My #Windows8 thoughts

The UI is derived from Windows 7 and looks like it with the titles of the windows justified more to the center (compared to the usual left). Nothing major and nothing that you can't get used to. Although I liked the left aligned titles more. Especially if you have a bunch of cascading windows and the dangerous close button far away from the Title of the window.

The transitions (ALT-TAB) for example are also wonderful and very nice "swap" effect. Reminds me more of phone UI, but the similarities don't just stop there

Press the window button and you get Microsoft's Metro-UI like you have on the windows phone 7. This is where my joy of using a new OS stops! The UI is probably OK or even good on phones or even XBOX... but on a PC? Sorry Microsoft, but who gave you the impression that Metro UI was such a success that you decided to copy in your flagship operating system?

In my opinion Metro UI is a UI that someone asked the engineers at Fischer-Price to design for babies! It's horrible and on a PC it has no place!

I was "stuck" with either liking the Metro UI or going back to the "Classic" look. In other words, windows 7 UI, which in my opinion is the best Microsoft has to offer to date. But it's disappointing that I can get improvements on that just because I have to go the route of Metro UI to be able to get them!

I liked the new task manager that has an interesting new state for Apps running in the background. "Suspended", which is a nice addition. Why should the background app use any resources if it's not doing anything. Right? And why kill it like Apple does? Suspended seems more appropriate.

The Web browser was odd! I mean a major departure from the old IE. With controls on the bottom instead of the top. I'm not sure who came up with that idea, but, meh ... who cares, it's not that big of a deal anyway, top or bottom as long as it runs. To that I can say, it was very fast and it almost rendered everything correctly.

In general, my initial impression is positive. The OS is fast and snappy. Looks good and comes with a few things to get you started on facebook, twitter and browsing. But fails as a Desktop Os, and comes short as a Phone OS!

Let's wait and see how Microsoft is going to further enhance this OS as the battle with Lion, Android "Ice Cream Sandwitch" and the Linux(es) with all their flavors draws near.

It's clear that the next battle is going to be in the UI, usability, and most importantly the availability of "Apps" to make sure that all your computer whims are met.

It's worth nothing that "Market" didn't open on Windows 8. So even old Apps couldn't be verified on the new OS. But otherwise things appeared to run smoothly