Windows 8: The Thread

Official Windows 8 Blog

Facts about Windows 8:

• Late 2012 or Early 2013 Release
• To include Internet Explorer 10
• Separate Interface for tablets (based off Metro UI)
• Built in PDF Reader
• Ribbon Interface
• Will run on ARM processors, possibly without legacy app support
• Aero Auto-Colorization
• Ability to mount .iso's
• Modern Task Manager
• Online Sync of your Windows account
• Hybrid Boot
• Windows App Store

News on Windows 8:

• Windows 8: features, screenshots, and everything else you need to know
• 10 Hidden Features in Windows 8
• The mystery of Windows 8's new 'Protogon' file system
• Windows 8′s user account roaming feature revealed
• News From Around the Web
• Portable Workspace allows you to run Windows from a USB device
• Windows 8 to include its own Time Machine rival, History Vault
• Windows 8 to play Xbox games?
• Microsoft’s Kinect integration spotted inside Windows 8?
• Multiple desktops, smart sticky notes, and more

Videos:

• Building Windows 8

 

Thanks for starting it off even though W8 looks just like W7.

EDIT: the article at the end suggests that W8 will not be released in 2012.

 

Win8, why u no come faster?

 

Win 8 Tablets being shown off now at D9:
Close Up of the UI


Exclusive: Making Sense of Our First Look at Windows 8

 

Windows 8 will include Internet Explorer 10... not 9

 

I'm quite ambivalent about Windows 8.

On one hand, I absolutely adore the Metro UI. On the other, this just seems like an awkward front end for the basic Windows 7 operating system.

During the demo, when Steven launched Microsoft Excel, the beautiful Metro UI transformed into the jerky, plain Windows 7 UI.

Microsoft needs to decide one way or another. Either aim towards transforming the entire operating system into its Metro UI or refine the basic Windows 7 system.

 

I agree with you on the Excel part, it kind of looks out of place to me.

 

the window 8 leak boot faster inside a vm cause of hybrid boot then winodw 7 does on my system

microsoft has gone completly mad even if only half the rumors for windows 8 are true as long as they keep the performance similar to what it is windows 8 is gonna be a hit

 

now combine that with kinect, and you have the perfect media center with all sorts of apps.

i can't wait for it, it'll be awesome.

the win7 mode does look too much win7 to me. i'd love to see a metro-styled theme at least (no transparency, no round borders, no glass.. )

but well, that's the price you have to pay for being still able to support apps that are older than some of the members in here. no one else does that (except linux). thanks microsoft to still do that.

the pure tablet-only joy will be on arm and co, then.

 

pure tablet joy can happen on x86/c64 just don,t use the legacy app then ;p

 

Does anyone else besides me hate that startup page? I don't want my computer to look like a windows phone. I personally like my desktop to be my space. I can put widgets on it if I want, but I don't want them to look like bright blue green and orange rectangles.

 

no. i love it. i love my windows phone and love to have a useful lock screen on my laptop. instead of just "enter password" and "switch user", i actually see if i got news to check.


btw, by stating "arm will enjoy full tablet mode", i ment arm will be forced to it, as they can't run legacy (x86) apps. well, except the ones ported (like office).

anyways, what ever. this thread will soon explode. tons of hate and rants, tons of joy, etc..

i love it, i'm at this moment pissed off to not have it already..

well. anyways, it will come, it will be there.

i can't wait.

out before the chaos

 

You won't see the Metro UI at start unless you are using a tablet. With a normal laptop you will see your normal desktop (but Metro will be there if you want it).

Also:

Win 8 on ARM being shown off: Engadget

 

Thanks for the clarification. That actually is a big difference for me. I thought our pc's would be like tablets. ughh

 

I've been considering an Android tablet for sometime now. I'll wait to see how W8 shapes up on the Tablet, may get that instead. I just hope MS offers up a game app store. Gotta have my cheap games

 

It's important to remember that the UI for builds of Windows closely resembles their predecessors while under development, at least for a while. Who knows what further UI changes beyond the Ribbon in Explorer lie ahead for the desktop side of things.

 

So if I get something like the Lenovo X220t(or it successor) will I get the option to have both classic and Metro or do I have choose one?

 

love it totally <3

 

looks like most of the enhancements currently being shown are for tablets. the metro ui looks perfect for tablets and phones with a touchscreen but i really dont want a kb/mouse pc with that as a frontend (at least there is an option to hide it).
kinda meh so far for me.

 

I might breakdown and buy an AIO touchscreen PC when W8 is released.

 

Yup, I'm with you. There's an unexpectedly large number of quite interesting innovations in there. We'll have to wait and see which ones of these make it into the final build, but I agree, this is exciting. Looks like this could be a nice job by Microsoft. That would make two in a row now, what are the chances? :GEEK:

 

You get both. On non tablets (laptops and probably tablet pc's) you will get the normal desktop with the Metro UI hiding in the background with the ability to turn it on. And with a tablet you get Metro UI with with the normal desktop a click away.

 

Just ignore this particular poster. As far as I can tell this one has added nothing but babble and background noise to this forum in his/her short career so far...

 

Appreciate this thread! Gives you a one-stop location to find out info, news, speculation about windows 8 and also to read some forum members' opinion on the OS.

I'm excited for more info about Windows 8, and it certainly seems really interesting, but am withholding judgment on the new interface until I get a chance to play with it when/if there's a public beta.

 

Now the questions is should I get a intel or amd based tablet with wacom or n-trig pen support then put Win 8 on it, or should I go quad core ARM based tablet(also with pen support) when windows 8 comes out and make it dual boot Android also. Never thought I'd have this many options for running Windows OS.

 

Texas Instruments, Qualcomm announce ARM processors for Windows 8

• 45nm 1.8GHz TI OMAP4470 (Quad Core)
• 28nm Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 (Dual Core)
• 28nm 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8064 (Quad Core)

Or you can also get a quad core Nvidia Kal-El processor instead.

 

I thought the TI chip also came in a quad core variant with the dual gpu, and even direct x 10 support, no? Would be safe to assume that since it is a 45nm size die, that it may run a bit warmer vs the qualcomm competition? As for the gpu do we know advantage there may be in this category, by going dual? Will a dual gpu setup be better than what will come with quad core Tegra 3 or is it too early to tell? Because that video they just released was pretty damn impressive and has me temped to get a Tegra 3 tablet.

I guess it is a waiting game to see who will offer the best performance combo(assuming price are similar). And for some(I wold fall in this category) who will be offering at the very least latest gen N-Trig pne support.

 

You are right, the OMAP4470 I believe it is both dual and quad core and it does supports DirectX. As for power usage, not sure.

 

Beside windows(and WP7/CE/xBox of course), does any other OS have support direct X? If that is a no, then beside Windows 8 and WP7(if power consumption isn't high), would there be any downside to having direct x support on an OS that can't utilize it?

This where I got the quad core info, but I didn't see anything mentioned about dual gpu, or what not. Texas Instruments announces multi-core, 1.8GHz OMAP4470 ARM processor for Windows 8 -- Engadget

 

Finally we have integrated the ability to mount the ISO directlly from Windows OS and to read pdf files without adobe.
The task manager seems very interesting and I like the ribbon UI...

Can't wait to try it ouy!

 

I wonder how much power Windows 8 consumes. Since its still is running the full OS under the metro UI.

I know the arm processors are going to be amazing with battery life but what about x86 processors?

 

I thought the bold were gpu cores, they aren't.

 

For me, the new Metro Desktop isn't anything that couldn't be built on Vista (!!!) using the Live/Active desktop features.

I quite easily see some enterprising coder bringing out an active Metro-like desktop/wallpaper for Win7 that uses Aero and hardware acceleration. Such a thing would run very well under something like Dexpot, Rocketdock, etc. Keep an eye on DeviantArt.......

Live/Active desktop actually worked pretty damned well. There are a number of Win7 hacks that can re-enable it on Win7.

 

Active Desktop ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_desktop) was godawful in windows 9x, ME and 2000. Always crashing and just very buggy. There's a reason why it doesn't exist nowadays, and wasn't present in Vista.

Do you mean DreamScene, where Vista Ultimate users could set a video as a wallpaper?

 

“Chatter” A Unified Voice & IM App In Windows 8

 

IMO it,s a clever idea to use two interfaces that are inter-changable. If windows tablets supported a wide range of hardware and peripherals like windows PC then I have no doubt that they will become a serious rival against iPad.

Inf act if both interfaces existed in same version and are inter-changable acc to user,s wish, it might be a major breakthrough. MS will put classic interface by default on desktops, laptops and netbooks and tiled interface in tablets/ slates. On top of this, users will be able to change it either way they want, on both the desktops/ laptops and tablets. I don,t know of any other OS in the wild that gives users such an incredible option. Still more to this- if you see the video you can notice that classic interface is running right underneath the tiled interface and it seems very easy to access files/ folders in the manner we access them in windows classic explorer. That is another great option non-existant in rival OSes( android n iOS). I suspect if they used same interface options, in the future, we will see every other laptop/ netbook coming with a touch screen, so that it can be used as a tablet if the user likes so. I have even seen touch screen laptops and pseudo-desktop monitors in the market even with current windows XP and Windows 7 which are no way touch-friendly.

Let,s wait and see. I don,t think MS is going wrong here. Not at all I guess. It,s just my guess BTW.

BTW my another prediction: after MS will launch this, you will see atleast few linux distros following a somewhat similar approach. They have to do this to stay in competition. And we still have to see what Apple comes out with, in reply to this. Very interesting indeed.

 

Active Desktop worked very well as long as the DHTML components were MSIE-specific.

Which was also the problem. DHTML was such a moving target that a lot of coders got way too sloppy with their releases. On top of IE 5/6/7 this was the core problem.

 

I hate that new front end. What are they thinking? For tablets I guess ok, but how much of the market consists of touchscreens? Not many at all.

 

windows 8 desktop edition has a new lock screen to this one is only for tabled

 

Intel: Windows 7 tablets can outperform iPad 2

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You don't have to use that frontend. On standard desktop and laptop PCs, you are free to use the standard Win7 UI. I suppose you could use it on tablets, too, but there the new system makes a lot more sense.

 

As long as they keep the option to have the classic look. I always end up switching most of the gimicky features off.

 

Microsoft readying own Windows 8 tablet?

Microsoft outlines vision for combining Windows and Windows Phone

Windows 8 UI Is Chromeless

 

Welcome to Building Windows 8

First post on this blog from Microsoft.

 

Awesome, thanks for keeping us updated.

 

I hope Protogonos becomes a successor to NTFS in time for the release of Windows 8. NTFS is quite slow compared to ext4 :0.

 

It won't.

10 chara

 

Its only taken them 15 years to include a PDF reader... whats next?

 

I dono why the PDF reader was bothered with. There are already alternatives to Adobe. I just hope we can shut it off/ remove it.

 

Windows 8 will need some seriously good new features for me to jump ship. I finally upgraded from Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit to Windows 7 Professional 64bit yesterday and absolutely in love with Win7. Only reason I upgraded was it cost $70 from my college. If my college offers Windows 8, I may be inclined to buy. As it stands though, Win7 works for me. Another reason I went Pro over Ultimate (besides saving $12) is because support for Ultimate ends in 2015 while Pro will last until 2020.