Windows 8 Beta Screenshots Leaked

I hope 8 is going to have Kinect integration. My gaming rig is connected to my 55in HDTV and it would be great if i could navigate Windows with just hand and voice.

Dear Tom's Hardware,

As much as I respect this website and its news team (except Gruener), I'd like to request you to stop assuming that your audience consists of "average users" and hence stop using the word "leak" to describe what should be called a "release" instead.

TL;DR: I don't believe that Apple, MS, Google and others are dumb enough to have these "leaks" all the time. Use the correct terminology.

Sincerely,

amk-aka-phantom

I can do that without Kinect, you don't need one too. Just level up the appropriate skills.

Will it have a normal interface for desktops like windows/XP? I don't think I could get used to that.

Yes, it has that.

a leak usualy comes from someone inside who wants to get something out, possibly didn't know, and or it was given to someone and they weren't suppose to release it ever/if at all, not till a certain date.

what you could think, more than release, is someone broke an nda and got these out, as thats the most likely.

rumor leaks though, with nothing to back them up, are just rumors.

and so you also know, the reason these kind of things never get pulled/dont get pulled, is because they are treated as rumors by most, and most of the time people think its fake, if it gets pulled... well... we than know for a fact it was real.

point being, for minor leaks its better pr to turn a blind eye.

leak in video games however... that is a different story. while i can believe that some pres kits were given to bad blogs that release the content, i just cant believe it happening as often as the word leak is used.

but to what compasity... we have seen metro in EVERY demo, and i have to say, when they demo the desktop, they alway switch back to metro for a moment, because thats the new "start menu"

remember when they decided that metro would be used to launch a program instead of clicking to launch... its videos like that where i go, yea we have a normal desktop... but how avoidable is metro?

These are crappy "leaks", such a good job with win 7 and now they are going to give us this. Yeah, lets chase after apple who has what?, 8% of the market share. Or where the translation comes that we want our computers to look like our cell phones. I don't get it, I want better core "coolness" and all this app bs is just that. Think Vista would have taught MS a lesson. I want to see the OS, not "screenshots" of an ipad labeled as windows 8

Can't wait for Windows 8 Beta release.

But even if it has that, the default interface will be the tiled one.
That is, it will fall back to it in ceratin situations, at least according to the testers earlier.
And they also said that there were two controll panels, which is confusing.

No reason to switch to it from win7, programs will still be 100% compatible, it is said.

I am usually reserved when it comes to new Windows versions and features, but I believe this will be a new WinME/Vista failure. For tablets/ARM devices the flat tile look may prove great, especially those familiar with WP7, but for people using a mouse/keyb combo this will be an utter turnoff, especially since the OS seems to fall back to the tiled look every now and then. I could underatand if tiles were an "addon" to the regular desktop version, but then they could have just released that as a "Windows 7 Tablet Edition" or whatever. Or make a clean desktop version and a clean tile version, not both mixed in some horrid mix.

Going from the pleasing blue look in Windows 7 to a 2-dimensional mix of colorful tiles is a major turn off for me, and I will definately not upgrade unless MS makes sure you can get rid of the junk in "desktop" mode. Also, I have not seen any special new features in Win8 that seems useful to me, it seems all the focus has been put into the tiles and nothing else.

As I said, for tablets I can see the tile design very useful and for once a true focus on tablet devices, but they seem to have forgot that the majority doesn't have an ARM/x86 tablet, and for those Win8 will not offer them anything.

I would rather seen Win8 being named Windows 8 Tablet Edition or something, only then can I accept the direction Microsoft aims at with Win8. Otherwise I'll skip the OS, just as i did with Win98 (not SE), WinME and Vista.

"I would rather seen Win8 being named Windows 8 Tablet Edition or something"
Right on the money.
This tablet/metro thing seems to be the only thing that Microsoft is tooting in Win8. Even the underlying "desktop" underneath Metro seems to be a hashed/slashed/cooked version of of old WinPhone.....

windows lost me when all my old software was no longer useable at Vista, so its linux and windows xp for me. When XP stops just linux, I don't want to be bothered with buying all new software

Ha, somehow I hear a lot of those complaints and the only old software that didn't work for me on Vista was Diablo 2 - threw a "known compatibility issue" error. I wonder how many of the users REALLY had a lot of software refusing to work...

There is always something new and changes. Otherwise we'd still be using commodore 64 and crappy ms-dos as our only PCs. You won't be using xp or your current version of Linux 10 years from now. Even today's Linux is different from 10 years ago.

quit your complaining...you can run old software using dosbox, winxp mode, or vm...no need to stay in the past with your host os...

Use a Virtual Machine with XP installed and you get the best of both worlds (including Linux!). That being said, I don't understand people's complaint with the Tiles. Microsoft has said over and over again that it can be turned off so you can utilize the standard taskbar on a PC. Besides, how long would it take for developers to help us modify win8 to turn off Tiles permanently?

Wow... Half the Chinese in one of those pictures is just gibberish..... O_O

Metro --> MS future failure. Metro is pain in butt to use even on Phone not to mention desktop. What are they thinking? Are they expecting from me to use keyboard and mouse to browse huge ass tiles on my screen?

MS is going into wrong direction since Windows Vista and they lost it.
Metro is tied to lot of things so i am not even sure if it is going to be possible to completely remove it. In any case offers nothing over Windows 7 for people to upgrade therefore they are setting themselves for a big dissapointment. And Steve Ballmer needs to go ASAP, he is better off to work at Circus.

First, I don't think MS cares how many screen leaks or torrent leaks people get. All screens, even leaked are not final and MS can not comment on it. For the torrent leaks, I think the betas all have an expire date so they can't even load after a specific time (even when changing the clock). Also no one will care about the betas after the alphas are out. And so on, and so forth...

Second, I hear lots of complaints about the new metro UI - myself included. So, my guess is - if people start to use Windows 8 on the phone and tablets, then see its possible to use the UI on the desktop, this will all make sense. After a few years.

Im glad that horrible green colour they first showed wasnt permanent

I'm not liking this tiles thing at all, like many others (Microsoft should realize that many don't by now). Windows could use a UI change but not like this. It feels closed off. it seems just like another media center except ugly, there is no design to it. At least put some damned drop shadows or something visually appealing, it needs depth. It Just seems to cover up all the stuff I really want to get to.This feels like a step back.
I don't want to look at a bunch of squares and rectangles. I want see a nice background and pull up what I want to look at. I don't want to look at all the apps I have. I would be happy with just animated 3D (ish) icons as a UI change.

Microsoft get the hint already... the tiles are ugly. I want my system to be visually appealing. The one thing windows has going for it is its "open" feeling, like a window. I realize this can be turned off but then it will only be win7 with a different number, security fixes, and slight enhancements. Focus on the enhancements! stop trying to radically change things and work with what you have now and make it better. You were on the right track with windows7, don't let this be another flop like ME or Vista. I have a feeling im going to be like diehard XP users only with windows 7 instead. and drop the price a little too. I I have 5 computers in my home I cant afford to put a new os on all of them.

I think the people in charge of the Xbox 360 dashboard all designing Windows 8.

I'll take the new Ubuntu interface (started with the 11.04 release) any day.

There should be a ban on comments unless people have at least used the Dev Build for a minimum of a week. Personally, I have enjoyed using the metro interface, but have already played with turning it off, and it turns off fine with a simple reg hack (though I turned it back on as I have hated the start menu and avoided it where possible from day one of win95).

I have used 64bit on a desktop with no problems, used both 32 and 64bit on an Acer Aspire One with 1GB of ram with no problems on either (though it took forever to figure out the 1024x768 limitation for metro apps, and the netbook only does native res of 1024x600 unless you install the intel chipset/graphics drivers).

Just this week someone at work gave me an Asus T100MT (I think), which is a netbook (same specs as the Aspire One) with a touch screen, and converts into a tablet (very cool and useful!). While Win8 works fine on a normal setup, it is a while different experience on a touch screen... and a whole different game compared to the win7 touch screen attempt. It took some getting use to, but now I find that I am using the keyboard+touch instead of the keyboard+mouse, which really surprised me as I have hated all things touch screen so far in life (I swear, most phones hate me lol). and while in tablet mode I love the split keyboard for thumb typing. It works very well, though still not as good as a real keyboard it is much easier than the standard layout.

What really amazes me with win8 is just how smoking fast it runs until you run out of ram. Not a whole lot of difference on the desktop while I had it on there, but the netbooks ran much smoother with win8, and I will be running win8 on them until the final release when I have to pay for it (then it will be back to win7 probably). Once out of Ram though, they really bog down, and it feels like win7Basic always did. Perhaps it would be worth upgrading both to 2GB to solve the problem. The only other major complaint is the 1024x768 limitation. I really hope I can run metro properly at native res in the beta coming up, and cant wait to see what other changes they finally allow.

You do realize a lot of that was fixed in Vista after the service packs. Also win7Pro has excellent winXP/98 support for old programs (and even limited availability in home edition). Not to mention what you can do with virtual machines and such these days, and they are not that hard to set up like they use to be. Besides, if you are talking about production software (which is the only real expensive software) there have been a lot of advances in just about every major program over the last 6 years, so paying for new software would not be all that bad. Sure there would be a new learning curve, but the automation, and compatibility of newer programs far outweighs the issues of old software.

why I can't just have an empty desktop where I can left&right click anywhere and open cascading or forking application&setting menus? why i need to go start button (win7 or earlier) or use some freaking metro tabs (win8)? why microsoft???? windows - what a clutter fest!

e16 is still the best out there, but no gaming in linux :-(

/minimalist

I AM ALSO ANGRY ABOUT HOW THINGS SOMETIMES CHANGE AND I HAVE TO ADJUST!

fantastic, looks perfect for a cell phone (which I don't have).

Every single article involving windows 8 just leads to a flury of useless "I hate metro" uniformed, retarded ,restated comments. Fucking idiots.