Windows 8 First Look

Finally my windows 8 virtualization on VMware worked, if you search in their support forums, they tell you windows 8 is not supported, after adding and removing hardware it turns out the Floppy Drive is the one that was causing the issues. You can find more of that in this post

So, Once you virtualize your environment what is next?

(Note: all links on pictures are for a bigger image)

As mentioned in this post, we cannot turn off the customer experience program, but there are some others you may want to change.

Same for the error reporting, of course we want to report any issues to Microsoft, we want this OS to rock!

In the configuration settings there are several ways to implement your account, you can use your Windows Live Account Microsoft Account, or local accounts (I haven’t tested domain accounts just yet).

Once you log in, you are welcomed by the Start Menu Live Tiles.

And here is where I start pouring some questions.

Since the release of the Developer Preview my concern was on how this start menu works, you are supposed to have live tiles, similar to what you see on your windows phone, so, I have some questions:

• What happens then when you are not looking at that screen?
• If you have multiple monitors, will the tiles window remain open? (so far in all my tests the answer is no, unless you snap the window to the left or right but still what about those non metro apps?)
• What if you have three monitors or more?

I mean those details as I see them one will just have to get use to it, since the Tiles is the “new” start menu, but instead of popping like windows 7

It will go full screen.

Now lets get into IE 10.

When you open Internet explorer 10, you know you are in it since there is nothing else on the screen (which is nice), my first page to visit was www.bing.com which I was pleased to see a cool HTML 5 animation, I really liked the background for Windows 8 Beta, with light effects and all.

Minimalistic view of Internet explorer:

No plugins are allowed (so flash/silverlight is dead uh?)

In this site there is a flash video:

And this is a page with Silverlight:

The main objective of IE10 is just to display your pages, therefore is minimalistic 100%, which is good and bad, where are my options? how can I configure the settings? security? cookies?

Well, I have to figure that out if you open the desktop and click on IE, you will get access to the “old” IE9 interface, the thing is, you are using IE10

So, will this mean, you can set the settings for the other view? Well, after we play around with it we will find out.

Another thing to notice is the Ribbon bar on the explorer, it starts minified, on the developers preview it was expanded by default, clunky and in the way, here, you can go enabling what you need as you need it.

When you click the option it expands:

And that is nice.

Windows Shortcuts still work:

• Windows key (WK) +1 ..
• WK + D
• WK + W
• WK + L
• etc…

The apps, seem to be better organized than what we had on the Developer Preview

And so far, I’m liking it. So many things to talk about on this O.S. but I will not focus on infrastructure, “Spock, I’m a developer not an engineer”

Still tempted to upgrade my laptop.

Well, next step, Install Visual Studio 11.

See you then.

Windows 8 inside VMware Workstation 8

If you have some experience with virtualization you will see that this is the best option to create different testing environments, try new software or just use different applications in the same computer (like mixing windows and linux).

Installation on VMware is simple enough, the problem are those little “gotcha” that can ruin your mood.

So lets start, you have to get your copy of Windows 8 (don’t forget to get the key  (DNJXJ-7XBW8-2378T-X22TX-BKG7J)

In order to create the virtual machine you select the File –> New Virtual Machine.

You have to select to install the operating system later, if you don’t do that VMware will try to create the unattended install file (which works for Windows 7).

You can select any operating system, but in this scenario we select Windows 7 x64 to simplify the selection of drivers and devices.

You name your Virtual machine, and specify the location (I’m skipping that picture)

After that you specify the hard drive settings, I usually select a single drive, since its better performing.

Once you get to the Hardware screen:

Click on the Customize Hardware, here is the main caveat, you have to remove the floppy disk from the available selection

That will prevent Windows from Crashing, at least that did it for me, I also (as an extra precaution I disabled the 3d Graphics on the display configuration.

Once that is done, save your virtual machine, and change the ISO on the DVD to the newly downloaded copy of windows 8, after that it will boot, you have to do somewhere around 4 clicks and the installation will be completed.

There is not a lot to configure or change, once the installation goes, select the hard drive, and let it rip, you will be up and running in no time.

I have a couple more post you can check on some other details about the installation and configuration, and later on the week I will be adding more info on how it works.

I will be enabling the 3d acceleration on VMware, we’ll see if we crash or if it works as expected

Next step is to install Visual Studio 11 and start throwing lines! 😀

Get set, ready, Code!!

Installing windows 8, What to expect

 BEtA!

When installing windows 8 you can expect a smooth installation, really easy to follow, the problem goes if you run it on VMware, it just doesn’t work.  Here is the update with the way to set it up right.

In any case, I will be trying to make it work, for a fact, in Virtual Box it works like a charm.

This initial post is about the little things we always overlook, and that is the agreement.

This is a “free” copy, and as once Windows 7 was, this also has an expiration date, 01/15/2013 you have a full year to play around.

In a second notice, Microsoft will be reading most of the things you will be doing, some you can opt out, some others you just can’t, but the idea is to give feedback, so enable them or leave them enabled.

As the year goes around you will be able to access applications that will be posted for free in the market place, therefore, is “free for all” kind of approach, see the tools, use them, and share feedback (most importantly)

But in the end, when the trial is over, those apps, will no longer be available to you, unless you purchase them, or perhaps some of those will remain free.

Also to notice if someone has an application that is doing something its not supposed to do, and you acquired it by mistake or not, Microsoft if he sees fit, will pull the plug and you wont have access to it anymore.

All is oriented to the apps, that will be the goal for this operating system, is a good idea, you buy lots of apps for your phone, why not for your pc?

The same ease of access that the market place brings to your phone will now be available to your pc, err.. device.

It seems the “Windows Live” brand will go away, I have seen a couple of posts about it, but this is the main indication that it will fade away? (time to do some research..)

Well, as I was trying to update some screen shots on the installation process on VMware, when the Devices ready was more than half way done..

BAM! I was welcomed with the new “Blue Screen”

And as usual with a Blue screen, sometimes it work sometimes it doesn’t… which in this case it didn’t work.

Well, see you in the next post 🙂 once I complete my windows 8 installation.

(So tempted to upgrade instead of virtualizing it)

Posting from W8

Hey, After a while I was able to load windows 8 on a virtualized environment but with full hardware environment.

Trying to use Virtual Box, VMware, Virtual PC (or XPMode in windows 7), proved to be not the best (at least at this time, since the O.S. is really, really new).

So I went back to something I found after the Build conference, a post from Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) with really good instructions on how to set all this up.

The original blog post is: http://j.mp/pxHUKa

Once the application is installed you can see how the dual boot section is enabled in the computer, so with a simple click you can choose to use the Dev Preview and your previous operating system. (please read the original post for the details of how to do this, is WOMB certified –works in my box)

After the initial setup you can find all the goodies for Windows 8, in fact the loading time is just amazing, I love the startup is really fast, (I will time it next time)

The computer I am using is a XPS 15”, pretty nice laptop. Even though the machine detects my multi-touch screen the missing drivers do not allow it to work fully, but I have touch input.

Running the OS with the full hardware  is totally awesome, and knowing that my main OS is untouched is priceless.

(live writer just exploded!, but I got my changes back!, woah! where is that save button again?)

The developer preview I obtained has already visual studio 11 in it, but I also happen to have the developer preview which I will try to install and use for all the next posts.

you can mount an ISO directly that is really good if you want to get things done quickly without 3rd party tools

As an ending note. I need to find a better editor for the blog.. the CSS, is messy and I cannot edit it with this crappy HTML editor live writer has. Well on to look for one it is, In the mean time, Visual Studio is installing 😀
also
I want to like IE9 and IE10, but they are still behind on several settings, after I saw the videos on Build related to desktop sync. I hope they can really put it up to par to what I can do with Google chrome.

I mean, I just downloaded chrome, went to the settings, hit the sync button and I have all the stuff I use in my real computer.

I need to get a hold of one windows phone, to be able to test the integration.

Visual Studio 11 – Windows 8 Installation and road blocks

I wanted to write about the entity framework as I am getting ready for my exam, but #Build happened and lots of goodies where thrown out to us developers.

I found windows 8 Installation quite easy, and the interface is nice, though I am a fan of the look and feel, I don’t quite like it yet, I will need to work a lot more with it to be able to figure out all the things I can currently do with Windows 7.

For the time being, a nice small screen shot of VS installation

And .. while I was writing this post and waiting for VS 11 to complete installing, kaboom! I got a nice run time error on VMware.

Uhm, more research is needed, I believe I will have to split my strategy of installation in two different areas, windows 8 and Visual Studio 2011, so, at this time I will let it be as it is, with an error, I will try Virtual Box again and see if I get better results while installing the developer preview.

After the crash..  the virtual hard drive with Windows 8 has the handle open and cannot open the VM again, well… off to reboot, better yet, to shutdown and sleep.