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Windows 8 Consumer Preview to be launched at MWC

by Alistair Lowe on 9 February 2012, 09:39

Tags: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Windows 8

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Event invites have been sent out as Microsoft prepares to unveil its 'Windows 8 Consumer Preview' at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on February 29th.

Whilst Microsoft stock has remained strong so far in 2012, sales of its Windows operating system have been dropping, with the lack in shifted units largely attributed to a slowing PC market as the steel monsters begin to clash with the ever popular tiny tablets. For Microsoft, Windows 8 is an attempt to re-enter the full breadth of the computing market, where, despite its popularity, Windows 7 has seen itself cut out of many sales as mobile segments featuring ARM-based devices, not capable of running the full Windows OS, have emerged.

Windows 8 has had a serious makeover, with a redesigned kernel supporting for the first time the ARM instruction set, native USB 3.0 support, alternative approaches to authentication, installation on a USB drive, multiple desktop backgrounds, a host of new management features and most importantly, the new metro UI system and propagation of the Ribbon interface throughout the OS, to allow for a smooth touch-screen experience.

Many features of the new OS have been highly praised, meanwhile other design choices have been criticised as 'Apple-like' as they look to limit user choice. Either way, Windows 8 will bring many new elements to the table and so we can't wait to see where Microsoft sees it all going when it releases the Consumer Preview later this month.



HEXUS Forums :: 16 Comments

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I may be a Luddite - but I can't stand the ribbon.
Phage
I may be a Luddite - but I can't stand the ribbon.
Burn the non believer!

They've added more keyboard shortcuts, its a damn site better than the hidden (WTF?!) menu in Win7… and will be collapsed by default…..
:)
Sounds a little better. Are they're any linked pics out there ?
having spent the last 20 years immersed in Excel with buttons - I'm finding the transition to Office 2010 very hard. Putting that on every app fills me with dread. Bring back Xtree I say.
Phage
I may be a Luddite - but I can't stand the ribbon.

I can't stand the effing Metro tile start page. If I get Win8,it gets switched off on my desktop and a load of people I know are going to do the same thing. I am not interested in getting a touch screen for my desktop as I need a colour accurate monitor.

I wonder if I can get it to run on my TouchPad though?
Phage
having spent the last 20 years immersed in Excel with buttons - I'm finding the transition to Office 2010 very hard. Putting that on every app fills me with dread.
Ribbon on Word/Excel/Outlook = :wallbash: Ribbon on OS too = :censored: although at least in the latter case you can turn it off. :)
Windows 8 has had a serious makeover, …, alternative approaches to authentication, … most importantly, the new metro UI system and propagation of the Ribbon interface throughout the OS, to allow for a smooth touch-screen experience.
And if you don't use a touch-screen (or tablet) - have they (severely?) compromised the majority desktop “experience” to suit the touch-based minority? :stupid:
“Alternative approaches to authentication” - any chance of that body scanner shown in “Monsters V's Aliens”? :D
Many features of the new OS have been highly praised, meanwhile other design choices have been criticised as ‘Apple-like’ as they look to limit user choice.
Excuse me. :shocked2: I thought Apple was consistently praised over it's UI's. And I thought MacOSX had a decent command line as standard, whereas Windows didn't.