Ask HN: Is Windows 8 = just Windows 7 + a new start menu in Metro design?

8 points·tferris··6 comments

Could anyone test the new beta and make some experiences?

Ars Technica has been running a series of articles: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/

I have noticed that social networks are better integrated (whatever that's worth to you). For example if you click on "Photos" it will show you local photos, Facebook photos, and Flickr photos next to each other.

Also, Metro isn't just a new Start screen, it's a whole framework for application developers to make apps. It replaces the old overlapping-windows paradigm with full-screen (or tiling) app windows.

I'm a Mac/Linux guy so I haven't really looked at it much. However, people should consider that 9/10 desktop computers run Windows so the little things that Microsoft does makes a difference.

My one big positive takeaway is that IE10 is the default browser, and it's on par with all the other HTML5 browsers available. This will go a long way towards getting the stragglers using "HTML5". It's about time for a lot of XP users to upgrade, right?

The fact that they made HTML5 a first-class platform is encouraging. Even IE10 lags behind other browsers if you look across all of the APIs, but then it also has some features that a lot of browsers haven't done yet (like css3 calc).

As far as I an tell yes it is, but with a few changes on how you interact with "applications". I believe this is Microsoft finally stepping into the tablet market. As a power user I will just disable metro or stay with Windows 7.

They are also betting on touch screens with Metro. MS believes that touch screens will be common on all computing devices in the next few years.

What is it you specifically want to see? "make some experiences" is a bit vague to respond to, and the internet is loaded with videos and hands-on articles.

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