Friday, August 24, 2012

Windows 8 Linkage: In Which a Name is Chosen

CC attribution: The Window by Tiberiu Ana on flickr.

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As you may recall, when we last left the Windows 8 naming saga, there was much prognosticating and reading of those chicken gizzards in a cast-iron pan out in the back shed with herbs over a fire…oh…wait…the announcement is in? All right! Out with it man!

Well…that was a bit of a letdown.

-10 for originality Redmond. Really?

Moving on…now…where did I put that ground cornmeal and hushpuppy mix? That divination work out back was making me hungry…

Here is the latest collection of Windows 8 linkage for review, education, and general future reference if the Valca clan ever decided to roll this way.

Still not convinced yet. I’m betting Windows 7 is the new Windows XP.

Win8 - Start Here - Get It

Win8 - Related Products and Services

Win8 - Install It

Win8 - Under the Hood

Win8 - To Go

Win8 - Tweaks 

Win8 - Deeper Insights

Win8 - Usage Tips

Win8 - Miscellanea, Rumors, & General Grumblings

Windows 8 - GSD Previously Posted

Cheers!

--Claus V.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

A very good post about Windows 8 productivity is this one from Scott Hanselman:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows8ProductivityWhoMovedMyCheeseOhThereItIs.aspx

Highly recommended.

The one slight disappointment in his list for me, is Hyper-V, specifically for client virtualisation. Hyper-V, like Virtual PC before it I believe, and unlike VirtualBox and VMware's offerings, doesn't support custom screen resolutions, meaning one is limited to the default resolutions while running the VM non-full screen.

Those with large resolution-screens, and/or running server versions and managing those with host-installed software (e.g. Server Manager for Windows Server), probably don't care that much. For those who virtualise rich client software (e.g. Visual Studio) which needs every available pixel however, it's something of a deal breaker.

Claus said...

@ Anonymous - Agreed! Scott's "Who Moved my Cheese" was an excellent post and came out just after I got this one spun together. I had read it with rapt attention yesterday late afternoon. Just missed the editor's deadline here at GSD to be included.

After reading it I was well encouraged to take a deep cleansing breath and confess I "might" now be more open to a sooner upgrade to Win8 that I believed possible earlier.

That coupled with the newer round of Start-Page skipping utilities might make the Win 8 OS quite bearable and -- dare I say it -- pleasant.

Regarding Hyper-V, while I follow it, I don't actually use it, either at home or at work. VMware is the primary platform of late for my/our virtualization hosting and I generally still prefer VirtualBox for my Linux work. I've seen Hyper-V demo'ed and in training sessions and I get the platform benefits particularly if you are running Windows Server.

I don't really see anything (yet) in my own personal needs that would cause me to jump to it over the other two choices at this time...even on Windows 8.

Thanks for taking the time to comment!

--Claus V.

Anonymous said...

@ Claus V.: Thank you for your response. I agree that VirtualBox seems most focused and refined for Linux virtualisation, while I prefer VMware for Windows ones.

One further limitation of Hyper-V I forgot to mention, is that enabling it blocks other software from using the CPU's hardware support for virtualisation. This means that VMware can't even be installed, while VirtualBox can still be used but without the ability to support 64-bit guests or SMP.