Dowawado – About Microsoft

Since August 15 2011, Microsoft has been regularly publishing information about Windows 8 on the Building Windows 8 blog.

Here’s a summary of all the features that have been introduced since then:

1. USB 3.0: that means transfers at 5 Gbps (instead of 480 Mbps for USB 2.0). Remark: 5 Gbps stands for 5 Giga bits per second (not bytes).
2. Improved copy management: all will be in one place, and files will be copied more easily .
3. Improved file name collisions management: after a lot of usability testing, they seem to be happy with the current design.
4. Improved Windows Explorer: and add the ribbon!
5. Easy access to ISO and VHD files: just double click the files, they added native Explorer support for ISO and VHD files in Windows 8.
6. The new Metro interface: what a discussion! I like the Metro interface.
7. Hyper-V is coming: You’ll need a 64-bit version of Windows 8, and at least 4GB of RAM. Hyper-V does support creation of both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems in the VMs. By the way, this version will support WiFi!
8. Fast Boot Times: Check the video on the post, where they demo Windows 8 booting in around 9 seconds (SSD drive of course).
9. Touch: of course, but still, every Windows feature will have been rethought to be easily used through touch.
10. Internet Explorer 10: Also known as Metro Style browsing. Full HTML5 support, full touch support. And plugin free.
11. Security: by design (Security Development Lifecycle, SDL), mitigations, Windows Defender, SmartScreen, …
12. Introducing Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI): Bye bye BIOS.
13. More on UEFI: let the controversy begin… (Secure boot is a UEFI protocol not a Windows 8 feature, see Chapter 27 of the UEFI 2.3.1 specification). As a kind reminder, it is up to the OEM to decide if Secure Boot can be disabled by the user, or not.
14. Signing in to Windows 8 with a Windows Live ID: For example, with that you can associate the most commonly used Windows settings with your user account. Saved settings are available when you sign in to your account on any Windows 8 PC. You can also reacquire your Metro style apps on multiple Windows 8 PCs. The app’s settings and last-used state persist across all your Windows 8 PCs.
15. Designing Apps with the Live SDK: How developers can leverage SkyDrive and the Live Services in their Metro apps
16. More on the Start Screen: How it was designed, how efficient and customizable it is, how the live tiles can be updated using push without draining the battery.
17. Memory usage: Windows 8 will ship with the same system requirements as Windows 7. And, they managed to lower the runtime memory used from 404 mb for a standard Windows 7 SP1 system, to 281 mb for Windows 8.
18. Improved task manager: It’s now easy to know, by application, CPU , memory, disk and network usage, among other things. It’s also possible to have detailed information about each CPU.
19. Reduced Power Consumption: Mainly, reduce power used when idle.
20. Fewer restarts after updates: How they minimize restarts and make them more predictable, making the update experience less intrusive, while keeping the PC and the ecosystem up-to-date and secure in a timely manner
21. Improved setup experience: less clicks (number of clicks reduced by 82%), compatibility reports, and a bunch of new features to make everyone’s life easier
22. Large disks management: Apparently, Windows 8 allows for up to 64-bits of information to store the number that represents the maximum size of a disk, which in turn allows for up to a theoretical maximum of 9.4 ZettaByte (1 ZB = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes).
23. Windows Store: Really clean, nice and easy to use. And a new app store! (Or has this name been trademarked by some competitor…?)
24. Picture Password: Not as trivial as it seems. By the way, don’t let the person next to you look…
25. Reset and Refresh: Reset = Remove all personal data, apps, and settings from the PC, and reinstall Windows. Refresh = Keep all personal data, Metro style apps, and important settings from the PC, and reinstall Windows.
26. New File System – ReFS: The resilient file system is nearly impossible to take down. What is a balanced tree?
27. Mobile Networks: WiFi and Mobile Broadband a click away.
28. Sensors: Yes, Windows 8 is sensitive. To light and orientation among other things. Accelerometer, magnetometer or gyrosensor? The answer is; merge the 3 of them in a “sensor fusion”. All this data is available to developers for Metro apps, so yes, also in Javascript.
29. Fully integrated with SkyDrive: With the SkyDrive app, SkyDrive on the desktop and SkyDrive.com, Windows 8 brings online storage to a new step with a full and seamless integration.

That’s it for now! That’s quite a list (and I skipped a few redundancies or less featuresque posts). Can’t wait to see Windows 8 in action. Anyone thinking this will not be a success should think again.