In-Depth with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview
by Andrew Cunningham, Ryan Smith, Kristian Vättö & Jarred Walton on March 9, 2012 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Microsoft
- Operating Systems
- Windows
- Windows 8
Windows Recovery Environment
The Windows Recovery Environment, or WinRE, has actually been around for awhile. It was first introduced in Windows Vista as a basic boot environment from which users could run tools like System Restore, Startup Repair, and the Command Prompt, and it could also restore a complete OS image created by Windows Backup.
This menu remained basically unchanged in Windows 7, but in Windows 8 it picks up Metro styling and also replaces the text-based menu that appears when you press F8 at Windows startup, one of the last bastions of the Windows 9x/NT era to make it into 2012 relatively unchanged.
The new graphical menu presents all of the same options as the old WinRE, as well as access to the new Refresh and Reset functionality—the main difference is that options for booting into Safe Mode are buried in the Advanced Options rather than coming up right when you press F8. When you choose a function like System Restore, the desktop-style tools included in Windows Vista and Windows 7 will pop up and walk you the rest of the way through the process. Most of the troubleshooting options require you to input the name and password for an administrator on the computer, to prevent tampering.
There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but the Metro styling is functional and attractive. See the screenshot gallery below for more.
Secure Boot and UEFI Support
After Metro, this is probably one of Windows 8's more misunderstood features, so let's try to break it down and demystify it: UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a replacement for the legacy BIOS found in most PCs. UEFI support has been around in the 64-bit versions of Windows since Vista, but it has only recently started to see wider adoption in PCs. In addition to being more modern and flexible than BIOS, UEFI supports a feature called Secure Boot, which can compare signatures in drivers, OS loaders, and other things against security certificates stored in firmware to verify that your computer is using a known safe bootloader rather than a malware bootloader. On both ARM and x64 computers certified for Windows 8, Secure Boot will be enabled by default to prevent these potential exploits. Note that this is an extremely brief overview of the functionality—you can read more on the Building Windows 8 blog if you’re interested.
Now, the problem people have with this new feature is that it can potentially be used to block any non-Windows bootloader from functioning, including those used in operating systems like Linux. By default, this is true, but you’ve got an out: in all x86-based Windows systems that ship with Windows 8, you should be able to add and remove security certificates from UEFI as needed (thus adding certificates that Linux needs to be recognized as a trusted operating system) or disabling secure boot entirely (making the Windows 8 PC act more or less like most Windows 7 PCs do now).
This will be slightly different for Windows on ARM—WOA systems will also support UEFI and thus the Secure Boot feature, but users won’t be allowed to add certificates or disable the feature, and OEMs will be disallowed from shipping updates or tools that unlock the bootloader (as some Android tablet makers have been known to do). You might not like this behavior, but the fact remains that this is how the vast majority of ARM devices work today. Linux advocates act as though Microsoft has taken something away in disallowing third-party OSes on WOA devices, when in fact they’re disabling nothing that hasn’t already been disabled on most competing tablets.
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skanskan - Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - link
The task manager should also include a GPU resource monitor.It's been a long time since GPUs were introduced and we still need third party tools.
Oravendi - Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - link
Linux has allowed for different GUI managers for a long time. Why would Microsoft not offer Metro as a desktop option? Metro is probably better for tablets and cell phones, however if Microsoft were to produce software with the ability to turn Metro off then Metro might have slow or no adoption. Microsoft sees the money. It doesn't want the problems of software like Linux. Answer, force us to Metro and claim the old windows users don't want to change.Origin32 - Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - link
The problem I have with Metro is not that it's different.It's that its different while not adding anything for me as a desktop user. Yes, I'm sure this new interface is much easier to navigate on a tablet, but with M/K I have to click more rather than less to open the more advanced menus, I have to use two user interfaces simultaneously and I have to start to unlearn 10 years of keyboard shortcuts, options locations and all the kinds of things you do automatically in win7. Using Windows 8 will be a whole lot of effort for me, and Microsoft isn't really giving me anything in return for that effort. If they'd added something actually useful like support for multiple user logons on a SAMBA share in one session, a sandbox mode to try out new programs in or really any functionality at all, then I'd have to live with Metro.
Now all I get is a new GUI I sure didn't ask for.
jabber - Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - link
This is it for me too. I just don't get what it is they are trying to sell me here with regards to Metro.I don't get it MS, Sorry.
I've always upgraded my Windows versions due to improvements in performance, load times, functionality with new hardware and tech standards. Sure there are always a few UI changes but nothing that needs 5 minutes to get used to and on the whole they have been positive.
But with Metro there just isn't enough in the deal to make me want to bother using it.
I can get by fine without it. It isn't essential for those of us using desktops/laptops.
perpetualdark - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Quite simply, the home market and the professional market are no longer driven off of each other, and need to diverge. In the past, the professional market drove the PC industry, and the OS was a reflection of that.Home use has grown to be a viable entity on it's own however, and the proof of that is Apple's success in the PC market. People at home want a computer that is media based, and focused around entertainment. Movies, Music, Social Media, and Home Integration are the keys there. They want their media, and they want it everywhere (at the computer, the tv, the laptop, the phone, in bed, in the bathroom, and in the kitchen). They want to be connected to their social media all the time, and have everything integrated into that.
Businesses don't need any of it, and it is all counterproductive to business. If anything, they want everything listed above to be GONE from the picture. Remove the games, the media, and the social aspects. Sharing needs to be tightly controlled, and the "cloud" is a fancy way of saying "security risk". Your boss doesn't want you listening to music, sharing it with others, or getting on facebook or skype to socialize, he wants you productive. Secure sharing of files, remote application use, tying together the office and the mobile workspace, communicating within the company and with the customers, and productive applications. It requires a COMPLETELY different interface because it has a completely different workflow.
Windows 8 is, on the surface anyway, a HOME version of the software. It is MS's attempt to slow Apple down on the home front. But aside from desktop publishing and education, Apple is not even in the business place, and although I couldn't give you numbers, I am willing to bet that the business market is still at least half of the revenues that MS sees in a year.
One more note: Look at Office. Millions of people knew all the ins and outs of Excel and Word, and then MS goes and changes the interface 100%. With NO way of going back. I resisted until recently, and after almost a year on office 2010, I hate it to this day. The ribbons suck, I can never find the things I am looking for, and they don't even have a basic paste function, they made it more complicated. Yeah, I can ctrl-v, but sometimes I want to right click and paste, not right click and hunt for the paste icon I am looking for. I hate icons. I want words. I speak english. If I want to paste special and choose to paste values, I want to right click, paste special, values, ok. I don't want right click and look for the icon that represents pasting values. I am literate, give me words, not icons that represent words. It is a disaster, and as a result, most companies still have Windows XP and Office 2003 installed. If it werent for so many viruses and malware targeting the weak security of XP, I would still have all my machines running on XP. I still run programs like Live Messenger in Vista mode so the icon goes in the tray and not on the bar. I don't understand why MS wants me to change so bad.. I don't want to change, I am more efficient the way I use it, so bugger off and leave me alone! I want my "up directory" button back, and I want the window button in excel back, so when I have 250 spreadsheets open (or even 2), I can switch without having to go to the right hand monitor and click on the excel icon and choose the window from there.. I just want to do it in excel. Come on, quit changing stuff just for the sake of changing..
shin0bi272 - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
no... just no. Stop talking about stuff you know very little about. It just makes you look bad.Valahano - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
Care to elaborate?slickr - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Good job Andrew. After years of reading this website you with this obvious piece of propaganda have forced me from this moment on to stop visiting this website.This shameless advertising for this Microsoft crap of a operating system that they call windows 8 is sickening. How much did they pay you?
You people make me sick, at least be honest about it and write that you have been paid to write about their product in a positive way, I guarantee you people won't be too judgmental and will accept the fact that this website with its obvious bias for some time now has been loosing all its visitors and is forced to write propaganda articles for money!
Shinya - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
So basically because he likes something that you don't (even though he heavily criticized it) your limited brain capacity calculated that he was paid?Please stick with apple products iTard. Your lord n savior is waiting over at engadget.
shin0bi272 - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
actually no hes right... if you look at what MS did with win8 its designed for tablets and they are violently forcing pc users to adapt the same gui that will be basically worthless to us and what does the author of this article say?"Yes, Metro is very different from what came before, and yes, Metro was clearly designed with touch in mind, but once you learn its tricks (and especially once you’ve got the new keyboard shortcuts dedicated to memory) it acquits itself as a flexible and powerful user interface."
Sucking up much?