As i finally persuaded myself to take a shot at the latest OS in town primarily because of the huge discount that MS fished out to me for a win 8 pro upgrade from my all time fav win 7 and i happily took the bait.Here is the link for the same (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows/buy?ocid=GA8_O_MSCOM_Prog_FPP_Null_Null)
So there i was downloading the ISO at the very instant that i got a chance .Initially it would download the Win8 Upgrade Assistant and once you have finished reviewing it like this.
The assistant would also do a check whether the programs in the existing OS are compatible or not in the new Win 8 OS.
Once you have downloaded the ISO which has a size of approx 2.76 gigs,you are ready to go as you can either burn the it onto a drive or make a bootable Usb and install it .Please ensure that you have taken down the serial key before you move to other things.Obviously they would have mailed you the key as well,but keep it handy and safe.
There is a good article by Tim Fisher on how to clean install Win 8 which will pretty much cover everything you would ever want during installation.Here goes the link once again (http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/ss/windows-8-clean-install-part-1.htm) .And here is the part where he explains how to do it via USB. (http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/a/install-windows-8-usb.htm).
Once you land into the Win 8 world you will be taken aback initially by the Metro look but then you will feel back to Win 7 world when you hit Windows Key(this key acts as a switch between the 2 worlds).Never ever i have so often used this key as now.Its almost impossible to keep my hands of it as you would soon realise that nearly all the shortcuts are based on it.
Before we run and install the shortcuts,we will all feel the never ending urge to install all the required softwares and go to each of their sites and install .But do you remember them all?Don’t bother, following is the link from Scott Hanselman who has prepared a list of all the shortcuts in windows 8 here as well as a well written article on win 8 tricks. (http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows8ProductivityWhoMovedMyCheeseOhThereItIs.aspx)
Also here is the list of most used software that we would ever need from Scott !(http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ScottHanselmans2011UltimateDeveloperAndPowerUsersToolListForWindows.aspx)
Finally to just let the whole thing start sinking i would leave you with a video from Scott on YouTube which would make you a lot more comfortable on the new OS.
My favorites in Windows 8 are hitting Win + PrintScreen and it goes directly into the picture folder as a PNG.Also if you a dev guy you will find yourself hitting Win + X key a lot of times over the next few years!For people who hate finding the charms with your mouse hit Win + C.It is next to impossible not to love the new copy-paste mechanism built in .Did i mention the new Task Manager? Its a gem! And hitting del a file no longer asks you for confirmation ,unless you do shift +del.
Finally my two cents is Win 8 will not excite the enterprise market as the new OS is in neither land .Its not tablet nor desktop and this leaves a lot to be desired on a system which is not having touch screens.But then Windows were always like this.They were always the patches and fixes and bugs and SP1/SP2/SP3 guys.So they ended up having a OS which was a mix of everything.God forbid lest it become the next Vista!
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