Windows

Uh Oh Microsoft, AMD Wants to See Other OSes (Android and Chrome)

Paul Lilly — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 17:06:02 +0000

AMD to bring chips to Google's OS party.

Never has the future of Microsoft looked as uncertain as it does right now. Not only are PC sales down, but Windows 8 is such a drastic change over previous versions, it has OEMs and hardware makers looking at supporting alternative platforms. That includes AMD, which revealed at Computex that it's suddenly interested in developing hardware for Google's open source Android and Chrome OS platforms.

Lest we overstate AMD's decision, it's not as though the chip designer is wiping its hand of the Windows ecosystem, or even just Windows 8.

"We are very committed to Windows 8, we think it's a great operating system, but we also see a market for Android and Chrome developing as well," Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager of global business units at AMD, said in an interview at Computex, according to PCWorld.

Do you think AMD would go this route if Windows 8 was the raging success Microsoft had hoped? Not a chance. The company previously stated it wasn't interested in serving Android, but with Windows 8 failing to win fans, especially among mobile users, the Sunnyvale chip designer is singing a different tune.

This is a trend Microsoft needs to nip in the bud, to borrow one of Barney Fife's commonly used phrases. While there's no immediate threat to Microsoft's business model, AMD isn't the only one looking at other platforms. HP, for example, launched a Chromebook earlier this year, and according to Amazon, Samsung's Chromebook is its best selling laptop.

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Microsoft Teases Return of Start Button in Windows 8.1

Paul Lilly — Thu, 30 May 2013 19:31:37 +0000

This isn't the Start button you're looking for.

Sound the trumpets and cue the chorus line to begin singing songs of praise, Microsoft is bringing back the Start button! That's right, in a sneak peek at Windows 8.1, the Redmond software giant displayed the Start button's triumphant return, which at a glance is cause for celebration. Are you excited!? Well, don't be. Sorry to play with your emotions like that, but even though the Start button is making a return, clicking it only drops you right back into the modern UI. You can toss those trumpets aside and tell the chorus line to put a sock in it.

Surely Microsoft must know that the disdain for its decision to remove the Start button in the first place has nothing to do with users wanting a quicker way to jump back into the tiled UI. Nevertheless, the company isn't willing to concede that a real Start button -- one that will bring up a list of programs and settings -- is truly needed, so this is what you get, along with the ability to now boot directly to the Desktop (as well as other screens), so at least there's that. Grumble, grumble...let's move on.

Microsoft says you'll be able to do more to personalize their experience in Windows 8.1, starting with the ability to load up a slide show of pictures on the Lock screen. These can be photos that are stored locally or in the cloud in SkyDrive. You can also take pictures from a device's built-in camera from the Lock screen, negating the need to first log-in.

Global search results, improvements to built-in apps, updated PC settings, and better mouse and keyboard options are all part of the many upgrades Microsoft will introduce in Windows 8.1, which will be available later this year as a free update to Windows 8.

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Psst Microsoft, Windows 8 Users are Barely Touching Metro Apps

Paul Lilly — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:48:16 +0000

Study reveals surprising stats about Windows 8 app usage.

When Microsoft "re-imagined" its Windows platform with a heavy focus on touch computing, its Metro interface was deemed a critical component to the user experience. Ideally, Windows 8 users would find themselves relying less and less on the traditional desktop and start taking advantage of the tiled UI, downloading apps from the Windows Store in the process. However, a new study by Soluto reveals that Windows 8 users rarely touch apps on their Windows 8-based desktops and tablet PCs.

Soluto analyzed 10,848 Windows 8 machines and examined more than 313,000 Metro app launches across 9,634 unique Metro apps. The result? On average, a Windows 8 user will launch a Metro app 1.52 times per day.

Predictably desktop users are the least active Metro app users with an average of 1.41 launches per day. Just as predictable, tablet users launch the most Metro apps at an average clip of 2.71 per day, besting touch laptop users (2.22 apps) and regular laptop users (1.51 apps).

"To put this number into context, we looked at the percent of people who launch a Metro app less than once a day (i.e. less than 7 Metro app launches per week). We found that among desktop and laptop users, 60 percent of users launch a Metro app less than once a day," Soluto said. "This number significantly improves with tablets, but still 44 percent of Windows 8 tablet users launch a Metro app less than once a day."

Interestingly, the most engaging app appears to be Yahoo Mail, which is loaded an average of 26.91 times per week by those who use it. Below that, several versions of solitaire rank in the top 10, which might be indicative of the Windows Store needing a bigger and better stockpile of apps.

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Microsoft Announces Xbox One Console

Paul Lilly — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:26:44 +0000

An all-in-one home entertainment device.

Gamers have been eagerly anticipating the launch of Microsoft's next generation Xbox console, and today they finally got what they've been waiting for. Microsoft's next console, previously referred to as Durango and Xbox 720, was introduced to the world as Xbox One, a name that underscores Microsoft's intent to rule the living room with an all-in-one entertainment system that's equally adept at playing games as it is for watching live TV, chatting on Skype, browsing photos and videos, and more. The device itself looks rather large and almost VCR-like.

Microsoft's Don Mattrick took to the stage and talked about how the living room has become "too complex, too fragmented, and too slow." The Xbox One is Microsoft's answer to these problems, and much of the magic of the new console has to do with intelligent voice recognition and gesture control.

Navigation

Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, demoed several of Xbox One's navigation features. One of big differences between the Xbox One and 360 is that the console recognizes who you are right off the bat. Say "Xbox On" and it will turn on your device and launch straight into your custom profile with your personalized home screen. It will also remember what you were last doing, in case you wanted to jump back into a game or movie that you had to duck out of prematurely.

One of the most impressive demos was Mehdi showing how quickly and smoothly the Xbox One can switch between tasks, going from Internet Explorer ("Xbox Internet Explorer!") to watching movies ("Xbox movie!") and live TV. It will be interesting to see what kind of relationship Microsoft and the Xbox One has with cable providers. It can also, of course, play games. The Xbox One recognizes gestures, too. Reach out your arms, grab, and close to bring up the Home screen, or expand to go back to where you just came from.

A new Snap Mode allows you to multi-task, to an extent. While you're watching a movie, for example, you can have Skype running in a sidebar on the right or look up content on the web via IE.

Live TV figures to be a prominent feature of the Xbox One. Say "Show the guide" to bring up a listing of TV shows and then navigate through voice control, by browsing favorites, or by seeing what's "Trending," which is a new tab added to the Dashboard. If you're bored with your program, you can say "What's on HBO?" and Xbox One will respond with a listing of shows and movies on HBO.

What About the Hardware?

As for the hardware, well, the Xbox One will rock an 8-core CPU with 5 billion transistors, 8GB of system memory, 500GB hard drive, Blu-ray drive (yes, the Xbox is finally getting Blu-ray!), 802.11n Wi-Fi, HDMI in/output, and USB 3.0 support. Beyond that, it's not clear if that RAM will be unified like it is on the PlayStation 4 or which exact processor and GPU Microsoft is tapping into, or whether it will be x86 based like Sony's console. We suspect those details will come to light in the coming months, and potentially at E3, where Microsoft will make several Xbox 360 announcements.

On the platform side, Microsoft described a three-in-one OS architecture:

Xbox software that gives developers deep access to the sysem and hardware
A Windows kernel
Special software to connect the two above OSes

Following the press conference, Nvidia revealed to us that the company will offer the console PhysX support. Whether that is on the GPU side or CPU side is still up in the air. Maximum PC has tried reaching out to Nvidia for more clarification on the matter to only recieve a "no comment" reply. Regardless, with PhysX support coming to the Xbox One, this will be especially interesting as earlier rumors pegged the Xbox One as using AMD components for both the CPU and GPU. This could theoretically mean the green and red team may be collaborating on the console in some capacity.

UPDATE: AMD has confirmed it is indeed designing an APU for the Xbox One. “AMD is very excited to be working with Microsoft on their next-generation Xbox One. The Microsoft Xbox One leverages a single-chip, semi-custom AMD APU, with custom components co-developed with Microsoft designed to enable unique attributes of the system Microsoft is bringing to market,” said Saeid Moshkelani, corporate vice president and general manager of AMD's Semi-Custom Business Unit.

UPDATE #2: A Microsoft representative confirmed to us that AMD would be the Xbox One's primary parts maker, stating, "AMD is our primary partner for the custom silicon that makes up our GPU/CPU SOC that is the heart of Xbox One. We don’t have any further details about Nvidia PhysX at this time, but do stay tuned."

Updated Kinect Sensor and Controller

A new Kinect sensor will be paired with every Xbox One console. It expands to 1080p, can read more joints than before, understands subtle movements like a flick of the wrist, and can even detect your heartbeat when exercising. Microsoft also updated the familiar controller so that it's more ergonomic, though retains the same semi-butterfly shape as previous versions.

Xbox Live

Sorry folks, Microsoft isn't giving up its subscription-based Xbox Live service in favor of free online play for everyone. The same memberships as today will exist, though the backend infrastructure is significantly overhauled. While today's Xbox Live service taps into 15,000 servers, there will be 300,000 servers powering Xbox One's Live service.

Microsoft will put that horsepower to use in part for better matchmaking. It will search for opponents in one game while you're playing another, and overall, Microsoft envisions a deeper, richer Live experience.

Call of Duty: Ghosts

Finally, Call of Duty: Ghosts made an appearance towards the end of the event. Microsoft announced that will continue its exclusive downloadable content (DLC) deal with Activision, ensuring Xbox One gamers get DLC before gamers on other devices.

There's a new game engine being introduced in Ghosts. It will run at a steady 60 frames per second while you control new characters in a new game world. The script is being hammered out by Stephen Gaghan, writer of Traffic and Syriana.

Dogs will be part of your squad and are able protect your team and sniff for explosives. Other animals, like fish, will move out of your way as you get close, which is part of a new artificial intelligence (A.I.) system. There will be dynamic events like earthquakes, and player-driven events too. You'll be able to customize your characters in multiplayer, choosing heads, bodies, helmets, and other gear.

"It will be the best Call of Duty game we've ever ever made," Activision's Erik Hirschberg declared.

That wraps up the highlights. Microsoft didn't announce a price or release date, instead confirming what we already know, which is that Xbox One will be available "later this year."

What did you think of the announcement? Are you as bummed as we are that more hardware details weren't revealed? Let us know in the comments!

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Microsoft Releases a New Round of Cringe Worthy Ads

Justin Kerr — Sun, 12 May 2013 18:26:33 +0000

Google Docs doesn’t work well without the net, so he’s taking it with him.

Microsoft spends countless millions each year on advertising, but the bizarre tone and style of the final product sometimes leaves us scratching our heads. We’ve compiled a list of 5 recent Microsoft marketing videos, and we want to know what you the reader make of them. The clips are hosted on YouTube (who graciously picks up the bandwidth bill on the Google attack ads), and believe me when we say the irony wasn’t lost on us.

Microsoft vs. Google Docs

The first ad focuses on a pair of hopeful gambles, and a start struck business guy fixated on the Google Docs table. He gambles his upcoming promotion (we aren’t even sure how that’s possible) on the off chance he could win a pair of keychain dice, and passes out when he loses.

The second ad portrays a 3 vs. 3 half court basketball game, where Google Docs embarrass himself over and over.

Windows 8 vs. The World

The only defense I can offer on these clips is that they were intended for international audiences, so perhaps some of the cultural nuances are lost on us.

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Maxthon Adds LAN Transfer Option to Multi-Platform Cloud Browser

Paul Lilly — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:52:35 +0000

Transfer files easily between desktop and mobile devices.

Like underwear, changing your browser every once in awhile can give you a fresh feeling. If you're at that point where you're ready to try something different, Maxthon's Cloud Browser is an option worth investigating. We bring it up because Maxthon let us know it just added a LAN transfer feature that allows users to transfer files of any size from their browser directly to any device on their network.

"The addition of LAN transfer will make sizable improvements in users’ everyday web experience," said Karl Mattson, VP of International for Maxthon. "Customers with the newest and fastest home Internet services can now move a 1 GB file from one device to another more than five times faster than the alternative ‘up-over-and-down’ cloud services."

It's a pretty neat feature made more useful by the fact that Maxthon's Cloud Browser is available on multiple platforms, including Windows and Android (iOS and Mac coming soon).

If you want to kick the brower's tires, you can download it from Maxthon's website.

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Acer Chooses To Pass on the Current Version Windows RT

Justin Kerr — Sun, 05 May 2013 21:25:45 +0000

Acer planned to release a Windows RT tablet in Q2, but will hold off for now.

Windows RT tablets are of questionable value when compared to the competition, and Acer can’t resist the temptation to pile on. The PC maker has been making some interesting tablet and Ultrabook designs lately, but is choosing the wait and see approach for the ARM version of Windows 8.

"There are still users looking for more versatile products," said Acer President Jim Wong. He went on to add, "To be honest, there's no value doing the current version of RT." In regards to his opinion on Windows 8, Wong’s opinion was mixed. “The launch was not ideal and the Surface tablet created some distraction, but Microsoft is now doing a good job of supporting its partners and explaining the touch-usage model to customers, Wong said.”

When asked about the company’s vision of the future, Wong clarified that a major focus will be placed on hybrids going forward. "We believe Windows 8 has some more chances. That's why we continue to invest in Windows 8 tablets," Wong said.

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Windows 8 Blue Update Set to Address Issues With Ultra High Resolution Displays

Justin Kerr — Sun, 05 May 2013 19:13:41 +0000

Windows Blue appears to be taking on some serious issues.

Windows display scaling is, and has always been a complete mess. Sure you can bump up the multiplier to make it look half decent if you’re using just one display, but Windows 8 tablet owners are seeing a completely different problem. The next generation of devices are shipping with ultra-high resolution panels that are 10 inches or less in size, but when you try to hook these up to a larger external monitor to get real work done, finding a setting that works with both is a bit of a nightmare. One is always too big, or too small, and you can’t set the scaling separately. Newer laptops are going to run into a similar problem, but the new Windows Blue update may finally be tackling this issue head on.

Paul Thurrott from WinSupersite.com has noticed that a leaked build of the upcoming Windows 8 Blue update includes the option to “Let Windows manage my display settings”, which at least in his testing, yielded better results when mixing and matching displays with radically different DPIs. It’s an obvious feature when you think about it, and will become an increasingly frustrating problem as manufacturers start to roll out 1080p and higher displays as a standard option on portable machines if it’s not addressed.

Its great to see Microsoft tackling real world issues with its first major update to Windows 8, but we aren’t ready to lay on the praise until we find out if it’s being offered for free or not.

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Intel Plans to Push Atom Prices Down Further to Compete With Arm

Justin Kerr — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 02:46:08 +0000

Intel refuses to surrender the lower-end of the market.

Years ago AMD was putting pressure on Intel to continue innovating on the high end, but fast forwarded to 2013 and Intel is the last man standing. The new war is in ultra-low powered chips, and the company is years behind. Intel’s response to ARM was the ATOM series of processors, but they were stuck trying to power a heavy and bloated Microsoft OS, while ARM had custom designed operating systems that extended battery life, and created an entirely new market. This year the two companies are destined to meet in the middle, and it will be a pivotal moment in the history of computing. Intel has announced its plans to compete with the current crop of dirt cheap ARM based devices, and to the winner goes the spoils.

Intel’s decision to take on the low end market isn’t without precedent, but it’s also a moving target. The price point for computing has been falling faster than industry costs, and now the company finds itself scrapping with the competition for a low margin market they aren’t even sure they want. Outgoing CEO Paul Otellini understands the value of winning against ARM, but it remains to be seen if his successor shares his passion.

Microsoft announced last Thursday that small inexpensive form factor PC’s are part of its strategy, so it's likely Intel is just embracing the ever shifting winds of technological change. "We are...working closely with [PC makers] on a new suite of small touch devices powered by Windows. These devices will have competitive price points, partly enabled by our latest OEM offerings designed specifically for these smaller devices, and will be available in the coming months," Microsoft's chief financial officer, Peter Klein, said during the company's earnings call.

Either way it sounds like $200 Android powered Intel tablets are a strong possibility this year, with $250/$300 Windows 8 based versions not far behind. Will they be a fad like Netbooks? Or are these the devices everyone has been waiting for?

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New Windows 8 Blue Leak Confirms Additional Features

Justin Kerr — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 22:05:48 +0000

Microsoft just can’t seem to keep a secret these days.

Microsoft has a security problem, and as a website devoted to PC technology we have absolutely no problem with that. Two new leaked builds of Windows 8.1 (Blue) have emerged online, and we've had a chance to check out what’s changed. Experts with inside sources at Microsoft have confirmed that these leaks are still not feature complete, but with a public preview expected sometime in June, we won’t have to wait much longer. So what’s new?

Kiosk Mode

Anyone who has visited a Best Buy to check out new PC’s will know exactly why this feature is needed. Half the time floor models are either locked up, blue screened, or barely functional. The other fifty percent of the time they are shut down and unplugged. Windows 8.1 Kiosk mode will present potential customers with a “single immersive app experience”, allowing them to swipe around the interface without getting into trouble.

All Apps

Looking for an application installed on your machine, but can’t remember what its called? All apps will add an option to the start screen to see everything installed on your PC, and sort by date installed, most used, size, etc. You can bring up a list of all apps now by selecting search from the charms bar, but you can only see an alphabetical list currently.

Modern UI Synchronization

Settings already synced across PC’s in Windows 8 if you’re logged in using your Microsoft account, but now your start screen moves across as well. Log in from any PC, and feel right at home. This makes perfect sense, and we were sort of surprised this functionality wasn’t available at launch.

Rumor: Start Button and Boot to Desktop

Neither of these features are in the leaked build, but we have it on good authority that the start button and boot to desktop are both returning to Windows 8 Blue. The start button won’t bring back the start menu, and boot to desktop is easy to accomplished with third party tools, but these small concessions make a huge difference when you look at enterprise customers.

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20 Awesome Screensavers

Mark Pilkington — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:51:39 +0000

A screensaver retrospective

Turn back the clock to about a decade ago, and the screensaver was THE standard piece of software on any computer. This wasn’t because they helped PC performance – if anything, they wasted memory space. The real reason they were an accessory every PC couldn’t go without was because of our Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors. These CRT screens were the standard display used by millions of computers worldwide. However, they suffered from the threat of "burn-in." For the uninitiated, burn-in was when an image remained on the screen for too long and caused a phosphor compound that would leave a ghostly etching of the image permanently on the screen.

For a gallery of our 20 favorite screensavers, scroll to the bottom of the page!

Enter the screensaver, a clever piece of software that would automatically start up when a computer was left idle for a certain amount of time. Living up to its name, this was a clever little program that came to be the savior of monitors everywhere. The first ever screensaver was just a blank screen, but that all changed in 1989 when the Magic Screensaver was developed and freely distributed among almost all PC users worldwide. Its incredible popularity soon gave birth to a new genre of programs, led by Macintosh’s After Dark (quickly ported across to the PC). Soon idle computers in offices across the world were displaying flying toasters and all sorts of visual oddities.

The 1990s were the boom period for computing. You could find a computer in offices, schools and homes everywhere. More computers meant more screensavers, with hundreds of developers releasing all manner of monitor saving applications. Companies soon clicked onto the branding and free advertising possibilities, with films, cars and sports screensavers proving to be particularly popular. You couldn’t avoid screensavers then; they were as pervasive as could be.

However, that was then, and nowadays CRT monitors are yesterday’s technology. In fact, you would be hard pressed to even find a CRT monitor for sale these days. With the advancement of the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and other monitors, displays that no longer suffer from burn-in, the humble screensaver has largely become obsolete. Of course, Microsoft still bundles screensavers with its modern Windows releases (with 3D Text, Bubbles, etc.), but they are just an optional extra.

While the industry is not as large as it used to be, there are still plenty of reasons to open the digital door to screensavers again. Granted, the majority of today’s free screensavers you find on the Internet are aimed at children, but delve a little deeper and you can find some crackers out there. Just have a look at what you’re missing out on in our free Screensaver gallery below and let us know what your favorites are!

Note: You are welcome to check out the third-party download links for these screensaver programs below, but it's a good idea to use virustotal.com to check if these programs contain any adware.

Windows 8's Market Share is Coming at the Expense of Windows Vista/XP

Paul Lilly — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:06:06 +0000

Windows 7 users don't seem to be in a rush to upgrade to Windows 8.

Another month is in the books, and that means we have another opportunity to examine Windows 8's impact on the market. According to Net Market Share, Windows 8's share of the desktop market has slowly crawled to 3.17 percent, up half a percentage point from February and up from a 2.26 percent share in January. What's interesting here is that Windows 7's penetration doesn't seem any worse for wear since Windows 8 debuted five months ago.

Windows 8 launched to the general public on October 26, 2012. By the end of the month, here's how the landscape looked:

Windows XP: 40.66 percent
Windows Vista: 5.8 percent
Windows 7: 44.69 percent
Windows 8: 0.41 percent

Here's how things look now:

Windows XP: 38.73 percent
Windows Vista: 4.99 percent
Windows 7: 44.73 percent
Windows 8: 3.17 percent

Breaking down the numbers, Windows 8's share of the desktop market has increased 2.76 percent since the end of October. Windows 7, meanwhile, has barely budged, albeit managed to post a slight gain, while Windows XP and Windows Vista have collectively given up 2.74 percent.

Though it's a small sample size (it's only been five months, after all), there's reason for Microsoft to be optimistic. Windows 8 is gaining, and even though it's happening slowly, Windows XP and Vista users who upgrade are showing a willingness to skip over Windows 7.

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Windows Blue Alpha Build 9364 Leaks

Justin Kerr — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 18:11:01 +0000

Microsoft continues to evolve the modern UI

Microsoft has denied for months that Windows Blue even exists, but we finally have proof. A forum post from a Polish tech blog contained links for Windows 8 build 9364, and R27 installed the patch to verify its legitimacy. The consensus seems to be that Build 9364 is an “alpha” version of Blue, and while it might not be entirely feature complete, it certainly gives us a pretty good idea of what Microsoft has in store. We would recommend against installing this build for both legal and stability reasons, however that doesn’t mean you're totally shut out. We’ve compiled a full gallery of screenshots showing off the changes, and so far we have to say things are looking up for the modern UI.

Oh Snap!

Perhaps the most significant change is how Microsoft is dealing with multitasking of modern UI applications. The shipping version of Windows 8 (build 9200) allows only two modern UI applications to be open at once. To make matters worse one is limited to lousy 320 pixels of horizontal real estate on the left or right hand side of the screen, significantly limiting the usefulness of the app. Build 9364 allows for a 50/50 split screen views, and even allows you to have up to 4 modern UI applications open on the screen at any given time. This type of flexibility will be critical if Microsoft hopes to ever fully replace the desktop, however developers will still need to update their applications to support the new aspect ratios.

New Live Tiles

In Windows 8 live tiles can be either small, or large. Small has always felt a bit big for something that I only want to use as a shortcut, and large always felt too small to display enough useful information without launching the app. Build 9364 allows you to further shrink small tiles into miniature icons, and create new jumbo tiles for content rich applications. This type of flexibility will make the home screen more useful for desktop and tablet users alike, and brings much needed customization to the home screen.

Personalization

Windows 8 allows you to personalize the start screen, but offers a fairly limited range of colors to pick from. The new revamped personalization menu lets you blend the perfect color for your background, and even allows you to make start screen groups without using semantic zoom.

Control Panel Continues Death By A Thousand Cuts

PC settings under the modern UI allows you to change most of the settings found in the desktop control panel, but not everything. Windows Blue will continue this trend by allowing you to change Display Settings, Accounts, SkyDrive, Privacy, Network, Time and Language, and many more. The control panel is still around, but the evidence continues to mount that this legacy means of control your PC is quickly dying off.

Internet Explorer 11

Internet Explorer gets updated to version 11, however its somewhat difficult at this point to determine what if anything is changing. Cosmetically it looks the same as it’s predecessor, but as we mentioned before this alpha build is probably not feature complete.

We will continue to update this article as new features are discovered, but so far the changes look promising. We just hope this ends up being a free update, and Microsoft doesn’t fragment the Windows market the way Apple and Google have in mobile.

What do you think of the changes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Microsoft Force Feeds Service Pack 1 to Windows 7 Users

Paul Lilly — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:07:19 +0000

SP1 for Windows 7 delivers critical security updates and improves performance.

For those of you rocking Windows 7 -- likely the majority reading this -- Microsoft wants you running Service Pack 1 (SP1), so beginning today it will roll out automatically on Windows Update, the software giant announced in a blog post. You can avoid SP1 by disabling automatic updates, but unless you have a very specific reason to do so, you might as well upgrade, if you haven't already. SP1 contains several security patches, bug fixes, and performance tweaks to keep Windows 7 operating at peak form.

One thing to keep in, however, is how much storage space you have on your system, especially if you're running a small capacity solid state drive (SSD).

"To ensure Service Pack 1 is installed without issue, customers should check for sufficient free disk space and that AC power is present on a laptop," Microsoft advises. "If additional space needs to be created, we recommend using the Disk Cleanup tool to delete some files so that the service pack will install. If the service pack installation is interrupted, it will reattempt to install automatically after the next restart."

SP1 delivered via Windows Update requires 750MB of free disk space on a x86-based system running 32-bit copy of Windows 7, and just over a gigabyte (1,050MB) for 64-bit. If downloading SP1 from Microsoft's website or installing with a DVD, 4,100MB (32-bit) or 7,400MB (64-bit) is required.

Why the sudden push? Microsoft is planning to end support for Windows 7 without SP1 next month. With SP1 installed, Microsoft will support the OS through January 2020.

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Windows 8 Review

David Murphy — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 23:14:03 +0000

Windows 8 Review: Microsoft straps a tablet operating system to Windows 8. Should enthusiasts make the big upgrade?

We've updated our Windows 8 Review to include tidbits on the upcoming Windows Blue update. You can jump to the last page to read about it here.

Windows 8 is not a want, it’s a necessity. Not for you, the consumer. For Microsoft.

We’d like to think that somewhere, somehow, a group of user interface experts like to meet up for lunch in one of Microsoft’s (likely) sprawling Redmond cafeterias. They talk about their days, their families, and how horrified they are at Microsoft’s decision—and need—to unify a single user experience across its entire product line.

That’s the real reason why Windows 8 looks and feels like a tablet operating system slapped overtop Windows 7 (with a few tweaks here and there). It is. Users are given no way around it—Microsoft has made sure of that fact. And, in many ways, there’s no way around it for Microsoft, either. The company has decided that users cannot have dissimilar Windows experiences across desktops, tablets, smartphones, or any other kooky gadgets on the horizon, but refuses (or can’t) cut the cord of the traditional desktop experience just yet.

Windows 8 is the natural, necessary hybrid—the last time you’re likely to see the “core” Windows experience of the last decade mashed together with the multicolored, touch-sensitive, “Metro” boxes of the future. A word on that: While Microsoft has elected to not call the tablet-ized portion of Windows 8’s user interface Metro—it’s now just called “Windows 8,” we think—we’ll keep using the old nomenclature just to make this review easier to process.

However, we’re willing to bet you’ll have many other colorful names for your experience with the new OS.

The Installation

We never thought we’d type the words, “Microsoft has made it easy to install Windows,” but there you have it. Your first introduction into Microsoft’s latest iteration of Windows comes from the previously laborious process of blanking your hard drive and playing the company’s equivalent of 20 questions to install an OS.

Assuming you have a product key—now a requirement to install Windows 8, instead of an after-the-fact input—the installation process looks identical to Windows 7’s at first. Once you’ve set the installer to copy files to your hard drive, Windows 8 is off to the races. A simple, black installation screen gives you pithy updates about what’s happening between your installation media and your hard drive. After that, only five prompts require your attention, including one for picking your PC name and your favorite color and three that relate to verifying the settings for the Windows Live ID you’ll want to link to your installation.

When Windows 8 says, “Your PC will be ready in just a moment,” it’s not kidding. This is the speediest, most annoyance-free OS installation we’ve ever experienced.

To learn how you can install Windows 8 from a USB drive, check out our "Install Windows 8" guide. The article also addresses whether or not you should go with an upgrade or clean install.

And Then…

Welcome to Metro! Right-click tiles to select them, and then drag them around your Metro desktop to create new columns—it’s a “dumping grounds,” of sorts, for groups of programs.

Up pops Metro, the tiled-box screen that’s easily Windows 8’s most controversial feature. To discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and intricacies of Metro alone could eat up an entire multipage review. So we’ll lead with the biggie: At its core, Metro feels… undone. To put it another way, Microsoft’s treatment of its tiles, Metro’s interactions with the “normal” half of Windows 8, and the lack of customization present in this Hyde to Windows 7’s Jekyll does a disservice to those who want anything beyond an operating system set in “easy mode.”

Metro's People app is a virtual gathering place for just about every contact you'll likely ever have - pulled in from your Google, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Microsoft accounts, for now.

You, faithful Maximum PC readers and computing enthusiasts that you are, will hate Metro. Some developers are even working on applications that will terminate Metro altogether.

While Windows 8 has removed the traditional Start button, companies have created replacement Windows 8 Start buttons. Check out our Stardock Start8 vs. Classic Shell head-to-head story to see which new Windows 8 Start button we recommend.

Let’s start with the apps. At the time of this review, Microsoft and third-party developers worldwide have yet to jump on the app bandwagon. We can’t speak to what’s on the horizon for Metro, but we can certainly discuss the apps that come bundled with the operating system by default.

The single-app, full-screen Metro environment takes some getting used to. Truly, your capacity to enjoy Microsoft’s tablet treatment depends on the app: The People app is as pointless as it is cluttered. We don’t understand why one would need to have all of one’s contacts—yes, your random Twitter friends too, if you so desire—in a setting that’s hard to navigate (horizontal scroll only!), difficult to configure (one giant “news feed” for everyone, really?), and difficult to edit (merging contacts and setting “favorites” takes too long).

SkyDrive? We dare anyone to say that this Metro app is easier to navigate than a simple, Dropbox-like folder in File Explorer (Windows Explorer, no more). Video? Sure, if you like a player that’s more in touch with Microsoft’s online store than an app that can legitimately play all the files you toss its way. Messaging? Works great with Microsoft Messenger and Facebook—and that’s about it. Trillian is hardly shaking in its boots, here.

Other apps, like Weather and Maps, deliver a compelling experience within Metro. Games—and the downloadable Xbox Smartglass app—finally tie together one’s PC and one’s Xbox 360 in a better, but not ideal, fashion. News, though still annoyingly stuck to a horizontal plane, looks as wonderful as its companion app Sports.

We have you own Windows 8 app, you can read more about it here.

Mail, however, is downright laughable—especially when free alternatives like Mozilla’s Thunderbird, the web-based Gmail, or Microsoft’s own Outlook application blow its lackluster capabilities out of the water.

It’s frustrating that Windows 8’s built-in Internet Explorer 10, an app that gets the full Metro treatment to delightful results, requires you to set the browser as your default just to play with its Metro version. Apps like Google’s Chrome browser—admittedly still in the development channel as of this article’s writing—don’t cross-pollinate between Windows Metro and Windows Desktop. Each browser is its own unique instance in this case, which couldn’t be any more frustrating for laypeople and enthusiasts.

The strength of Windows’ apps—both third-party and Microsoft-driven—are going to be the make-or-break elements for Metro. At launch, and especially on a single-screen setup, they are more novelty than necessity.

Microsoft has updated the Windows app store since launch. Check out our favorite Windows 8 apps story.

Metro’s search tool, accessible just by typing in anything when you’re staring at the main tiles screen, is one of its most compelling features. The now-lamer Windows Indexing of Windows 7 just got put to shame.

Metro Organization

It’s possible to think of Metro as simply a start menu—which it basically is, given that Microsoft has killed the traditional Start Menu in Windows 8’s desktop mode. Just ignore all the live tiles and downloadable apps and use the blocky UI as a souped-up entry to your desktop. Sort of.

Organizing tiles is as easy as dragging them around to new columns based on whatever internal organization scheme you’re going for. That said, it’s still annoying that you can’t adjust their shape at all, nor edit their size beyond one of two set limits Microsoft has put into place. Microsoft does give you the option to assign a name to columns of tiles, but you might miss this feature unless you go hunting (hint: use the lower-right-hand “minus” sign to expand your Metro UI to the full, zoomed-out view, and then right-click a column).

In Metro, a tile is often an app, or a shortcut to an app, that you’ve pinned to the “Start,” though it could also be a folder, library link, or network resource, to name just a few. For whatever reason, you can’t create tiles for important “common” files within the Metro interface, like a critical PDF or favorite song you want easy access to.

Windows 8’s biggest Metro killjoy occurs when you go to install a new app—like, say, the Combined Community Codec Pack. For Windows 8’s Metro interface is, for all intents, its start menu. And when an app like CCC comes with eight or more shortcuts that would otherwise be simple links in said menu, they transform into a whole heckuva lot of tiles within Metro. We can count on one hand the number of times we’ve needed to delete extraneous or unwanted links on a conventional Windows start menu. Within Metro, you’ll be doing this a lot, if you’re actually trying to keep your horizontal interface (ugh) clutter-free.

While Metro comes with a number of options to prettify your PC, know that its settings are a wee bit more buried than your average Control Panel—and they aren't even accessible via the Control Panel.

To Microsoft’s credit, it’s wonderful that you can now just type that which you wish to find on your system—from apps, to Windows elements, to files. Metro takes the old and familiar Windows Indexing and kicks it up about five notches. Type in—well, anything—and you’ll be able to search for apps that fit your query, Windows settings or prompts, or files. You can even get a little more specific and search within apps, like Microsoft’s Store, if you already have an idea of what you’re looking for and where it might be.

For tips on how to use and optimize Windows 8, check out our Windows 8 Tips guide. The article will help you manage your Windows 8 Start screen, show you how to uninstall Windows 8 apps, and pretty up your Windows 8 screen.

Can you ignore Windows 8’s Metro environment and instead pretend that it’s just one big, boxy Start Menu? Yes—mostly thanks to Metro’s search. However, Microsoft will still do its best to force Metro down your throat by booting to this user interface by default instead of allowing you to jump straight to your desktop. Will you still mostly miss your old Windows 7 Start Menu? We do.

The Multi-Monitor Difference

In a single-monitor environment, Metro just doesn’t make a lot of sense. As much as Microsoft tries to fit the square peg in the round hole, Metro is, at its core, an interface made for tablets, not a monitor. For a pair of monitors, however, Metro becomes a pretty ideal combination of a standard Windows 7 desktop and a big-ol’ screen that you can glance at to view useful information in a blown-up, exaggerated fashion.

In other words, Windows 8 reads a lot better in a multi-monitor setup.

We had the pleasure of being able to try out Windows 8 in such an environment. Better still, our secondary monitor was a handy-dandy ViewSonic touchscreen monitor (for the full Windows 8 Metro experience).

Setting up two monitors is just as easy to do in a Windows 8 environment as it is in Windows 7. For those rocking a touchscreen, however, you’ll have to do a bit of jumping around to ensure that your device is perfectly calibrated for your setup. And we don’t mean matching your finger-presses to where they register on the panel itself. We had to jump into Windows 8’s Tablet PC Settings—of all Control Panel options—to ensure that our finger-presses were correctly mapping to screen number two instead of the primary display. That could not be any more unintuitive on Microsoft’s part.

Metro’s new multi-monitor support means you’ll no longer need to turn to third-party apps to manage the funner parts of a dual-screen setup, like setting different wallpapers (or slide shows of wallpapers) on each screen.

It’s great that we no longer have to resort to third-party apps to stretch a single wallpaper image across two desktops—thanks, new Windows 8 personalization settings. Even better, Windows 8 now allows you to set custom backgrounds or slide-show wallpapers for each monitor, and you can even flick off the taskbar—or hide it, if no active apps are open on the display—as you see fit.

Keyboard commands allow you to flick windows back and forth between your monitors—nothing new there for Windows 7 multi-monitor enthusiasts. However, what’s lacking is a way to force Metro to pop up on a specific monitor via key press or, even better, set a single monitor as the “default” recipient of any Windows key action on your keyboard.

It gets uglier. Metro doesn’t just pop up on whatever monitor your mouse cursor happens to be hovering over—that would be too easy. Metro appears on your primary monitor by default.

To launch it on a second monitor instead, you first have to hover your mouse in the lower-left-hand corner of the target display and click. After that, Metro will “bind” to your Windows key for that monitor until you repeat the process on a different display.

That’s not so bad, right? It gets uglier. The basic Metro interface is not a unique entity; it’s attached to your normal operating system in such a way that clicking anywhere outside of the interface—like, say, on your primary display—closes Metro entirely. Huh?

You have to launch a Metro app in order for it to “stick” to your second display. After that, all’s well—dragging Metro apps back and forth between monitors is as easy as dragging conventional desktop windows to and fro. Metro’s snap feature, or the ability to stash a Metro app to a left or right sidebar while you simultaneously operate another app, stays in place when you switch between screens.

We’re not sold on Windows 8’s touchscreen controls, first and foremost because Microsoft does the barest minimum to explain what they are—and Windows 8 isn’t all that intuitive. Second, because you really have to dig into the bezel in order to activate Metro’s various “hot corners,” which include the options panel you pull up from the bottom of the screen for Metro apps, the right-hand Charms Bar, and the left-hand app‑selector sidebar. It would have been a grand gesture if Microsoft gave users the option to adjust the size or sensitivity of the hotspots on their screen. But, hey, at least Windows 8 now supports multitouch gestures on touchpads. Eh?

This image represents the ideal Metro experience: an easy-to-understand (and ideally, touch-sensitive) Metro app on one screen, combined with the standard Windows 7-ish desktop as the primary input. In other words, Metro is better as a spice than as the main ingredient of Windows 8’s dish.

Another not-so-insignificant annoyance related to a two-monitor setup is that there’s no way to get Windows 8 to ignore any touches during inopportune moments. Since Windows 8 treats a tap as if it was a mouse cursor, playing a game full-screen on monitor one while trying to tap your way to an email or a news item on monitor two’s Metro display minimizes your game and sends you back to the desktop on monitor uno.

Specific problem? Yes. But it’s the kind of Metro annoyance that screams for a solution..

Windows Other

While we think it’s important to dig deep into the perils and pleasures of Microsoft’s biggest change in the Windows 8 environment, that’s not to say the company left the “Windows 7” portions of the operating system out to dry.

First, and most noticeable, is Windows 8’s absurdly faster startup and shutdown times compared to any other iteration of the operating system. That’s thanks to a lesser hibernation routine that (finally) stores the operating system’s kernel session—Windows 8’s system state and memory contents—to a file on your hard drive. Windows 8 employs multicore processing to read and decompress the contents of this “hiberfile” during boot, which leads to a much speedier system launch versus Windows 7, which requires a full system initialization each time you hit the power button.

While you might notice slightly slower file transfers within Windows 8 versus Windows 7, were you to compare the two directly, it’s because Windows 8 now builds malware scanning directly into the process (helped by the integration of Windows Defender, formerly Security Essentials, into the operating system). We don’t mind that a bit, especially when it’s accompanied by Windows 8’s amazing new File Transfer feature. Not only can you now pause and cancel transfers whenever you want, but Windows 8 also gives you a throughput graph that populates your speeds in real time. It almost makes us want to forget about TeraCopy.

Windows 8’s Task Manager receives a similar face-lift, including a wonderful “historical” option that shows you just how many resources various apps have consumed over the past week—Metro-only apps, however, which dovetails nicely with the interface’s “never really closes your apps” treatment. And, heavens be praised, Windows finally integrates a “what the heck is this?” option for its Startup tab, which gives you a quick way to search for more information about various apps that run once Windows 8 boots.

The Office-like “ribbon” that now adorns the top of Window 8’s File Explorer takes a little getting used to, but it’s a great way to organize all of the most useful settings you need to access within a single window. Its available options even change dynamically depending on what you’re clicking, from applications, to pictures, to movies, etc. It’s still a shame that even File Explorer can’t escape Microsoft’s need to horizontal-ize Windows 8—you can view more files in a directory when file details are displayed at the bottom of the window, not on the right-hand side.

You can also use Windows 8 to create your own Home Server. Check out our Windows 8 Home Server guide here.

And, of course, it’s hard to overlook Microsoft’s head-nod to the cloud in all sorts of various permutations. There’s the SkyDrive app, a mini-Dropbox of sorts for 7GB of your most important or interesting files that’s wonderfully interwoven with other apps like Office 2013. There’s Window 8’s native synchronization with your Microsoft Live account (should you set up Windows 8 with one), which allows you to keep your Windows preferences, Metro app data, bookmarks, passwords—the list goes on—in sync no matter which computer you’re using Windows 8 on.

No longer will you have to manually type in strange application names to figure out just what the heck is loading when your system boots. With Windows 8, discovery is but a mouse-click away.

Though you’ll never need to use them, astute Maximum PC reader that you are, Windows 8 even tosses in some great features for restoring your system in the face of disaster (good luck finding the buried System Restore app, even if you use the Metro search tool). A “Refresh your PC” option copies your data, reinstalls Windows, and transfers your data back—the “lesser” restoration technique that just might do the trick in the face of slowness or serious error. Window 8’s more hardcore tool, the “Remove everything” option, does just that: nukes your drive, reinstalls Windows 8, and begins the initial configuration process anew.

Windows 8 Review: Our Final Thoughts

Considering that a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium costs north of $80, we think it’s completely fitting that a standard Windows 8 upgrade costs $40: Metro’s worth can be counted on one hand for a typical desktop user, but the improvements found across the “Windows 7” version of the OS are certainly worth paying for. Even with Metro’s annoyances—and we haven’t even covered the full list in this extended review of the OS—Windows 8 is a good-to-have, but not supremely necessary upgrade. Those who made the jump straight from Windows XP to Windows 7 know the feeling we’re describing here.

Windows 8’s more advanced Storage Spaces tool allows you to add new storage sources at any time—hard drives, flash drives, or other external storage devices—to create giant storage ”pools” with redundancy policies you decide on.

The features we’ve touched upon, and some of the operating system’s more hardcore elements that we haven’t—like Windows 8’s Storage Spaces or File History feature—just about balance out the general issues you’ll deal with when confronting Microsoft’s “newbie mode” head on. It would be wrong to fear Windows 8 because of the sweeping changes (and poor follow-through) Microsoft has introduced into an otherwise fine desktop operating system. Upgrade your OS. Bask in your faster boot times. Synchronize your settings and files with Microsoft’s fluffy clouds. Heck, burn and mount ISO files—that’s a new one for Windows!

Fear Windows 9 instead. Once Microsoft cuts the cord on the classic desktop, kiss your productivity goodbye. Say hello to Microsoft marketplaces accompanying everything on the OS—much as they do now with a handful of Metro apps. Us? We plan to prepare for the desktop apocalypse by stockpiling copies of Windows ME. $100 per. Cash only.

Windows 8’s File History setting, buried deep within the Control Panel, is yet another “backup” technique that saves shadow copies of your data to other hard drives, external devices, or network-based storage.

Windows 8 VS. Windows 7: Fight!

Windows 8 haters have already labeled the new OS as the second coming of Windows Vista, but those who can contain their bile know that Win 8 is likely to be far from the performance-sucking, driver-breaking Windows Vista in its pre-SP1 days.

To find out how Windows 8 compares to the lithe Windows 7, we took an Asus P8Z77-V Premium board; inserted a Core i7-3770K, a GeForce GTX 690, 8GB of DDR3/1866, and an OCZ Vertex 4 SSD; loaded up Windows 7 Professional SP1; and ran our benchmarks. We then took an identical Vertex 4 SSD, loaded up Windows 8 Professional, and reran our benchmarks. We used the same beta 304.79 GeForce drivers for both and the latest beta drivers available from Asus for our testing.

The verdict? We expected the scores to be nearly identical, and for the most part they were. As Windows 8 is built on the foundation of Windows 7, we didn’t expect a quantum shift here, but we did see some performance differences. The most glaring difference was in PCMark 7, where Windows 8 produced significantly faster scores in the creativity and computation tests.

Why such a huge difference? We suspect it’s the result of changes to Windows Media Foundation in Win 8. Windows Media Foundation is Microsoft’s replacement for DirectShow, which was implemented in Windows Vista. 3DMark 11 also showed a difference, but in Windows 7’s favor, by a smaller percentage, in the physics and combined score. The difference there is likely due to some efficiency with the Bullet Physics engine that FutureMark uses in the test. More importantly, the graphics score is the same between operating systems, which tells us there should be no difference when gaming in Windows 7 or Windows 8—at least on Nvidia hardware.

Windows 8 includes native USB 3.0 support, and we saw it smoking the stock Windows 7 USB 3.0 performance by a hefty margin. Our Asus board, however, includes a Turbo mode, which puts it within striking range of Windows 8. USB 3.0 performance on Windows 8, for the most part, is pretty awesome, though.

The rest of our tests were mostly a wash except in two interesting instances: Cinebench 11.5 and X264 HD 5.0.1. Both are multithreaded like mad, and both show about a 5 percent advantage in Windows 8. This could quite possibly be a sign of the improved scheduler in Windows 8.

Check out what we hope to see in SP1 for Windows 8 in our "What we hope to see in Service Pack 1" story.

To sum up, Windows 8 performance is generally the same as Windows 7, with a performance edge in anything that uses the Windows Media Foundation and likely anything that is heavily multithreaded. USB 3.0 is also markedly improved. We do note the issue with Bullet Physics in 3DMark 11, but we don’t think it’s a very serious issue. So all you haters better find something else to hate on.

Early Birds Get Preferred Pricing

Microsoft has simplified the editions and prices of Windows 8—at least compared to how the company initially segmented its first batches of Windows 7. However, folks considering an upgrade won’t want to delay for too long, as Microsoft is also offering early birds a significant discount on Windows 8.

Windows 8, in total, will arrive in four versions: Windows RT, the ARM version of the OS that comes preinstalled on supported devices; Windows 8; Windows 8 Pro; and Windows 8 Enterprise.

If you’re already running Windows XP, Vista, or 7, you can upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $39 until January 31, 2013. That’s just for a digital download; retail copies will cost $69 until the deadline, when the Pro price will then bump to $199. There’s no word, as of this article’s writing, how much Windows 8 (standard version) might cost.

Still, compare that to the pricing scheme for the three major versions of Windows 7 currently on the market: $119 for Home Premium, $199 for Professional, and $219 for Ultimate. To Microsoft’s credit, the company did offer similar discount pricing for Windows users shortly after Windows 7’s 2009 launch—a final cost of $50, $100, and $219, respectively.

Playing on price is Microsoft’s answer to the inexpensive upgrades Apple enthusiasts have enjoyed for years now. It also might just be Windows 8’s ticket to increased adoption rates in the face of Metro’s heavier criticisms.

Minimize Metro’s Annoyances

As mentioned, Windows 8’s Metro isn’t the simplest of interfaces to navigate—especially if you’re stuck on a good-ol’ keyboard and mouse. However, there are still a few tricks you can use to streamline and customize your way through (or around) Microsoft’s “tablet” portion of the OS.

For starters, make sure you fire up Windows’ Default Programs app—found by typing “default” into the Metro UI—and use it to set Windows Photo Viewer and Windows Media Player as the default apps for all file types they can open. This allows you to bypass the annoyance of jumping into Metro Photos or Video whenever you click on a related file in File Explorer.

If you want to avoid Windows 8’s app management entirely, don’t pin your most-used apps as Metro tiles; pin them to your taskbar. The bottom of your desktop screen might get a little cluttered, but at least you won’t have to hunt down your apps within Metro.

One of our favorite tricks allows you to bypass having to jump into Metro from the desktop to run Metro apps. Make a shortcut on your desktop and type this in for the item location: %windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{4234d49b-0245-4df3-b780-3893943456e1}

Your shortcut will pull up Windows 8’s Applications window, which will let you launch Metro apps directly from the desktop.

For a more intense Metro transformation, check out the third-party app Classic Shell (classicshell.sourceforge.net). Not only can you bring the long-lost Start Menu back into Windows 8, but you’ll also be able to boot directly to Windows 8’s desktop instead of its Metro UI. Additionally, you can also completely disable a number of portions of the Windows 8 Metro UI: Hotspots, the Charms Bar, etc.

Windows 8 also includes a number of useful tweaks within its Group Policy Editor, including the ability to bypass Windows 8’s lock screen for faster logging-on. It won’t spare you from Metro, but it’ll at least help you get to your safe and friendly desktop even faster.

Windows 8's Applications window is the sure-fire way to launch Metro apps without first haivng to jump into Metro

Windows 8: Under the Hood

While the new Metro UI will be what catches your attention in Microsoft’s latest OS, there’s actually far more under the hood that offers tangible performance benefits.

USB 3.0 Native Drivers

Windows 8 brings native USB 3.0 drivers to the mix, so no longer will you have to hunt for USB 3.0 drivers after your clean install. Even better, USB 3.0 performance is greatly increased with the native Microsoft drivers, too.

Windows Acceleration

Windows 8’s implementation of Direct2D—the API for hardware-accelerating text, bitmaps, and other UI elements—offers a huge leap in performance over Windows 7 by relying on DirectX 11.1 to accelerate 2D graphics. Other improvements include 60 percent faster decompression of JPEGs and PNGs and techniques to make graphically intense chores drink less power.

DirectX11.1/WDM1.2

DX11.1 offers fairly innocuous changes from DX11, with the most noticeable being support for enhanced 2D graphics acceleration. DX11.1 also officially adds stereoscopic support, improved memory management, and better management of tile-based rendering for low-power applications.

Improved Scheduler

We already know that AMD says Windows 8 will give its Bulldozer cores an uptick in performance, thanks to an improved scheduler that can deal with AMD’s core design, but it’s apparently also a bit faster on Intel parts. See our performance analysis on page 32 for more info.

App Suspension

This applies more to the Metro side of the fence, but instead of Metro apps staying open and sucking up RAM, Windows 8 will suspend the applications to disk when not in use and also let the OS reclaim RAM easily. Even desktop apps, though, can be individually suspended or have components suspended when physical memory is running low.

Windows RT: What is it?

Even though Microsoft is planning to put the full version of Windows 8 onto its upcoming Surface tablet, the company realized it would also need a stripped-down version to run on ARM tablets and cell phones, so it has created Windows RT to handle those duties. Windows RT, which stands for Windows Runtime (we know, the name is horrible) is designed to run one thing and one thing only—apps from the Microsoft store. That’s all it will do, just like how an iPad or Android tablet only lets you add or remove applications. There will be no desktop, no file explorer, or any other trappings of a traditional Windows environment. Think of it this way: Imagine if Microsoft yanked Metro’s tile-based interface out of Windows 8 and created an operating system out of it; that’s Windows RT in a nutshell.

Now before you go getting your jimmies rustled, consider this: Using apps is all a tablet is designed to do. You’ll have an app for your email, web browsing, e-books, and so forth, so you should be able to accomplish most of what you can do on today’s tablets on a Windows RT device. You’ll even be able to be mildly productive, as Microsoft is bundling a free version of its ubiquitous office suite, tentatively named Office RT. And though you’ll surely be able to download some sort of media player, Windows Media Player will not be bundled with Windows RT. Hopefully, VLC will come to the rescue.

What can’t you do in Windows RT? You won’t be able to install whatever Windows software you have lying around, so put that USB key away for now. If it’s not in the Windows 8 store, you can’t install it. Good news, though—Maximum PC will have an app, so you can read all about the latest hardware anywhere you take your tablet (we won’t ask where that is).

UPDATE (March 14, 2013): Windows 8 Getting an Update in the form of Windows Blue

You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to detect that Microsoft’s flagship operating system has some kinks to work out. In its defense, Windows XP was arguably in worse shape when it debuted in October 2001. And Vista had just a few issues to work out, as well. What’s unexpected is the extent of this new update, dubbed Windows Blue (which will apparently get a public preview in mid-summer before a full release in August). What’s more, it’s reported to be the beginning of an annual update process, similar to OS X’s—but without a price tag. It took nearly two years for Microsoft to release Windows 7’s Service Pack 1, and it was mostly bug fixes. But while Microsoft won’t officially confirm the contents of Windows Blue or discuss its long-term strategy with it, its existence is practically a forgone conclusion. Let’s draw a sketch of where MS is reportedly going with Blue.

Power Play

Windows 8 is actually a pretty snappy operating system. It boots quickly, programs open and close without unusual delay, and it’s a generally stable experience. However, battery life could be better, particularly for the Intel-based Surface tablet. In the three and a half years since Windows 7 came out, mobile computing has driven a deep wedge into the front line of desktop computing. Apple came out with a popular tablet, and Samsung et al followed suit with Android-based competitors. Microsoft and its traditional x86 partners weren’t able to adapt quickly enough (though Haswell may change things). Windows Blue will apparently tweak Windows 8’s energy consumption to compete with platforms that didn’t exist a few years ago.

Finders Keepers

Another issue is the Modern UI’s Search function, which has a habit of not finding things that it should. The search function in Start button replacements like Classic Shell seem to work as well as before, so the problem probably doesn’t run too deep. Windows 8’s Search mainly has problems detecting data that’s linked to Modern apps (which are kind of a big deal). We expect MS to fix this issue, plus improve integration with Bing Search (which is actually a pretty good service for hunting down particular images and video clips). You’ll probably get a shortlist of recommended programs when you search for media.

But Wait, There’s More

The new features don’t stop there. We’re told that MS will also bundle Internet Explorer 11. But other than its version number, we know nothing about it. It would be nice to see an extensions/add-ons library, though. Windows Live Mail, MS’s free desktop email client, is expected to get an update. The other programs in MS’s downloadable “Windows Essentials” package, like Messenger, Writer, and Movie Maker, will probably also get some polish.

All in the Family

If the rumors are to be believed, this plan doesn’t end with Windows 8. We’ve heard that MS intends to extend this annual update initiative to Windows Server 2012, Microsoft Office, Outlook.com, and possibly other large projects. Corporate IT tends to want a less-frequent release cycle because that makes things easier to maintain and troubleshoot. So, it’s unclear how a relatively fast schedule will play out in the business sector, whose support contracts and bulk licensing earn MS billions of dollars per year.

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