It's that time again. Windows 7 is two years old, and that means the
next version of Windows is merrily percolating – and generating such
enthusiasm that Microsoft managed to sell out its recent BUILD developer's conference without publishing aword about content. At the conference, Microsoft unveiled Windows 8, and although the shiny stuff has been grabbing headlines, there's plenty under the bling to interest business.
But let's start with a bit of the shiny. After the super-speedy boot (demo systems came up in the blink of an eye), the first thing that grabs you is the user interface (UI). This ain't your typical Windows. The new look, entitled Metro, with its colourful live tiles, is reminiscent of Windows Phone 7, not PC Windows. As such, it's an ideal interface for use with a touch screen. During BUILD, Microsoft presented each paid attendee with a Samsung tablet running a developer's preview version of the system.
The company has reimagined navigation
with touch in mind, developing gestures that will be consistent
throughout. Flick a finger from the right edge of the screen, and a
menu of five icons, called Charms, appears. These icons – Start,
Search, Share, Devices and Settings – also pop up if you point your
mouse at the bottom left of the screen, where the Start menu appears on
previous versions of Windows.
Swipe from the top edge down or bottom
up, and you'll see what Microsoft refers to as “chrome” – buttons,
tabs, menus, and other pieces of the UI. With Metro-style apps, these
elements are hidden so the app can use virtually every scrap of the
screen to display its content.
Since most touch screens tend to be
used in landscape orientation, layouts are mainly horizontal and can be
scrolled through with a quick swipe anywhere on the screen but the
edges. The operating system supports multi-touch, if offered by the
hardware, so you can, for example, drag a tile up and scroll the rest
of the screen beneath it rather than resorting to the old-fashioned
drag and drop if you want to rearrange things. Swiping from the left
side of the screen lets you cycle through all open apps.
Microsoft presenters repeatedly
demonstrated that the old mouse and keyboard are well supported too,
with lots of keyboard shortcuts.
The familiar Windows desktop is still
available, but as an app, not as the primary operating environment.
Traditional Windows apps can be installed, and are also given a tile on
the Metro start screen. The desktop does have one wrinkle that may
frustrate users: Microsoft has opted to use its Ribbon menu interface
(first seen in Office 2007) throughout.
All this adds up to some challenges
for business. There will be a learning curve. There will be confusion.
Users of Windows Phone 7 will have a slight advantage, since they’ve
already been using the Metro interface.
However, there are also advantages for business that make this OS well worth checking out.
First, security. Windows 8 will
include a full anti-malware component based on its Defender software.
That doesn’t mean you’re stuck with it; it will gracefully disable
itself if you install another product.
The boot sequence has been altered to
load the anti-malware software much earlier, to prevent something from
sneaking in while the machine is unprotected. Microsoft will also
support a technology called UEFI that replaces the old BIOS (the
software on a chip that starts the operating system load) with a more
secure method that prevents malware from grabbing control of the system
at the pre-boot stage.
Two related features will save a ton
of time and tears when a computer is misbehaving. “Refresh” preserves
the user’s settings and files, then returns the operating system to a
known good state. “Restore” takes things a step further, wiping all
vestiges of the user from the machine and returning it to its pristine
state, ready for redeployment. That pristine state is defined by the
administrator, so it can consist of a fresh operating system load,
complete with company standard applications, all configured in the
company-approved manner. The demo at BUILD took about six minutes to
restore a computer.
Microsoft only mentioned management
via group policy in passing, but it did say that there’s a new version
of the Windows PowerShell scripting language coming. PowerShell is used
by administrators for both desktop and server management.
Windows 8 will run on the same
hardware as Windows 7, and should perform better, since things like
memory management have been significantly improved.
Bear in mind that the version of
Windows 8 presented at BUILD was an early one. Things will change. But
if you want to play with the developer’s preview, you can download it
here. Just remember, it’s pre-release software. Don’t try to use it for
production. It will crash. It will do rude things. But it will also
give you a preview of the future of Windows.
Sorce : theglobeandmai 