Just Installed Windows 8 on an RM Slate

[Dos_Box]

I've just finally got the developer preview of Windows 8 installed on the Atom based RM Slate last night. It installed first time and even had the touch screen drivers installed for pre-installation configuration. Sweet. It runs lovely and smooth as well which came as a bit of a shock and I'm now working on an overview article for you all, so watch this space!

[featured_spectre]

Better than Windows 7 on the slate? Is it less resource hungry on there??

[Dos_Box]

It's very light and very responsive, even running on the Atom. As it's a preview build there is still a lot of work to do and the screen rotation does not work (yet), but it is still very usable and a huge improvement on W7 touch wise. Credit should also go to the on-screen keyboard which is a joy to work with.

I particularly liked the bit when I was trying to use the touch screen setup applet in control panel and it asked me to press enter without giving me a KB to use! Still, all the apps I have installed such as Skype and Messenger work lovely with it so far and I'm just putting Outlook on now to see how that fares.

[north-ict]

I've just finally got the developer preview of Windows 8 installed on the Atom based RM Slate last night. It installed first time and even had the touch screen drivers installed for pre-installation configuration. Sweet. It runs lovely and smooth as well which came as a bit of a shock and I'm now working on an overview article for you all, so watch this space!

 

 

I look forward to your article.

[featured_spectre]

Did it not pull the programs from updating the machine?? Mine did no problem. Runs PhotoShop, office 2010 and SWIron browser no problem.

[Dos_Box]

No, I did a fresh install, as I had Ubuntu on there, also I wanted to see what the full installation process would be like. The install process was the most painless I've ever seen with Windows and I hope they keep that for the final version!

[Dos_Box]

I'm just trying to find a good way to do screen grabs before I start writing.

[featured_spectre]

It reminds me of the windows 7 install.

 

On your keyboard, Ctrl+alt+p should do a print screen shot.

[Dos_Box]

I'm going to build a VM for most screen grabs and try and photograph the tab screen I think.

[fengelm]

The "snipping tool" is in the Windows Developer Preview.... just start typing Snipp and Search will find it

[Arthur]

Is it less resource hungry on there??

In terms of resource usage, Windows 8 is going to be a lot better than Windows 7...

 

http://i.imgur.com/plJnw.png

 

The 281MB figure above also includes the built-in anti-virus/anti-malware running in the background.

Edited September 17, 2011 by Arthur

[pandadna]

I have also upgraded it to Windows 8. It did improve a lot on touch experience. But the auto LCD light adjustment really bother me. Is there any way to turn it off? I tried to install the Millennium3.1(x86) but failed. Thanks Thanks for any suggestion?

[pandadna]

Okay, I fixed it. Please note that most of the drivers and Millennium3.1 tools will only work on 32 bits of Windows 8.....Even with the compatible mode will not work.

[Michael]

I thought Windows 8 was/is 64Bit exclusively, allowing Microsoft to optimise it to the max? With a mid/late 2012 release, this would make a lot of sense.

 

If you want 32Bit, then Windows 7 will be supported for approx 10 years. I suspect Windows 7 and Windows 8 would work nicely together.

[localzuk]

I thought Windows 8 was/is 64Bit exclusively, allowing Microsoft to optimise it to the max? With a mid/late 2012 release, this would make a lot of sense.

 

If you want 32Bit, then Windows 7 will be supported for approx 10 years. I suspect Windows 7 and Windows 8 would work nicely together.

 

They've released the preview of Windows 8 in 32bit and 64bit. Whether this is what they'll release when it comes to RTM, who knows, but at the moment it has both.

[Arthur]

I thought Windows 8 was/is 64-bit exclusively

I can't find the link at the moment, but Windows 8 will definitely be available in 32-bit and 64-bit editions. Windows 9 will probably be 64-bit only though.

[pandadna]

Yes, there is 32bit of Windows 8 developer preview edition. Just share my experience that if you want the Millennium tool work you have to install the 32bit version on your RM slate. Or you can not disable the Ambient light sensor which is very annoyed to me..

[pandadna]

Please check the link below and the third one is 32 bit edition.

Windows Metro Style Apps Developer Downloads

[Arthur]

Found it!

 

On a final note about system requirements, while Microsoft isn’t talking about specific versions of Windows 8 at this time, they've made it clear that x86 will live on for at least one more generation in order to fulfill their desire to have Windows 8 run on everything Windows 7 ran on. (Source)

[markcuk]

They are dropping flash support BBC News - Microsoft drops Flash from IE on Windows 8 tablets

[localzuk]

They are dropping flash support BBC News - Microsoft drops Flash from IE on Windows 8 tablets

 

Not entirely true -they have said the IE for Metro UI is not having any plugin support at all.

 

This doesn't mean the 'classic' style IE will not support them.

 

Plus, it isn't flash specific. It also means no Java support, no skype support etc...

[Dos_Box]

I have Skype installed and it works perfectly, as does Flash under the 'classic' IE shell. However the lack of Flash via the Metro IE interface is a major pain. News sites, YouTube and roberbly 90% of the media on the web simply fails to show. Perhaps it is fair enough Apple, and now Microsoft forcing the HTML 5 standard, but what about all of the legacy items that will be still left on the net such as most of the BBC News video content? It seems a bit silly that for the forst time in history we have a seachable history book with video/audio footage in the internet and we are to tear out half the pages. I do hope there will be room for some kind of Flash playback in there, even if it is opened in a seperate player, but I now know what an iPad owner feels like when trying to catch up with current events!

 

Edited to add: I also installed Firefox to look at Flash, but it took up too many resources (memory and CPU hog!) so I removed it. I may try Chrome today.

[Dos_Box]

Oh, and if you need drivers or a link to the Millenium App you can download them from RM here: RM Slate 100 driver collection (Microsoft Windows 7 - 32 bit) [M11JB / 0ALC269 / 0GMA500 / AR9002 / AX88772]

The Millenium app is contained in the PEGATRON_ADXL346_INPUT_WIN7_AUG10.exe download should you need it.

[hfnistelrooy]

I tried to install the 32bit edition on the slate the other day and it prompted me for the hard drive drivers as it could not find a drive in setup. I left it there

[Dos_Box]

If you have the drive BIOS settings set to ACPI try setting it to IDE mode. Setup should see the drive then. You should not need seperate drivers to install W8 on the RM Slate.