Windows 8 was purposely tested on a 4 year old machine which even in its time was merely entry level. Specs should be on par with current low-end netbooks. If Windows 8 can prove its worth on this test machine, then it’s worthy to run on anything else as well.
Amilo Li1705 (April 2007)
- CPU: Intel Core Duo T2250 @ 1.73GHz
- Memory: 2GB DDR2 667MHz
- Graphics: VIA Chrome9 HC with up to 256MB shared graphics
- OS Version: Windows 8 Developer Preview (6.2.8102.0) x86
- 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
- 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
- 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
- DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
After installation all drivers were installed and full functionality was available out of the box, including wireless, which is quite impressive given the dated hardware. Right from the get-go you login with your Windows Live ID which at least in the final build will integrate with your Desktop. The large amount of visual changes make sure you don’t confuse this build with Windows 7, at least at first glance. Switching from Metro to the classical Desktop brings up a much more familiar interface. Metro apps only work in full screen and problems have been encountered with the available ones (no starting or very sluggish). The Market is not yet available but will on the official release. Shutting down is a huge hassle at the moment and we hope Microsoft will fix this. Rebooting sometimes froze the test machine during boot; the culprit might be the hybrid booting technology or some other bug.
Besides the obvious Metro interface Windows 8 also brings significant improvements to a few other of its core programs. Most noticeably the Windows Explorer file manager and the Task Manager. The file manager finally got the Ribbon touch which makes it integrate better with other Ribbon interfaces and permits more touch friendly interactions. It took Microsoft well over a decade to add some much needed features to the file manager and they finally listed to the complaints. Improvements will also be noticed in the new file operations dialog box (as seen to the right). It’s now possible to mount .VHD and .ISO files without 3rd party software. While far from being the ideal File Manager the default Explorer shows promise. The Task Manager on the other hand is more than on par with its competition. Powerusers rejoice: now it has every bell and whistle!
- Windows Store - Microsoft screams “me too” with the App Store trend.
- Picture Password - allows users to sketch in three different places over the picture to login
- Better Multiple Monitor Support - extended taskbar and multiple wallpapers.
- Refresh and Reset - users are now able to “Reset to factory settings” their PCs, as they would their phones.
- Windows Live ID integration - a la Chrome OS
- Windows To Go - Portable Workspace Creator can make a Live USB on drives with at least 32GB (a la Linux)
- USB 3.0 support
- ARM support - Linux and Android beware, Windows is finally coming to a tablet near you!
- Hyper-V virtualization - which means nothing to average users.
- No flash in IE10 - taking sides with Apple against Adobe.
- Improved BSOD - for those sad moments.
In order to properly benchmark the installation time on the mentioned test machine a Corsair Voyager GT flash drive was used to minimize read delay on the installation medium. Although very similar to the Windows 7 installation, the setup was blazing fast: 7 minutes 40 seconds to the first prompt to setup user preferences and a total of 9 minutes and 15 seconds to a full blown desktop. By comparison, an unattended Windows 7 Ultimate x86 installation (which was trimmed to fit in a 700mb .iso) took 9 minutes and 30 seconds to complete. Microsoft has considerably decresead installation time.
Another massively improved aspect is the boot time. Thanks to a hybrid boot process that partially uses hibernation Windows 8 booted to a usable desktop in 33 seconds, compared to 47 seconds it took for Windows 7 on the same antiquated machine.
Memory improvements have been noticed as well: Windows 8 was using only 360MB of memory after startup with 281MB cached. When idle the Cache to In Use ratio had the tendency to rise. Memory optimization makes Windows 8 actually feasible on a 1GB machine. Although that was the minimum requirement for Windows 7 too, chances are that Windows 8 makes a better choice for low RAM machines.
After all this flattery come the complaints. The Windows 8 experience on the test machine was very lacking. Everything was sluggish and even the transitions and effects were choppy, especially moving through Metro. The main reason for this unpleasantry is then composite window manager. In layman’s terms the culprit is Aero. The GPU of the test machine simply can’t cope with what Aero is throwing at it. This is very disappointing, especially since rival composite managers such as Compiz on Linux run very smoothly on even less capable systems while delivering even more eye-candy. Turning Aero off sped things up considerably but as with its predecessor, Windows 7, you will be left with a somewhat crippled looking and feeling desktop. Certain Metro Apps, such as Weather for example were almost unusable due to the Dreamscene-like animated background.
If this is how Windows 8 will look like when RTM then Windows’ Design Team should be unsocked, dressed up in matching ones then shot! Blue Aero with blue wallpaper and blue GUI go great with green peaking Metro interface and green Metro desktop. Windows seems to be moving from Glass framed windows with transparency and blur to colored rectangles. Aesthetics have been obviously left out with Windows 8. The only improvements have been made are to the Classical Theme which now feels a tad more polished and to the login screen, despite it obviously being touch-centered. Having that said, Technophile will abstain (this time!) from ranting as to how dumb the whole Metro thing looks.
Technophile will not be jumping on the Windows 8 train until utilities such as nLite, vLite or RT 7 Lite are available for Windows 8, to trim down much of its own fat as well. It’s quite impressive though to see Microsoft so preoccupied with aspects that have bothered users in the past. Memory, boot time and installation improvements as well as a revamped Task Manager and polished Explorer steer Windows 8 away from being another Vista. However, everything considered and disregarding updates to its core programs Windows 8 is not as much OS material as it is Service Pack material. Windows 8 is a nifty upgrade for students who needn’t pay for it and for users who don’t mind spending the money for it. Enterprises, however, have absolutely nothing to gain from upgrading and should wait for the next iteration.