringing. It’s rather simple but will also change colour depending on your colour scheme and set up.
This new logo I’m sure will be in the consumer preview of Windows 8 as it wasn’t unveiled until earlier on this week
Mouse and Keyboard Friendly:
Microsoft were strongly criticised over how focused Windows 8 was on touchscreen devices. Many users felt that Microsoft were just ignoring their main customer base of traditional desktop and laptop users who primarily use mice and keyboards to navigate Windows. Microsoft did promise that they were still working on integrating mice and keyboards into the Metro UI so hopefully this will remain true.
There’s a few other little things that we know Microsoft have been working on since the developer preview of Windows 8.
- Metro Customisation - This is pretty limited though and will only include changing the background colour, you won’t be able to choose an image.
- New File Management Improvements
- Better Accessibility Options
Of course I’m sure Microsoft will unveil a whole load of new little bits here and there when they reveal it at MWC a week from now. Of course we’ll be covering it all here at Windows 8 News.
What else you do you expect to see that will be new in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview?
Let us know in the comments below
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