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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ilkhan - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
I think MS is going to have even more of a problem getting people off of 7 and onto 8 than they did getting people off XP and onto Vista, for the same reason.From what I can see here, visually and productively 8 is going to be even worse than Vista.
MrBungle123 - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
I agree... If this is windows 8, I'll be buying 10 or 15 copies of Windows 7 OEMs before the Win 8 launch pushes them off newegg.nofumble62 - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
why bother?thrasher32 - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
I don't want my office PC desktop to look like a windows phone/tablet display. If this is Windows 8 then I'll stick with 7, and I'm usually the guy that buys the new version of Windows on the day it's released.Saidas - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
From what I understand, you will be able to disable Metro. I plan on doing so for my desktop and lappy and using it for my tablet and Smartphone. Perfect.Rand - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
As the article said, and Microsoft said at Build. You cannot disable Metro. It is there from tablets on up to servers.Any application launches and system configuration, and bootup etc always goes through Metro.
Moricon - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
To sum it up, this is just a huge pile of FAIL!!!I see a massive backlash from the Tech world.
Give us improvements to the OS, Give us better performance, Give us new useful features but for GODS SAKE remove Metro from desktop use!
Its fine for tablets ( MEH to be fair) but it is completely pointless for dektop use for anyone who auctually does any work on the PC.
As for Windows Live integration, Yeah lets see how happy people are having to create a Live ID just to add on another user acount!
FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL"!"!!"!"
I build and repair Windows PC's for a living, have done so for years, and I can honestly say this is all wrong!
F*****G Social Application Integration into the OS ( FFS Only teenagers and losers want this)
Stupid gestures to navigate the OS
Tile based huge icons are crap ( What are we all running VTECH Kit designed for kids now)
XBOX Live Integration FFS who the blast gives a shit except XBOX Users! People who work are NOT cared about XBOX Integration.
I do hope they allow metro to be switched off!
Wellsoul2 - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
I really like the idea of using this OS with my HTPC though since it will make iteasier to use all my programs with a remote control. The article didn't address
that but the future may also be using your computer hooked to a TV alot of the time.
For that purpose this is a good beginning.
Like Media Center it's clunky but functional for a remote control.
Wish they had a switch so you could change to high res Win7 desktop for mouse/keybd though.
Taurus229 - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
It is very sad that Microsoft is building a new OS for tablets and netbooks and totally ignoring the desktop power user. My thought at this point is that win 7 is the desktop os, and win 8 will be the mobile os. Microsoft has made it's bed, and will have to lie in it. Just too bad!Booster - Thursday, September 15, 2011 - link
MS can't be that stupid, honestly. Even Windows 95 has better multitasking than Metro. They're abandoning the whole Windows concept where you can have multiple windows open at the same time and switch between them. Metro on the other hand lets you do only one thing at a time.Just through how many screens of dumba$ tiles do I have to scroll to copy a text for citation from a web page and insert it into a word document, for example?
Metro is destined to fail epically. It's better if MS realized this sooner than later, gave those responsible the boot and start working on a major overhaul. This isn't going to fly, people, don't you see it? Even Apple wouldn't allow itself to cripple it's users so foolishly. Hell, people resisted Vista like there was no tomorrow, just how exactly MS plans on shoving this disfunctional POS down their throats once users realize they can't do what they need to do with Metro, like at all???