I decided to download and install the Windows 8 and Visual Studio 11 previews. I figured I had an Acer Inspire One netbook that BARELY met min specs that was holding down paper (as on does with an Acer netbook....)
I will not tell you about the installation of Win8. This is because I had my brother download and install it. I will say that he had already downloaded and created the install package on a USB drive. I gave him the netbook at 1PM. He sent me a text saying it was done at 5PM. To me, that's pretty good.
I booted the machine and watched as it booted extremely quickly. I waited a reasonable period of time while my mouse driver downloaded and installed. I clicked the "Store" icon that was top left in the WinRT start menu. In response, I was immediately informed "This app can't open. The screen resolution is too low for this app to run." Apparently, WinRT requires a minimum screen resolution of 1024x768. The max screen resolution of the netbook is 1024x600.
A little more clicking confirms that 1024x768 is the minimum screen resolution for every WinRT application. IE would not open. I eventually click to "Desktop" box and get to the old school desktop. The old school desktop has a shortcut for IE. This shortcut opens, and IE works are expected.
Before moving on, I want to address one thing. This concludes my discussion of WinRT. Besides the resolution issues, there is something else I wish to address. I found using WinRT useless without a touch screen. The entire interface was very annoying to my when using a traditional pointing device. I could see the advantages if I had a touch screen device. To this effect, I have been looking for an ultrabook with a touch screen for about 6 months now. Let this be a warning to hardware manufacturers. You might want to get some of those out ready for release.
With my Win7 desktop and IE, I proceed to download and install the Visual Studio 11 Beta. The download and install was seamless. I started that process at about 9AM this morning, and it completed at about 11AM. This includes a full install on VS11 and a full download and install of all the documentation.
After tweaking a few settings, I open a new C# Command Line project. I add the following code:
Console.WriteLine( "Hello, World" );
Console.ReadKey();
I pressed f5, and I was greeted with roughly the following error: "You need .NET 4.5. Click to download and install." I click to download and install, only to be greeted with a message telling me .NET 4.5 was installed.
No amount or combination of rebooting, configuring, or profanity seemed to solved this issue.
Sorry, Microsoft. It was a great try. You get a C for effort. See you in the next update.
UPDATE:It appears the I gave Visual Studio an unfair shake. I installed the wrong version. However, I refuse to edit my impressions; They were my honest impressions. The actual Beta works. You can see my impressions of the Beta, and not the 6 months old Developer's Preview, here.