Windows 8 Consumer Preview

I just did an in-place upgrade (from Win7) on an early 2010 MBP. The trackpad is not working at all. 😐

(For posterity's sake...)

I fixed the trackpad issue my using the generic "USB Human Interface Device" driver as described at:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1529432?start=0&tstart=0

with two screens it is a breeze, with Microsoft keyboard and Start key and Show All Apps key also, and click on Desktop in Metro Start and you are in traditional desktop.

The taskbar will mirror on both monitors now too.

A lot better than I thought, better over Dev Preview but that is to be expected.

Reviews on battery life and other features are big plus.

Look for tablets designed around Windows 8, or laptops.

It takes getting over and use to, I had a real "I'll never like this" chip that I would refuse to like it. Once I got past that. I don't like iOS though compared to ICS and Honeycomb. But the gap is probably not that huge.

Biggest change in interface since what? mouse? Multi-Finder?

@bbfc: turns out an in-place install was a bad idea after all. Some things never change in the Windows world!

First the touchpad didn't work, brightness control was wacky, and I couldn't properly uninstall/reinstall the Boot Camp Drivers (even individually from Add/Remove Programs). After screwing with it for a few hours, I gave in and did a clean install. Like I said, some things never change.

That said, I do like new UI paradigm. A lot.

I don't even recommend an inplace upgrade to Lion over Snow either.

I made the mistake of installing Windows 8 DP over 7 and had trouble so this time I didn't bother.

Windows Easy Transfer had me back to norm quickly (be sure to choose Advanced and show hidden folders like AppData).

Don't need Flash and such, so don't. Keep it clean. I'd even avoid Firefox, I had issues with 10.02-latest nightly build.

It runs smooth and feels like they cleaned up Windows 7 code base.

I don't recommend the in-place upgrade either -- which is why I tried it 🙂 I've been burned by trying this in the past (Win98->XP maybe?) and I wanted to see how it'd handle it.

And in all fairness, it did go pretty well. Only a few Apple drivers got lost/corrupted/janky during the upgrade. That, and the Boot Camp installer refused to run or would error out, even under compatibily mode.

There are changes under the hood... that is certain.

Normally I would be installing motherboard and other drivers, but I think it was doing so with 8DP that got me into trouble (knew I would be wiping it off anyway).

Kaspersky refused to install as did some recent Intel drivers (LAN and other stuff) and the only things I want to do are clone the OS and backup the data drive. I've got File History on for hourly backup.

CCleaner 3.1.x is also on hold.

Same for me. I just installed Win 8 CP from Win 7. Everything went smoothly, even the bootcamp contrl panel is in the system tray, but the trackpad in not usable. What else should I do?

Hi,

I had the same problem and I fixed it. It seems the Apple Bootcamp services are getting corrupted and need to be repaired.

With a USB mouse, right click on the lower left corner on the Start Screen, choose Programs and Features.

Find Apple Bootcamp Services and select it and then Click on Repair on the toolbar that appears. It will repair the installation and restart Windows 8. It should all be working once it reboots. Hope this helps.

I agree. Win 8 looks to be a basic UI tweak with the same underlying functionality. I like Apple`s approach much better. For now, the Win 8 UI is a bit more pleasing to te eyes.! Is your trackpad in Win 8 working?

Thanks Kingv84. Sounds productive. I will try it tonight !!

You Welcome. 🙂

One review is also a good intro to what to expect and how to use 8, and why my next tablet will probably run 8 instead of Ice Cream (currently use 3.2 though)

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/01/tech/mobile/windows-better-ios-android/

http://www.bing.com/news/search?q=review+windows+8+consumer+preview

Hi Kingv84, I tried exactly the same procedure, but still the trackpad is unusable 😟