Ten More things I’ve Learned about Windows 8

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Having spent a bit more time on Windows 8 I now know 10 more things:

  1. It runs fine on an Acer Iconia Tab W500. Note that I did not discover this by rushing out and buying one in a fit of pique after realising I should have tried harder to get to Build and obtain one of the lovely Samsung prototypes they were giving away. Definitely not.
  2. If you do happen to have an Acer tablet, you need to boot from the distribution DVD to wipe the machine and install the 64bit version of Windows 8 on it. This is because for some reason the Acer is shipped with the 32bit version of Windows 7. The 64 bit version is the one you really want to use, because that is the only one that comes with the SDK. And when you do this you find that you only have 1.5G of main memory, because the system (presumably the graphics display) has stolen half a gig. Not that I’ve had memory problems yet.
  3. You can install the 64 bit version of Office 10 on Windows 8, but only after you have uninstalled a 32bit version of PowerPoint viewer that is pre-loaded with the Windows 8 distribution.
  4. If you use Office 2010 it loads up Word really, really, fast. I mean really.
  5. The IE 10 browser works fine, but I can’t find a way of getting Flash to work with it. I kept being referred to a release candidate of version 11 of Flash, which installs and doesn’t actually do anything.
  6. However, Chrome works fine on the device. It is nowhere near as fun to use, but it plays videos like a good-un.
  7. Don’t worry where all your programs have gone when you press Start. You don’t get the little menu that you are used to popping up, you get the whole lot on big tiles on the Start screen. After a while you get used to this.
  8. If you want to drag things around your Start screen just press and hold,and then start dragging. It doesn’t seem to do much to indicate that it is draggable.
  9. Setting a PIN number in addition to the password makes it much easer to get back to the machine.
  10. I’ve got a proper tablet with Windows 8 on. Not quite ready for primetime, but I’ve got the box for my iPad out of the loft so that I can sell it on eBay when the Windows 8 beta comes out.