With the ability to use the operating system into two views - PC-friendly classic "Desktop View" and tablet and touchscreen-friendly "Metro View" - Windows 8 certainly offers an exciting new look.
While Microsoft's OS is not yet ready for release, speculation points to some time in early 2012.
Under Windows and Windows Live-president Steve Sinofsky, Windows 8 offers "hundreds" of new features. We have selected the eight that made us sit in our seats when they were revealed. Take a look through the slideshow (below) and tell us where you are most excited about. Do you think Microsoft left out all the features? Share your thoughts in the comments.
PC or Tablet:
You would be forgiven for looking at screenshots of Windows 8 and wonder if it is a Tablet PC or OS that is before your eyes. The answer is both. Microsoft is trying to gather all the computing space in the ecosystem's with this launch, and although it is not specified, it looks like that will extend to their mobile phones and Xbox too, but more on that later.
For the first time, Windows is set to be compatible with computers running the ARM architecture microprocessors as well as more familiar x86-based them. In other words. That kind of thing you find in the tablets and phones from Qualcomm, Nvidia and Samsung as well as your laptop-style Intel and AMD Whether it's something that's actually good to use on a tablet is still unknown, but Microsoft is certainly giving a decent pictures with Windows 8 and its Metro UI.
Lock Screen / Welcome Page:
Before we get down to work on the interface and touch screen itself, the first thing that will greet you on Windows 8 revised, remastered and re-designed to lock the screen and the Welcome page. You can choose to access through a standard username and password scenario or by having a PIN, or more interesting with a picture lock. A picture lock is to upload a photo of your choice that you make three gestures when asked. So, for example, you can use a picture of Steve Jobs and then draw two devil horns and tail on him and the three reads would open up the OS to use.
Once past security, the welcome page to use as you wish, and represents another step forward in the development of what Microsoft has been introducing in this space since Windows XP. Now, not only do you get your avatar, but also a selection of your own background, time and date and any direct links to applications like e-mail or whatever it is you need immediate access to because you can, in fact, pin what apps To monitor.
Metro UI:
You will hear a lot about the Metro and Metro, as in structure to the launch, which is generally expected to be at the end of 2012. Metro is the user interface front end of Windows 8, but is a style in itself, it's actually been around in principle since the design of Microsoft Encarta 95th Metro began to develop in other products such as Windows Media Center and Zune software, but most will recognize it from the Windows Phone 7
Now before you freak out and decide that you never want to upgrade Metro's UI is just the tip surface, and you can choose to ignore it and go straight into the more traditional style on your Windows desktop as it finds the current version. For those who are happy to give it a whirl, it is Metro brings one home screen UI populated by panels of tiles of either a perfect square of double-wide rectangular size. Some of these are said to be "live" and animated flow of content that is in them or they are simply frozen images.
So, for example in the picture above is that the more static apps on the left side where you will find access to Control Panel, a PDF reader and desktop chips and the right is a Friends panel for pictures of your loved ones want to browse through as they have posted on social networks, messages they have sent you and all other forms of contact for this person.
As with Windows 7 Phone, you can create what tile you like, add them to the startup screen and even group them and name the groups that you want. It is actually a combination of the old start menu, taskbar and desktop on a long - and really quite pretty - stripe of interactive graphics. Developers and computer manufactures to design Metro-style apps to fit and operate within this framework, and of course there will be a Windows Store, where you can find and buy more of them - like Windows Marketplace found with Windows 7 Phone - and even make further in-app purchasing.
As with Windows 7 Phone, you can create what tile you like, add them to the startup screen and even group them and name the groups that you want. It is actually a combination of the old start menu, taskbar and desktop on a long - and really quite pretty - stripe of interactive graphics. Developers and computer manufactures to design Metro-style apps to fit and operate within this framework, and of course there will be a Windows Store, where you can find and buy more of them - like Windows Marketplace found with Windows 7 Phone - and even make further in-app purchasing.
Touch screen or mouse and keyboard:
It should be of little surprise that Windows 8 is designed for touch screens. Microsoft pushed the thought out with the launch of Windows 7, even if perhaps the hardware market was not ready for it at the time, it certainly is now certain that this latest OS is aimed at the Tablet PC space as well.
From demos to Build Conference, where the software has been showcased in full so far, it is quite clear that touch plays a much bigger role this time, and seems more or less synonymous with the idea of metro UI. You can use a traditional mouse and keyboard approach - and you will probably best stick with it when you head to the old school desktop interface - but the contact has been much better thought out in this version than before.
Press Metro UI lets you pinch to zoom out and see the entire Start power of tiles and panels at once and navigate to and from various sections much as you can turn the perception that comes in a number of Android phones UIS.
You can manipulate Metro apps for opening by sliding in from the edge of the screen from left, right or from bottom in the same way as you do on QNX OS BlackBerry Playbook. A sweep from the right, when a Metro app is open, brings a panel of options with what Microsoft calls the Charms. These Charms are buttons for related queries, sharing, and other in-app or out of any settings you might want to enable. Read from the bottom of the screen instead of bringing up the App Bar, where you can add and remove content from the App and read from the left lets you scroll through all of Metro programs you have open.
The other advantage of multitasking some of them at once is that you can either enter a program next to the other - so that one is dominant, but you can still use them both - or you can share your screen just the same as Snap lets you see the Windows desktop, as it is already in Windows 7
Of course you need a little text here and there, as Microsoft has updated its virtual keyboard on the screen. It has now automatically correct for the more common spelling errors and a fuzzy target system so it will automatically enter the key you meant to hit, if you missed it in a predictable manner. If you use the system on a tablet, you can also set the keypad to be shared for you to use with two thumbs instead of fingers in the same way as you can on Swifktey X tablet Android keyboard.
Search:
Search is a central area, and fortunately, nothing that has disappeared along with the Start menu. Search is very integrated into the Metro experience of Windows 8, and you can activate it from the keyboard by pressing the Start button and start typing what you are looking for. Search results come up for programs, files and settings, and you can also browse apps, especially with the Internet Explorer will then start searching with Bing.
Once you have your results, you can choose to share what you have found through a cooperative agreement charm.
Synchronize:
This course will be an area that we hear more and more during the run up to the launch, and yes, like other Microsoft OS-based hardware step in the series. Even before we get an updated Xbox 360 dashboard to match itself, there is still much you can coordinate.
From the very first time you run the program, you can choose to tie it in with a Windows Live ID, which you probably already have. It will be your username and any computer you log in with it will automatically sync with your preferences, including wallpapers, screen lock option, your passwords, browsing history, IE favorites, and what you have connected to your welcome page. You'll also be able to download any applications you've already bought from Windows Store.
Probably the more interesting part of the link is up with Microsoft's cloud creation, SkyDrive. You will be able to access SkyDrive directly from your computer and what you have on other computers via the Service. You Metro apps will also be able to access SkyDrive data itself, but you will be asked before they do it if you do not fill the small hard disk of a laptop you own with piles of data stored on another.
Connection:
Fully aware of the need for mobile computing, Windows 8 packaged with a set of drivers for mobile broadband dongles. In parentheses, the computer will be able to keep track of how much traffic you have used while you are online on the go and even equate this to how much you have spent if you are more conscious PAYG. On top of that, the system will also recognize that you're not on a fixed line connection and therefore will not try to fetch hefty Windows updates. It will also make sure to tailor any bandwidth requirements for media equivalent. Think low-res images and video clips whenever possible.
Multi Screen Display:
Multiscreen users will be pleased with the improvements included in Windows 8 You may have a copy of the task bar on both screens instead of having to run all the way back to the bottom left to get what you are looking for. Even better, you will be able to get the Home screen on one of the screens, with Metro-interface, and have a normal desktop view on the other. And at the most basic level, you will also have two separate background images on monitors rather than the same repeats.
Internet Explorer 10:
IU 10 will come as a Metro-style app, and a standard desktop version. Aside from the quick access and Bing search interest, it gives the reader a pretty fresh look with a frameless approach much the same design as the other Metro software. The idea of the strip is down to make it faster and more engaging. Likewise, you will still be able to interact with it by sliding from the edge, but how convenient it would be too in-depth Internet use without a keyboard is still uncertain.
Super fast boot:
It has been quite a little noise about how quickly Microsoft Windows 8 to start even without a solid, but the proof of the pudding needs to eat when the final version has hit our machines. All the same, the technology behind the advance down to a coding system that saves OS kernel memory to disk on exit, so it can be again much more quickly from the same place. It is essentially a similar way as the sleep system works. We can only hope that it works more reliably when the PC is getting old.
Update & Reset:
Metro UI now includes apps to update or reset your version of Windows 8, raising the idea of wiping a clean start more and more simple. Refreshing means you get a clean install of the software while your files, preferences, applications and locked the choice and a reset is a full format and new beginnings, which removes all of the process. Of course, both require admin access to do so.
Sensors:
Besides the usual crops of light and position sensors, Microsoft has added some others, especially for the Windows OS 8 will now support pressure, temperature and even blood pressure, too - the latter presumably for use in health and medical centers. It is also built NFC compatibility.
The minimum hardware specs:
If you want the machine to run Windows 8, then at least it will have a 1 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM and 16 GB of storage. There are 32-bit version. For 64-bit version, you must double the memory, the installation space of 20GB, to ensure that the chip is 64-bit compatible.
Blue Screen of Death:
Yes, it's scary old Blue Screen of Death a friendly face to be the bearer of bad news. No longer will people with old, broken computers get hit in the face with a shock that whether the computer is past its prime, or that the novel has been bewitched by the world's largest spam botnet for the past year.
It is called Windows 8
Let's get one thing straight first. Windows 8 is just a code name at this time. Now we are being a bit facetious here, but if Ladbrokes took bets on that sort - and who knows, maybe it does - the release called Windows 8 will be odds-on favorite with a very long way indeed.
Microsoft has been very pleased with the way that Windows 7 has crashed and the best way to give your product a good start would be by redeeming the same name as the former. All the same, do not spit tea all your VDU if the company decides to call it Windows Metro or Windows computer, or something like that.
Availability:
Well, now is not completely secure. You can go out and get 4GB of Developers version as we speak for a taste of what it is. Otherwise, if Steve Ballmer to go to Tokyo Developer Forum is to be believed, and the launch will be some time next year - probably in the fall or later. Before that, however, there will be a Release Candidate version for everyone to try for free and there will be an excellent way to get an early version of what will appear very similar to the finished article.
As for upgrading from your old system, there is no word whether it will be possible from Vista, but it is certainly an option from the Windows 7 release candidate will be a re-install itself.
Windows 8 Download :www.microsoft.com
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