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
First Thoughts
With under a day to see, play with, and write about the Windows 8 pre-beta it’s hard to fully digest what we’ve seen and to come up with a meaningful opinion. With Microsoft it’s a safe bet that there’s more to be seen when they’re still this far away from shipping the final product.
For a tablet-focused event I don’t think you will find much disagreement that Microsoft has hit the mark with Metro. Metro feels like it belongs when used with a tablet – it’s smooth, it’s easy to use, it’s gesture-driven, and it’s finger-friendly. Virtually everything Windows Phone 7 did well as a touch screen OS has been ported over to Metro and it shows.
The converse of that is that Metro feels awkward and out of place when used with a mouse and keyboard as a laptop/desktop. It fails to take advantage of the precision of the mouse or the fact that not everything needs to be in size 28 font when sitting down to use a computer. At this moment it feels like trying to use a tablet with a mouse and keyboard, which isn’t far off from what it really is in the first place.
The underpinnings look interesting, but there’s still a great deal left to see such as DirectX 11.1 and WDDM 1.2. I believe that in the long run the class driver additions will help further simplify using Windows, and integrating Microsoft Security Essentials into the OS is a long overdue change. At the same time if nothing else Metro will go even farther to improve security thanks to the fine grained permissions system.
Ultimately this is just the beginning, in fact it’s the beginning of a beginning. Windows 8 is still at least a year off – Microsoft isn’t even close to committing to a date – and the pre-beta is pre-beta in every sense of the word. The real fight starts today when Microsoft pitches it to developers. Because so much rides on Metro, Microsoft needs to convince developers to start writing Metro applications, otherwise most of the work Microsoft has put into Windows 8 will languish. Microsoft looks to have the tools their developers need, but will it be enough? Perhaps this is what BUILD is meant to find out.
Stay tuned as we’ll have more from BUILD this week, including coverage of today’s opening keynote.
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rs2 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
"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."Hang on a second. Did you seriously just imply that Windows (or any other major OS) is going to drop support for x86? Or that there was *ever* any doubt that Windows 8 would not support x86? I think you've gone at least a little bit crazy.
x86 is here to stay, for at least the forseeable future (which I think gets us to around Windows 12). No software company is going to be willing to cede the entire x86 market to their competitors or ditch x86 as a platform just because phones and tablets tend to run ARM processors. Doing either of those things makes absolutely no sense at all.
Rand - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link
I think he means X86-32, MS hasn't made any statements implying that X86 uarch as a whole is going anywhere.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
Correct. x86 as opposed to x64 (since that's the nomenclature MS uses). Windows 8 will have 32bit x86 editions; MS won't transition to solely 64bit x64 for another generation.rs2 - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
Then the nomenclature used by MS is incorrect. x86-64 (or apparently, x64 is MS-speak) is fully x86 compatible, even down to support for 16-bit "real mode". As such x86 will always live on, even if Windows does eventually require an x86-64 based processor.loll123 - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
Yes, but the issue is whether Windows will support processors that only have the x86-32 part of the instruction set.Lugaidster - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
Do you need to submit an app to the store in order to install a metro application or are metro applications still downloadable like regular apps?Ryan Smith - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
I can't completely answer this but I will do as much as I can.ARM: The Store is the only way to get applications
x86: Applications can still be installed normally
With that said I can't completely answer where Metro fits in, because that specific question was never asked or a suitable answer given. Certainly Metro applications using MS's DRM scheme will need to go through the Store to make the licensing click. But Metro apps without DRM...?
Lugaidster - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
I was thinking of something like business apps or apps that would never be approved because of content (the major reason jailbreaking exist on an iPad is because of the latter). It would be great if you could sideload metro apps...Stas - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
When I used Win98, I was stoked when I first heard about Windows XP. Absolutely loved it, after I started using it.Windows Vista also made me anxious about the wait. Unfortunately, I wasn't as pleased; however, still satisfied.
Windows 7 is by far the best OS I ever used. That is exactly how I thought it would turn out when I decided to download the RC version.
Today though, I'm looking at this simplified experience for ADD kids, and I'm rather disappointed. Huge buttons, lack of menus and options, and I bet they killed off kb shortcuts :/ I would expect this from Apple; but MS... son, I'm disappoint *face palm*
I will still try it, whenever RC is available but I'm not holding my breath for something useful, efficient, and flexible. I'm sure it will be a great tablet OS though. Now, just to figure out why in the world I would need a tablet with powerful desktop, and a high-end smart phone...
loll123 - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link
I have ADD and I started my computing career on MS-DOS when I was 3 years old. So don't go around and make comments like that please.