Microsoft BUILD: Windows 8, A Pre-Beta Preview
by Brian Klug & Ryan Smith on September 13, 2011 12:05 PM EST- Posted in
- BUILD
- Windows
- Microsoft
- Windows 8
- Trade Shows
The Technical Side Of Windows 8
As we mentioned in the opening of this article, the single biggest addition to Windows 8 coming from Windows 7 will be Metro. Microsoft’s last major overhaul of Windows’ underpinnings was Windows Vista, and like Windows 7 before it, Microsoft is not looking to significantly alter the operation of the Windows kernel or related systems for Windows 8. With that said this doesn’t mean that there aren’t any technical changes that will ship with Windows 8.
Fundamentally Microsoft wants to keep the system requirements for Windows 8 the same as Windows 7, which means it needs to run (with varying definitions of “smoothly”) on a 1GHz CPU paired with 1GB of RAM and a DX9 class GPU. Realistically as their published requirements stand there is one difference from Windows 7: Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM). Windows 7 would work with older XPDM drivers (albeit without any of the benefits of WDDM), however Windows 8 specifically mentions WDDM as a requirement. This makes sense given the greater reliance on the GPU for Metro, but it also means there are going to be some machines out there using very early DX9 GPUs (e.g. Intel GMA 900) that won’t be able to run Windows 8 due to a lack of video drivers.
In any case the addition of ARM into the mix will be sure to spice things up., While Microsoft is optimizing Windows 8 to run on ARM CPUs there’s a vast range of ARM CPUs, and this is the full version of Windows. Microsoft’s current system requirements are easily discernable as x86 based, and we’d expect the ARM requirements to be fairly high to keep pace. Give the launch of quad core ARM SoCs later this year, it’s likely that will be a popular pairing with Windows 8 when it launches.
On a final note about system requirements, while Microsoft isn’t talking about specific versions of Windows 8 at this time, they’ve made it clear that x86 will live on for at least one more generation in order to fulfill their desire to have Windows 8 run on everything Windows 7 ran on. So x86 versions of Windows should be expected.
Moving on, as this was a press session as opposed to a technical session, Microsoft was a bit light on the details. We’re expecting quite a bit more in the next couple of days, but for the moment we’ve only been briefed on a few user-facing technologies that are new to Windows 8.
On the hardcore side of things, Microsoft has added a few tricks to Windows in order to keep memory usage from growing and to make the OS better suited for tablets. On the memory side they have added Page Combining, which will combine duplicate memory pages into a single page. This is primarily to reduce the overhead from multiple applications all having copies of the same shared resource by having applications outright share that resource’s memory pages. Page Combining will primarily be a tool for reclaiming memory when memory usage is approaching critical levels.
For making the OS better suited for tablet hardware, Microsoft has focused on small changes that can help the hardware sleep longer and wake up less often. Coalescing system timers and a dynamic tick mechanism are two such features that will be coming to Windows 8 (unfortunately we don’t have any more details on their function at this time). Meanwhile Metro will play a big part in making Windows tablet friendly, as Metro applications will be designed from the start to be able to handle phone/tablet style process management. This is to say that discarded applications will continue to stay open as a background application, having all of their memory pages intact but unable to schedule CPU time so long as they’re a background application. They’ll remain in this state until the OS decides to evict them, at which point they need to be able to gracefully shut down and resume when the user re-launches the application. Internally Microsoft calls this freezing and rehydrating an application.
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Saad_Salman - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
I'm amazed how much MS is bragging about the so called 'windows tablet interface' with html5 (css & js) apps like it's never been done before. Dashboard? Remember something? Apple did it with Webkit application framework, with which, developers have been creating apps since OSX Tiger. Tiles are almost identical to dashboard with different ui.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashboard_(software)
Bees - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
How do we think it is going to handle multiple monitors? Will only one get the Metro treatment while the rest show the traditional desktop?tayb - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
Metro is for portable devices. Slates, Tablets, etc. This will not be on your gaming rig.The freaking demo was done on a 11.1" tablet for crying out loud.
Not only that but if you don't like Metro no one, NO ONE, will force you to use it. And who in their right mind would use it on their desktop??? Haven't you seen the other screen shots of Windows 8? It's still a desktop OS. Metro is essentially an "add on" for mobile.
Rand - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
It's helpful to read the article, and to read the tons of stuff MS has put up and all the live blogs from BUILD.You HAVE to use Metro, you have no choice. Microsoft WILL force you to use it, it is Windows. On all platforms you have Metro and you will be using it.
Metro is not as addon, it is the core of Windows.
Any time you launch an application or configure system settings, or bootup or anything of the like you will be using Metro. It cannot be disabled. There are no alternatives.
This will be on your gaming system, and your servers, and everything else. MS has made this abundantly clear. It's been stated in a dozen articles.
You cannot disable Metro.
rs2 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
"Microsoft WILL force you to use it, it is Windows."You seem to have confused Microsoft with Apple, and Windows with OSX. If anything, Microsoft has a fairly good track record of allow users to enable "Classic" features if they prefer them.
Rand - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
No confusion, I just read what MS has said. Unless their lying, you cannot enable a classic experience.fausto412 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
is it really time for a new windows?Microsoft has lost its mind.
Malih - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
But I know I'll be buying a Windows 8 tablet PC,or maybe if they can implement something like Kinect so you can operate the touch UI with non-touchscreen monitor, and do it from reasonable distance with good accuracy.
trip1ex - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
MS is just creating the same tablets as they did before but with a tablet gui. And I think that is a mistake just as it was before.The end result is a big tablet with terrible battery life and heat issues at a high price. No one wants that as a tablet.
And no one wants the tablet form factor to use traditional desktop apps because then you might as well stick with the laptop.
And Win8 on ARM? Not seeing how they can pull that off and have decent battery life and performance still. I will believe it when I see it.
The beauty of the tablets i have used is the lightweight. The long battery life. The snappy performance for reading, email, video, and light weight tasks. The fact it gets out of the way. It is not just the form factor.
Win8 on ARM will be a mirage because Win8 will not truly work well on ARM
UMADBRO - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
Once again, because you seem to have super powers and already know something about an unfinished product on unfinished hardware, you seem to be able to peer into the future and know everything there is to know about this. Bravo. Thank you for telling the masses your wonderful insight, instead of keeping it to yourself!