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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broccauley - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
actually, if you connect a mouse to Android a cursor will appear.faizoff - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
Wonder when the Beta release will be to the public.KPOM - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
From what I've seen so far, Windows 8 looks very promising. For those who are skeptical of the Metro UI in the enterprise, consider that Apple is making inroads into the Enterprise market with the iPad. Companies are issuing them to executives and traveling professionals to keep up with e-mail and log into their intranets. A Windows 8 tablet or Ultrabook might allow them to have a single device for everything.sviola - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
Agreed. And it will probably have much less resistance from the IT department as well.sticks435 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
That may work for non-tech people, but it won't fly at any IT related company. I hardly doubt they are going to make SQL Developer, Apache directory studio, Eclipse or any dev related apps for Metro.KPOM - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
From what I've seen so far, Windows 8 looks very promising. For those who are skeptical of the Metro UI in the enterprise, consider that Apple is making inroads into the Enterprise market with the iPad. Companies are issuing them to executives and traveling professionals to keep up with e-mail and log into their intranets. A Windows 8 tablet or Ultrabook might allow them to have a single device for everything.trip1ex - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
That dream will not happen. Tablets that can actually run Win8 will be too hot, and heavy with crappy battery life to make a good tablet so then why bother?UMADBRO - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
Because obviously, you have leaped into the future, got a finished version of Windows 8, finalized and production quality hardware, and have completely ran it through its paces. Thank you, sir, for the future insight. No more questions remain. PRAISE Trip1ex!ph0tek - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
You're a moron.Decaff - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
First of all, thanks for a great article which covered alot of the things we can expect in Windows 8 (or whatever the final name will be).Now, I'm left to wonder about a few things. One issue that springs to mind is that MSE now appears to be integrated into the OS to some extent. How will this upset the AV vendors, and how does it affect corporate users who can currently only use MSE if they have up to 10 machines?
Now, that was mostly a technicality. It is mentioned in the article that you can pinch to zoom on the start-screen, and the tiles would change size and adapt. Wouldn't this make it somewhat more effecient to use a mouse and a keyboard? Also, wouldn't it be a simple fix to allow the mouse-wheel to scroll left and right in the tiles display? Down goes left and up goes right?
Personally, I am also very interested in seeing how the metro UI will handle file organisation. I can definately see the alure of using the metro ui to browse my files, but how will it handle renaming and moving of files when I try to organise files belonging to different programs (i'm a university student, so I keep .pdf .docx, pictures and other types huddled together for projects). Typically, touch interfaces have done away with the traditional folder structure and instead used the relevant program to access the file structure (i.e. want to check your PDF, open adobe reader).
I'm also left to wonder whether the Repair function isn't simply a rebadging of the old system restore function, which has existed since XP as far as I recall. That one also left the user's files on the drive, and only looked at installed programs and such. Still, it is nice that they are putting more emphasis on it now, and the "revert to stock" function is becoming to obvious to the user. Hopefully, this will futher eliminate the need for DVD's with backups.
I do think the Metro UI holds some great promises, though not for the hardcore users. There will probably always be a need for a psychical keyboard and mouse in order to perform certain tasks, and I couldn't imagine writing anything serious on an on-screen keyboard. Though just imagine having the metro UI for a tablet, and being able to dock it to a traditional setup with mouse, keyboard and a big monitor and getting some work done. All without the need for extra devices. Or a dock-able keyboard, creating a laptop for the road along the lines of the Asus Transformer.
For me, I think the Metro UI is a great evolution for Windows, towards the current user scenarios, which is that the computer is more quite casually. The great part here is, that even if the connected part will sync all my photos from my phone and whatnot, I will still be able to attach a proper DSLR through a USB port and access all my photos in an instant, something which is hardly possible on most other tablets these days.
Some have mentioned the corporate side of bringing in a new interface, but in reality, do corporations really spend time and actual resources teaching personnel how to use the OS? Historically, corporations have always been very late to adopting new OS'es, which begs the question, whether or not training will really be necessary once people have gotten acquained with the OS privately.
There are still alot of questions that needs to be answered on how Microsoft plans on integrating some of the more mundane tasks into the new UI, and as always, I think their succes will largely be defined by their attention to detail, and ensuring that users can "live" in the Metro UI while still maintaining their productivity or even increasing it.