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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Ryan Smith - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
"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?"Realistically I have to think AV vendors will be upset. You can easily disable Defender and replace it with other AV software, but this will hurt consumer sales. For businesses it's murkier. I can't imagine MS will turn off Defender if you have too many employees, but products like Symmantec's Endpoint Protection do more than just AV scanning and will probably remain desirable.
"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?"
The mouse wheel currently works that way. The problem is that it's on a per-app basis, it isn't implemented in a universal fashion. Also, it's very slow to scroll that way with the wheel.
Kakureru - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
the beginning of the end for useable open platform computing..TPM sucked ass when it was thought up and sucks ass now as implemented.
Sure its greeeeat to prevent a few pieces of malware but corporate abuse is more
of a danger than the viruses its sought to prevent.
A5 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
If you'd like cite your claim of TPM being used for "corporate abuse", that'd be great.CSMR - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
Could someone explain: why is the start menu so small in the desktop?The links there are: Start, Search, Share, Devices, Settings
No recently used programs, no pinned programs, no all programs? No libraries?
How is accessing programs going to work on Win8?
UMADBRO - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
Why not try our the developer release and find out?bupkus - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
I'm hopeful that it will run on my HP Touchpad.rasueno - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
does it play crysis?Ryan Smith - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
I'm wishing I brought a copy of Crysis with me. I would have installed it on the Samsung tablet given the opportunity.Exodite - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
So in the end Windows 8 is Windows 7 with an UI I hate?No thanks, I'll pass.
Over the last weeks we've seen some minor utility functionality previewed and I've tried my very best to keep fingers crossed that the many technical problems related to the OS will be addressed as well.
Not so it seems.
Essentially, from '95 onward the only real difference between releases have been a constantly changing UI and tacked-on convenience functionality. And the changing UI isn't a good thing, that's one area where consistency is paramount.
Personally I find what I've seen of the new UI to be a complete clusterfuck and the fact that we seem to get further and further away from the simplicity, power and elegance - let alone the intuitive interface - of a 20 year old OS (namely AmigaOS 3.x) is deeply troubling.
I don't want to advocate thrashing the entire code base and rewriting everything from the ground up but it seems more and more likely that's what it's going to take.
Oh well, my '92 Amiga still works.
Belard - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
Hey... I used to run AmigaOS 3.0 on my Amiga 1000. :PI'm still not a lover of MS... but MS I see what MS is doing... it does make sense and they want to cater to the typical computer user, which is still a moron -er I mean, novice. I see teenager kids nowadays who grew up with computers that don't actually know how to USE a computer. Other than games, opening a browser to use facebook, email and IM and look at porn, that's about it.
For those in the work place, its about running a few apps (Word, email, quickbooks). So for many people, the desktop is either a clean place they rarely see or mess with hundreds of icons all over the desktop.
With the launcher and controls off to the side - which is a good place for these stupid 16x9 screens, it may means faster access to our apps and data on the computer.
I have 9 Apps open right now (Photoshop, Word, excel, Opera, Notepad++ (awesome - a text editor with tabs that remembers everything), various explorer windows. I can't see the icons, widgets or folders on the desktop itself. If its not on the taskbar - I'm not seeing it. So maybe, Metro/Win8 will work in the end.
Windows 8 is obviously about keeping control of the computer market... as iPad and MacOS are selling like mad - even Walmart proudly sells iPad2s - the marketing is more so than anything I've seen at a Walmart, oh well.
The removal of the F8 DOS is a step in the right direction... remember AmigaOS 2.0 and above from 1990 is still more advance than Windows7 in some ways.
I own an Android phone, which its GUI works like iOS. I run a WindowsPhone7 Launcher to replace the Android one... why? Its easier to use, its faster, it tells me info... I spent almost a year trying to find an app, my alarm, camera etc with my Samsung phone... I know where they are, but I maybe on the wrong screen or an icon gets moves. Whatever. The WP7 launcher works great for mobile devices... and an ACTUAL WP7 works even better.
I generally don't NOT like or trust Microsoft. In the end - it was Commodore that screwed us and killed the Amiga, not apple, not MS. I still have my Amigas... along with my Win7PC, ThinkPads and iPad. Whatever works.
If MS wants to improve upon what they have... a major change is needed.
Dos > Win3.0 / 3.1 > Win95 / Win98 > WinXP / WinXP > Win7 (weakest jump).
Hmmmm.... I think Microsoft may actually OUT-Macintosh Apple... that would be fun.
Windows 7 is the best MS has down for their desktop OS, finally. Its still a challenge for most humans. Win8's Metro interface is a GOOD move towards more elegane and simplicity over the OLD desktop. But MS *MUST* do a good job in making Win8 run properly with a mouse and keyboard. I'm fine with fingerprints on my iPad... Pros are NOT going to be putting their hands on their 24~30" screens to use PHOTOSHOP!!
PS: notice there was still a DOS Prompt: Icon in the Win8 preview.