Windows 8 Windows 8 revealed

[Becky]

The highly anticipated Microsoft BUILD conference is currently taking place in Anaheim, California. Yesterday, Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division at Microsoft, revealed previously unseen details regarding Windows 8.

“We reimagined Windows. From the chipset to the user experience, Windows 8 brings a new range of capabilities without compromise.”

The new operating system is clearly designed with both PCs and tablets in mind, and features a tile-style navigation together with apps. The new touchscreen-optimized interface is called 'Metro', and looks closer to Windows Phone 7 than any previous OS. The classic desktop view is still also available.

Delegates attending the conference were lucky enough to receive a Samsung tablet to play with, which features a preview version of Windows 8. The Register has details regarding the specifications:

The fondleslab is rather curiously named the Samsung Windows 8 Developer Preview PC – no mention of the word tablet – and it's unlikely to see the light of day as a commercial product. But it provides some interesting insights into
what kind of tabler Microsoft would like to see people using.

In hardware terms, this tablet beats anything else on the market for sheer grunt. The system ignores wimpier Atom or Tegra processors in favour of a second generation Intel Core i5 processor, and it includes 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 64GB SSD hard drive. The 11.6-inch Super PLS 1366-by-768 display looks as good as - if not better than - anything else on the market, and it accepts input from either the finger or the pen.

The rub is that the unit weighs in at around two pounds, which makes it difficult to hold with one hand.

So what can users expect from Windows 8? Here's a brief overview of some key points:

• Apps play a larger role, and are able to work together
• 30%-70% faster boot times, as a result of "a hybrid of traditional cold boot and resuming from hibernate"
• The task manager allows you to decide which programs you want loading automatically at start-up
• The system can be refreshed without deleting documents, music, or films
• Windows 8 takes up 281MB to run on startup, versus 404MB for Windows 7
• If you prefer typing with your thumbs rather than on a standard tablet keyboard, Windows 8 offers a new style split keyboard.

A preview is available to download. This is not a beta, but gives more of an insight into what the full version will look and feel like, and includes some samples apps.

We still do not have a release date, but it is expected some time during 2012.

More information can be found on Microsoft's Building Windows 8 Blog.

 

[V_R]

I'm liking the new file management stuff...

 

[Ian]

Yeah it's looking good so far! I'm downloading it now in preparation of trying it out tonight

 

[EvanDavis]

Also downloading. Some folks have told me there will be no public BETA ??? Could this be true ?

 

[V_R]

i'd expect to see a RC like with Win 7, Seems the logical thing to do.

Also, just been looking at this...

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/328208?tstart=0

Seems it dont work in VMWare....


EDIT: But does in VirtualBox.
http://www.mytricks.in/2011/09/guide-install-windows-8-developer.html

 

[EvanDavis]

Also, just been looking at this...

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/328208?tstart=0

Seems it dont work in VMWare....


EDIT: But does in VirtualBox.
http://www.mytricks.in/2011/09/guide-install-windows-8-developer.html

Yup tried in VNware, no luck, will install virtualbox later

 

[floppybootstomp]

Oh, I see some political shenanigans here, lol

Apple are taking legal action against Samsung over the Samsung tablet's likeness to the I-Pad and Apple even managed to stop Samsung displaying at a recent trade fair because of this.

So what do MS use to introduce Windows 8? The Samsung Tablet, lol, one up for MS, gotta say as the Samsung Tablet looks to be a mighty beast.

A mighty beast, albeit a heavy one, weighing nearly as much as the Woolwich Ferry anchor with all that hardware.

As for Windows 8, looks to be going in the right direction but I still feel like I only shelled out for Win 7 yesterday so I won't be rushing into Win 8. Well, I don't think so but I probably said that about Win 7.

In the meantime, Linux Mint 11 is really performing rather well in Chez Flops

 

[bootneck02]

Nor will I be spending a penny on MS8 only seems yesterday I got 7 and Vista before that what do MS think I am a cash machine and me on a pension

 

[EvanDavis]

Oh, I see some political shenanigans here, lol

Apple are taking legal action against Samsung over the Samsung tablet's likeness to the I-Pad

My arse, Apple stole it fro MS, as they have done everytything, they are going to go down the poo holle now Steve Jobs has left.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Your bottom aside Mr Davis, that's not my personal view, merely the one Apple expressed in the lawsuit.

I'm no Apple fanboy but let us not forget that in the begnning there was an Apple Mac Operating system and there was DOS.

DOS took a peek at Apple, and lo, there was Windows. It goes in circles...

 

[Quadophile]

It was the "apple" in the very beginning which caused all the problems.. Is history repeating itself?....... he he.

 

[muckshifter]

err, sorry, you both wrong ...

Xerox PARC was the first and it was their OS, which used a mouse ... it was in the mid 70s that Xerox PARC were demonstrating their Graphical User Interface that MS wanted, or so the story goes.

Apple were also influenced, and employed Xerox PARC ex-employees, and got their 'product' to market a bit earlier than MS due to them building their own hardware.

Microsoft can be credited with standardizing the hardware, that even today Apple are now using.

So, Apple stole the idea first, buy encouraging Xerox PARC employers to work for them despite Microsoft wanting the same thing.

 

[EvanDavis]

err, sorry, you both wrong ...

Xerox PARC was the first and it was their OS, which used a mouse ... it was in the mid 70s that Xerox PARC were demonstrating their Graphical User Interface that MS wanted, or so the story goes.

Apple were also influenced, and employed Xerox PARC ex-employees, and got their 'product' to market a bit earlier than MS due to them building their own hardware.

Microsoft can be credited with standardizing the hardware, that even today Apple are now using.

So, Apple stole the idea first, buy encouraging Xerox PARC employers to work for them despite Microsoft wanting the same thing.

Saying that, if ya watch the interviews with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs on Yutube, its amazing how much Microsoft has played a part in Apple

 

[floppybootstomp]

Mucks, I concede to you, as I've heard that tale before.

I think it's something of an Urban myth that Apple owners like to put about that MS stole Windows from Apple. It's been bandied about so much that people believe it, including myself I suppose if I'd shelled out 33% more for my Apple Mac for a machine that does the same as a Windows machine costing less I'd be looking to justify the extra expenditure as well

If all the major players were trying to point score and the ideas that who nicked from who were listed, it would probably make for interesting reading. The situation also shows how keen corporates are to sue for the slightest reason, especially in the USA. There's a whole army of trained lawyers loving them for it.

Seems odd to cite somebody named Xerox PARC for being the grandaddy of the mouse/Windows thingie. So, where does this leave Linux? Based on Unix code but unashamedly cloned from Windows.

It's a funny old world

 

[Quadophile]

The situation also shows how keen corporates are to sue for the slightest reason, especially in the USA. There's a whole army of trained lawyers loving them for it.

I was reading an article sometime back (unfortunately don't remember the source) which stated that out of the total population of lawyers in the world 94% of them are based in the US! What does that tell you?

 

[Silverhazesurfer]

I was reading an article sometime back (unfortunately don't remember the source) which stated that out of the total population of lawyers in the world 94% of them are based in the US! What does that tell you?

This means we need to be better at exporting lawyers.

As for Win 8, I don't know that I am interested in upgrading either. Not at the price tag they want for all the toys with the upper level OS versions.

 

[crazylegs]

Isn't this just an update, surely its not a whole new operating system all over again, because if it was then Win 7 must have been a rotten pear from the off!

Why do we keep believing there spiel

 

[Zema Bus]

I know there are some good inovations in Win8, but on the whole, my initial impression isn't all that positive. Here's what I wrote about it on BBF while I was engaged in messing around with it:

I'm playing around with it now in VirtualBox. It's interesting that they try to push network authentication using Windows Live to logon. I went with the 2nd choice - local logon. That Windows Live stuff is bad enough for games, I can't imagine having to deal with that just to logon to your machine everyday.

Of course the tiles are where everything is based off of, but you can get to the normal stuff - desktop, file browser etc, but it seems to be sort of fragmented - you can't get to the file browser via the desktop. Clicking the start menu just takes you back to the tiles. Control panel and a few other things you can access from the top of the file browser provided that you click 'Computer' on the left panel. You can also access it via the tiles, as well as some of the other components. Maybe the final release will allow you to turn off the stupid tile system, but I haven't yet found a way to do that in this pre-beta release. This is about as dumbed down as you can get. I absolutely would not be able to stand looking at those tiles every day, it'd drive me nuts.

It does seem pretty snappy. But other than that -

Leo Laporte was looking at it on his show this morning, he said that the word from MS is, this is basically how the RTM will be like - they wanted the developers to have something to work with that wouldn't be changing much. So apparently what ever does change won't be obvious. Leo says this interface makes no sense on a desktop. I'm thinking when I'm eventually forced to move on from Win7 for my gaming machine, rather than deal with that Win8 tile stupidity, I'll just go with the server version. I can't imagine that ever being anything other than a simple, conservative, traditional desktop interface

I absolutely could not find any obvious way to launch an app not listed in a tile. There's no more Start Menu, so the only way I could find to do it was searching for the exe via the file browser. But that's not a very convenient way to go. I could not find a normal console window (command prompt). They have a "Developer Command Prompt" in the tiles, but it's not like a regular DOS box. It ID's itself as "Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0". If you try to run ver, it doesn't recognise it. I tried to search for cmd, and cmd.exe using the Search function, but nothing is found. So back to the file browser - I navigated to Windows/SysWOW64, (since that's where it lives in Win7), and there it was. I launched it from there, and then I get a normal command prompt that says "Microsoft Windows [Version 6.2.8102]". I was already aggravated by a lot of things in Win7 that were hidden, but it looks like they're really upping the ante with Win8.

One other positive thing I can say for it.... Areo works in Win8 under VirtualBox I'm not sure why, but I could never get it to work in Win7 under VirtualBox, not even with the latest extensions installed. With Win8 on the other hand, it works right out of the box, and with no extensions installed for it.

See our entire discussion here.

 

[PotGuy]

And here I am still sitting on a ten year old copy of XP

 

[Quadophile]

And here I am still sitting on a ten year old copy of XP

You lucky bugger!