Windows 8 has been the topic of speculation for many months now, but as was the case with Windows 7, Microsoft is pretty tight-lipped about what's to come in the next version of its flagship operating system. However, early information has emerged over the past few weeks. Here's a rundown of exactly what we know at this point about Windows 8.
Cross-platform operating system
Microsoft designed Windows NT to run on both x86 systems and Alpha machines -- and later on
Itanium. According to industry buzz, this multiplatform trend hasn't diminished. In fact, Windows 8
will run not only on Intel chips, but also on ARM processors, which are popular in tablet devices, smaller netbooks and other portable devices.
New (or improved) user interface
Windows 7 was widely heralded as a better way to use a computer, much like the positive attention
that Mac OS X has received over the past few years. Since then, Microsoft has gone on to develop
other interesting user interfaces (UIs) such as Kinect and the Windows Phone 7 operating system's Metro UI, which has also drawn positive
reviews. Expect to see enhancements and flashes of those two UIs, along with iterative improvements
that will be native to the final builds of Windows 8 as
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they become more mature.
Internet Explorer 10
Although Internet Explorer 9 was just released a couple of months ago, the IE team is hard at work
on the next version of Microsoft's browser, one of the cornerstones of Windows 8. IE10 is expected
to have increased support for the HTML 5 standard and enhanced compatibility for key Cascading Style Sheets and
properties, such as gradients and a flexible box layout. A touch interface will also be included,
since most features in Windows 8 will have multi-touch capability.
Enhanced security
Each version of the Windows operating system has included improved protection from both local and
remote attacks, and it looks like Windows 8 will be no exception. SmartScreen -- the intelligent file filter in Internet Explorer 8 and 9 --
makes it directly to the Windows file system, protecting users from launching potentially dangerous
files.
History Vault
Similar to Apple's Time Machine feature is Microsoft's History Vault. Apple introduced Time
Machine in 2007 to enable its OS to automatically make copies of important data files at regular
intervals and make them available for easy restoration. History Vault in Windows 8 lets users back
up to external drives or to inexpensive, home-oriented network-attached storage (NAS) drives.
Operating system application store
Microsoft is following the example of the newer Mac App Store and the somewhat older iOS App Store
from Apple by making software purchases and downloads possible from directly within the Windows
user interface.
A grab bag of additional features
In addition to the major Windows 8's highlights so far, the following minor features might grab
end-user attention:
- Quicker installation
- Built-in PDF reader
- Ability to mount ISO files directory to the file system
- "Restore factory settings" function to revert to a clean slate
- Integrating Microsoft Kinect directly with Windows (and not just Xbox)
- Integration with Windows Live ID service
For now, Microsoft is still in the development stage with Windows 8, but the expected release date is rumored to be sometime next year.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jonathan Hassell is an author, consultant and speaker residing in Charlotte, N.C.
His books include RADIUS, Hardening Windows and, most recently, Windows
Vista: Beyond the Manual.
This was first published in May 2011