[eddiegroves]

"like a gloss on Windows 7" - From what I've read[1] so far this is not the case. The APIs that 'Metro style' apps use are built deep into Windows. In fact it seems more like the opposite - legacy Windows is treated more like another app that you can switch to, if you're on x86/x64 machine.

[1] http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-devel...

[ethank]

I'm speaking from the beta. The act of going between a "traditional" looking UI and Metro and what is available in each is very disjointed.

[zhwang]

And this is why kudos must be given to Microsoft for not making the distinction between "Developer Preview" and "Beta" more noticeable. Wasn't one of the reasons behind Vista's huge flop being that in the betas, driver support was incredibly lacklustre?

It's not a direct parallel, but this and the fact that companies like Google have completely upturned the definition of "beta", or well, pre-releases in general, seems to show how people come to their final judgement very easily.

I suppose that could be why Apple doesn't release things until they're well and truly ready for the limelight.

[joenathan]

It's not a beta!

[Lewisham]

Yeah, exactly. It's alpha, and it feels that way. That the dev preview doesn't resume state well when you go from Metro -> Desktop -> Metro didn't surprise me in the slightest. I'm sure it's one of a litany of features and fixes they're planning on.

[cptskippy]

Win32 and Metro are both User Mode subsystems running on the same MinWin NT Kernel and you flip flop back and forth between them based on what you're doing.