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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
286 Comments
View All Comments
Andrew.a.cunningham - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link
Yes it will.poisonsnak - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link
As Andrew said it will run fine on AMD hardware. I've been running the Developer Preview since September on my Phenom II X6 1100T & Radeon 6970, which I then (side-graded?) to an FX-8150, and then upgraded to the Consumer Preview.The only BSOD or crash I've ever had was when I tried to install the AMD USB filter driver under the developer preview - it warned me the driver was unlikely to work, I gave it my usual "I know better than you" and promptly got to see the fancy new Win8 BSOD screen.
rickmoranisftw - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
Haters gonna hate man. I'm sorry people have blown up on you for no reason.Andrew.a.cunningham - Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - link
It's cool - mostly I'm just confused about it, but the constructive comments have far outnumbered the trollish ones at this point. :-)Either way, I'm working on getting an AMD system for future use.
kmmatney - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
Don't worry about it. He tested enough systems, and you can make a guess as where AMD would stand in those systems. I agree that a lot of people use AMD - it's all I buy for friends and family as the Microcenter deals are too hard to pass up. I don't think it effects the review at all - Windows 8 won't look any different on an AMD system.rickmoranisftw - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
I too just created an account today. Ive been reading anandtech for a while now but havent bothered to make an account. But today i had too.There is absolutely no reason for you or anyone else to blow up on Andrew for only using intel systems for this review, a review of a preview at that, when his reasoning was extremely simple. He just didnt have an AMD system on hand. Who are you to blame anyone of being biased when you know nothing about them.
I'm disappointed that i didn't read these comments until today (monday) or i would have commented sooner. I was so pissed off after reading these comments i messed up two different captcha's when making my account just now. I hope you're just saying this to try to feel some sense of superiority over someone who actually has a job on a real tech site, and not because you actually think andrew is that biased toward intel. Because that's just stupid.
Andrew.a.cunningham - Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - link
Thanks. :-)AeroRob - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
I don't see how anyone who's spent so much as five minutes along with Windows 8 on a normal desktop computer--let alone hours--could say that the new start menu system is even remotely an improvement on the old system. It is unequivocally worse. It creates a jarring, disjointed experience, with an interface that is less versatile and consequently makes simple tasks more difficult.Why must I jump through hoops just to shut my computer down? Or if I'm not sure Windows considers what I'm looking for an app or a setting, why do I have to do multiple searches, when previous versions of Windows would show me all the possibilities?
It would be so simple for Microsoft to solve all these numerous (yet minor) annoyances: give a legacy desktop option. Just one little checkbox to where a user can specify that they would rather boot into the desktop than the Metro BS, and to restore the start menu to a Windows 7 state. You can't tell me that would be difficult in the least, but MS would rather be obstinate jerks, trying to force users into a "new experience" that they don't want, don't like, and that actively works to make their workflow more inefficient.
Change isn't a bad thing, but only when that change is an improvement. Going from the XP start menu to Vista's added functionality and made things easier. Going from 7 to 8, though, is a step backward, and users shouldn't have to suffer just because MS wants to push their little pet project.
jabber - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I find myself having to move left to right across the screen to do stuff that a simple rightclick/clcik would do previously.Having to use the keyboard for stuff that a mouse click did previously as I cant work out if there is a mouse equivalent or if it exists at all.
No visual clues as to how to use it. Just clicking on all the empty space in the hope something useful happens.
I see one thing makes the desktop bit shrink to a small size in the middle of the screen. I have no idea what that is for.
I think Metro is fine for folks that have never used a computer for real day to day office work that brings home the bacon. You know the types.
AeroRob - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
Assuming MS doesn't reverse course on their "Abandon the Start Menu" decision, hopefully by time the RTM version rolls out, they will include some sort of tutorial the first time you switch into desktop mode.Really, though, the whole ordeal reminds me of when Apple made the iPod Shuffle without any buttons on the physical device, and insisted on making users learn a sort of Morse code on the remote to accomplish anything. You could argue that a single button makes things "simplified," but that doesn't prevent it from being an inane, unproductive input method.