Windows 8 Consumer Preview (Beta)
As it was announced last month itself, Microsoft has planned to release the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (aka Beta) tomorrow 29th February, I wanted to discuss what all we know about this new operating system till date. First of all don’t get confused with the name ‘Consumer Preview’. Its basically an open beta for every windows users and not just limited to the testers or developers. Compared to the Developer Preview, the Consumer Preview is said to be more stable. Obviously it will feature some major user interface enhancements that Microsoft has added since the release of DP in last September and probably will contain an early version of the Windows Store.
As its name suggests Consumer Preview is meant so that the users can get familiar with all the enhancement and changes before the commercial launch of Windows 8 later in quarter 2. So lets have a look whats is there in this Windows 8 Consumer Preview (Beta).
Beta vs Consumer Preview:
Since years, the label ‘Beta’ has been used various products that its perceived meaning cannot be predicted clearly. This could be the reason why Microsoft decided to renamed this release as ‘Consumer Preview’ coz they don’t wanted this new enhanced OS that is going to perform quality wise across multiple platforms (desktops to tablets to smartphones) shall be labeled as beta. Customers or market will now not be scared off with the 'don't get mad at us' tag endorsed to naming it as a beta release. As we mentioned above, Testers or Developers now don’t need to file the bug reports. It will be done by the users itself.
This kind of tagging or renaming Windows 8 may work wonders for Microsoft. If in short description, I can say that with the formal label of ‘Consumer preview’ it states 2 things: First it is not limited to only the IT pros and enthusiasts but it is meant for consumers. And the second, it is just a preview, and not a test version. I can even say that the Microsoft’s main motive behind this preview is to give people a confidence to download and use this release.
Windows 8 General Idea:
Its obvious that with this new operating system, Microsoft is trying to reinvent the PC era. Windows 8 brings a new Start screen, occupied by a colorful grid of app tiles rather than the pop-up Start Menu that we have seen for years since Windows 95. The Start Screen am talking about is named as ‘Metro’ and it serves as the home of the desktop, laptop, or tablet running on Windows 8. In order to personalize this new Start screen (Metro), Microsoft is also launching ‘Windows Store’. This store will feature touch-friendly "Metro-style" apps that we can purchase and install. It is not like we need to purchase apps to make Metro from scratch; Windows 8 will also come with built-in Metro apps like IE10, mail, calendar, weather, and a photo viewer.
The plan is that in case you are using a touchscreen device, you could completely stay away from the traditional Windows desktop environment. Customers will be also able to launch the desktop right from the Metro interface, along with the complete access to Windows Explorer, a desktop version of Internet Explorer, and other apps right from there. There is one limitation for ARM-based systems. These system can only have access to Microsoft built-in apps including a preloaded Office 15.
Re: Windows 8 Consumer Preview (Beta)
Windows 8 Installation:
Installing Windows 8 on Physical System (Not Virtual System) can be very simple OR unbearably difficult, depending on your hardware. If your current configuration is running Windows 7 or Vista smoothly then you don’t need to worry as this confide can run Windows 8 very well. But in case you are running lower operating systems like Windows Xp than there is a problem. Just checkout the Minimum System requirements for running new Windows 8:
- CPU: 1GHz processor
- Memory: 1GB RAM for 32-bit OS, 2GB RAM for 64-bit OS
- Graphics: DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
- HDD: 16 GB HDD free space for 32-bit, 20GB HDD free space for 64-bit
- In order to run 2 Metro-style apps alongside on the same screen you need 1366 pixels by 768 pixels resolution.
There are some more points you need to go through about Windows 8 installation:
- Prefer to install Windows 8 on desktop, because these systems possibly have the most generic of drivers. You can even get Windows 8 pre-installed on a laptop, netbook, ultrabook, tablet or any device, but if you got problem with any single driver it could demolish your excitement of testing Windows 8. Also don’t even think to install Windows 8 Consumer Preview onto a mission-critical system. If you do, very bad idea.
- Many of us who used W8 Developer Preview might have noticed using the hard drive much harder compared to any previous windows operating systems. I may recommend you to have a good and fast SATA drive installed in your system. Even older IDE hard drives will work, but same as Developer Preview even this release can work hard in your hard drives that may cause your system performance to be low.
- I will advise you to do a fresh install of Windows 8 Consumer Preview rather than installing it over Windows 7. If you install it over existing Windows 7, it might work but there is no guarantee you will be facing huge problems in performance and data recovery.
- In case you are doing dual boot, the best way I can suggest you is to swap out your primary drive for windows 8 installations and replace it with a blank one. This leaves your existing system untouched. Otherwise simply back up your existing OS and then to a ‘wipe and install’.
- As we all know Windows 8 is a touch-based operating system, hence you are not going to get the best out of it on a config with just a keyboard and mouse. In order to get the full out put you need to get a multi-touch enabled LCD monitor for your Windows 8 system. For example, I can say 21.5-inch Planar PX2230MW.
Users seeking for installation process of Windows 8, I’ll make another Article later for the same. Furthermore, as users were able to install Windows 7 from Vista SP1 without creating a new drive partition, possibly the same will in Windows 8 Consumer Preview. I even guess we also will be able to perform a clean install or use a virtual machine, as it was with the Developer Preview. FYI, not just about Windows 8 consumer preview but Installing beta version on virtualized PC is a better in order to test any new OS or software to prevent your complete machine at risk.
Now, we are just waiting for tomorrow, i. e. February 29th. If you want to download Windows 8 Consumer Preview, you can download it from this Microsoft Page (links will be updated tomorrow).
