Windows Archive

"Early milestone builds of Windows 8 have leaked onto the Internet, and considerable effort has been put into figuring out how they work. Though officially tight-lipped, snippets of information have escaped Redmond's walls. So far, it appears that Windows 8 development doesn't just look not bad - there are signs that it will actually resolve many long-standing annoyances with writing Windows software. If Microsoft can pull off everything it's hoping to achieve with the platform, Windows 8 will be as important and radical a release as Windows Longhorn was going to be." Fantastic article by Ars' Peter Bright. His stance on H264 and WebM may boil my blood at times, but this is a good piece of writing. Highly recommended.

Way back in old and boring January of this year, Microsoft announced they would be working together with the Windows Phone 7 homebrew community, with the goal of creating a stable, supported way for homebrew developers and people interested in homebrew applications to enable side-loading on their WP7 devices. Well, they took their sweet time, but the ChevronWP7 team (Rafael Rivera, Chris Walsh, and Long Zheng) and Microsoft have just announced the results.

After the end of business on Monday I received the following in an email from Microsoft: "We appreciate your feedback and enthusiasm throughout the Windows Thin PC Community Technology Preview. Today, we are happy to announce that Windows Thin PC has been released to manufacturing (RTM), and will be available for our SA customers to download starting July 1, 2011." Anandtech published a brief but concise review of Windows Thin PC but here's a quick summary of my experience of this 32-bit only OS based on Windows Embedded Standard 7.

Four years ago, July 2007, Microsoft released the first few tidbits of information about Windows 7. Vista had just been shipped, and it wasn't received well - both by critics and the marketplace. During these days, I argued that for Windows 7, Microsoft ought to scrap the Vista userland, and build an entirely new interface and userland on top of Windows NT, while maintaining a 'classic' Windows version on the side for business and other reluctant folk who want to see the 'new' Windows mature a little bit first. While they didn't do this with Windows 7, they are doing exactly this with Windows 8. Ladies and gentlemen, Windows 8 is the first 'cut the legacy'-release we've all been waiting for - and Microsoft couldn't have picked a better time.

As you all know, Microsoft is hard at work making sure Windows 8 runs well on tablets, including a completely new, Windows Phone 7-like Metro user interface. Another similarity between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 7, apparently, is that Microsoft will be controlling the hardware experience rather tightly. This all comes from Acer CEO J. T. Wang.

We've already talked about Windows 8 so often you'd almost forget it had not yet been officially confirmed by Microsoft. Well, Steve Ballmer has announced that yes, it's going to be called Windows 8, and yes, it's going to arrive in 2012. "We're obviously hard at work on the next version of Windows," Ballmer said, "Windows 7 PCs will sell over 350 million units this year. We've done a lot in Windows 7 to improve customer satisfaction. We have a brand new user interface. We've added touch, and ink, and speech. And yet, as we look forward to the next generation of Windows systems, which will come out next year, there's a whole lot more coming. As we progress through the year, you ought to expect to hear a lot about Windows 8. Windows 8 slates, tablets, PCs, a variety of different form factors." Right-o. Update: A company spokesperson has retracted the statement, but whatever, we're not stupid.

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer has officially confirmed today, during a developer conference in Tokyo, that the next version of Windows will be called Windows 8 and will debut in 2012. More details on Windows 8 could emerge at the upcoming D: All Things Digital conference, where Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows division of Microsoft, is scheduled to "talk about the future of Windows in the era of all kinds of new devices and the cloud".

The ARM version of Windows 8 might have just become the most desired version of Windows in our hearts and minds. After us talking about legacy code and backwards compatibility in Windows for years now, an Intel senior vice president, Renee James, has just stated that Windows 8 on ARM will not have any form of compatibility for legacy applications whatsoever. Update: Microsoft has responded to Intel's claims. "Intel's statements during yesterday's Intel Investor Meeting about Microsoft's plans for the next version of Windows were factually inaccurate and unfortunately misleading," the company said, "From the first demonstrations of Windows on SoC, we have been clear about our goals and have emphasized that we are at the technology demonstration stage. As such, we have no further details or information at this time."

"In contrast with iOS and Android, Microsoft says that its Windows Phone OS doesn't create any persistent on-phone record of where you've been. That's not to say that the company doesn't collect the information at all—but the large location caches found on handsets with competing operating systems aren't found on Microsoft-powered phones."

"Windows 8 build 7850.0.winmain_win8m1.100922-1508 contains a number of references to a brand new feature in Windows: Portable Workspaces. Microsoft will allow Enterprise customers to create USB storage driven copies of Windows. 'Portable Workspace is a Windows feature that allows you to run Windows from a USB storage device', notes Microsoft in its description of the feature inside Windows 8." So, yeah, something we've been waiting for in Windows since, well, forever. Also, push notifications, a screenshot tool and a new webcam application have been discovered as well.

"Microsoft's Windows App Store screenshots appear to have leaked for the first time on Monday. The screenshots show Microsoft's new application store for Windows. The store appears to be running in Windows 7, hinting that the software giant may also be planning to offer its app store for legacy versions of Windows."

And yes, the stream of controlled Windows 8 leaks continues. This time around, Thurrot and Rivera have published a number of screenshots from Windows 8's brand-new tablet user interface, and surprise surprise, its built on Metro, the same design language that underpins Windows Phone 7. Windows 8 will also include its own PDF reader, Modern Reader, which also happens to be the first application packaged in Microsoft's new AppX format. Update: Long Zheng has some technical details on AppX, including this little tidbit: "The extensive list of properties signifies the comprehensive scope of this system to be the ideal deployment strategy for 'applications', in all essence of the word. In fact, the AppX format is universal enough so it appears to work for everything from native Win32 applications to framework-based applications and even *gasp* web applications. Games are also supported."

Ever since Microsoft adopted its new 'silent treatment' development process, barely any news about the next version of Windows leaves Redmond. Now though, we have WinRumors stating that for Windows 8, Microsoft is finally going to do something visibly useful for desktop users with Shadow Copy, a feature first introduced in Windows XP.

Microsoft's first big update for Windows Phone 7, which brings, among other things, copy/paste and performance improvements, is finally being rolled out to users. Unbranded devices are the first to get the update. Sadly, my own unlocked HTC HD7 has not yet received the update, so there's little else I can tell you.