Just in case MS reads the forum...

I will place my findings here.

The installer leaves all kind of garbage after itself. Some should be removed with Disk Cleanup since regular Delete fails due to security settings. The other, like the installer downloaded stuff, must be just deleted since Disk Cleanup does not know about them. All that should go to the ReviewAndDelete folder which should also contain a readme file describing what is what.

MS failed to communicate. The developer preview raised a wave of cries like "I need the Start button back". In the Consumer Preview it is essentially back, but the same wave rises again. This is a communication problem. There is a fine evaluation guide in PDF, which is somehow not installed with the preview, but even it does not explain how to use the Start Screen. I guess people just do not notice that the All Apps screen is the new Start button, only better.

The wonder of the right click in a corner is not mentioned anywhere, but already discovered in blogs. I have found another wonder - Enter in the start screen activates the top left tile, desktop lovers, me included, may find it very handy to place the desktop there.

The Task Manager is really nice.

When I press a volume button on my USB speaker, I get a visual notification of the volume. Simple and cool. Or should I say "fast and fluid"?

The Japanese IME is finally fixed! It took 5 versions of Windows to achieve that, give or take.

 

Why not use the feedback icons found in Win 8? MS will definitely get your input then..

 

Help and Support. A very comprehensive "drivers" manual.
An excerpt: (picture not included here)
"The charms: Search, Share, Start, Devices, and Settings
The charms provide new and better ways to do things you’ve always done. Here’s a glimpse of what each charm does—but they can do a lot more, so explore what they can do for you.

• The Search charm is a powerful new way to find what you’re looking for. When you enter a search term, you can check results from your PC, the web, or within different apps—all from the same place.
• The Share charm lets you send links, photos, and more to your friends and social networks without leaving the app you’re in.
• The Start charm takes you to Start or, if you’re on the Start screen, back to your last app.
• The Devices charm is a handy way to do things like sending files and streaming movies to printers, TVs, and more.
• The Settings charm is how you do basic tasks like shutting down your PC and changing the volume. It’s also used by apps to configure things like account and privacy settings.

The charms
The charms appear on the right side of your screen. Swipe in from the right edge or move your mouse to the lower-right corner to see them, and then choose the one you want.

 

Feedback buttons look like a feature that will be used later when App Store gains popularity, anyway, they are a Metro only thing. I tried to use one in Weather and found the check buttons too limiting and the text input window is too small. Thus,I pressed Cancel and was done with the Feedback.

I actually had problems with Weather - it may fail to start. I just see the ugly initial screen for 5 seconds or so and return to the Start Screen after that. The second or third attempt to start Weather is usually successful. I am not sure, but it looks like Weather has more startup problems immediately after Windows is booted. I even think that MS cheats with boot - the Start Screen is visible, but the mouse cursor indicates "wait" several times for few seconds. If Windows is not fully booted, then it is natural for Weather to fail to start.

When I pressed "see more" I have got a message that Opera is used by another user and I have to reinstall it with multiple account settings so that different users may use the same instance of Opera. It may be an Opera problem, but something is seriously wrong here - I should be me in Metro and Desktop. After reboot the problem disappeared, but I made IE the default protocol handler anyway.

Weather used "sensors" to determine my initial location. Since there are no location sensors in a desktop PC, that must be the IP. Weather was about 100 km off. This can be easily fixed by setting the correct location as the default, but I decided I should specify that globally. I did not find how I can do that. I guess there are at least 2 scenarios when location sensors data must be overridden. First, when the sensors malfunction. Second, when traveling and interested in the destination, not the current position.

I would also like to complain about Start Screen - All Apps.

When an entry is found with search, I would like to be able to see where it is without search. I tried to achieve that by selecting the item and turning search off, but as soon as I
select search disappears.

I would like to be able to select several items and pin or whatever all at once.

I discussed the new Start Screen with a Windows 8 hater and he agreed that it is OK for a desktop (!), but on a smaller mobile device it will be very hard to scroll through lots of screens to get to the right place in All Apps. This is yet another reason why All Apps and, possibly, the Start Screen must have folders.

 

Help is OK when you already know what you are looking for. The Search passage above is correct, but essentially means "the Search charm is there. Try to figure out what it does". People wonder 1) what exactly it does and 2) how is it better, example please.

On the first look, I prefer something that I can read without clicking links after each paragraph. Something like the product guide.

 

It is very funny to see what happens if the Metro IE is right clicked while loading a page.

In the Metro IE: right click, "+" to add a Frequent, and Back. I have not added anything, but the screen shows an empty white tab. A bug, right?

All Apps scroll with just a mouse move, Weather does not. Frequents in the Metro IE and Places in Weather are the same thing, why do they look so different? Why Reader does not have tabs? Metro is good enough to make it clear that such inconsistences should be eliminated at the system level. There are few things that software actually does, like presenting data from a file or traversing a tree or net. There are very few reasonable ways to do each. UI inconsistencies are unnatural. I guess MS just did not have enough time, resources, and understanding to make progress on that in Metro and possibly the next versions will be wiser, but now it is a bit self defeating.

 

If you haven't already try visiting the Store. This should update one or two of the Metro apps depending on what you got going on..

 

I have 4 Metro style apps right now:

Store - just in case. I guess something is being added to it, but I am not sure. It is virtually empty anyway.

SkyDrive - looks useful, but I do not know what to put there yet. This app has the top dumb way to select files - with the path to the current folder hidden. Unfortunately, it looks like that is the Metro standard.

Reader - barely useful since maintains an easy list of recent files, but how come it does not read MS formats or text? Looks like this is the current Metro and App Store philosophy - as soon as something is barely useful, push it to App Store. This may backfire pretty soon.

Internet Explorer - nice to know there are no plugins. BTW, this very box where I type this comment goes crazy after a switch to the mini form.

If Reader and Explored displayed something readable the mini form, it might be nice to have them in the mini form next to the desktop.

I tried Lyrics from the app store. The installation and uninstallation were really quick and pleasant. Lyrics itself is a bit dumb, according to the philosophy explained above. There is no direct way to return to the Lyrics initial screen. Foreing lyrics is normally missing and when something is present it is not translated to English (or whatever) and not displayed in native form, like kanji.

 

Metro apps suspend when they go out of focus and are terminated when resources are to be reclaimed. This is OK for a dumbed down tablet, but spoils the desktop experience. All apps, Metro or not, are included when Alt-TAB is pressed and that is correct. However, the suspended Metro apps are not always welcome. I may be glad to see that some Metro app is not terminated yet, but I may also be annoyed to see garbage.

There must be some way to close a Metro app for good.

 

Woe, another bug in the Metro IE! When I post to this thread I guess a renewed page with the post I just added and garbage (like half erased lines) in the post box. If I click in the box, the garbage disappears.

 

This is what I meant when I wrote check for updates....

 

I reread your first post:

You can run an advanced form of Disk Cleaner which is accessible via Command Prompt. To access this right click command prompt and run as admin. Then type:
cleanmgr/sageset:1
Press Enter and the Disk Cleaner box will open. You'll notice that there are many more check boxes than usual (see pic). Tick these and click ok.
To get it to run, now type:
cleanmgr/sagerun:1
Press Enter and you'll see it do it's thing..

 

Kemical: The method to "close" first looked like a good joke, but since these apps are so easy to install and uninstall, why not?

I guess I have seen the store Updates once, but I have deleted most of the preinstalled Metro apps too early to be sure. Maybe Weather has received an update. If 1.0.1030.0 is not the initial version, it has. Interestingly, I cannot copy and paste the version from the About. Not a show stopper, but some very, very bad feeling.

I guess cleanmgr should do the cleanup after the installer, at least the caption of the check box sounds right, but I cannot test that since all files are already deleted. However, why does "cleanmgr /?" show a dialog box? People are used to "clearmgr /? > clearmgr.txt" and the like. There is no description of all the wonderful options neither built in, nor in the online help. I hope that will be in the final version, but still, it is a 10 minutes problem at best to do "clearmgr /? /verbose" to the console.

Finally, cleanmgs reminds me about long awaited fixes. There is still no normal cut and paste in the console window, "cle+TAB" finds cleanmgr when in system32 but not elsewhere. With "where" MS started to fix the console, so I had hopes...

 

Oops I misconstrued what you meant..

You can right click on open metro apps to close fully. Go to the the bottom left hand corner as if your going to Start menu and slide the cursor up. You'll then see which apps are open. Right clicking on them will bring up the close option... Any help?

 

Yes. This is a logical way, and I even refreshed what docs tell about the Metro application life cycle and played with all the Win+Tab and the like actions. Amazingly, I found the behavior complex, like snapped apps not showing in Win+Tab and how Win+Tab and Alt+Tab are different, but intuitive and correct.

Interestingly enough, MSDN does not tell that the close option exists in the right click menu, but it tells that Alt-F4 closes the app. I guess there is so much talk in the Net that discusses Metro vs Windows issues, that obvious things are hard to remember. Indeed, Atl+F4 is from another Universe!

Now, when the closing issue is settled, I wonder how can I prevent a Metro style app from being suspended or closed by Windows. The problem is mainly of the "all that goes up should also go down" nature, but I can imagine some useful scenarios: I want an app to stay in Alt-Tab; an app is essentially a background process (or worth - it is a background process under my very specific needs) and the developer failed to prevent suspension; an app fails to preserve the context correctly.

IE 10 looks like an example of the latter. I purposely let it to be suspended and terminated while there is text in the post entry box, and when it was restarted the text was gone.

 

I have put the first Metro app to true use. It is IE. I have to install Flash since the NHK site transmits TV using it. Flash has a major fault - it displays the annoying "Press ESC" message when going full screen. Due to its zero plugin nature Metro IE does not have Flash, so it is much better in showing youtube videos that use HTML5 if there is no Flash - instant full screen, no annoyance.

 

Strange thing that I do not dare to test. I have put the Eclipse shortcut to the Start menu. Eclipse is a portable program, but when the shortcut is selected I see the Uninstall option enabled. This is either not very good or very bad, to scary to find out.

 

Hmm.... How so?