Ten Things I’ve Learnt about Windows 8

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Ten things I’ve discovered playing with Windows 8 over my lunch break.

  1. You need a dual layer DVD to make the complete system with development tools, it is over 5G. Scott Hanselman has some cunning things you can do with USB drives here.
  2. You don’t need to boot from the distribution DVD, you can just run Setup from it.
  3. If you do the install and say “keep nothing” it actually retains your old Windows settings in Windows.old.
  4. It works. Really well. Runs quickly on my Packard Bell Butterfly Touch tablet.
  5. It defaults to US keyboard, but you can change it to UK (in fact there are loads of keyboard types).
  6. When it started all I could get was a green screen with nothing on it. Seems to have been something to do with the dual monitor settings (and I was seeing the wrong half of the screen on the tablet). I went into external monitors and turned something off and it works fine now.
  7. The browser is wicked fast.
  8. I tried to install the Windows Phone SDK and it didn’t end well. The system tried to install .NET 3.5 and then tipped over. Oh well.
  9. There is an option to “refresh” Windows 8. This is supposed to knock it back to how it was when you received the machine. If you do this it will delete all the files on the device, including any old versions of Windows you were pleased to find still there after installation (see step 3).
  10. I want a proper tablet with this on.