Microsoft liberates Windows 8 preview
Mar 01, 2012, by admin
Microsoft gave users their first prospect to download and play around with the company’s new Windows 8 operating system.
It’s still only in “preview” mode, which means it’s likely bug-ridden and comes with no customer support. But it provides testers a view of how Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) envisages the future of computing.
Windows 8 is very dissimilar from the many operating systems the software giant has started since 1995. In some methods, Windows 8 symbolizes even more of a sea change for Microsoft and the personal computer than did Windows 95.
By fetching touch, an completely new user line, and a new chip building to the Windows platform, Microsoft has released the Knot for hardware and software makers to modify the definition of what makes a PC.
“We live in a world where tablets are about touch, and PCs about the keyboard and mouse, but what happens when you resume those assumptions?” asked Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft’s president of Windows, at a presentation at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “Touch is just another point in Windows 8 where you get to pick ‘and.’ It’s not about ‘or’ anymore.”
Microsoft demonstrated off about a dozen reference designs that PC manufacturers made for developers to test Windows 8 on. Many were tablets, others were touch-allowed laptops. One was a giant 50-some-odd inch interactive display. Another was a touch screen monitor that swiveled to become a drafting table or a table top.
Microsoft first revealed Windows 8 to the world in its developer preview in September. Since then, the company said it has made more than 100,000 changes to its software code.
The noticeable dissimilarities are in speed, the accessibility of a vigorous Windows app store, and a new attribute that permits users to sign into any Windows 8 computer using a their Windows Live ID and involuntarily view their desktop image, favorites and apps.
Microsoft also nipped its user interface a bit, most obviously by getting rid of the Start button from the desktop application.
Microsoft said its primary intend was to make Windows 8 both “fast and fluid.” But the company also wanted to make it available to both casual users and power users.
To achieve that, Microsoft made its new “Metro” tile-based user border fully accessible with a keyboard and mouse. And the traditional desktop — for those who prefer that experience — can be accessed by clicking on the desktop application tile or with a keyboard shortcut. The desktop, in a sense, becomes just another app with Windows 8, and it can be viewed side-by-side with a video, game, or any other Metro-style application.
