Re: Windows 8 Developer Preview
 

you need to go into power save and turn off the hard drive power down option. Power button is usually set to soft off nowadays by default. Easy to change in advance power options anyway

Re: Windows 8 Developer Preview
 

Well yes, but if you want a shut down button, you can easily set one.

Just saying... If Start > Settings > Power Icon > Shut down is too complex just set your power button to do the same thing.

Re: Windows 8 Developer Preview
 

Well, I've thrown it at a machine that JUST meets the specs for the 32bit version - HP TC1100 1GHz Celeron CPU, 2Gb Ram, 40Gb Hard drive - why? because it's a tablet PC and I use it as a baseline for windows usability under multiple layouts.

Opinion? - Not a whole lot, the machine isn't multitouch in fact it's digitizer driven, so it at least can make some use of the touch system.

Closing Applications - doesn't seem to be a way to do it other than dropping out of metro and using the task manager. Yes the app is suspended but it still reserves memory.

Speed - I know I'm at the bottom end of the spectrum on this machine for the required specs, but 7 is double the speed. 8 seems like windows 7 with the windows phone 7 interface pasted on top badly.

Reliability - Now, I know it's a dev preview so I'm not going to hold this against it but it has locked up a couple of times and launching applications seems to have issues sometimes.

Given that it's a development preview I'm not going to base final judgment on this incarnation, but initial opinion is that it's suited to a much faster machine with a multitouch interface, as an upgrade to existing machines without that multitouch system - not so much. I really hope the beta and final versions are faster and gain the ability not just to suspend the app but to close it. If not, then I won't be considering it as an operating system I would install or advise people to go for.

Re: Windows 8 Developer Preview
 

hope a beta version will not be too long in coming out