Before the iPad, there were netbooks and ultra-mobile PCs. HTC was known back then for mobile phones and it came to a surprise when they launched the HTC Shift back in 2008.

The HTC Shift came with a TFT resistive touchscreen and Windows Vista Business. It was a pretty sweet setup with its sliding keyboard. Now it comes back to life with the developer preview Windows 8.

Fast forward to today. The iPad owns the largest chunk of tablet computers in the world and the HTC Shift now lies in dust with other dated technologies. Or does it?

Last Monday the people in xda-developers got a developer preview Windows 8 installation working on his HTC Shift. Please be reminded that this is not an official Windows approved product and the software installed is a pre-release software. So get your DIY caps ready for a weekend project.

The video demo and instructions are below. It is in French but we could expect an English version soon.

All the basic drivers are working including the ones for the touchscreen, WiFi and the video acceleration. Please remember that the HTC Shift unlike the HTC Evo Shift is not a phone. It is an ultra-mobile PC.

What can we say about this latest mod?

It can be a tad slow for some but that is to be expected on an old device. It is faster and has more utility than the last mod for it which installs OSX. If you are in a further modding mood you can also try installing Ubuntu on it.

Both of the operating systems are better than Vista. It has a battery life of 2 and a half hours. We are eagerly waiting for someone to mod a higher capacity battery into the device and maybe an Android installation.

You could now lease new life on this old device and have a better tablet which comes with a functioning keyboard if you are not to fond of the onscreen keyboard of other tablet devices.