Windows 8 is so conceptually and paradigmatically different from its predecessors that it’s actually quite hard to mentally grasp. Is it a desktop OS, tablet OS… or both? What about phones; it runs on ARM tablets, so what about ARM smartphones? Will it eventually replace Windows Phone 7? Windows 8 really is a re-imagining of what Windows is, and something of a rebirth for Microsoft, so you would be forgiven for not knowing the answers to these questions. There’s a slew of really cool features that have been drowned out by the introduction of Metro — security improvements, power consumption tweaks, cloud integration… and more!
Read on, and we’ll do our best to explain exactly what Windows 8 is, and more importantly what it isn’t.
- Windows 8 will not run equally well on ARM and x86
Yes, Windows 8 will run on both ARM (Snapdragon, OMAP) and x86 (Intel, AMD) processors, but the experience will be very different. - The Windows 8 Metro, tile-based interface is designed specifically for low-power tablets, and touch-enabled computers
Despite Microsoft’s reassurances that the new, tiled Start screen will feel at home on keyboard- and mouse-driven computers, the entire interface was designed from the ground up to be a tablet- and touch-first interface. Windows 8 will be the most secure Microsoft OS ever
In Windows 8, Windows Defender — the anti-spyware service that is installed by default on all Windows 7 machines — is being bumped up to a full anti-virus/anti-malware suite, and in fact it looks almost identical to Microsoft Security Essentials.The move away from BIOS towards UEFI — Unified Extensible Firmware Interface — means that Windows 8 also provides anti-malware protection at boot time: if you try to boot while an infected USB memory stick is plugged in, Windows 8 will warn you and refuse to load.- Windows 8 will boot in just a few secondsThe combination of UEFI and some other slipstreaming to the boot process means that Windows 8 will cold boot in just a few seconds. This is fairly inconsequential, though, as Microsoft wants you tohibernate Windows 8 rather than shut it down; especially if you’re on a tablet where instant-on is a necessity.
- Windows 8 will have built-in “Factory” Reset and Refresh
In an another delightful twist, Windows 8 will have two features that will amaze and delight everyone: Reset and Refresh. Reset restores Windows 8 to its base, just-like-new state. Refresh is similar, but it preserves all of your documents. - Windows 8 (or at least the Server version) will feature Windows To Go, a bootable “live CD”
In Windows 8, you’ll be able to plug in a blank USB stick and simply push a few buttons to turn it into a bootable Windows 8 installation. - Windows 8 Metro will be powered by Internet Explorer 10
The Metro interface is powered by the Trident rendering engine and Chakra JavaScript engine from Internet Explorer 10. The runtime stack has also been rejigged so that full, “native” apps can be written in HTML and JavaScript. Windows 8 will feature the Windows Store, which is just like the iOS or Mac App Store
Metro apps are all secured by a sandbox with severely restricted functionality — and that makes them perfectly suited to a safe-for-all-the-family, moderated-by-Microsoft Windows Store.
