Of all the people in Microsoft we’d like to hear more from, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky is by far the quietest and most secretive.  That was until a few days ago when he suddenly appeared on Twitter, or did he?  The account wasn’t the man himself, being clear that “Oh, I’m not ‘the’ Steven Sinofsky by the way. He’s got a little project to focus on for now.”

Microsoft acted swiftly and uncharacteristically politely by tweeting the individual behind the account saying “@StevenSinofsky please see guidelines on parody and impersonation. Your account is not following them them and has been reported.” before eventually taking a slightly softer tone when replying to another user about the account.  ” … all in good humor, too much mail from confused people as account name a bit too real. follow the rules is all we ask .”

The incident, as reported by NeoWin, has now been resolved with the account being renamed @FakeSinofsky but his promise of free Windows on ARM tablets for all TouchPad owners was both interesting and amusing, both because of the dwindling support TouchPad owners who are still using WebOS are finding, but also because anybody in this position is likely to think that WebOS is better.

Twitter has a great many fake accounts for celebrities and notable people of which Steven Sinofky is just one of the most recent, and Twitter has strict rules for such accounts though it does allow them.  So long as people know that an account is fake there’s really no harm that can be done and it’s all in a bit of fun.  It is reassuring that Microsoft’s legal people haven’t stepped in and taken a harder line on this occasion as might have been expected.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, a great many people online have been criticising Sinofsky for remaining so quiet and not coming forward with the answers to the questions they have been asking about Windows 8.  This could be because at the time those answers didn’t exist, it could have been that Microsoft needed and wanted to steer the dialogue in a certain direction (which is the most likely) or it could be that they didn’t care or want to (unlikely this one).

The sad news though is that HP TouchPad owners won’t be receiving a new Windows on ARM tablet.  As a TouchPad owner myself I can only say Damn!

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According to numerous rumours, but not yet confirmed by Microsoft, the ubiquitous Start button will no longer be available in Windows 8 Consumer Preview, aka Windows 8 Beta.

The useful and well-known Start button, with its Windows Flag, appeared 17 years ago. It’s one of the pillars for successful computing and why on earth has it been given the flick.

The well-known blogger, Paul Thurrot, confidently states in a recent blog that the “. . . hardware button replaces the Windows button, and it will be present on all PCs and devices that come with Windows 8 preinstalled.” So can we assume that you will be able to access the Start Menu using the Windows key on all current computer keyboards?

Now, if you’ve downloaded and tried out Windows 8 Developer you’ll have come across the Orb Menu, the obvious replacement for the earlier Start Menu. While it hasn’t worked perfectly in the Preview version it has real potential. Maybe Microsoft replaced the Start Menu with the Orb Menu to break us into losing the old Start Menu. Personally I’ve not been too bothered and haven’t missed the Start Menu at all.

Other bloggers claiming to be in the know, state that Microsoft will, in an effort to appease the detractors, provide some form of access to the Start menu by hovering your mouse over the region where it once was. This method is known as using the “hot corner”.  Goodness knows what you’ll see! Will it be the “Orb” menu current in Windows 8 Preview or something else?

Is this a sop for those thousands of users, dare I say millions, currently happy with the old Start menu?

All this remains as pure speculation at this stage, so really we’ll have to wait until Windows 8 Consumer Preview is released at the end of the month. You can bet there’ll be a furore or two when it becomes available for one reason or another!

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Earlier on this week Microsoft finally confirmed that they would be unveiling the Windows 8 Consumer Preview on February 29th at the Mobile World Congress which is being held in Barcelona this year. To date we’ve seen a few leaked screenshots of builds which we thought could be the Beta build for Windows 8. However Win8China is now reporting that those were in fact only pre-Beta builds and that the actual Build number for the Consumer Preview will be 8250.

If you are reading the post using Google translator it really doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense as it’s not very easy to translate Chinese to English. But the main points from it are this

• The Windows 8 Consumer Preview will be Build no 8250
• Win8China also expect that this build will be made available to download on February 29th
• Microsoft are yet to finalise this build. They are currently in the process of working up towards it and they tend to skip some build numbers coming up to the release.

We’ve already heard that Build 8277 has been finalised and is very stable.

If the Beta and Release Candidate that we had for Windows 7 are anything to go by, I say that this Windows 8 Consumer Preview will be very stable. Microsoft work very hard on ensuring that their pre-release software is as stable as possible. With Windows 7 there was no need for a second beta and the first Release Candidate was used as the final RTM version because they were so stable.

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The Windows 8 brand may be the ticket to success for the next Microsoft tablet. Going after the iPad is not easy, especially since others are doing it, like Android, and Amazon.

But disappointments run on the Android version because there is nothing to differentiate them for iPad. It’s a “me-too” approach. That’s what is supposed to be different with the Windows 8 tablet, it’s not “me-too.”

What will the Windows 8 tablet look like?

That hasn’t been released but here are some things that people don’t like about some of the current tablets. It’s been reported that “The default Android browser on the tablet fails at doing some really basic things like rendering Web pages quickly and opening mobile Web pages on some sites. Other browsers like Opera Mobile are fast but have other shortcomings.” Speed is one thing that has to improve.

Customer support

Although this would seem to be a basic ingredient in any software/hardware company, apparently there has been a lack of a reliable customer support environment over at Android. Google also has a fragmented approach to upgrading Android, which causes some panic among users when they hear that an upgrade can be coming soon.

That’s where Microsoft has an advantage. They are about customer support. And upgrades, well they come around on Tuesday every week. Some are security, some OS, some Apps.

Office Applications

Another thing that can make a difference is that a Windows 8 tablet can have Office installed. That can make a big difference for users who want both the tablet and Office experience on hand. Favorite apps from Microsoft could be installed, making the transition from PC to Laptop to Tablet. This could be a real transitory step. For Microsoft and the consumer community, a Windows 8 Tablet could be the hardware device that Microsoft needs to get back in that market.

Source: Cnet

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Microsoft has released a new mouse called Arc Touch Mouse. It is different from other mouse designs anywhere as the image below shows.

Arc Touch Mouse

Use it just about anywhere, even on a rough wood surface or carpet. The technology behind this is BlueTrack Technology 1. It also allows you to keep wireless control of your computer up to 30 feet away. Pop it up to turn it on, flatten it to turn it off.

How it Works

Arc Touch Mouse’s design allows for quick use and storage. To get it started curve it. Then glide your finger up or down the scroll pad. You get a response precisely to the speed of your finger movement, using a Haptic feedback, i.e. a light vibration that signals scrolling speed. So you scan through documents or web pages as quickly, or as slowly as needed, entirely by feel.

When you’re done, you keep the transceiver plugged into your computer’s USB port, or tuck it into the underside of the mouse. Then flatten Arc Touch Mouse to turn it off, and slip it into your pocket or bag just like a cell phone.

Arc Touch Models

There are three models of the Arc Touch Mouse. The artist edition – Year of the Dragon, Limited edition, and the standard model. Each costs 59.95.

Other Touch Models

Microsoft has developed other mouse touch models.

• The Touch Mouse is the highest valued mouse model. It features a large touch-sensitive surface that responds to one-, two- and three-fingered movements that are optimized for window management.
• Explorer Touch Mouse. It has a four-way Touch scrolling technology for fast navigation. It has five customizable buttons and three scroll speeds that use haptic feedback. It also has a battery life of up to 18 months. It has a low position so it speeds up everyday tasks with a touch strip optimized for quick vertical and horizontal scrolling.

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I know that you all love to personalise your Windows 7 Desktops with the latest themes and wallpapers, so today I’ve got a selection of 3 more brilliant themes for you. They include Chickens that Can’t Fly, Butterflies that can fly and some Dynamic Insects.

Chickens Can’t Fly

A rather interesting title for a Windows 7 Theme I think you’ll agree, and that’s what caught my attention in the first place. This theme is from the Xbox Live Game “Chickens Can’t Fly”. So if you’re a fan of that game I’m sure you’ll love this rather comic theme of Chickens as they attempt to fly.

Chickens Can\'t Fly

Download

Butterflies Theme

This next theme emphasises the natural beauty of butterflies. It features several close up wallpapers of elusive butterflies in their natural habitat.

Butterflies Theme

Download

Dynamic Insect Theme

And the last theme that I have for you today is another dynamic one. For those of you who don’t know, dynamic themes are constantly updated with new wallpapers via a RSS feed so you’ll never get bored of the same old wallpapers.

This theme features close ups of dragonflies, butterflies, lady bugs and more insects, all in their natural environment.

Dynamic Insect Theme

Download

Of course if you only want to use the wallpapers, you can see a guide on how to extract theme from the themes here

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Microsoft has long been concerned about students with academic email addresses buying cheap copies of Windows and Office for friends and family members with the hefty discounts they get with their academic email address.  Now though the company has decided to crack down on the practice by offering a new version of Office 2010 instead.

The new suite, “Microsoft Office University 2010″ is only for those in colleges and universities and replaces the old Student edition.  It you are a student or a member of staff with a .ac email address (as it’s impossible for Microsoft to tell one from another) you can buy the suite which is now on sale in the US for $99.

It contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access and doesn’t come with a product key.  Instead it uses an online activation system where you have to log in with your student email address in order to get the software to work.

My concern is that if you are in the last year or two of your study this could present quite poor value for money as, as soon as you no longer have access to your .ac email address, and some universities can be very quick to rescind them, you will no longer be able to reactivate the product.

One some PCs that aren’t used for much this might be fine for a while, but eventually something will happen that will cause you to have to reinstall Windows, or you will upgrade to Windows 8, perhaps by buying a new computer.  Suddenly then you’ll find the software you’ve paid for can’t be activated or used.  In the new FAQs for the product Microsoft say…

Office University 2010 does not come with a product key. Your eligibility will be verified online before completing purchase. This product will not work without successful verification as you will not have a product key.

You will be required to verify your eligibility online to use this software. 1.Go to www.office.com/verify. 2.Sign in with your Windows Live ID or create one using any email address. 3.Provide your school email address, sign-in ID, or international student identity card (ISIC).

Once you pass verification, the online site displays the product key.

In many ways Office 2010 Home and Student, which is around the same price but can activate on up to three computers, offers much better value for money.  It only includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote but these are the only apps most people need.  While some people might miss Outlook, Microsoft’s free Windows Live Mail offers many of the same features and there are free alternatives to Publisher and Access available.

It is completely understandable for Microsoft to change their stance regards academic activations, but to not reduce the price of the product, leaving it the same as before but unusable after you leave college or university, is an unwelcome surprise.  If you live in a country where the full version of Office 2010 Student is still on sale, and you’re considering buying it, I’d recommend you do so while you can.  It is still available in the UK and other countries for a limited time.

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Microsoft have now announced much more about their plans for Windows 8 running on ARM architecture including the somewhat curious decision to support the full Windows desktop, even though almost nothing can run on it.  But the fact that the desktop exists at all, and this means that it might be possible to install software that doesn’t come directly from the new Windows Store, leaves an interesting malware question mark over the platform.

So far, Windows 8 on ARM is the most malware resistant operating system on the planet!  I’ve always wanted to say that but this time it’s actually true    No malware at all exists that can infect this platform as nobody’s been able to write anything for it yet.  Thus, Windows 8 on ARM for the primary reason that it will be an embedded OS, will go on to be the most secure version of the operating system ever.  This won’t stop some forms of malware that try to trick users into giving up sensitive details, especially in the desktop version of Internet Explorer that will still support plug-ins (but ONLY ARM-encoded plug-ins I might add!) but nothing will be able to attack the operating system directly.  This will make Windows 8 on ARM just like iOS, QNX or WebOS in being malware resistant.  I’m leaving Android out of this as Google don’t monitor apps as they’re submitted and thus the platform does have a malware problem.

But this question mark over the Windows desktop and whether you will be able to install apps separately from the Windows store still needs to be answered.  What’s more another question Microsoft have yet to answer is whether Windows 8′s new in-built anti-virus software, Windows Defender, a rebadged version of Microsoft Security Essentials, will also be in the ARM version of the OS.  In theory there’s no need to ever have it, or any other anti-virus protection on the ARM platform.  With Microsoft vetting everything that comes through the Windows store, and only downloadable malware to worry about it again will be as secure as iOS, QNX and WebOS, where the majority of tablets run fine with no anti-malware protection whatsoever.

I do find it curious that Microsoft aren’t yet addressing these problems.  It’s very likely, and I will expect this, for Microsoft to say that the ARM devices will ONLY support apps and software from the Windows Store.  It’s also likely that nobody will ever release desktop software for WIndows on ARM either as the market for such programs will be too small to justify the enormous development costs.  The ARM desktop then will only ever be used for six programs.  File Explorer (formerly known as Windows Explorer), Internet Explorer (for which no plug-ins with the possible exception of Flash will ever exist) and Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote (none of which in all likelihood will support VB scripts or Macros).

I’m left wondering then if Windows 8 running on ARM processors could truly be as secure as the competition.  This is Windows and Microsoft though so you can imagine why I’m having a nagging doubt.  The company’s track record with security in Windows isn’t exactly stellar.  Windows 7 with User Account Control might be a nice and secure platform to work on, but nobody in their right mind would ever consider using it without having some type of malware protection installed.  There will still be the WIndows SmartScreen protection, but will this help?  You need an active Internet Connection to use it and how effective can it be anticipating threats that don’t yet exist?

So what do you think about the security of both Windows 8 running on ARM processors and Windows 8 running on Intel?  Do you think that Microsoft will include Windows Defender with the ARM version or will people never need it at all?  Do you expect to be able to install programs on the ARM desktop, or for tablet manufacturers to begin making machines with full USB ports so you can plug pen drives into them and do exactly that?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

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While Microsoft have announced that a consumer preview of Windows 8 will be made available at the end of this month, UK retailers can’t wait for it to arrive. Sales of PC’s in the UK and around most of the world have dropped off an awful lot, mainly because of the global recession. In the UK alone, PC sales have dropped by a massive 20 percent in the final quarter of 2011.

For the whole of 2011, sales had dropped 15.9 percent, which was equivalent to a drop of 2 million units. We also have to remember that this is a drop on 2010′s sales, which also saw a large drop from 2009 sales figures. So in reality the drop is a lot steeper.

Most major manufacturers saw a drop in their sales apart from Apple and Lenevo. According to Gartner, Acer lost 46 percent year on year, HP nearly 16 percent, and Dell 9 percent, with only Lenovo rising 14 percent. In fact, the market has contracted so much that now Apple accounts for 10 percent of the sales, a big increase from 4 percent in previous years.

UK retailers are hoping that Windows 8 will be able to give them a boost in sales, sooner rather than later. As the year progresses, we will becoming closer and closer to the final release date of Windows 8 and people will be reluctant to shell out for new Windows 7 machines when they know an update is only around the corner. This is unfortunate news for retailers, but it’s something that happens with every new release of Windows. However Microsoft did run program for the release of Windows 7 which meant that anyone who bought a Windows Vista machine in the run up to the release of Windows 7 got a free upgrade to it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft introduced a similar scheme for Windows 8, they’ll have to if they don’t want sales to drop off completely.

Retailers are also hoping that Windows 8 will get the consumer excited as well. The new Metro UI is sure to be visually appealing to consumers, particularly on the tablet side of things and should spur on sales there. UK retailers are also banking on sales of Ultrabooks to pick around the release of Windows 8 when Intel’s range of Sandybridge processors are brought to the market. Netbook sales have dropped off a lot and hopefully Ultrabooks can pick up where they left off.

“PC vendors face a long, uphill struggle to regain the interest of consumers. The introduction of Ultrabooks in late 2011 is desperately needed.”

So I know a lot of you guys are desperately waiting for Windows 8 to come out so you can play around with it, but it’s also clear that UK retailers really need it for a much needed boost in their sales figures in these recessionary times.

Source:

Gartner

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Windows on Arm (WOA) is the new member of the Windows family. Like Windows Server, Windows Embedded, or Windows Phone, WOA builds on the foundation of Windows, so this means that it has a commonality and shared code with Windows 8.

Two different Windows 8 products

One thing that became apparent with the blog post from Microsoft about WOA is that it is different from Windows 8.

Here are some of the main points from the post:

• WOA PCs are still under development and our collective goal is for PC makers to ship them the same time as PCs designed for Windows 8 on x86/64.
• Metro style apps in the Windows Store can support both WOA and Windows 8 on x86/64.
• WOA can support all new Metro style apps, including apps from Microsoft for mail, calendaring, contacts, photos, and storage. WOA also includes industry-leading support for hardware-accelerated HTML5 with Internet Explorer 10.
• Desktop support will be available WOA and Windows 8.

Here is what they are saying. WOA will have one set of PC’s, Windows 8 another. Metro Apps will be available on WOA and Windows 8.

Confusion?

It looks like the dynamics at Microsoft are in a compromised state. While some developers may have wanted to have just one version of Windows 8, the ARM version or WOA, others may have wanted a backward compatible version, using the DOS through Windows7 legacy. Neither side won, or rather both sides won. Each is keeping its own version, but not overlapping with the other.

Here is what one part of the blog says:

“The availability of the Windows desktop is an important part of WOA. The desktop offers you a familiar place to interact with PCs, particularly files, storage, and networking, as well as a range of peripherals.”

Then later they say:

“At the same time, WOA (as with Windows is designed so that customers focused on Metro style apps don’t need to spend time in the desktop.”

Then they finish with:

“Some have suggested we might remove the desktop from WOA in an effort to be pure, to break from the past, or to be more simplistic or expeditious in our approach. To us, giving up something useful that has little cost to customers was a compromise that we didn’t want to see in the evolution of PCs.”

So you have two different development approaches to Windows 8, the traditional one, and the ARM one. This looks confusing to me because they will overlap and it will cause confusion for developers; which brand to develop for? That can’t be good.

Source Microsoft

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Microsoft have released an extensive blog post and a video about Windows 8 running on ARM processors.  The video also shows off new apps that have not been seen before including email and calendaring.  One of the biggest questions about Windows 8 on ARM has now been answered, will there be a desktop.  The answer to this is a resolute yes.  In the post Microsoft said…

“WOA (Windows on ARM) includes desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. These new Office applications, codenamed ‘Office 15,’ have been significantly architected for both touch and minimized power/resource consumption, while also being fully-featured for consumers and providing complete document compatibility. WOA supports the Windows desktop experience including File Explorer, Internet Explorer 10 for the desktop, and most other intrinsic Windows desktop features—which have been significantly architected for both touch and minimized power/resource consumption.”

This does raise some interesting questions.  For example will these four Office apps be full or cut down versions, more like the free Office web apps?  It also indicates that, for the time being at least, Microsoft have abandoned all development on a Metro version of Office.  This is a tremendous shame given that Adobe Photoshop Touch has already shown how powerful touch apps can be, and that Microsoft’s Ribbon, which is already touch-friendly but can be found nowhere in Metro, would suit the form factor very well indeed.

The question also needs to be asked of what will people use or need the desktop on ARM devices for, and will they ever use it?  I’ve written about this on our sister site gHacks today where I make the case for once again splitting Windows into consumer and business versions.  In short though the main problem will stem from the fact that it is unlikely software houses will recode their existing Windows software for ARM chips (existing x86 and x64 software will not run on the new platform, even in an emulator).  This will leave a desktop with only four Office apps, Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer and I can’t help wonder if this will confuse the people who want to use their existing software, and annoy IT Pros and business in equal measure.

Either way the video, which you can see below the screenshots here, shows Windows 8 being very speedy on an ARM machine.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise as I’ve tested Windows 7 on a 1GHz AMD C50 processor and it was extremely quick and responsive.

The video, as I said, also shows off new apps, and I’ve taken some screen grabs of them here for you to see.  I have to admit the new email and calendaring apps look lovely, and every bit as pretty and functional as I’d hoped.  Another question that’s been answered is will there be a dedicated Metro file manager.  The answer to this too is yes and a screenshot can be seen below.  There is much more in the video itself.

[Start slideshow]

1234►

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Well as of yesterday we now know that the Windows 8 Consumer Preview will be unveiled on February the 29th, and Microsoft is currently finalizing the Metro apps that will be included within its release. According to sources “familiar with the matter” the Verge is reporting that the following Metro apps will ship in the consumer preview of Windows 8 later on this month.

• Camera
• Messaging
• Mail
• Calendar
• SkyDrive
• People
• Photos
• Video
• Music

They are just the known apps so far, the chances are that there could be more when the Consumer Preview is revealed. They will also all be updatable from the Windows Store where we will probably find more apps.

The Metro interface

The Mail, Calendar, People, and Messaging apps will be the core Windows communications apps and they haven’t been branded by Windows Live. Microsoft is also apparently working to integrate SMS support into the Messaging app as well since at the moment it operates the same as Windows Live Messenger.

The Music and Video applications are currently branded with the Zune brand and were built by the Xbox team. According to the source however, this branding will probably be removed ahead of the final Windows 8 release and changed to Xbox Live. Making Xbox Live the primary brand for Windows 8 entertainment.

Microsoft is still trying to decide on which apps it will actually bundle with the final release of Windows 8, which is expected to be towards the end of this year. With Windows 7 they removed Outlook Express in an attempt to make things easier when updating the OS and individual programs. In Windows 8, the Windows Store will be responsible for updating Metro Apps and also provide easy access for users to go and download new ones if they wish. Microsoft will probably only add the essential core apps for the release of Windows 8, leaving it up to consumers to choose more apps from the Windows Store.

Source:

The Verge

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Those of you who follow me regularly will know that last year I designed a new Metro-themed skin for my own website, The Long Climb and that if I’m honest it’s not worked very well.  The reason being that what I ended up with was a half way house between a new Metro website and a traditional style blog.  Clearly I was going to have to think again and do some major overhauling of the interface to get it right.

This got me thinking in some depth about what would make a really good Metro website and why that would be.  It’s not just a case of putting together some blocks with stuff on them along with a few circular icons and hoping for the best.  When designing a new website there are all manner of things to consider such as the visual order of the items you see on the page and how the reader is drawn around the page, how items will fit together (which is especially important on a Metro site when symmetry is vital but elements are all different sizes) and how you might accommodate external items such as advertising.

Then you need to consider how to accommodate different types of device.  These include smartphones, tablets of varying makes and sizes and full PCs where, with people running Windows 8 they could be using the Metro version of Internet Explorer, full screen on a 1920 pixel wide monitor.  These all have to be accommodated for so an adaptable design is required that will automatically rescale the elements on a page to fit the width of the browser window.

Then you have to consider that different web browsers on different devices operate in a variety of ways with some supporting plug-ins and some not, such as iOS and the Metro version of IE10 in Windows 8 not supporting Flash (or any plug-ins at all come to that).  It was clear then that the website would have to be true HTML5 in order to have any kind of longevity.

On a device such as Windows Phone or a Windows 8 tablet or computer the design also needs to feel natural and a comfortable fit for the user interface.  When Microsoft designed the Metro UI concept it wasn’t just about slapping some blocks together, it was about using symbols and iconography that we’re used to in our daily lives that allow the content to shine while making the interface itself fade into the background.

Suffice to say that when I really got into this I realised just what a major project I had taken on, especially when I began to think of all things I would want to do with the site in the years to come.  I needed a proper and full design brief then and so began to write such a document to help me get my ideas together, and that a designer and coder could use as a bible when actually building the site.  I thought I’d share this document with you, firstly as it ended up being a 52 page behemoth on how you can design and build a Metro website, but also because I thought you might find some of the content interesting or even useful if you are planning to design and build your own Metro website.

You can view and download the book on this HERE, sadly the embedding here didn’t want to work.  This new website will go live for me sometime this year.

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Metro seems to have caught the fancy of Microsoft, the whole company. Recently, Steve Ballmer at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, touted the value and importance of this new User Interface (UI). When it is released it will go to the Windows Phones, and also to Windows 8. Ballmer hopes that this new UI will change users view of the Microsoft Smartphone, because it is so unlike iPhone or Android.

Origins of Metro

Going back to 2009, Ballmer put together a new design team to come up with something that could compete with appeal of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, but still be uniquely Microsoft. A new UI? Yes, that was expected, but they came up with new design principles as well, which are to become the new look and feel of Microsoft’s key consumer offerings.

Before that, its lineage goes back to the Zune digital music player, which foundered against Apple’s iPod. Nevertheless, the Zune user interface won kudos from reviewers when the Zune HD debuted, even though consumers largely ignored it. Next, the Metro designers also drew on work done years earlier in Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia s and its Windows Media Center interface.

How It Looks

So why does it look so different? Here, Metro takes its design cues from way-finding graphics used in transportation signs. With bold, clear lettering and iconography, this helps commuters find their way to subways and air travelers navigate to their boarding gates. The focus on clarity and readability would be crucial to the new interface.

The Metro interface

Then the group came up with a look using white space. This would eliminate clutter that they felt would only confuse users. This means also that the chrome frame that separates one app from another on a screen is gone, because the decoration around the app detracts from the experience of using the program. Instead, they implemented a newly developed typeface called Segoe because it is easy to read, and it relies on animations that roll screens away as users navigate through the interface, for example, giving them context about where they’re going or where they’ve been.

Other Microsoft Consumer products

For Microsoft, the big impact is that now they have a new design approach to their products. This will affect them as new upgrades or products are rolled out. Metro will be the universal interface for products at Microsoft.

Source: Cnet

Metro is here to stay is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

ARM and Windows 8 desktops…will it be possible?

Ok, that is a good question because Windows 8 is supposed to be a radically different type of operating system. In fact it uses System on Chip (SoC) architectures. What is that?

SoC

An SoC is an integrated circuit that brings together all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio frequency functions … all on a single chip design. A typical application is in the area of embedded systems. One benefit is that SoC designs usually consume less power and have a lower cost and higher reliability than the multi-chip systems that they replace. And with fewer packages in the system, assembly costs are reduced as well.

New development features

Unlike current x86-based machines, which mainly use processors from Intel and AMD, ARM-based SoC devices generally draw less power and can wake from standby instantly. The impact for Windows 8 systems is that SoC systems can enter a near-sleep state but they can still retrieve e-mails, text messages and other information.

Intel ARM Development

Who’s working on ARM? And will it be ready for Windows 8 deployment?

Intel’s first system-on-chip, “Medfield,” is at the final prototype stage according to VR-ZONE. Moreover, it is performing well, even against other chips like NVidia Tegra, and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon.

So there are multiple companies preparing to use ARM. Already the market for ARM is the mobile and tablet market. The question is whether ARM will handle Windows 8.

Some blogs mentioned that ARM-based devices use SoC architectures, and that SoC devices will run both Metro-style and desktop apps suggests that ARM-based computers will support the Windows 8 desktop after all. That said, Microsoft still has to say officially how the Windows 8 desktop will run if Metro will be the new GUI version.

Source PCWorld, ZDNet

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Well it’s finally official, Microsoft have begun sending out press invites to the launch of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. The event will be taking place at Mobile World Congress on the 29th of February in Barcelona.

Microsoft haven’t given very many details regarding the event, but it’s scheduled to take place between 3pm and 5pm CET.

It looks like Microsoft are celebrating the leap year by announcing the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 on the last day of February. We had heard plenty of rumours that Microsoft would be announcing the Consumer Preview before the end of February, so that much has turned out to be true at least. Microsoft generally make the Consumer Previews and Beta’s available the same day that they are announced.

It’s quite interesting that Microsoft have decided to announce it at the Mobile World Congress which is primarily reserved for mobile gadgets. I guess you could read from that, that Microsoft are looking to push hard into the mobile market with Windows 8.

Anyway, there’s not too long to wait now before Microsoft release the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. You can be sure that we’ll let you know as soon as it’s available

Microsoft To Announce Windows 8 Consumer Preview At MWC February 29th is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

The Lumia 900 is an eagerly anticipated smartphone which is going to be running Windows Phone 7. This device is being seen as the flagship handset for Nokia to hopefully get them back into the smartphone market where they’ve been suffering heavily for the last few years.

It appears that Microsoft Stores in the US are now accepting a $25 deposit to secure one of the first handsets. They are offering the Lumia 900 in either black or white, however we still haven’t heard on a specific price or an actual release date for the device. Some reports have suggested that Microsoft may price it aggressively at $100 while others are saying it will probably be around the $150 – $200 mark. Sales staff in the stores are expecting the devices to arrive at some stage during the second half of March.

When the Lumia 900 is released in the US, it will be exclusive to AT&T and Nokia’s first 4G LTE phone.It sports a huge 4.3-inch display, a polycarbonate body in white or black (possibly cyan as well), a 1.4-gigahertz Qualcomm single-core processor, 512 megabytes of RAM, 16 gigabytes of built-in storage, 8-megapixel/720p video rear camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. It’s quite a feature packed phone and is certainly going to be a serious competitor to the likes of the iPhone 4s and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. Nokia really need it to make an impact in the smartphone world, they are struggling big time at the moment and are pretty much relying on this and a few other devices to get people excited by Nokia again.

You can have a look at a hands on of the device in the video below

What do you guys think of the Lumia 900? Is it enough to get Nokia out of the rut it’s stuck in? Would you buy one?

Source:

Techcrunch

Nokia Lumia 900 Is Up For Pre Order is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Say what you like about Windows 8 (and who isn’t) but it’s embracing new technologies like never before.  This got me looking at Apple’s desktop operating system, OS X, and asking myself if Windows 8 might leave the Lion trailing far behind in its dust.  First things first though, I’m not going to assume that Windows 8 will be a tablet operating system, as that would be unfair given that Windows in its various forms currently runs on about 1 billion desktops and probably about thirty or forty tablets worldwide.  I’m also not anti-Apple, as OS X is a very polished and accomplished operating system that almost nobody has a bad word to say about.  What I want to do is take each operating system on its merits and compare these two operating systems as they will stand, shoulder-to-shoulder this October when Windows 8 is expected to launch.

This means we will still be using OS X Lion on iMacs because Apple’s desktop OS release schedule usually means they release something new every eighteen months to two years, and with Lion coming out in the summer of 2011, that means the next big cat will lag from a few months to as much as a year behind Windows 8.  So where will these two operating systems stand and why, do I think anyway, Windows 8 will be ahead of the pack?

Let’s start with touch, as Windows 8 is centred around it in a way no desktop operating system ever has been before.  This is significant because when you look at it objectively Windows is the only desktop operating system to ever feature touch.  It’s never been in OS X or GNU/Linux and, although most people expect the next generation iMacs and Macbooks to be multi-touch enabled they might not appear for another year or more.  Touch is important as any new way to interact with our computers opens up opportunities both for existing users and people who are new to technology.  This can include the elderly, disabled or very young children, all of whom can have trouble with keyboards.

Touch brought with it handwriting recognition to Windows, which has now been with us in some form or another since around 2005 when Microsoft first introduced the concept of the tablet PC.  The handwriting recognition in Windows is really quite mature now and far ahead of the competition.  Apple, by contrast doesn’t even offer the feature on the iPad and it has to be added via a third-party app.  Again this offers new ways to interact with our computers and opens them up to new people and new markets.

While we’re on the subject of interfaces there can be little doubt that Microsoft’s Kinect sensor will revolutionise the way we use PCs in the same way it has done for gaming.  It may only be useful for broad swipes but imagine the fun people will have playing with it on a new laptop, or the benefits it can bring to the physically handicapped?

It’s not just in interfaces that Microsoft is leagues ahead of Apple.  Data encryption is another area where they still rule the roost.  No matter how secure people might tell you their Macbook is, it’s still vulnerable to being dismantled and having the hard drive removed.  Microsoft’s Bitlocker drive encryption technology has now been with us since 2005 and is widely considered as the business data encryption tool.  This is at a time when data protection and data encryption are more important than ever before.

Add to this new technologies such as hard disk storage pooling, new advanced file management features and the Windows To Go feature, which will allow you to load your entire copy of Windows 8, including all it’s installed software onto a bootable USB pen drive and Windows 8 is clearly well in the lead.

If you want to come back now and say that the average desktop user doesn’t need any of these features then I would say this to you.  Each one of the very few technologies I’ve listed here is either currently making a big difference in the world today, or is set to do so very shortly (such as Windows To Go).  There is nothing here that can be considered frivolous or useless in any way.  In short I could suggest, if I dare, that Apple have spent so long concentrating on the smartphone and tablet space that they’ve simply taken their eye off the desktop and when they had chances to import some of these technologies into OS X, remember that OS X and iOS run on the same core kernel, they missed the opportunity.

There are also, and this is important to say, areas where OS X is ahead of Windows.  While some of these areas have been historically significant, such as user security, OS X doesn’t currently lead in any meaningful way, and with the technologies that are making a big impact in the world today.

The reason I say this is because, while the focus of Windows 8 might be on it’s funky new Metro front end, many people will be comparing Windows and OS X and wondering why the precocious Metro upstart is so far ahead.  Apple clearly has some catching up to to, and they’d better hurry because I do actually want to buy an iMac, but until they begin to support touch they can forget it.

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Microsoft and NUI and the Windows 7 Interface

Microsoft has been in interested in developing alternative interfaces for users. Their touch and speech technology, which has entered the Windows 7 OS system and has been a player for different models saw a new partner enter with Microsoft.

Natural User Interface

A natural user interface (NUI) is a user interface that is effectively invisible, or becomes invisible with successive learned interactions, to its users. It is natural because most computer interfaces use artificial control devices where users must learn the operation. Moreover, a NUI relies on a user making a quick transition from novice to expert. Thus, while the interface requires learning, a special interface design gives the user the feeling that they are instantly and continuously successful. This technology allows users to carry out relatively natural motions, movements or gestures that they quickly discover control the computer application or manipulate the on-screen content. The goal is to make the user feel like a natural; and not part of a suspect view that the natural user interface is  somehow a mimicry of nature, or that some inputs to a computer are somehow more ‘natural’ than others.

24/7

So today, Microsoft entered an agreement with 24/7 to jointly bring the power of natural user interfaces (NUIs) and data analytics at cloud scale (Big Data) to enable the future of customer service for businesses.

Last year, Microsoft saw its Kinect system grow from a game computing add on to a science development system. But now, this new partnership extends this NUI system to business applications. With Microsoft and 24/7, new ways to use NUI should develop and this will give businesses a new way to present their data and information. It should also extend the type of users to Windows 7 that weren’t available before because of disabilities or other handicaps. But even though that is not their first goal, which is instead to provide mobile and social media connections, still using this approach can add many users and start the switch over to an alternative natural interface.

.

With Microsoft expanding its NUI technology in Windows 7 and  the upcoming Windows 8 this can make an big impact on how users will use computers.

Source: Microsoft Press

Microsoft and NUI and the Windows 7 Interface is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview can’t be too far away now. We’ve had loads of leaks to do with Windows 8 which you can read all about over at our sister site Windows 8 News. Recently there was a few leaked screenshots from the Consumer Preview build of Windows 8 which hasn’t been made available to the public yet. Along with those screenshots came some wallpapers that are set to be made available in the consumer preview of Windows 8.

I know that you guys love the huge range of wallpapers that we have here at Windows7news, so I decided to get the wallpapers from the Windows 8 Consumer Preview  to add to our extensive collection.

The first one is actually the same as the log on wallpaper for Windows 7, the others are new as best as I can make out. There’s also 2 widescreen wallpapers which I imagine would be for multi monitor displays.

You can check them out in the gallery below. To save them simply right click on the image then choose save as.

[Start slideshow]

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There are times in life when people can’t help but cry out “why has this taken so long?” and today could indeed be considered one of those days as Microsoft, in conjunction with UK Child Protection Agency CEOP have released a child-friendly version of their Internet Explorer web browser

The browser is essentially IE9 as standard with some additional web links and Jumplists embedded into it, and the browser’s content protection feature already turned on.  There is a dedicated startup tab for the “ThinkuKnow” website, where children can get online safety advice, and a kid-friendly jumplist with quick links to services such as their online Safety Centre.

With so many more children now online and at much younger ages than ever before this will be welcomed by parents both in the UK and elsewhere, where the parental control features will still work.

While kids can see CEOP links in the Jumplist, parents will see a different jumplist where they will be able to set the age range of their child or children.  From this IE9 will take over and block any inappropriate content.  There are also settings for both teachers and vulnerable adults, making the browser useful in places where computers are accessed by mentally handicapped people you might not wish to view such material, or where you might not want inappropriate web content appearing in a classroom.

Now I should point out that this is no catch-all and occasionally some things will filter through, but as a general idea goes I have to take my hat off to Microsoft but chastise them equally for taking so long to get around to it.  Frankly this feature should have been built into Windows years ago.

You can download the modified browser from the ThinkuKnow website and if you have young children, the browser supports children up to 16 years of age, then it can only be a worthwhile addition to the family PC.

Microsoft Release Child-Friendly IE9 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft has always shipped a handful of games with each version of the windows operating system. This usually included one or multiple Solitaire versions, good old Minesweeper, and even online games such as Backgammon or Hearts. Tom Warren over at The Verge got his hands on a list of Windows Store games that Microsoft intents to offer in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview build that will supposedly be released later this month.

According to Tom, the following games will be available in the preview version of the Windows Store.

• Hydro Thunder
• Toy Soldiers
• Reckless Racing
• Angry Birds
• Ilomilo
• Rocket Riot
• Full House Poker
• Tentacles
• Crash Course
• Ms Splosion Man
• Wordament

Angry Birds is without doubt the biggest name in the list. Some of the lesser known games have received rave reviews though. This is for instance true for Ms. Splosion Man or Rocket Riot,  which both have been released on Xbox Live Arcade. Judging from the names something’s there for virtually any taste. From Poker over racing to puzzle games.

It is also interesting to note that the majority of games are already available on Xbox Live Arcade.

Tom notes that the Windows 8 Consumer Preview version will ship with Pinball and Solitaire preinstalled on the system, and that the remaining games listed above are available as separate downloads from the integrated Windows store.

Windows Store will carry free and commercial game and application offerings. Developers can either offer their apps and games for free, or charge users between $1.49 and $999 for them.

The games included in the preview version of Windows Store are all-in-all high quality games. It is likely that Microsoft plans to integrate high quality apps in the store preview as well.

Update: Microsoft News has reported that other games will also be available at the start of the Windows 8 Beta. The games mentioned are Beards & Beaks , geoDefense, Zero Gravity, Rise Of Glory, iBlast Moki, Sudoku, Minesweeper and Cut The Rope.

Windows 8 Windows Store Lauch Games Revealed is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about Windows 8, and won’t for the next couple of weeks until the Consumer Preview (beta) is released.  I know that there’s still an awful lot to come, especially for business users, IT Pros and Enthusiasts that we’ve not seen, or even heard of yet.  But of the things we do currently know about this new operating system what I am personally most excied about?  As a Windows MVP and a Windows Author, with my “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” already out the door and two Windows 8 books currently being written (plus at least one more to come after that) I’ll know this new operating system inside out (if you’ll excuse the pun) by the time it ships.

This is the case with Windows 7 where I use a great many of the operating system’s more advanced and perhaps less-known features every day.  These include Aero Snap which allows me to work on two documents side by side, Taskbar Jumplists for pinning of regularly used files, including some I store up in Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud service and networking features that make sharing and working on different files on different computers a doddle.

Assuming I’ll continue to use all of these, I thought I’d detail here which of the features that will be completely new to Windows 8, I’m most looking forward to, and why.

8 : Reset and Refresh

As the author of a Windows 7 Troubleshooting book, the idea of a quick way to reset Windows is very useful and extremely compelling.  This isn’t a basic “quick fix” feature either, as it’s programmable with your own custom Windows images.  So you can create an image of a fully-working and installed system, complete with all your software and settings, and use the Reset option to quickly roll back to a fully working copy of Windows.  As a way to expand on the System Image functionality goes, this is a winner in my book.

7 : Live Tiles

I might probably use the desktop more than Metro, but I have rather grown to love Live Tiles on my Windows Phone.  With the Live Tiles on the new Windows 8 Start Screen I can see just how much additional information they will be able to provide and just how useful they could really be.  For example I could check my latest emails, look at my calendar, see what the weather’s doing, see who just mentioned me on Twitter and more by just sitting there.  I wouldn’t have to do anything at all!  That’s really quite cool.

6 : Multi-User Tablets

My biggest beef with modern tablets is how they lock you into a single-user account, forcing you to buy an extra tablet for each other person in your household who wants to use one.  Windows 8 will finally change all that, bringing multiple-user accounts to tablets for the first time.  Apart from the obvious cost-saving to households and businesses, this single feature will elevate Windows 8 above the competition whenever the salesman in the shop begins to talk about it.

5 : Improved File Management

The changes and improvements to file management in Windows 8 are such that I can’t help but wonder why it’s taken so long to do things that are so obvious.  The new copy and replace dialogs are extremely helpful and the simple fact that you will be able to pause a copy or a move operation, shut your computer off, go out for the night with friends, and continue the copy from where you left it the following morning is, frankly, worth the upgrade on its own!

4 : Better Windows Phone Sync

I love my Windows PC and I equally love my Windows Phone, but no matter how good the Zune Desktop software is, it’s becoming very old hat to use software such as this to synchronise the two.  While many of the details are still secret, it’s become apparent that Windows 8 will be able to synchronise with your Windows Phone directly, which will bring many added benefits, much of which we don’t yet know, but extra functionality (please synching of Internet bookmarks) is bound to be a part of the package.

3 : Hyper-V

I use Virtualisation, in the form of XP Mode, every single day to run an old Microsoft graphics package that I love, but that won’t run fully in Windows 7.  The incluison of Microsoft’s excellent type-0 hypervisor, baked into the OS for the first time will solve many a problem for many people, and help make Windows 8 the most compatible version of Windows yet… until all support for XP ends of course but we’ll cross that bridge later.

2 : Windows To Go

It’s one thing to be able to carry files around with you on a pen drive, but so far it’s been the preserve of expensive third-party software to allow you to run the entire operating system from a pen-drive.  Now, Windows 8 will bring you the opportunity to carry your copy of Windows, and it’s software, with you wherever you go.  No longer will we need to fret about leaving the laptop at home.  Just plug the pen drive into any PC and, hey presto, there it is.

1 : Kinect

As a favourite thing to look forward to with Windows 8, how could anything except the Kinect sensor integration, complete with it’s “Minority Report” operation of the new Start Screen not top the list?  It may not be useful for anything but broad gestures, but by ‘eck it’s gonna be fun to play with when we get it!

There are other things I’m looking forward to as well such as pooled storage, better battery life and more mobile working support, and no doubt even more will appear when I get a copy of the beta.  What are you most looking forward to in Windows 8?  Why not tell us in the comments.

8 Things I’m looking Forward to in Windows 8 is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Somehow I don’t think Microsoft did this on purpose, but a Bing page has been discovered which is still under construction, that contains some information regarding the Windows 8 consumer preview. If you go to this Bing page you will see what I’m talking about.

First off that fish swimming in the background appears to be Microsoft’s mascot for beta versions of its operating systems. A fish very similar to this was to be found in the Windows 7 beta’s and release candidates.

The page also appears to contain several hotspots and links scattered across it. A lot of these links are broken which indicates that the site is still under development, but a few of them are working. The working ones are to the Building Windows 8 blog and one about developing Metro style apps.

All the other ones appear to be broken, I was especially disappointed to find the “See what’s new in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview” link was broken.

Originally we thought that Microsoft was going to launch the first Windows 8 beta at the end of this month, but then we had a few rumours that it may be called the “Consumer Preview” instead. This little find today pretty much confirms just that.

Of course this website doesn’t leak any details about the release date for the consumer preview so we are still in the dark as to when it will actually be released and available to download but we can be pretty certain that it will be some time this month.

Source:

Bing via Cnet

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Mango Interaction12 Awards Winner

Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) was declared a winner in the connecting category at the Interaction Design Awards. This is the inaugural award sponsored by Google, and held in Dublin, Ireland. There were 26 winning projects including applications, games, instrument panels and installations. The best in show went to LoopLoop for Sifteo cubes. And overall there were over 300 entries from 33 countries.

Microsoft’s Smartphone Mango

Windows Phone 7 received the award for the best smartphone. The reward mentioned that Windows Phone is device that puts people first, making it easier to stay close and connected to the people that matter to you. With the Mango, a person or group that you work with or other important people can be pinned right to the Start screen, and with Live Tiles, you can see a their latest status update at a glance. If you have tie ins to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn they will come easy because their connections are built right in to the phone, this way even a simple contact card comes alive with news about what your friends are doing, where they’ve checked in, and the photos they’ve posted. Mango makes it easy by letting users stay in touch with SMS, Windows Messenger, and Facebook IM all in one unified messaging experience.

Mango

The judges noted “that the best interaction design doesn’t just make things easier to use, it opens up new spaces for play and collaboration to enhance our relationship with the world and each other.”

So with Mango this occurs every time when your friends comment on your Tweets or status updates, instead of chasing them down in different apps – now they come right to you, all in one place. That is why it made an impression, and rightly so.

Overall, for Windows Phone 7, its been a good year so far as  Nokia’s gorgeous Lumia 900 captured the coveted Best of CES 2012 award for smartphones last month, and now this.

Source: IXDA

Mango – An Interaction12 Awards Winner is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Last week I wrote about how a leaked Microsoft Windows Phone video, aimed at Nokia and perhaps other partners detailed some of the features we can expect with the next major update to the Windows Phone operating system, currently codenamed “Apollo” and due perhaps towards the end of this year.

What was missing were details of new screen sizes and form factors that would be supported.  Currently all Windows Phone have a standard screen resolution of 480 by 800 pixels and other handsets sporting Android and Apple’s iPhone are going much higher than this.

Now, TechRadar have obtained a photograph of a Nokia slide detailing new Windows Phone form-factors.  While this slide doesn’t demonstrate the any new resolutions directly it does show some different sizes for handsets, including a really dinky, iPod Nano-sized one (though I’m not sure how useful something this size would be as a phone.

The interesting part is the form-factor shown on the far right of the slide which, unless I miss my guess, looks remarkably like a 7-inch tablet!

It’s been rumoured for a while now that the next version of Windows Phone will be based on the Windows 8 MinWin kernel.  This makes complete sense from Microsoft’s point of view as just having a single operating system kernel across their products, as Apple does, makes development and patching much faster and more efficient.

If this Windows Phone form-factor is indeed a 7-inch tablet, what would it be running?  Would it be Windows Phone (which the slide seems to suggest), Windows 8 or will Windows Phone and Windows 8 indeed become the same product by this point?

To be honest it’s too difficult to call but Microsoft already squashed their fantastic Courier tablet prototype as they didn’t want two competing tablet operating systems on sale from the company.  It is unlikely then that Windows Phone, as it currently stands, would ever be allowed to run on a tablet device.  It’s also entirely possible that the information Nokia are putting out in this slide is either erroneous or just plain wrong.

Either way this slide is fascinating and will no doubt start all manner or speculation around the web on what Microsoft sees as the future of their two mobile operating systems.  What do you think, and what would like to see happen with Windows Phone and Windows 8?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

New Windows Phone Form-Factors Emerge, with one Huge Surprise! is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

You have Windows 7 operating system and want to enjoy your high speed Internet connection on many computers or you want to share it with your friends who live nearby you? Windows7News will show you how to use this functionality in Windows 7 with the help of Connectify. This software will indeed transform your computer into an internet access point, the only thing you need is a WiFi card. Here are the steps you have to follow to make this work:

Step 1: Make sure first that your WiFi card is enabled by going to Control Panel, Network and Internet, View Network computers and devices, right click on your WiFi card and then choose Enable. If you WiFi card is already enabled don’t change anything and continue to next step.

Step 1: Download Connectify for Windows 7.

Step 2: Run the installation file and accept the license agreement, the installation in simple and only takes a few seconds. During installation your computer will probably have to restart few times so don’t worry about that.

Step 3: Now once installation is finished, start Connectify. If an update for Connectify is available, make sure you download it and update the software. Then run the program.

Step 4: Your previously enabled wireless device is automatically detected. Then you must enter the name of your wireless network.

Step 5: A password of at least 8 characters is required. This will serve users to connect to your access point.

Step 6: Once the password is set, below password field you will have to choose which internet connection you want to share, click on dropdown men and select one.

Step 7: Then click Star a Hotspot button. It may take a minute or two until its setup.

Step 8: Once it’s done. Windows Security Alert may popup, choose Allow Access.

Here you are now with your own WiFi access point type WPA2-DSK. It is accessible from the list of wireless networks Network and Sharing Center, make sure you provide the password to people you want to share the connection with!

Note for those users with an Intel WiFi card, a simple driver’s update can in most cases, activate Windows 7 Virtual WiFi so you can benefit from the ability to turn your computer into an Internet Access Point without having to go through Connectify. Also make sure your WiFi network is secure, and always pay attention who is connected on your network and who is using your internet connection.

Windows 7: How to share an Internet connection via WiFi is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Chinese website PC Beta has released new screenshots from the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (beta) showing that the Start Screen wallpaper we’ve seen in the Developer Preview probably won’t be the only one available when we see the full beta later this month.  While full details of exactly what and how many wallpapers will be available, until Stardock get their way, the image of the new rings wallpaper isn’t an unpleasant one.

The screenshots also show a modified Charms bar with new icons and a slightly modified Control Panel, now called PC Settings, where the descriptive text from items has been removed.  Finally these is a screenshot reinforcing the news that the Windows Start Orb has now been removed from the desktop.  Rumour has it however that it reappears if you mouse over to the bottom left of the Windows desktop taskbar.

Much still isn’t known about the Windows 8 beta, probably too much frankly and there are a great many quite legitimate questions that people are asking.  It is clear though that Microsoft have done a great deal of work since last August when they would have signed-off on the Developer Preview build, and that they’ve taken on board much of the feedback they received from that build.

One piece of feedback concerned the blanket alphabetical way in which apps were treated in the search screen.  One of the new screenshots shows apps now arranged into categories, as per the current Start Menu.  It’s probably not a perfect implementation, but it is at least a significant improvement over what we’ve seen before.

What do you think of these screenshots and the new look?  Do you like it?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

Update: Someone has leaked all Windows 8 Wallpapers that Microsoft intents to ship with the consumer preview version of the operating system. You find them linked below:

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The wallpaper images have  been posted here originally.

New Windows 8 Wallpapers and Charms Bar Shown in Leaked Screenshots is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

This is a good time to think about the Microsoft’s experiment with Windows 8 Developer Preview. From what I’ve read on the web, huge numbers of interested folk downloaded and installed it in varying iterations, some in dual-boot mode and others as a straight installation. The reactions of these users varied from impressed to annoyed. The latter were frustrated with the so-called Charms (Apps to some) and its associated Charms menu (the new look Start menu), unimpressed by that the Start menu no longer allows you to shut down the operation. Others were impressed with the touch feature and the fact that you can still use the mouse and keyboard.

After a bit of digging in delving I found several ways to shut down Windows 8, these involved  keystroke combinations – see my earlier blog “Ways Means to Shutdown Windows 8 Preview“. Despite these minor disadvantages I remained impressed with the new look ribbon bar in Internet Explorer with the return of the Up button and look forward into the beta version which comes out at the end of the month.

In anticipation of this I have now with one exception, my touchscreen computer, removed all versions of Windows 8. This was a simple matter where it was installed in dual-mode but on my netbook I had to reinstall Windows 7 from scratch.

One thing I’m looking forward to is the possibility of installing Windows  8 on a 32-bit Flash drive and being able to run it in its full form on any computer. There has been a lot of discussion about this feature on the Web.

The deadline for the death of Windows 8 preview is 12th March 2012 on my remaining computer and I will regret its passing but look forward to its reincarnation .

The Passing of Windows 8 Preview is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

There’s been an awful lot of hype building up around Windows 8 and how Microsoft are looking to finally enter the tablet market properly with it. Everyone seems to have forgotten that the vast majority of people still actually use laptops and desktop PC’s, and while that trend is slightly changing, I think it’s still important to remember the current traditional way we use Windows.

Sticking to the subject of tablets though. ARM’s CEO Warren East recently spoke about how Windows 8 will have an advantage over Android when it comes to tablets once it hits the market. While Android has been an incredible success in the smartphone industry, the pick up rate hasn’t been quite as good in the tablet market. He called Android tablet sales “disappointing” .

He cited a number of reasons as to why Windows 8 will have the advantage over Android tablets:

• Microsofts Brand
  Microsoft have a big advantage over Android since everybody knows, recognises and trusts their brand. Microsoft is much better known than Android amongst the general consumer and it’s a company that everyone can relate to.

  I think we can be pretty certain that Microsoft are well aware of this fact and will probably do their very best to exploit that fact. They’d be foolish not to.

• Intel Needs To Catch Up
  While Intel may be dominating in the PC and Laptop market, the vast majority of tablets are actually running ARM processors. Intel are trying their hardest to break into the tablet market, but at the moment Android tablet manufacturers prefer the cheaper ARM alternatives. Windows 8 will support both ARM and Intel processors which will give it another slight advantage over it’s predecessor – Windows 7 which only supported Intel’s x86 architecture.

• Android Needs More Time
  Android is doing very well in general, but it’s the smartphone market where it’s currently excelling. A few years ago when Android first came to the market there was very little enthusiasm around it. However 2 years later and it had suddenly taken off.

It will be interesting to see how Windows 8 tablets are received in the market and how quickly they’ll take off, if they do of course.

What do you think? Will Windows 8 powered tablets have the advantage over Android?

Let us know in the comments below

Why Windows 8 Tablets Will Have The Edge Over Android Tablets is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Valentines day is fast approaching, so here are some new Windows 7 themes that you can download an use on your desktop. These are Roses, and they are some of the most wonderful looking pictures ever.

Queen of the Flowers

Known as “the queen of flowers,” roses have been valued for thousands of years for their beauty and fragrance. Their connection to romance also spans the generations, popping up in songs, poems, and in lovers’ bouquets since at least the Middle Ages.

Backdrop

A rose is a woody perennial of the genus Rosa, and there are over 100 species. They form a group of erect shrubs, and climbing or trailing plants, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles. Flowers are large and showy, in colors ranging from white through yellows and reds. Most species are native to Asia, with smaller numbers native to Europe, North America, and northwest Africa. The name rose comes from French, itself from Latin rosa.

Earliest roses are known to have flourished 35 million-years ago  and petrified rose wreaths have been unearthed from ancient Egyptian tombs.

Roses are best known as ornamental plants grown for their flowers in the garden and sometimes indoors. They are also used for commercial perfumes and commercial cut flower crops. Some also work as landscape plants. They also have minor medicinal uses.

Art

Roses often appear in art and appear in various artistic disciplines. They appear in portraits, illustrations, on stamps, as ornaments or as architectural elements. One artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté is known for his detailed watercolors of flowers, particularly roses.

Legends and mythology

In Greek mythology, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, created the rose from her tears and the blood of her lover Adonis. The Romans, turning Aphrodite into their goddess Venus, also adopted the rose: it became the symbol of love and beauty. Cupid, offering a rose when trying to bribe the God of Silence to hush Venus’s amorous escapades, made the flower into a symbol for secrecy.

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New Roses Themes for Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

A few blogs ago, I posted about Microsoft’s 10^th anniversary with their Trustworthy Computing. Now the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) format is clear. For Microsoft, whose challenge is to lead the software community in ways to combat cybercrime, the SDL is their way of introducing a rational plan to meet that goal.

Security managers and enterprises should follow six practices. Training involves secure design, threat modeling, secure coding and testing, and privacy. All software should meet these initial conditions in order to establish a baseline of operations.

Security Requirements

Then there are security requirements. Meaning that these issues should be upfront and not as an afterthought. If the security element is upfront, then the design will be different than if it occurred as an afterthought. Questions must be asked such as which portions of the project will require models or design reviews before release.

Design Practices

Next are the design practices. Here it is imperative that security managers establish design requirements. These include the creation of security and privacy design specifications, and a specification review, and specification of minimal cryptographic design requirements. How these get implemented and where in the program is important. So having a handle on the approach beforehand will be necessary to making the effort a success.

Implementation Practices

Implementation practices are important. After the development of the software, the development team mandates and enforces best practices to be followed for the duration of the project. This prohibits variation and presents consistency in the result. This way if there is a problem, they will know where it came from. If there wasn’t a best practices portfolio, then failures could come from more than part of the program, without the ability to zero-in on the fault.

Release Practices

Finally, release practices must be available. That means that the team must create the incident response plan, perform the final security review and archive all pertinent data for post-release servicing of the software. In this way they can anticipate issues and not be surprised if customers do complain. It also means having a standby system to correct the faults.

Source: Microsoft Security LifeCycle Fact Sheet

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Microsoft’s Security Development Lifecycle is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft are constantly working on making new themes for Windows 7, as a result there’s a great selection of themes for Windows 7 available (check out our extensive gallery here). This latest theme from them is entitled “Animal Affection” and is one of the cutest themes I’ve ever seen.

This is really a perfect theme for all you animal lovers out there, you’ll be constantly staring at these awe inspiring wallpapers every day. Even reading Microsoft’s description of the theme is enough to set any animal lovers heart racing.

Goldfish kiss, horses nuzzle, hummingbirds tenderly touch beaks, cats nap in an intertwined heap, and leopards groom each other in this collection of adorable displays of affection from the animal kingdom. A free theme for Windows 7.

I’m not going to keep you waiting any longer. Check out the gallery of wallpapers below and you’ll also find the download link for this theme. Of course if you only want the wallpapers from this theme you can follow my guide here on how to get them.

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Animal Affection

Download

Windows 7 Animal Affection Theme is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Windows 8 is being developed with more portable devices in mind, tablets more so than anything else. While it will still retain the traditional desktop interface somewhat, the new Metro UI has been designed specifically with touch screen devices in mind. Some tablets are pretty small and portable, but none of them are quite as portable as a watch.

So can you imagine having a watch powered by Windows 8 on your wrist? Well a creative designer came up with a watch concept that is just that, check it out below.

It certainly looks like something from the future and wouldn’t look too out of place in a high tech spy movie. It was designed by Mithun Darji and he’s managed to do a pretty good job at porting the Windows 8 Metro UI onto the watches screen. Of course it’s only a concept and the chances that we will ever see it are probably pretty slim, but then again we have seen some android powered watches recently so you never know.

This concept comes with built in Wi-Fi, doubles as a phone and even comes with a bluetooth headset for the times when you don’t want to do a James Bond on it and talk directly into the watch. Other features that we can see are the dedicated media buttons along the top of the device as well as volume keys and four buttons along the bottom of the device.

So will we ever see a watch like this? Probably not because Microsoft has laid down certain hardware requirements for Windows 8 which would be very hard to replicate on a device as tiny as a watch.

But it’s a pretty cool concept none the less.

Would you wear a watch like this if it actually came to market?

Let us know in the comments below.

Source:

Ubergizmo

The Coolest Windows 8 Watch Concept is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

PC users who are buying a new computer with the Windows 8 operating system, and those who are upgrading their existing versions will have to cope with quite a few major design changes over previous versions of the Windows operating system.

The new Metro UI interface obviously makes the top of that list. Tech savvy users who follow the development of Windows 8 are still not sure whether it will improve their workflow on desktop systems. The Windows 8 Beta, which will supposedly be released later this months, should give everyone an answer to that.

A recent screenshot on the PC Beta forum suggests that Microsoft may have plans to change the desktop interface significantly as well. The developer preview released last year already crippled the start menu that Windows users were using in previous versions for various tasks such as starting applications, searching or opening the Control Panel.

The screenshot now shows a taskbar without a start menu button.

According to Neowin, that button appears only when users move the mouse (or their finger) to the left lower corner of the screen.

The basic idea behind the move, besides removing noise from the interface, is to make users use the taskbar and the new charms for all the things they are doing on the desktop. Charms basically appear when you move the mouse to the edge of the screen.

The default start menu functionality had been crippled by Microsoft before, and it feels like they just followed their new all or nothing philosophy to the end.

Pinning applications directly to to the taskbar will become more of a necessity in Windows 8, considering that users do not have options anymore to start apps from the start menu. What about seldom used applications, you may ask? Your only options at this point in time seem to be the built-in search or to use windows Explorer to navigate to application folders directly.

What’s your take on the change? Lets discuss in the comments.

Start Menu Orb Hidden In Latest Windows 8 Builds is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

There are E-mail Privacy Issues associated with Google. If you didn’t know this, Google Chrome and Gmail, and Google Apps read everything that you put in there. If you are worried about your privacy, then Google’s apps are not what you want to use because they get information from you. If you use Gmail, be aware that they actually read the contents of your mail (both sent and received, even if you aren’t a Gmail user but just sending to someone who is) in order to decide what kind of ads to serve up to you.

And their search engine, Chrome, interacts with the e-mail, which most of the time is up all day long. This ties the searches to your email account, and they read that too.

Furthermore, if you visit YouTube, they get connected to the same e-mail profile and once again that information is stored on Google’s servers.

Hotmail and Office 365

If you don’t like those scenarios, then you should give a second look to Hotmail of Office 365. Hotmail doesn’t deliver adds to you based on your content, nor does it change search results based on your email content, and your video watches don’t come into a database at Microsoft. In other words, your stuff is your stuff, not Microsoft’s.

The same goes for Office 365, which is Microsoft’s answer to app operations on the Cloud.  On Office 365, you can create

Word, or Excel information and access it from anywhere in the world. Since the information is stored on a Microsoft Data Center, it would be easy for Microsoft to access it. But they don’t. Once again, your stuff is your stuff.

This is in sharp contrast to Google’s view that they can use your content to send you ads targeted specifically to your search quests. Will this get Google into trouble? With the law? At this point concerns have been raised about what will Google do with the information, and they are trying to back stall some of the criticisms. But Microsoft doesn’t have those issues.

Download Hotmail

Download Office365

Source: Microsoft Blog

E-mail Privacy Issues and a Microsoft Fix is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Some details of thew next big release of Windows Phone, codenamed ‘Apollo’ have emerged today from a video hosted by Windows Phone chief Joe Belfiore for partners including Nokia, and seen by PocketNow.  The video covered a few themes that are all logical evolutions of the platform.

Hardware

Windows Phone 8 is set to have some changes made to the supported hardware now that it is a mature platform.  These changes include support for multi-core processors and three new screen resolutions.  These weren’t specified but we can expect them to be both lower and higher than the current 800 by 480 pixels.  This will allow new high-end handsets to compete more effectively with the iPhone and some Android phones, while also opening up new markets for low-price smartphones, a market Microsoft has been keen to get into.  NFC will also be supported for contactless payments and finally Micro SD Card support is coming to the platform which will be welcomed by many people.

Windows 8 Integration & Data Management

The new version of Windows Phone will work more effectively with Windows 8, no longer requiring the Zune desktop software to synchronise music, photos and files. There’s no word on how Microsoft will actually do this but there will be a new “syncing relationship” with Windows 8.

There will also be a new Xbox companion app for Windows 8 and better SkyDrive support, which might explain the different Windows 8 sync.  For those worried about their data connection the OS will be better able to handle WiFi networks, automatically prioritising them for data, and providing a Live Tile showing your data usage and throughput.  It will also auto-connect to available and appropriate networks, though presumably security conscious owners will be able to turn this feature off.

Internet Explorer 10 on the phone will also use a proxy server to compress images.  Microsoft say this can save up to 30% of the total browsing data usage on the phone.

Developers

Microsoft are going to continue the already excellent work they are doing for app developers by further improving the tools that can convert iPhone and Android apps for Windows Phone.  Belfiore apparently said he expects 100,000 apps for Windows Phone by the time Apollo is available at the end of this year.

Business Support

Businesses are also being catered for with better features including 128-bit full disk Bitlocker encryption and, finally, the ability to deploy custom apps directly from a Windows Server environment without having to go through the Windows Phone app store.

The Apollo update is expected at the end of this year along with handsets that will have it pre-installed.  This probably means we will begin to see leaked details of these new handsets around late summer with releases in late October to get them out for the Christmas market.  A launch at this time will match the expected launch of Windows 8 and Windows Server 8.

These are just a few details of the next major update for Windows Phone that is still also rumoured to run on the Windows desktop MinWin kernel.  We will no doubt hear further details later in the year but it is clear that Microsoft are aiming to ‘evolve’ the operating system in sensible and organic ways, with the better integration with Windows 8 a particularly good idea.

Windows Phone 8 Details Emerge is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft is a success in the retail market. How so? Microsoft Dynamics comes at a time when retailers need to address multiple customer issues quickly and simultaneously. It is a complete hub that provides core capabilities like point of sale, inventory, supply chain operations, and financials. But on top of that it integrates with excel, SharePoint, and Visual Studio.

You can look at it as the ultimate control panel for a retailer to easily automate, streamline, control, and adapt various aspects of their business simultaneously. And given that many companies are now using this retail software to help their retail operations, makes Microsoft a success in the retail market.

Ease of use

One thing that many businesses hate is the paperwork that goes with creating a new distribution channel. That is one of the things that Dynamics can offer, a quick and fast way to complete important projects. Dynamics lets users see their entire business graphically, and then drag and drop graphics to create new store locations in the system or to add new distribution channels.

World Wide Success

Customers in 30 countries have adopted Microsoft Dynamics These include DAVIDsTEA, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Sephora , Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, Malabar Gold, Turisme de Barcelona, Carol’s Daughter, Sally Beauty Supply, and Ashley Furniture Industries. These companies show that their retail establishments become easier to operate at the software level, and also then increase customer satisfaction and sales.

Scheduling

Avoiding problems and making transitions easier can be seen with the operations of Mattress Firm, one of the largest retailers of mattresses with over 800 locations and 30 warehouses. To open any new warehouse or location the task could be a daunting issue for management. But with Dynamics, this is an easy task because management can piece together what their location will look like and how soon it can be put in place. Thus they can achieve every enterprises dream, growing fast and minimizing problems.

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft is a success in the Retail Market is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Yesterday the very first official Kinect devices for Windows went on sale in 12 different countries all over the world including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain and the US. The initial retail price is $249 and Microsoft announced plans to have a special discounted price of $149 for qualified education users in the near future.

In a blog post over at MSDN, Craig Eisler, The general manager for Kinect wrote about the improvements that Microsoft have made in the recent Kinect SDK and developer tools. Version 1.0 of the SDK and Runtime tools are now available to download from here

Some of the improvements that they’ve made in this version are outlined below:

• Support for up to four Kinect sensors plugged into the same computer
• Significantly improved skeletal tracking, including the ability for developers to control which user is being tracked by the sensor
• Near Mode for the new Kinect for Windows hardware, which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 40 centimeters in front of the device
• Many API updates and enhancements in the managed and unmanaged runtimes
• The latest Microsoft Speech components (V11) are now included as part of the SDK and runtime installer
• Improved “far-talk” acoustic model that increases speech recognition accuracy
• New and updated samples, such as Kinect Explorer, which enables developers to explore the full capabilities of the sensor and SDK, including audio beam and sound source angles, color modes, depth modes, skeletal tracking, and motor controls
• A commercial-ready installer which can be included in an application’s set-up program, making it easy to install the Kinect for Windows runtime and driver components for end-user deployments.
• Robustness improvements including driver stability, runtime fixes, and audio fixes

The Kinect sensor for Windows comes with a shorter USB cable and is also more sensitive to movement up close to the camera than the current Xbox 360 Kinect sensors.

Kinect For Windows Has Arrived is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft are desperate to squash Windows XP.  The operating system is now more than 10 years old and has been replaced twice!  Yet, despite all of this, and because Vista was late and (frankly) rubbish, millions of people are still using the “comfortable old shoe” and despite their now being less than 800 days left for extended malware and security patch support, they are mostly resolutely refusing to upgrade, insisting that Microsoft will have to back down instead and continue support until their computers eventually die, or perhaps even longer.

Now figures released from NetMarketShare appear to show that Windows XP usage actually increased slightly in January of this year, up to 47.19% from 46.52%!

XP’s usage has been steadily declining since the launch of Windows 7, with a very healthy 56.78% of computers using it in March 2011 compared to just 25.23% of computers running Windows 7.  Now Windows sits at 36.4% but this still lags more than 10% behind Windows XP, which resolutely refuses to die.

Data released by other companies in the coming months may show XP still on the decline, or they may back up these figures.  It is interested to see a small jump in XP usage however which also comes in a month that saw Windows 7 usage drop slightly from 36.99% to 36.4%.

XP users are becoming a bit of an odd bunch, maintaining their unconditional love for an operating system that’s widely known to be very insecure and was a figure of fun throughout its main life.  Around the time XP was being installed on new PCs, it was generally considered that GNU/Linux users were the people who declared unconditional love for their operating system.

Now though Linux is widely considered good enough to switch to on a full-time basis and nobody would ever criticise Apple’s resolve again.  Windows 7 users can now sit safe from name-calling and fun-poking, knowing that they’re as secure as they need to be and it’s XP users who are on the receiving end of the jokes that GNU/Linux users received in the past.

So what is your view of this news?  Do you believe it or do you fully expect XP to usage to drop further?  Are you still using XP and don’t want to move to WIndows 7 or Windows 8?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

Did Windows XP Usage Rise in January 2012? is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Well January flew by if you ask me, it seems like only yesterday that I posted about how I was going to start off a series of publishing Smashing Magazine’s calendar wallpapers for every month. Now it’s February, and while it may be the shortest month of the year, even with a leap year this year, I’ve got no less than 27 wallpapers for you this month. That’s nearly a new wallpaper for you every single day!

Of course all these wallpapers come courtesy of Smashing Magazine where they have a bunch of very talented artists who contribute to their collection every month. I think you’ll agree with me that there are some very creative desktop wallpapers in this collection.

I wont go posting all the download links here for the wallpapers as Smashing Magazine have that covered here. They offer you multiple different resolutions as well as an option to get the wallpaper without the calendar. But most importantly they credit all the the authors who contributed so be sure to check it out.

I’ve published a gallery of the images below so you can have a look at them for yourself.

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Go to Smashing Magazine to download them

February 2012 Smashing Magazine Calendar Wallpapers is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft’s Internet explorer has been the dominant browser for the last 10 years. A few months ago, Microsoft showed that IE9 had surpassed IE8 in US growth. In January 2012, continued to grow, even out pacing Firefox and Chrome.

Cut the Rope

One of the applications that Microsoft is happy to tout because it works so well in IE9 is Cut the Rope. This game now has an HTML 5 version, with 25 levels now available online for free.  With the power of HTML5, IE9 and Windows, experiences that were once limited to applications are now coming to life across the web.

Cut the Rope

The game is about a green monster who is hungry. As a player, you can use your mouse to manipulate ropes, airbags and bubbles to feed him candy, and collect stars along the way for more points. But here is a fair warning, it is an addictive game which has been downloaded over 60 million times to date.

Other Games

Other games that are working well and popular on IE9 are Pirates Love Daisies, Tron, and WorldsBiggestPackman. These games extend the limits of HTML5, and Microsoft wants users to see that the browser can be more than a viewer of websites. They are pursuing a lot of new experiences not only showcase the beauty of the web, but demonstrate how fast, interactive and rich the web is becoming, enabled by platforms such as IE9 and Windows 7.

Indeed, the old days of file transfer and e-mail, which helped form the ideas behind the Internet, never saw how complex packet transfers could actually become.

Even in recent years, developers in the Internet or WWW, had a limited view of what they could do. But with new browsers running on sophisticated operating systems, like Windows 7, and its anticipated replacement, Windows 8, there may be a lot of new concepts coming.

This is why it may be that IE9 is just the right browser for users to work with who want a different Internet experience.

Download IE9

IE9 is growing and Multiple Games can run on the Browser is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

It feels kinda confusing that Microsoft intents to ship two different versions of Internet Explorer 10 with the Windows 8 system. First the plugin-less Metro UI variant, and then the standard desktop variant that supports plug-ins. The company is driving towards a plug-in free web in Windows 8. The core reasons for doing so are battery life, security, reliability and privacy.

While battery life is certainly an argument for mobile PCs running Windows 8, it is not convincing for desktop users. Security, reliability and privacy on the other hand could convince desktop users as well.

Instead of going all in like Apple did, Microsoft has decided to implement a backdoor into Windows 8. Users who open a website requiring plug-ins to function properly, are presented with options to launch that website in the desktop version of Internet Explorer instead.

Webmasters and developers can add http headers or meta tags to their websites to force Metro UI Internet Explorer 10 to display the plug-in prompt to the user. Microsoft furthermore maintains a compatibility view list of popular sites that are requiring plug-ins for all or some of their site’s functionality.

HTTP Header

X-UA-Compatible: requiresActiveX=true

META Tag

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="requiresActiveX=true" />

It is interesting to note that Microsoft sees those options as a short-term mitigation.

This mechanism provides a short-term mitigation. The desktop browsing experience and most plug-ins were not designed for smaller screens, battery constraints, and no mouse. Providing an easy way to the Windows desktop is the last resort when no comparable plug-in free fallback content exists.

Is this a hint at what Internet Explorer 11 might look like, or how Microsoft envisions Windows 9?

There is another issue that has not been addresses yet. Internet Explorer 10 is tightly integrated into Metro UI, and it is likely that Microsoft won’t offer options to switch the browser to an alternative. This would close out browsers like Firefox, Google Chrome or Opera from the part of the operating system that Microsoft is putting all their development power into.

While it is still possible to install those third party browsers on the desktop, it could feel awkward for those users to use Internet Explorer on the system again. (via)

Microsoft: Windows 8 Will Have Plug-in Backdoor is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

On January 20th, Microsoft announced the release of an open source project which is an SDK for Windows Phone for Amazon’s Web Services (AWS). The SDK essentially gives developers, ”…a speed dial that lets them quickly connect and integrate Windows Phone applications with AWS (S3, SimpleDB, and SQS Cloud Services).

Amazon’s own Terry Wise spoke about the new offering for Windows Phone and its benefits to customers:

“Our approach with AWS is to provide developers with choice and flexibility to build applications the way they want and give them unlimited storage, bandwidth and computing resources, while paying only for what they use. We welcome Windows Phone developers to the AWS community and look forward to providing customers with new ways to build and deploy Windows Phone applications,” he says.

The SDK will allow developers to have more choice as to which cloud services they use when developing their mobile applications for Windows Phone. Being a cloud-friendly platform it is important for Microsoft to leverage as many cloud services as possible, even if it is a competing service to Microsoft’s own SkyDrive, like Amazon’s Cloud Drive.

You can find the SDK here.

Source: MSDN Blog

Windows Phone Beta SDK Released for Amazon Web Services is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Gears of War 3 has been another highly successful game in its series. In fact it seems to be so popular that I’ve managed to find 3 different themes all based on Gears of War 3!

You’ll find all the download links beneath each theme, and if you only want to use the wallpapers from these themes, see my guide on how to do it.

The first theme I’ve found is actually from when it was released back in September of 2011.

Celebrate the launch of the latest installment in the Gears of War series for Xbox 360 with this free Windows 7 theme, featuring glorious images from the savage, fantastical world of the all-new Gears of War 3.

Gears of War 3 Launch Theme

Download

The second theme is a general Gears of War theme based on the portraits of the main characters  Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago and Anya Stroud

Prepare your desktop for battle with this free Windows 7 theme containing portraits of Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago and Anya Stroud from Gears of War 3, the latest edition to the megahit Xbox series.

Gears of War 3 Theme

Download

The third and final theme is actually based on Fan Made wallpapers. DeviantArt held a competition for people to come up with some wallpapers for the gaming series and this theme includes a selection of them.

The visionary, apocalyptic world of Gears of War is interpreted by fans in this free theme for Windows 7, which presents winning entries and honorable mentions in the deviantART contest for Gears of War 3.

Gears of War 3 Fan Theme

Download

3 Gears of War 3 Themes For Windows 7 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft’s push to getting more companies onto the Cloud met with another success. Techstars Cloud, and Microsoft announced an agreement whereby new entrepreneurial companies would be participating in Cloud operations.

According to TechStars they “will select approximately ten companies focused on cloud infrastructure to participate. Chosen companies will receive seed funding, mentorship from many of the world’s top cloud infrastructure thought leaders, and will have access to perks available only to TechStars companies and alumni. The program will be managed by Jason Seats and Nicole Glaros. Jason was the founder of Slicehost (acquired by RackSpace in 2008) and has deep understanding of cloud infrastructure and entrepreneurship. Nicole Glaros is currently the Managing Director of TechStars in Boulder, and will relocate to San Antonio to co-manage the inaugural program with Jason.”

Microsoft’s New Cloud Promotional Offer

For Microsoft, they will offer access to up to $60,000 worth of Azure capacity for up to 24 months at no cost. With the initial limit of 10 seed companies, Microsoft will make their services available, and then hope that the companies continue to work in the Cloud capacity, with Microsoft as the Cloud holder. For Microsoft, the move is clear, get startup companies hooked on Azure, and they will likely continue to use it after their initial time period expires.

Global Accelerator

Techstars is not the only company that has this kind of offer. Global Accelerator also has a promotion for high quality start-up companies. The Network provides professional development, networking opportunities, training, consulting and ongoing support for members.

Startup Development

The startup development model is one that incorporates several features, and Techstar and Global Accelerator have a series of steps that new companies need to follow in order to be successful. The following graphs display that model.

Next, the startup has this element:

The culmination is  the product hypothesis:

With this to work with, it is no surprise that Microsoft feels that these entrepreneurial companies can offer a method of achieving success. The company succeeds, and so does Microsoft in the long run.

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Microsoft’s New Cloud Promotional Offer is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

File management is and always will be an essential task for all computer users. It includes file storage, accessibility and visibility among other things. Microsoft in a new blog post on the official Building Windows 8 blog has highlighted file management changes of the upcoming operating system. You probably know already that Microsoft intents to improve file management processes in Windows 8. This includes a better way to resolve conflicts. Conflicts occur for instance when you try to copy a file into a directory where the file name is already occupied by another file. Windows 8 adds visual information, e.g. thumbnails if you are moving photos to a new file conflict screen to give users more control over the process.

Windows 8 systems benefit from faster network throughput, for instance when you start a copying job over Wi-Fi and later on plug in a network cable. Jobs furthermore will automatically pause if the computer enters sleep or hibernation modes. The job can be resumed once the machine wakes again.

One of the many changes to Windows Explorer is the file manager’s ability to respect EXIF orientation, which means that you will always see your photos in the right orientation on the screen.

The padlock icon has been removed from Windows Explorer as it was causing delays in the file manager. They have been replaced by a sharing status column that is now displayed in the file browser.

Another new addition is the ability to pin folders to Start. This feature is accessible under the Easy Access menu in Windows Explorer’s new ribbon interface. It is furthermore possible to pin executables to the Start menu as well.

Please note that when I say Start, it means the Metro UI interface and not the original Windows Start Menu.

The announcement that Windows Explorer would ship with a ribbon interface has caused quite the controversy among users of the Windows operating system. Microsoft as a response has decided to minimize the ribbon interface in the Windows 8 beta release by default.

Ribbon minimized by default: With the ribbon maximized in the Developer Preview, we’ve been able to learn a lot about how people interact with it, which has enabled us to tweak and fine-tune it. With the beta, we will be making a major change that brings Explorer in line with our design principles for Windows 8. As in our copy dialogs, Task Manager, and Metro style experiences, we will be reducing distractions and trusting users to discover functionality on their own, by minimizing the ribbon by default.

According to an internal non representative study “heavier” Windows Explorer users make use of the Ribbon more often than lighter users. Users who prefer to work with a minimized ribbon interface on the other hand had a strong preference for hotkeys. To further encourage the use of hotkeys, Microsoft has added tooltips to many functions in Windows Explorer that highlight their hotkey.

Personalized Windows Explorer settings, like a maximized ribbon bar or actions in the Quick Access Toolbar, are now synchronized via Windows 8′s roaming feature.

The majority of changes make sense from a user perspective. Especially the ability to synchronize Windows Explorer customizations with other PCs running the operating system is an excellent option. What’s your take on the changes?

Microsoft Highlights Windows 8 File Management Improvements is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

We’re just weeks away from Mobile World Congress where industry experts expect Microsoft will be sharing news and information regarding the next update for their smartphone OS, Tango. From what we’ve heard through various leaks and unnamed sources, Tango will be an update designed to bring the lowest minimum hardware down even further so Microsoft can compete in the lower-end smartphone categories and markets.

Aside from that, there isn’t much else we think we know about the update as Microsoft has done a pretty good job at keeping things quiet about the future of the platform. What has been reported by WPSauce and repeated by The Verge is that the next update could bring support for over 120 different languages (currently there is support for 35) giving the software manufacturer the ability to go after geographic locations which are usually overlooked by the likes of Apple and their iOS platform. Additionally, there is word that the future of Windows Phone will also give developers support for writing apps in lower-level programming languages, like C++.

All of this is speculation until we hear anything official from Microsoft, so take it as such.

Tango to Bring Support for Over 120 New Languages and Support for C++? is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft are hard at work getting their next version of Microsoft Office ready. The next generation of Office has been codenamed “Office 15″ and has just reached “Technical Preview” status but we can expect to see a public beta over the summer. In a blog post over on the Office blog, PJ Hough talks a bit more about Office 15.

Now that Office 15 has reached the technical preview stage, it means that it’s released to a very small number of carefully selected consumers who are bound to non disclosure acts. They test it out and give feedback, but aren’t allowed to share anything with the rest of the world. This keeps us in the dark and prevents competitors finding out what Microsoft is currently working on.

In the blog post, Hough mentions that this is Microsoft’s most ambitious project for Office to date.

At this early point in our development cycle, I’m not able to share too much about Office 15, but I can tell you Office 15 is the most ambitious undertaking yet for the Office Division. With Office 15, for the first time ever, we will simultaneously update our cloud services, servers, and mobile and PC clients for Office, Office 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, Project, and Visio. Quite simply, Office 15 will help people work, collaborate, and communicate smarter and faster than ever before.

Also Office 15 is just a codename for the project at the moment, it’s expected that the final release will be called either Office 2012 or 2013, depending on when it’s released.

That brings us onto another question, will Office 15 be ready in time for Windows 8?

Windows 8 will probably hit the market around the end of this year, and I’m sure Microsoft will want to have a good selection of word editing tools to go with it. But judging by how late this technical preview is, we could be waiting a while. Office 15 will more than likely feature improvements which will make it more tablet friendly, they may even make a slightly metro themed version of Office, we don’t know as of yet.

But Microsoft are probably dying to get it ready in time for Windows 8, but it will be a very tight release schedule for them if they want to get it out in time.

Office 15 Reaches Technical Preview is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

How important is the Azure Cloud for business? For Underwriters Laboratory, the answer is very. They have begun deploying Microsoft Office 365, powered by Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft Lync Online, to its 50 offices worldwide, Microsoft Corp. announced today. UL, a global independent safety science company, provides solutions for safer products, processes and work environments for more than 66,000 customers.

What is Underwriters Laboratories (UL)?

It is an independent product safety certification organization. It was established in the late 1890’s with company headquarters in Northbrook, Illinois. The goal of personal safety in products is its model. To accomplish product safety it develops standards and test procedures for products, materials, components, assemblies, tools and equipment. It also evaluates and certifies the efficiency of a company’s business processes through its management system registration programs. Finally, UL analyzes drinking and other clean water samples using its drinking water laboratory in South Bend, Indiana, where it also evaluates products for environmental sustainability through UL Environment, another subsidiary.

Underwriter Laboratories headquarters in Illinois

The Cloud System

UL didn’t start with Cloud operations, they started with Microsoft Office, but quickly discovered that their employees, from engineers, to other staff, were comfortable with the applications. Next they decided that that with a growing  company staff, it needed to have a coordinated software application that all could use, especially their international staff. Plus with the acquisition of 12 companies in the last 3 years this became a serious issue. There are also 50 offices worldwide.

So the solution that developed, became almost a no-brainer; they adopted Office 365 cloud service that specializes on Windows Office applications. With it, several things happened. They were able to get on-board thousands of employees in a matter of weeks. The impact on how people worked became even more important, because now they were able to communicate and collaborate together, whether it was across continents or just down the hallways from each other.  Also, this collaboration was now available 24/7. This means that work can be completed faster, and the results made official.

In all, Office 365 cloud services are the perfect tools for a company that has multiple offices around the world. It keeps everyone in tune with the company’s expectations. Plus the cost to the company is reduced because upgrades are made at the Cloud, not at the company site.

Source: Microsoft News

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In this article you’ll learn how to use Windows Live Mesh and share folders in SkyDrive. As well, you will learn how to personalize each computer in your Live Mesh setup by changing their name and picture symbol for easier identification.

But first let’s take a closer look at Sky Drive.

What is SkyDrive?

• Sky Drive is part of Microsoft’s Windows Live range of online services, and uses Windows Live ID to control access to files, allowing users to create files, store files, and make them publicly available.
• SkyDrive allows users to upload files to Cloud Storage on the Web and then access them using a Web browser. It is directly accessible via Live Mail and Hotmail or using Windows Live Mesh. 
  
  

  SkyDrive in Action

• SkyDrive allows users to store Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents within the Web browser.
• SkyDrive provides 25 GB of free personal on-line storage, with individual files limited to 100 MB. Files are listed as private or public and can be shared with contacts.
• SkyDrive files can be viewed and edited in Microsoft Office and new files created within this environment.

Sharing folders on the Web (using SkyDrive)

Here’s how you go about storing a folder on SkyDrive.

1.      Open Windows Live Mesh.

2.      In the opening screen, select the folder to be synced.

Selecting a folder to Sync

3.      This expands the synced folder showing more information. On the right-hand side, click Select devices.

Selecting Devices

4.      A new window “Where do you want to sync …” opens.

5.      Check the box against SkyDrive synced storage and then click the Ok button.

Selecting SkyDrive

6.      In the next screen, the Folder is synced with SkyDrive.

Folder synced with SkyDrive

Checking the Synced Folder in SkyDrive

Checking Up

Fine Tuning Windows Live Mesh

To save confusion and to show their type you can change the name and picture symbol for each computer you are using Windows Live Mesh. It is a simple matter to change the name and the picture for each computer.

1.      Set all your computers running, in the main computer select Go to Windows Live Devices.

Accessing Windows Live Devices

2.      Windows Live opens showing all registered Devices.

Note: In this illustration there are four computers all listed and running under Windows Live Mesh. Each has the same name and the same picture associated with each it. Confusing!

Four Computers looking alike!

Well, Windows Live Mesh allows you to customize the registered computers so you can create a meaningful name and have a more suitable picture associated with it.

3.     You can personalize each one changing the Name and the picture symbol. To do this select one and click Personalize.

4.      Enter a more appropriate name and change the illustration to suit.

5.      Click the Save button. Do this for each one in turn.

The Personalize Window

6.      Once you make these changes the new-look Synced Computers will be easily identified.

Newly Personalized Computers

So there you have it, You have changed to look of the computers in Live Mesh so they are easily identified.

Windows Live Mesh is well worth taking a closer look!

Latest Ways and Means to Share Files – Part 3 – Using SkyDrive is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Windows XP has long been a thorn in Microsoft’s side.  It’s as comfortable as an old show for many people who skipped over Windows Vista due to its awful reputation and the late delivery of that OS.  Now it’s over ten years old, was written for the beginning of the Internet revolution and simply can’t cope with the security demands of the modern age.  The company has been working very hard in recent years to encourage companies to move away to Windows 7, which is a very compatible and secure OS, but it’s not been entirely successful.

Part of the problem is because many companies are using bespoke software designed for XP or Internet Explorer 6 that simply won’t run in Windows 7 and more modern browsers.  These companies have resisted for years any call to re-engineer these software packages.  Now though the end is coming fast.

Windows XP is already out of mainstream support where service packs and upgrades are provided to support new standards and technologies.  Now there are less than 800 days left until extended support ends also.  This deadline has already been extended by Microsoft once because of the Vista debacle, but it won’t be extended again.  After April 2014 there will no longer be any updates or patches to maintain security or stability in the operating system.  When this happens we can be certain that malware writers and criminals the world over will be targeting XP with new zeal and fervour.

It’s odd that it seems only recently that I was reporting that XP only had 1,000 days of support left.  That last 200 days has gone very quickly indeed and it won’t be long before I’ll be reporting only 500 days of support left and then 300 days, less than a year.

I believe it’s only at this point that companies will begin the rush to migrate, but it can take 18 to 24 months to complete such a migration and it’s a huge undertaking for any IT department to manage.  It’s becoming clear though that companies need to start taking this issue seriously, and that home users and enthusiasts should begin to think about saving up for a newer computer themselves.  Windows XP is now well into its final days, and the clock is ticking.

Windows XP Now Has Fewer Than 800 Support Days Left is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Windows has always come in different versions known internally as Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) that currently include the names “Home Premium”, “Professional”, “Enterprise” and “Ultimate”.  Historically, when the consumer and retail versions of Windows were developed separately the SKUs included titles such as “Windows for Workgroups” or “Windows 98″ and “Windows NT 4.0″.  It’s accepted then that each new versions of Windows will come with multiple SKUs.

There are some legalistic reasons for doing this as well which include the N editions that are make available within the European Union and are full versions of Windows but without Windows Media Player, and special editions for emerging markets.  This is very different to the approach taken by Apple where there are only two versions of each OS X release, “Desktop” and “Server”.

This week though somebody within Microsoft told me that we should expect just a single SKU for Windows 8 which came as a surprise to me.  Now I’m not taking this snippet of information as authoritative as it wouldn’t be the first time a Microsoft employee has misinterpreted some snippet of news from within the company and given me the wrong information, or perhaps even disinformation, who knows.  Therefore I wouldn’t assume that this information is gospel, but it does raise some very interesting questions.

Technically there could just be a single version of Windows 8.  It would be excellent news for home users who would gain access to useful features such as the Hyper-V virtualization client, as XP Mode was only supported in Windows 7 Professional and above.  It would also make it clear to people what features they were getting with the OS.  Any Systems Administrators might not be so happy though to have to hide the games, Windows Media Centre and the like in Group Policy, a task that would just be time consuming.

Also the aforementioned special editions that are sold within the EU wouldn’t be a problem either, as you would either buy “Windows 8″ or “Windows 8 N” (not that anybody ever does!).  But what about Windows 8 on ARM-powered tablets and what about cheaper editions for emerging markets?  For the latter they are commonly limited to running three programs at a time and don’t include many of the more business-oriented features.  If there was a single version of Windows 8 then it would either have to have a massive price-drop worldwide to match the price in these emerging markets, or Microsoft would have to abandon these markets completely.

There is also no word yet on whether Windows on ARM will even support the desktop.  After all the current desktop software for Windows would need to be re-engineered and nobody’s going to do that given the small size of the overall market and the low maximum price people are prepared to pay for tablets software.  The ARM version of Windows would have to be its own SKU anyway in practice, being completely incompatible with Intel architecture and probably only available to OEMs as well.

For these reasons and more I find it difficult to believe that there will only be one SKU for Windows 8, but my source in Microsoft seemed pretty determined that this will be the case.  We may have to wait several months for the announcement of what will really be happening with Windows 8 editions.  Until then it would be interesting to hear your views on this.  Why not tell us below!?

Could There be Just One Edition of Windows 8? is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

I think we can all agree that Windows 7 didn’t really get off to a flying start when it came to tablets. While Microsoft did do a bit of work making Windows 7 more touch friendly, there was still a lot left to be desired. Microsoft hadn’t really planned on entering the tablet market with Windows 7, they’re planning on doing that with its successor, Windows 8. Personally the only time I’ve seen a tablet running Windows 7 has been a display model in a shop. I’ve never actually seen one in the wild.

There’s a reason for that, according to statistics from Strategy Analytics, Windows 7 is only running on about 1.5 percent of tablets out there. That means that there’s approximately 400,000 Windows 7 tablets around the world at the moment, out of a total of 27 million that were shipped last quarter.

Of course I’m sure you all know who’s got the number one spot. It is of course the Apple iPad which now controls 58 percent of the market. Android on the other hand isn’t that far behind with 39 percent of the market. Of course you have to remember that the Android army includes the likes of Amazon, Samsung, Asus, Toshiba and more.

Global tablet shipments have grown at an incredible pace as well, 26.8 million units were shipped in Q4 2011, up 150 percent on 2010′s numbers.

Windows 7 Tablets Only Have 1.5% Of The Market is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

In my previous article, Ways and Means to Share Files – Part 1, I dealt with installing Windows Live Mesh and left it at that.

Using Windows Live Mesh

Now it’s time to put Windows Live Mesh through its paces sharing some folders/files with other computers in a network.

Starting Off

1.      Open Windows Live Mesh.

2.      The computer you are working on is identified.

3.      Your next task is to include any other computers on your network. To do this, select “Go to Windows Live Devices”. By the way, Sky Drive (Microsoft’s Cloud feature) is active once you log on and ready to go but more of this in my next article.

Go to Windows Live Devices

Note: To access other computers within your home network you must have installed and added Windows Live Mesh from Windows Live Essentials. This requires you to have either a Hotmail or a Live Mail account and to be signed in on the other computer(s) too. When you have done this Live Mesh will open showing your base computer, the one you are working on, and the target computer(s).

Computers for Live Sync

You are now ready to sync a selected file on your base computer which will appear on the target computer.

Syncing folders between Networked Computers

1.      Turn on your second computer. This will be the one you want to share folders with.

2.      Next, activate Windows Live Mesh on both computers.

3.      On your second computer you’ll be asked to log on, use Windows Live or a Hotmail account.

Note: If you haven’t got either you’ll need to create an account.

4.      Now back in the main computer, select Sync a folder.

5.      Windows Live Mesh displays all available locations on your computer.

6.      Double-click My Documents folder and select the sub-folder you want synced. 

8.      The Select Devices window opens.

9.      In the “Where do you want to sync . . . “window check the locations and click the Ok button.

10.   Windows Live Mesh reappears displaying the newly synced folder.

 11.   Now move to your second computer and check to see that Windows Live Mesh has done as you wish.

Note: When syncing a sub-folder within My Documents folder on your second computer, the newly synced folder will be added to My Documents folder.

You have successfully synced a folder on a computer network.

Un-syncing a folder

If you want to stop synchronizing a folder in any of the networked computers or SkyDrive do the following:

1.      Click the folder to be unsynced. This shows its details.

2.      In the expanded view, click Select Devices. 

3.      The Select Devices window opens. Uncheck SkyDrive and click the Ok button. 

4.      Back in the Windows Live Mesh window when you re-select the synced folder, you’ll see SkyDrive is no longer listed in Sync On. 

Now you know about Windows Live Mesh and its features sharing files and folders is a breeze. Happy synching!

In my final article, I’ll show you how use the web storage facility, SkyDrive, another location to sync folders. In addition you’ll learn how to personalize the synced computers in a network. 

Latest Ways and Means to Share Files – Part 2 – Windows Live Mesh is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

One of the biggest changes that’s coming with Windows 8 is the fact that it supports ARM processors rather than the traditional x86 Intel/AMD processors.While Microsoft have given us a few glimpses at tablets with ARM processors running Windows 8 in the past, we’ve never got a proper demonstration as Windows 8 was still a bit unstable on ARM machines.

But now it’s been reported that Windows 8 is running “quite stable” on ARM processors at the moment and will be sent to developers sometime in February. The source of this news is from a high profile PC manufacturer according to Cnet. Microsoft have not officially confirmed this news.

“In October of last year. [Windows 8 on ARM] scared the industry because it was unstable. But what we are seeing now is quite stable,”

said another source, they also confirmed an expected February developer release.

“We haven’t heard this directly from Microsoft, but we’ve heard this from the hardware partners that [Microsoft] is working with. We’ve been promised something in the February time frame,”

The big deal with these ARM processors is that they are a lot cheaper than the current Intel/AMD chips that we all use. It’s expected that tablets running ARM processors will be significantly cheaper than their x86 counterparts. Intel are currently marketing their latest chips as being thinner and faster, with a much longer battery life. But ARM processors also provide all these benefits, at a lower cost.

Nvidia Tablet With ARM Chip Running Windows 8

Some sources have claimed that Windows 8 devices powered by ARM chips will ship later than those on traditional x86 chips because Windows 8 wasn’t running stably on ARM chips a couple of months ago. But if Microsoft have managed to sort things out and are preparing to ship out an ARM suitable copy of Windows 8 to developers next month, then they must have things sorted out.

However ARM chips do have one major drawback. They are unable to run legacy Windows applications and that’s where Intel and AMD chips still have the advantage over ARM manufacturers like Texas Instruments, Nvidia and Qualcomm. That’s one of the major snags that Microsoft have to try and sort out before Windows 8 hits the market. There’s nothing more frustrating than having programs that won’t run on newer devices.

Source:

Cnet

Windows 8 Now Stable on ARM – On The Way To Developers Soon is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Two weeks ago Microsoft issued a security bulletin regarding  at least eight vulnerabilities affecting all versions of the Windows operating system. The company was urging Windows users to pay special attention to MS12-004, which is a “critical” bulletin that provides fixes for two serious flaws in the way Windows 7 Media PLayer handles certain media files security flaws.

New Flaws

Well, since then hackers have found new Media Player Security  flaws and are exploiting this issue to plant malware on unpatched computers. The vulnerability works when the in-the-wild attacks are launched through web sites rigged with booby-trapped Windows media files. The vulnerability occurs when Windows Multimedia Library in Windows Media Player (WMP) fails to handle a specially crafted MIDI file, this allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code.

So what happens? The end result is a malicious Trojan with rootkit capabilities infecting the computer.  The attack happens silently in the background and all the user sees is a blank WMP application playing a file. So with the Trojan in place, the attack on the computer can begin.

With a specially crafted MIDI file, the successful attacker could gain remote code execution against a target running the ubiquitous Windows Media Player.

The second critical vulnerability caused by the Media player occurs when filters in DirectShow do not properly handle media files in the way that they should.  The filter is supposed to keep out certain code, preventing it from executing. But it doesn’t do that. DirectShow is a part of Microsoft DirectX, a Windows feature used for streaming media on Windows operating systems to enable graphics and sound when playing games or watching video.

Since the media player keeps working, users do not notice anything wrong until the virus or root kit launches. Then they may not even know or suspect where the problem originated, or even what is launching the virus now.

Microsoft suggests that getting the update patch, on the original vulnerability is necessary. However, they will have to make another patch quickly.

.

Windows 7 Media Player Security Flaws is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

If you thought that Windows 8 would improve the personalization features of Windows 7, then you are only half-right. While the operating system certainly offers its fair share of customizations, it has now been confirmed that Windows 8′s new Metro start screen will not offer as many customization options as users may have hoped for.

Instead of allowing users to pick the color scheme or background image they want, selection is limited to eight different styles currently. While it is fairly certain that we will see custom hacks to overcome the limitation, it is likely that many users will be disappointed by the lack of options.

Windows 8 director of communications Chris Flores mentioned in a Tech Radar interview that users would not want photographs as the background, as the photo would not stretch or scale with the start screen, and that it would be covered up mostly as well so that it would be barely visible.

He is basically saying that Windows 8 users lack the intelligence to make this personalization decision on their own, and that Microsoft has to step in to protect their Metro interface from ugliness.

We here at Windows 8 News do not like this restriction at all for a number of reasons. There is certainly nothing wrong with offering official styles that users can switch to. But offering eight styles, and maybe more when the final version comes out, is not enough from a personalization perspective. What if I want to have a photo as the background and do not care if it is repeated or stretched out? What if I have configured Metro for a set amount of apps that won’t change in the near future? Why would Microsoft block the use of a fitting wallpaper image or photo?

What Microsoft should do to resolve the issue? Add a switch to the Control Panel so that users can remove the restrictions, or even better, remove the restriction completely and let users personalize their desktop the way they want to.

What’s your take on the issue? Lets discuss in the comments.

Microsoft: No Custom Metro UI Backgrounds In Windows 8 is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsofts Kinect has certainly been popular among consumers and hackers a like. Before Microsoft announced an official Kinect SDK, hackers had already managed to get the Kinect sensor running with Windows 7. Microsoft are now also set to release a desktop version of Kinect which will go on sale from February 1st. This sensor is slightly smaller and more accurate with close range objects.

But what if you could buy a laptop with a Kinect sensor built directly into it?

Well according to the Daily, Microsoft are looking to do just that. It’s been said that Microsoft are currently testing out the Kinect technology on Asus netbooks. They appear to be running Windows 8, probably the developer preview. They have a small array of sensors covering the top of the screen where the webcam is normally found and at the bottom of the display there seems to be a set of LEDs.

The Daily is also reporting that a source at Microsoft has also confirmed that these are in fact prototype devices that Microsoft are testing out.

It would be very interesting to see what you could do with a laptop, netbook or even tablet which had Kinect sensors built into it. Not only would it make navigating through Windows a completely new experience, but it would also interact quite well with the new Metro UI in Windows 8 I reckon. Of course since Kinect is primarily used for gaming, I’m sure that it would add to the gaming experience on these devices as well.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft announce further details on this. Since they are just about the release the desktop edition of Kinect as an accessory, they probably don’t want to hurt it’s initial sales.

The chances that we’ll get to see Kinect sensors in Windows 7 powered laptops is probably pretty slim since Windows 8 is on its way, but  you never know!

Could Kinect Be Coming To Laptops? is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Kinect is certainly one of the best products that Microsoft has at the moment. They’ve shipped an impressive number of units over the last year or so and also recently announced that they were going to be releasing a desktop edition of it as well. The desktop edition of Kinect ships from February 1st and has a slightly smaller sensor which has more accuracy at close range. But what if Microsoft built the Kinect sensor directly into laptops or monitors? Even tablets?

Well apparently Microsoft are looking into just that. According to the Daily, there’s some prototype laptops which are currently being tested which incorporate Kinect sensors into them.

The devices appear to be Asus netbooks which are running what we assume to be the developer preview edition of Windows 8. There’s an array of small sensors covering the top of the screen where the webcam is normally found and at the bottom of the display there appears to be a set of LEDs.

They’ve also said that a source at Microsoft has even confirmed that these devices are indeed the official prototypes of laptops featuring a Kinect sensor and Kinect technology.

Microsoft recently revealed a lot more information on an array of new sensors that they were incorporating into Windows 8 which you can read about here. They never actually mentioned anything about Kinect sensors so this must still be a prototype project.

If you think about it, there’s loads of ways that Kinect could be used in a portable device like a laptop or even a tablet. Of course gaming is an obvious one since that’s what Kinect is currently used for the most. But Kinect supported laptops could offer great support for people with disabilities and improve the accessibility options.

Of course Microsoft will more than likely not be making it’s own laptops with Kinect built in,  they’ll probably just license out the Kinect technology to interested manufacturers.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft does bring this up at some stage. I ‘d imagine that they’d like to keep it quiet for the moment so as not to hamper sales of the new desktop version of Kinect.

What do you think, would Kinect work well in a laptop or portable device?

Let us know in the comments

Source:

Thedaily 

Microsoft Looking To Bring Kinect Into Windows 8 Laptops? is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Linux may not be dead after all. Microsoft is looking for software engineers to make Linux available on Azure, Microsoft Cloud system.

Job Requirements

“Senior Software Development Engineer/Linux Virtualization
This position requires a proven track record in the open source community.
The Windows Interoperability Team at Microsoft has an immediate opening for a senior software development engineer. The purpose of this position is to become a key member of a highly specialized development team whose mission is to identify, define, scope, implement and drive to completion software projects that promote full, transparent interoperability between Windows and Linux in Microsoft virtual and cloud environments.”

Why Linux?

Microsoft is looking to make its Azure Cloud services available to as many users as possible. While Linux consumers are a small part of the OS market, their contribution to OS design and computer stability has played a role in making other operating systems be more in tune with this system. By adding Linux to the complexity of the Cloud, it will increase the market propensity where it can become a universal system. All systems can handle the Azure cloud. That at least is the goal.

Linux Virtual Machines

Microsoft is planning to allow customers to make virtual machines (VMs) to run on Windows Azure. So Linux customers who want to run Linux without losing the data state in VMs on Microsoft’s Azure platform-as-a-service platform will be able to do so.  The problem that has been noted is that as the Linux program runs on the Cloud, if there are problems, the data disappears. This unsteady element is one that Microsoft wants to correct.

But with the new developer position, Microsoft hopes to start making inroads into some of the problems and correct them. The Linux virtual machine system, which they hope to make available, then will allow other applications to run on the cloud.

Source The Register

 Zdnet

Linux on the Microsoft Azure Cloud is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

When you have two or more computers and you want to share important files between them there are several ways you can do this.

Method 1 & 2     Using your Wireless Connection

Providing you have a wireless connection you can use either HomeGroup or Network connections.

HomeGroup

Network

Method 3            Purchase a Belkin USB File Transfer Cable

Another way is to buy a Belkin USB Transfer Cables. This allows you to quickly transfer files from one computer to another.

The beauty of this cable setup is you can copy folders/ files from PC to PC without the need to install drivers for the operating systems. It is particularly useful for mobile users wishing to transfer files such as photos, music, videos, documents and many other files from their main computer to their laptop and vice versa. Once you make the connection it is a simple drag-and-drop operation.

Despite the high-speed transfers this equipment provides, it is a pain to have to do this if you have two or more computers as I do. So this takes me to the next option – Windows Live Mesh.

Belkin USB Transfer Cable

Method 4            Using Windows Live Mesh

This in my opinion is the most efficient way of keeping all your computers up-to-date. When you make changes to files in a Synched folder on the main computer the file is automatically updated in the target computer(s).

Windows Live Mesh in Action

A Brief History of Windows Live Mesh

Curious about its origins I checked it out in Wikipedia. This is a brief summary of the developmental history of Windows Live Mesh.

• November 3, 2005 – Microsoft bought FolderShare from ByteTaxi Inc. on, making it part of their new Windows Live feature.
• March 10, 2008 – Microsoft released its updated version renaming it Windows Live FolderShare.
•  April 23, 2008 – Microsoft released the Live Mesh technology preview. The data synchronization system allowed files, folders and other data to be shared and synchronized across PCs and up to 5 GB on the web.

Note: The Live Mesh software was made available for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and other platforms. It included a cloud storage component, called Live Desktop, an online storage service, allowing synchronized folders to be accessible via a website.

• June 24, 2010 – Microsoft released a beta version Windows Live Sync “Wave 4″.
• August 17, 2010, – August 29, 2010, after some more updates, the service was officially re-branded, Windows Live Mesh. The cloud-based SkyDrive synced storage was increased to 5 GB.
• September 30, 2010 – The final version of Windows Live Mesh 2011 (Wave 4) was released on as part of Windows Live Essentials 2011.

 Installing Windows Live Mesh

1. As Windows Live Mesh is part of the Windows Live Essentials package you need to go to this Microsoft website: www.explorelive.com/windows-live-essentails
2. When the website opens look for the small box labelled “Get Windows Live Essentials and select “Download now”.
3. Select Run.
4. Your UAC will most likely intervene, select Ok.
5. In the “What do you want to install” window choose which components you want. Check Windows Live Mesh and select Install.
6. When the installation is complete in the “Done!” box, click Close.
7. In your All Programs menu you will find Windows Live listed. Select it. pic 7

 Note: If you are using Windows 8 Preview Windows, Windows Live Mesh will be featured on the Metro menu.

Note:  If you are running Windows 7 or earlier you will find it listed within Windows Live Essentials under All Programs.

Tip! Windows 8 Preview

In the Metro menu, right-click on Windows Live Mesh’s button and in the lower section of the Metro screen select Advanced button. When the pop-up menu appears, choose Pin to the Taskbar. In future when you want to use it click this icon on the Taskbar.

Tip! Windows 7

For easy access to Windows Live Mesh, open All Programs menu, select Windows Live Essentials and in the sub-menu right-click on Windows Live Mesh and in the pop-up menu choose, Pin to Taskbar. In future when you want to use it click this icon on the Taskbar.

In my next article I’ll deal with setting up Windows Live Mesh with my other networked computers and saving data on Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

Ways and Means to Share Files – Part 1 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Nokia has released its quarterly reports for Q4 2011 and it’s quite a mixed bag. While Nokia did post a net loss of $1.4 billion on revenues of over $13 billion, the company does have hopes that it can turn its downward momentum in the smartphone industry with their newly adopted platform, Windows Phone.

The Finnish mobile manufacturer announced that they have sold well over one million Windows Phone handsets in just only two months of availability. This is quite good when you consider that this is a new product running a new mobile OS. Nokia also only released two devices with spotted availability in only Europe with wider adoption coming in 2012.

Nokia’s hope relies on Windows Phones and whether people begin adopting the platform en masse. Nokia recently announced the Nokia Lumia 900 flagship phone which will be exclusive to AT&T for its initial launch, but is said to be widely available later this year. Nokia has also committed to a huge marketing push in both Europe and especially the US where they will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to back the platform.

As Nokia’s devices become available in more and more countries as we move through 2012 and as they make a push back into the US market we should see steady numbers rising for the struggling mobile company. Nokia has already injected some life into the marketshare for Windows Phone and things seem only to be looking up from here.

Nokia Sells “Well Over” a Million Windows Phones in Q4 is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Google has finally decided to stop ignoring Windows Phone on two key issues: Multiple Calendar Sync & Search (Previously, Windows Phone users had to resort to workarounds to achieve syncing multiple calendars to their device). Today, Google posted, via Google+, that they have fixed these two problematic issues for Windows Phone users:

We launched a few new features on Google Sync for our Windows Phone (7.5+) users. Multiple Calendars is a feature that lets you select which of your Google Calendars are synced to your device. Just navigate to m.google.com/sync on your phone’s browser and configure the calendars you would like to see. From that page, you can also configure which addresses you send mail as if you have custom addresses in Gmail. We’ve also improved search to look beyond the conversations that are stored locally on your device so that you are able to find more of your conversations, faster.

For a step-by-step guide on enabling multiple Google calendar support, click here.

Google also addressed the ability to choose which address you send as if you have custom Gmail email addresses using m.google.com/sync and the ability to search server-side email. Maybe they are warming up to Microsoft’s underdog OS, probably not.

Google Fixes Multiple Calendar Sync and Search Issues on Windows Phone is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the features in most browsers which let you reopen tabs that you may have accidentally closed. However such a feature doesn’t exist in Windows 7 for reopening programs and windows that you may have accidentally closed. UndoClose is a great little application that will add that feature to Windows 7 for you.

This great little program is from Addictive Tips and logs all the programs that you’ve closed on your computer. And then it’s got hotkeys assigned that lets you reopen these windows, in the same order that you closed them. It runs in the background the whole time and uses 35 MB of memory, but if you’re running a large number of apps and folders this will increase so it’s worth taking that into account.

The program also knows to distinguish between explorer windows and actual program windows. It’s got two different hot keys for restoring the two different types of windows

Ctrl + Shift + F = Reopen folders
Ctrl + Shift + P = Reopen programs

This really is a very handy little program, the only drawback with it is that it can’t distinguish between different windows within a program. For example if you have you IM client running and have a few different chat windows open, it will only be able to identify the main IM clients window and not the extra chat ones.

All in all it’s a nifty little program and if you’ve got a high powered machine and aren’t worried about using up a tiny bit more memory I think it’s well worth having.

You can see a detailed video explaining how to use it below as well as the download link

You can download it here

Source:

Addictive tips

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Using a mobile phone is one of the most unique technological experiences ever invented. And one of the most important parts of the smartphone experience is being up to date with information. For that Microsoft’s MSN mobile has been redesigned to keep you informed, entertained, and up to date regardless of where you are.

Want news? You can now check top news and entertainment stories more quickly when you’re on the go with our latest release of MSN Mobile.

Want photos or videos? Just scan MSN videos, photo galleries and lifestyle content, right from the MSN Mobile home page.

Want a stock quote? Or are you curious about the score of tonight’s game? Then swipe down to see the updated modules.

Want new apps? Well they are available too. MSN Mobile lets you stay on top of things whether at home or traveling. You are in the know.

Easy navigation

Getting to your interests is easy and convenient. Just glancing at them you can see the subjects.

Watching Videos and Reading Articles

MSN Mobile has optimized videos, articles and photo galleries to display them on your mobile device. Just tap an article from our entertainment or lifestyle channels and it will display the mobile optimized version. Videos will play in both portrait and landscape mode. So if you want a larger view, hold the phone sideways to get the full picture.

Money and Quotes

How is Wall Street doing? Is it up or down? To find out scroll down to the new Money & Quotes section and you’ll see the top market info displayed with the news.

Active – updates

Since consumers are expecting the latest apps, info, or technology, the MSN mobile is bringing that operational philosophy into view. So keep that in mind when you are searching for the information you want to have handy and available on your mobile phone.

How do you get the update?

Getting the updated site on your smartphone is easy, just type msn.com in your browser this will get you to MSN Mobile.

Get Up To Date Information for Windows Phone 7 with MSN Mobile is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

A lot is going on with Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 8, which is expected to be released sometime this year. Now there is also talk about Microsoft’s new OS version for their next installment of Windows Phone. Call it Windows Phone 8, or Apollo as it is called in Redmond. In it, the rumor is that Windows Phone OS will make a swap out to the new variant of Windows 8.

Problems with Windows Phone 7 Kernel

One of the biggest overall complaints about Windows Phone, starting with Windows Phone 7 and continuing through NoDo and Mango, is the lack of 3rd-party native mode application support. Developers have problems because they do not wants to embed Windows CE’s idiosyncrasies in new apps. Again some of that is reliability and some is a desire to make apps portable across the three-screens (PC, Phone, TV) and a cloud world.  So by moving to WinNTk this eliminates the CE idiosyncrasy problem and makes native mode applications (and particularly WinRT-based ones) possible.

Three other issues also play into having one operating system for the devices. One is that when you do the same things twice (a computer operating system and a smartphone operating system) it is almost impossible to have them both be completed at approximately the same time, and  be truly compatible with one another, and also be of equivalent quality. Secondly, the cost of staffing to repeatedly do the same thing twice is nonsense, even for a company the size of Microsoft. And finally, the closer you get to wanting two things to be almost the same provides less the justification for having two different things at all!

RedHawk

So developers want better integration with the Kernel. Or so it seems. So Microsoft has come out with Redhawk. It is a new managed-code execution environment that would be more lightweight and more appealing to developers who have been put off by the perceived overhead of the current Common Language Runtime (CLR) at the heart of the .Net Framework.

That said, it appears that Microsoft is making changes in more ways than one, and is certainly trying to streamline it OS kernel to make it a more compatible development environment. The challenge for Microsoft is that as a descendant of Windows 7, Windows 8 must be as good as if not better, and Windows Phone 8 should be a lot better in order to increase the Microsoft market share in the smartphone arena.

Source: Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8: Cousins or Siblings

Zdnet

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Android 4.0 is the most recent operating system from Google that’s been dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich. It’s a slick looking UI that’s becoming quite popular on tablets as of late. Well Flickr user David Molina wanted to bring the beauty of Ice Cream Sandwich to his desktop. So he set about tweaking a few things and downloading a few bits. The final result is a very Ice Cream Sandwichy looking desktop as seen below

Unfortunately it’s not that straight forward a process. It’s not as simple as downloading and installing a Windows 7 theme. Instead you’ll have to download and set up the following wallpapers, fonts and applications

• The Ice Cream Sandwich wallpaper from WallBase
• The APPOWS2010 theme for Windows 7 from DeviantArt to tweak the taskbar
• RocketDock with a blank theme to create the dock on the left side
• The Ice Cream Sandwich Icon Pack from DroidPirate
• The Rainmeter system monitor and configuration tool for Windows
• The Minimal Bar skin for Rainmeter to display the time and date
• The Lexis skin for Rainmeter to display the weather
• Simplesentencethree for Rainmeter for the currently playing music display in the lower-right corner
• The Google Search Bar for Rainmeter
• The Roboto Font (specifically Roboto Light)

(Thanks to lifehacker for putting together that list)

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Microsoft today revealed information about sensor support that the company plans to integrate into the Windows 8 operating system. Before we start, I’d like to point out shortly that sensors are not a new feature, as they have been integrated into Windows 7 as well. You can check out Windows 7 Sensors explained for an overview of what sensors were about in Windows 7.

Sensor support in Windows 7 however goes beyond that, which makes it an interesting feature again. That’s likely the main reason why Microsoft has put the adaptive brightness feature at the very top of the article. Adaptive brightness was included in Windows 7, but limited due to the quality of available display panels.

A sensor basically adjusts the brightness of the screen based on ambient light conditions. the right screen shows a tablet with adaptive brightness enabled, the right screen one with the feature disabled.

Windows 8 supports automatic screen roation, another new feature that tablet and mobile users will benefit from mostly. When a user rotates the device, the screen will automatically rotate with the user.

Data from an accelerometer allows the device to determine its basic orientation. By automatically rotating the screen, people can use their devices (primarily slates and convertibles) in a more natural and intuitive way, without needing to manually rotate the screen with software controls or hardware buttons.

One of the interesting new concepts that Microsoft integrates into Windows 8 is Sensor Fusion, which combines the strengths of multiple sensors to overcome weaknesses of individual sensors. Microsoft demonstrates the concept in the second part of the video below.

The remaining parts of the article are all aimed at developers, and how they can use sensors in their applications. Microsoft has created a sensor API that developers can use as part of the new WinRT.

Through these APIs, developers can access the power of sensor fusion from any Metro style app. These APIs are clean and simple, and at the same time give developers access to the data needed to support everything from casual games to virtual reality applications. Of course these capabilities are all available as Win32 APIs for game developers or other uses in desktop applications.

What is your take on sensor support in Windows 8?

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We’ve heard about the recent attempts by the US Congress to pass legislation regarding downloads. It seems that the legislation is on hold after an outcry that surprised most Congressional leaders. One of the larger issues involved is privacy because, users expect a certain amount of privacy while they surf the net. And going to websites for download purposes would expose that user. In a larger sense, privacy also involves data protection and application protection. In that vein, Microsoft has recently been involved with this issue.

Data Privacy Day

On January 28, Data Privacy Day will be celebrated. This is an international holiday with the purpose to raise awareness and promote privacy education. The National Cyber Security Alliance is coordinating and promoting the event within the United States and Canada. Given some of the recent events, involving Anonymous and potential Congressional legislation it is good to harken back and look at the environment. At the event Microsoft speakers will be addressing Microsoft’s Tracking Protection software.

Tracking Protection

Tracking Protection lets you filter out content in a page that may have an impact on your privacy. As you know, many webpages include content from other (third-party) websites. This program helps you identify different types of content.

How it Works

When content is loaded from a third-party site, standard information, including your IP address and the address of the webpage you’re viewing is sent to each of the third-parties that have content in the page you’re viewing. If the website you’re visiting has a business relationship with the third party, then more information about you may be sent. Then over time, these third parties can build a profile of your browsing history by using “cookies” and other techniques.

But now, you can filter out content from any website by using Tracking Protection Lists. So, you can have “Do Not Call” lists for content. When you add a Tracking Protection List, Internet Explorer will prevent your information from being sent by limiting data requests to websites in the list.

Tracking Protection and Do not track

Tracking protection is not the same as do not track. They are complimentary. The most important difference is that the Do Not Track protocol is an honor system. When a consumer attaches a “do not track” imperative, they hope that sites will honor their request to contain tracking. But this is an ongoing issue. Because what sites must do to in order to honor that request is still under discussion. Also, it is not clear who is to monitor and enforces that, and how. There is a sort of honor’s pledge that sites make, but it is not enforceable. Consequently for some people that that’s not enough. That being the case, if an honor system can’t resolve the issue, then perhaps put the focus on the consumer to derail any information from being perpetrated. That said, that is why Microsoft is advancing Tracking Protection. Microsoft’s trusted data tracking protection only works with IE9.

The Tracking Protection Working Group Charter

Tracking Protection is now a standard under development at the W3C and the momentum over the last year has been encouraging. Indeed, according to Microsoft, when they released IE9, there were only five tracking protection lists available. However, several months later, there are over twenty lists worldwide from six different groups.

One group, EasyList is an open community effort to help filter unwanted content. It is available as a Tracking Protection List. They have had over 250,000 subscriptions to their list.

Another list comes from TRUSTe who is one of four preferred providers of TPLs used for the new IE9 Tracking Protection feature. Their Data Collection is a new program for ad and data companies that collect consumer data on other company websites or use data collected to show more relevant ads. This program certifies the notice, choice, and privacy practices around data collection and usage.

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In the run up to Barack Obama’s annual State of the Union Address to the US congress the official White House web site has put a video online where the Senior Advisor to the President, David Plouffe talks about it and explains the process behind it.  NeoWin however have spotted an interesting process taking place behind him with the default Windows XP screensaver logo appearing on his computer monitor.

So why is this important and why should we care?  We all know that the business that goes on within the White House is some of the most important and secret to take place anywhere in the world, and that there are classified documents on the computers of the White House and the Pentagon covering all manner of subjects that the world should probably never see (wikileaks and other public interest aside obviously).

We also know though not only that Windows XP is very close now to the end of all support, it is already out of mainstream support so will no longer be updated with service packs and updates, but in two years it will be out of all security support altogether.  It is also the most insecure version of Windows currently still in use.  Not only because of a complete lack of User Account Control or any Unix-type security, but because of the default web browser, Internet Explorer 6, which both Microsoft and major web giants have been trying to kill for years.

It matters then that major security and governmental establishments shouldn’t be using something as insecure as this and that they should be moving to either a more up to date version of Windows, such as Windows 7 which is considered by some security experts to be at least as secure as Mac OS X, if not more so, or to a different and more secure operating system altogether.

I’ll let you decide how important you think this is but NeoWin cite a Gartner group reports from late last year which said…

With support for Windows XP ending in April 2014, we believe it would be dangerous for organizations now running XP to attempt to skip Windows 7 and move directly to Windows 8. Organizations running Windows XP and working on Windows 7 migrations: Continue as planned; do not switch to Windows 8.

We can only hope the White House is already migrating to Windows 7 and that they don’t leave it too long to make the change completely.

Is the White House Still Using Windows XP? is a post from Windows 7 News & Tips - Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides. Visit Windows 7 News & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 7 News, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

We’ve had the “Developer Preview” of Windows 8 and now that the beta is due in the next month we could find it being called the “Consumer Preview”, at least according to Janelle Poole, Microsoft’s director of public relations who in a statement at CES was found to have said…

We haven’t talked about the release date and we generally don’t. We are talking milestone to milestone, so for us right now, we’re talking about the next milestone being the Consumer Preview happening in late February.”

ZD Net blogger Mary Jo Foley reported the phrase yesterday for the first time and is wondering if this will indeed be the official title for the beta with perhaps the release candidate being the “Enterprise Preview”.  In her blog post she said…

Such a name also could help Microsoft’s PC partners who need a way to make new tablets and PCs that they’re bringing to market from now until the time that Windows 8 is shipping seem more up-to-date and palatable. (”This runs the Windows 8 Consumer Preview — so you know it’ll be able to run the final Windows 8 with no problem.”)

Let’s have a look at what this might mean though if it happens.  So far Microsoft have been promising somewhere near 300 features for IT Pros that were not ready in time for the Developer Preview release last September.  We still don’t know what most of these features are but some have leaked including new multi-monitor support features and the ability to pool the storage on your computer in a RAID-like system.

IT Pros are still very concerned about Windows 8 however, I’m giving a talk this Thursday to a large group of them in Manchester which is one of the UKs biggest technology hubs, and this isn’t the first such talk I’ve been asked to give.  What will they take from the name “Consumer Preview”?

It’s mostly likely I think that Microsoft are desperate for Windows 8 to be popular with consumers and that they want to reassure the general public that while they might be very late to the tablet game, by some three years or more, that they’re ready now and Windows 8 tablets are what they should be buying later in the year.

It’s true that Microsoft are pinning a great deal on this release and if it fails to gain serious traction in the consumer space, IT Pros will probably feel as though they were left behind for a pipe-dream.  The fact that Microsoft will want to focus very hard on consumers then will not come as a surprise to anybody, especially with major businesses only now migrating to Windows 7.

There is also the fact, as Mary Jo points out that “the current Windows organization doesn’t show code publicly at all until it’s pretty much set in stone and going to be tweaked very minimally.”  We can be pretty sure that the beta, or Consumer Preview will be very usable day to day in the same way that the Windows 7 beta was.  Microsoft already have a live Windows Update feature working with the Developer Preview (though it won’t update to the beta), but it’s possible that the beta might just update to the release candidate if it’s close enough to completion.

If enough millions of people then update their computers to the Windows 8 beta, then in theory all Microsoft need to do at the end of the process is to sell them a new product key online and people can continue using Windows 8 without having to reinstall.  We still know nothing about this though and it might not happen this way.

It is clear though that Microsoft at this point are focusing much more on consumers than in IT Pros.  This doesn’t mean they don’t care about, or aren’t going to cater for IT Pros.  It just means that the company has decided to put all of its marketing might behind the consumer angle in the same way they have in the last year with Windows Phone.

So next month we’ll see what happens with the beta and what it is called, as soon as we know we’ll report back to you here at Windows 8 News.

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Well that was quick. AT&T hasn’t even gotten their hands on their exclusive “Hero device” (Nokia Lumia 900) and others are already advertising its availability, in June no less. Of course, this should come as no surprise as we’ve previously heard that the exclusivity for the device on AT&T might only last around 45 days.

The word comes from the UK  online mobile store, Carphone Warehouse, that they are expecting the device to be available in June 2012, although, there is a disclaimer that the “Expected date is subject to change without notice.” Carphone Warehouse even has a huge landing page for the 900 which runs through the highlights and specs for the highly anticipated device.

Users who would like to be notified when the device becomes available can now pre-register by providing their contact information via a form at their site. Good news for our overseas friends who were worried they wouldn’t get the new Nokia flagship handset.

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The Enterprise Rocks Microsoft. That’s the story. Sure the Cloud, Xbox, Kinect, and Windows Phone 7 are getting attention and publicity. Windows 8 will be launching this year. But what Microsoft is basing its success is on Enterprise support.

Microsoft is IBM

Microsoft is IBM; it is the international business machine company. How is that possible? Consider this

• Microsoft had good cost discipline.
• The company has a well-rounded product line-up: Software, entertainment, business, scientific, programming languages, and applications.
• Its enterprise businesses are chugging along.
• Kinect is making an impact on the entertainment and device division.
• Corporations continue to upgrade to Windows 7.
• The Cloud service and Office 365 is growing.
• It has data-centers in different parts of the world, like

East Asia – Hong Kong
South East Asia – Singapore
North-central US – Chicago, IL
South-central US – San Antonio, TX
North Europe – Amsterdam, Netherlands
West Europe – Dublin, Ireland

Enterprise Facts

Microsoft may have been an OS and Applications company, but it has done a lot more. Consider the following:

• Six quarters since launch, Office 2010 upgrade continue.
• Microsoft had double-digit revenue growth for Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and Dynamics CRM.
• Office 365 has 100,000 businesses in the fold.
• Windows Server Premium and System Center had double digit revenue growth quarters.
• Microsoft’s Lync unified communications platform continues to gain steam.
• Windows Server 8, SQL Server 2012 and System Center 2012 are on tap to launch.

Microsoft may not look “cool,” but businesses like sound operations. That is “cool.”

As a business systems provider, it has done a lot with the software concepts, some its own, others borrowed from others and this made Microsoft the top computer company in the world. Yes, Apple may have flashier programs and a coven of followers that march to the Apple tune, but at the business level, Microsoft still carries the day. That’s why it is the International Business Machine. That is why Microsoft is IBM.

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Any of you who followed CES this year will know that there was a whole load of new Windows 8 tablets announced that we can expect to see once Windows 8 itself is actually released later on this year. Of course there is a few tablets out there that people have installed the Windows 8 developer preview on already. However I’m sure that many of you have got the Windows 8 developer preview up and running on your laptop which doesn’t have a touchscreen.

While you can still use Windows 8 without a touchscreen, the whole Metro UI experience isn’t as good navigating with a mouse and keyboard. So it would be nice to have a touchscreen tablet to try it out and get a real feel for Windows 8.

Well you can actually build your very own Windows 8 tablet if you like, all you’ll need is a touchscreen and an old laptop that you don’t mind taking apart!

Over at instructables some fella has posted about how he went about making his very own tablet so he could try out the Windows 8 developer preview.

Now it’s not exactly a work of art, and it’s a bit bulkier than traditional tablets, but hey it works! The process is quite straightforward really as you’ll see from the video below. But essentially all you do is disconnect your existing screen, attach a new touchscreen and sit it on top of the keyboard. Add a few nice bits of trim to hold everything together and you’ve got yourself a tablet!

Of course you’ll have to go get yourself a touchscreen and then take apart one of your laptops. Performance will also depend on the machine that you’re using but as we know, Windows 8 doesn’t require specs that are too high.

So are you willing to convert your laptop into a tablet to try out Windows 8?

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Office 365 continues to grow in business circles. According to Microsoft over 90 percent of their Office 365 customers have less than 50 employees. Now a new group of companies  have entered into the Azure/Office 365 fold. These are JetBlue, Patagonia, and the American Heart Association. This adds to the existing stack of companies like Campbell Soup Company, Marie Claire, Roush Enterprises, Hersing Corp, UL (formerly Underwriters Labs), and Wunderman. So there are small companies and large companies that have accepted this product. And it shows that the productivity suite can fit the needs of any size business.

Patagonia

Why did Patagonia, a leading provider of outdoor gear, move to using Office 365? Answer: to make real-time communications and decision making possible throughout its organization; plus the cost savings made an impact.

Here’s how.

Patagonia expects to save $300,000 in future upgrades and infrastructure improvements, and $15,000 a year in savings by moving to the cloud-based e-mail system that is part of Office 365.

There is also the green effect. Patagonia has a program called “drive-less” meaning that they encourage employees to work from home in order to reduce their carbon footprint. Office 365 supports the company’s “drive-less” program, so it is a win-win situation.

Updates

Last year, Microsoft pushed out 30 updates on the Office 365 suite to make it even more user friendly. These included support for Lync for Mac, SharePoint Business Connectivity Services, support for Windows Phone 7.5, and making SkyDrive simpler to use with app-centric sharing for Office.

The updates are beginning to resonate on the market, making an impression on IT managers who are pushing out to enterprise management as a viable alternative to purchasing new equipment and software.

Earlier I wrote about Azure and making the connection as Microsoft’s new OS. Obviously, Azure will not replace Windows 7 or Windows 8. But it is a way of using the computer with connection to the cloud, in a different way. It is a system that lets companies operate in a new way; allowing customers and enterprises to perform their own operations in their unique style and brand.

Source: Microsoft blog

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In case you missed it, CES concluded over a week ago and aside from the “momentum” keynotes by Microsoft and the announcement of the Lumia 900 from Nokia, there wasn’t too much to get excited about. Unless, that is, you were there and took on Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph (aka Ben the PC Guy) in a smartphone task challenge that he dubbed ”Smoked by Windows Phone.” In this challenge, Rudolph invited users with other smartphone to come and challenge his Windows Phone (HTC Titan) in a speed test at various smartphone tasks. If the user won, they would receive $100 for their efforts, but if they lost, they would have to declare, on camera, that they were “Smoked by Windows Phone.”

Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph has posted the final cut of the “Smoked By Windows Phone” competition that was held during CES 2012. The total record when everything was tallied for Windows Phone was 30-3-1, which is definitely not too shabby. Does this prove that Microsoft’s mobile OS is by far the fastest smartphone platform out there? I’ll let you guys decide. Check out the video below to see how things went:

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Since Microsoft is looking to get into the tablet market with Windows 8, it’s imperative that they make the OS compatible with mobile networks since a lot of tablets these day ship with 3G capability as well as WiFi. In the latest post over on the building Windows 8 blog, Microsoft have explained how they’ve built in native support for mobile networks in Windows 8.

First off they’ve developed a new control panel which will allow you to turn radios on and off, as well as configure connection settings and get contact information for support. While Windows 7 did support mobile networks, the user was left to install all the appropriate software to manage these things, where as it will all be integrated straight into Windows 8. This will make the process of using mobile broadband much easier for consumers.

The new network settings control panel lets you configure settings for all the various radios in your device, including WiFi, mobile networks and Bluetooth. There’s also an “airplane mode” to disable it all. This has been pretty much standard on all mobile phones but it’s new to PCs.

They’ve also made great advancements with how Windows 8 will manage your mobile data. They’ve managed to reduce connection times and limit the amount of data that’s being transferred when you’re on a mobile network where you could have a monthly allowance. Windows 8 will automatically switch to a WiFi network when available like most phones do.

Microsoft have really made things much easier when it comes to using mobile broadband too. Windows 8 will monitor your traffic usage and keep track of it so you know just how much data that you’ve used. Hopefully this will help stop users going over their data caps and from raking up huge bills without realising it.

What’s more, even if you don’t currently have a data plan with a particular network, Windows 8 will recognise this and allow you to purchase a data plan from the network by directing you to their website. There’s also metro apps being developed for the mobile networks which give you an overview of your account and more.

It’s really quite impressive how much work Microsoft have put into making Windows 8 very mobile friendly. This new mobile network management system is much better than that on any smartphone and I’m sure plenty of tablet users will find it incredibly useful.

There’s a whole load more stuff that Microsoft talk about such as options to reduce data usage, CPU usage and other performance factors that they’ve taken into account. I’m not going into detail on them here because Microsoft have gone into great detail on them over at the blog

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Microsoft will introduce a Windows Store in the Windows 8 operating system that can be accessed directly from within the operating system. Navigation of the store will be consistent with the Metro UI, and the store layout has been designed with touch interfaces in mind. The store on first look looks like a horizontal copy of Google’s Chrome web store. Apps are displayed in rectangles with the logo making up the majority of screen estate, while the apps title, costs and ratings are displayed in a smaller area at the bottom of the screen.

The store landing page will be the first page that users see when they open the store. Microsoft intents to feature interesting apps there, but also app categories that are easily reachable by scrolling horizontally in the store window.

The store has been designed with touch in mind, which becomes apparent in this paragraph:

Navigation is simple and consistent with Windows 8 Metro style UI, so it will be familiar and easy for Windows 8 users to find their way through the Store. Store categories are presented across the top of the screen, with compelling apps featured in each category. To browse, you simply pan to the right or left—with a flick of the finger it’s incredibly easy to see new and interesting apps across all categories and the overall breadth of the Store. If you’re interested, you can also drill down to the apps in a specific category with a single tap on a category name.

Mouse and keyboard users, the majority of Windows users right now, can use those input devices to navigate the store. The experience won’t be that pretty though, considering that scrolling pages horizontally is not that common with these input devices.

The store front categories will feature “a set of apps that are editorially chosen based on a variety of factors, including whether they do a great job on the platform or a great job expressing Metro style design principles”.

It is possible to use the pinch gesture to zoom out of the store interface to get a zoomed out view of the store to pick specific categories right away. You may remember that this is also possible in the Metro UI to quickly get an overview over all installed apps on the system.

Searching the store, unsurprisingly, uses the same mechanics that Metro UI search uses. Just tap on the search charm to display the search sidebar on the right. This feature is available in all Metro UI windows and apps.

If you happen to think of an app while browsing the web or using another app, you can just tap the Search charm, type in your search term, and select the Store to see search results for your query.

Suggestions are displayed while you type the search phrase into the form. Windows 8 will display a search results page in case no app matches what you are looking for.

The very same layout is also used for all category pages in the store. Users can filter results in a variety of ways. It is for instance possible to only display free apps, sort by newest or display only a specific subcategory that is available.

Individual app listing pages follow all the same layout. The pages use visual elements of the apps brand color and logo on the app pages which means that colors will vary widely across the board.

Microsoft notes that it takes one tap on an app listing page to install free or trial apps. A password prompt is displayed for paid apps that acts as a confirmation to go ahead with the purchase. Users are automatically taken back to the previous page they were looking at while the app is downloading and installing in the background.

A progress indicator is displayed and the app is automatically added to the start page, so that you now that everything is going along as planned.

Update checks for new app versions are performed once a day according to Microsoft. These updates are automatically downloaded in the background when the computer is idle. They won’t be installed without user input though. This behavior can be turned off in the Store settings.

All apps can be installed on a total of five different PCs running Windows 8. This sounds as if information about installed apps are synchronized with other PCs of the user automatically.

Here is a short video that offers additional information and details:

You can find out more about the Windows Store user experience on the official Windows Store blog.

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A few weeks ago I reported on a leak that had shown up of the Windows Server 8 Beta. There wasn’t really a whole lot to look at then, but now thanks to WinUnleaked I’ve got a few more screenshots to share with you this time.

The other day Microsoft went into a bit more detail about Windows Server 8, primarily about this new file storage method known as ReFS that is only going to be in Windows Server 8. There’s a few screenshots of that below as well.

Unfortunately the screenshots aren’t of very high resolution so it’s hard to see all the details, but it’s all we got.

The Lockscreen for Windows Server 8 Beta

Below is the current log in screen that we’re familiar with in the Developer Preview

This is the log on screen in the currently developer preview

And below is now the new one that’s in the Beta

Windows Server 8 Beta Login Screen

Again below we have the current Server Dashboard in the developer preview

Windows 8 Server Developer Preview Dashboard

And the one below is from the Beta

Windows Server 8 Beta Dashboard

The next few screenshots are of the new file system and storage manager that I mentioned earlier

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Everybody is eagerly looking forward to the range of Windows 8 based tablets that will be released once Windows 8 hits the market towards the end of this year. There was a whole load of tablets revealed at CES this year, each of them hoping to compete with Apple’s iPad. One thing that was consistent with all the tablets was that they all had pretty decent specs, then again they will have to if they want to run Windows 8 properly.

Over at Within Windows they’ve gone through the Windows 8 hardware requirement documentation and uncovered what the minimum requirements will be for these tablets if they want to be certified for Windows 8.

Here’s what the minimum specs of any Windows 8 certified tablet will be

At least 10GB free space

Wireless and Bluetooth 4.0 + LE

Support for Direct3D 1- device w/ WDDM 1.2 Driver

Resolution of 1366 x 768

720p Camera

Ambient Light Sensor

3 axes Accelerometer

Gyroscope

USB 2.0 (at least one port)

Speakers

Minimum of 5 finger multi touch

Microsoft are making sure that all they’re devices will at the very least support multi touch out of the box, and having a minimum of 5 finger support means that you’ll be able to get at least one hand on the screen to try out all those new touch features.

NFC “touch marks”

While NFC isn’t a requirement on Windows 8 tablets, if manufacturers choose to include it they must also have these “touch marks”. Basically a little sticker or indicator of some sort so that the user knows where to point the device to another NFC device. Common sense really.

Driver Upgrades That Don’t Require a Reboot

This is good news for everyone, Microsoft will now require that graphics cards don’t require a reboot when they’re updated.

Must have 5 Hardware buttons
Microsoft are being very strict when it comes to the number of buttons allowed on these tablets. They’re saying that there must be 5 buttons, no more and no less. This applies to all Windows 8 tablets and convertible PCs.

The buttons will be

• Power button
• Rotation lock
• Windows Key
• Volume up
• Volume down

The requirements for the Windows Key are that it will be at least 10.5 mm in diameter and can be in any shape (e.g. sqaure, round, triangular,hexagonal even).

New combination for CTRL + ALT + DEL

Now Windows 8 PCs joined to a domain without a keyboard will have a new option to log on. A new option will be the press the Windows Key + Power. Of course you’ll still be able to use the traditional CTRL + ALT + DEL using the on screen keyboard.

2 Second Resume from Standby
Microsoft won’t require that Windows 8 ARM PCs resume in two seconds or less … only x86 Intel-compatible Windows 8 PCs will have this requirement. This requirement actually is in place for Windows 7 as well so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem for tablet makers, and it can only be a good thing for consumers. The reason Microsoft haven’t set this requirement for ARM is probably because they don’t know enough about how Windows reacts with ARM as of yet. We may see it introduced in the future however.

So there’s the minimum requirements and specifications for Windows 8 tablets. If you ask me any machine coming with those specs is going to be pretty feature packed, especially once you load Windows 8 on to it. However Microsoft haven’t detailed any minimum processor requirements, but they did say that any machine which was able to run Windows  7 will be able to run Windows 8.

The minimum specs for the Windows 8 developer preview were:

1 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM for 32-bit systems or 2 GB of RAM for 64-bit systems.

So that’s probably a good guideline.

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Goodbye NTFS hello ReFS. That is one main element of Windows 8. Microsoft has announced one of the most significant changes that will come with the Windows 8 OS, a new file system. Called ReFS, for Resilient File System, the system will be available through a staged evolution.

Starting as a storage system, ReFS will begin on the Windows Server 8 only. Then  it will become a storage system for Windows clients, and then ultimately “as a boot volume.”

The Internals of ReFS

ReFS will complement the Storage Spaces feature in Windows 8 and Windows Server 8.  This means that that works in many ways like drive extender. It will also help with the verification and auto-correction of data and make it available to a large scale of operations. This last part should make file fragmentation not so big a problem anymore. Consequently, ease of use should increase as well as performance improvements on the system.

In another area, one of Microsoft’s goals with ReFS is to maintain a high degree of compatibility with a subset of NTFS features. Obviously, eliminating NTFS can only be done gradually but that means that incorporating elements of it in ReFS will be necessary so that data files and software programs are still accessible. On the other hand, it will eliminate other elements of NTFS that provide limited value at the cost of system complexity and footprint.

A New OS means a New OS

While Microsoft has been launching operating systems for over 30 years, they have been part of the DOS model. This new operating system is truly new, as Microsoft has been pointing out for some time. As new features are released, we will get a better picture about what the Windows 8 System will look like.

Release time? Still up in the air, but maybe by the 3^rd quarter of 2012.

Source: Microsoft Blog Site

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Before you get all concerned about Windows 8 being doomed and Windows tablets being something that nobody will buy let’s get some perspective.  Monica Chen and Joseph Tsai at DigiTimes have today said that Intel-based Windows 8 tablets could cost between $599 and $899 dollars when they go on sale later this year.  This is exactly what they currently cost and shouldn’t be unexpected by anyone.

In their article they say that…

Intel and Microsoft [are] both…unwilling to drop their related hardware and software quotes, and as a result, it could push consumers from wanting to purchase the devices.

This information should probably be taken with a pinch of salt, as should the whole story probably.  I wanted to comment on this story and add some balance to the argument.

It is true that the majority, probably over 80% of all Windows 8 tablets will be based on ARM designed processors.  This will be because these machines will have a significantly higher battery life than their Intel equivalents, be thinner and lighter in all probability and be cheaper as well.

One of the reasons for the price difference is that ARM-based motherboards don’t have to support all the hardware that an Intel board will.  There will be no support for external USB devices not even USB 3.0, no firewire, Thunderbolt or even support for SATA, Gigabit Ethernet and everything else that goes with a modern PC.

In part it is all these extras that drain the battery of Intel-based tablets faster, coupled with the fact that their ARM equivalents are lower-power and more efficient with the electricity provided to them.

Intel are working on new chips, though it should come as no surprise to anybody that they will be some way off and currently all the major tablet manufacturers will be eyeing up ARM as the way to make their sexy new Windows 8 tablets attractive to consumers.

Microsoft will not, as DigiTimes suggests, drop Intel as a supported chip manufacturer.  This can simply never happen without jettisoning not only Windows 8 as it stands but an entire ecosystem of hardware and software and billions of computers and users worldwide.

DigiTimes’ article is certainly sensationalist and it’s gotten a lot of coverage this evening.  It’s hardly factual or reasonable however to point out that when Intel Windows 8 tablets go on sale, the fact that they will cost the same as Windows 7 tablets do now will be a shock.  These tablets will commonly carry Core-i5 processors and 4Gb or more of RAM, as they do now, and be extremely powerful tools for IT Pros, designers and other professionals.  These tablets simply will not be targeted at the average consumer but instead at people who need the power to run full desktop suites on the go.

In a way it’s a shame to see articles such as this as they don’t help.  There is still a great deal we don’t know about Windows 8 and about how it will perform, especially on battery life, on the next generation of Intel chips.  We will find out, in the fullness of time, and we’ll discover how much these devices will cost us.

DigiTimes’ “sources” don’t seem to like either Microsoft or Intel very much at all, but frankly… balance is much more important.

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An article in Zdnet Windows 8 is a big risk to the consumer PC industry made some important points about the status of the PC industry as a whole and Windows 8 specifically. The gist is that the PC industry is in trouble, and Windows 8 may not help it recover.

“The consumer PC industry is in the doldrums, with sales down at uncomfortable levels and a near-tangible lack of enthusiasm in the air.”

Consumer Business is Down…But Enterprise Business is Up

2011 was the year of the tablet. Anyone, following this industry will tell you that. The revolutionary approach to computing with the invention of the Apps, changed how people used computing devices. Specific operations, and there were thousands of them, changed what people did with their devices. The spillover, moreover, to the smartphone market, one that didn’t even exist 10 years ago, was remarkable. This was like watching how the US changed after Edison introduced the light bulb. You can’t go back, and don’t even want to.

So yes, the PC is down, because it’s model goes back to 1975. It was time for a change. And consumers clearly saw it. They wanted computers, just not the PC.

Yet Microsoft and hundreds of other companies continue to produce software for the business market, and doing well. What that says is that the PC is not dead, but continues and will continue to have a life that will survive the tablet onslaught.

Will Windows 8 Help or Hurt?

The existing computer operating system model goes back to the days of DOS. And it has not changed. Sure enhancements occurred and it became faster, slicker, and more powerful. But even with the GUI interface, and the GUI operating system, it was still a DOS based model. Windows 8 is supposed to change that.

New boot ups, a new interface, new CPU technology is supposed to change how the computer operates. This will lead to new types of applications. And some of these changes clearly come for the tablet concept.

Will Windows 8 help or hurt? Obviously, that answer won’t be finally given until a year after it has been released and consumers and experts make their findings known. But is the PC industry dead or dying? We can say, let’s hope not, but more realistically, we can say, it isn’t.

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At the moment we don’t have a solid release date for Windows 8, Microsoft never really give us a fixed release date until the final build has been completed. At the moment everyone’s thinking that it will be towards the end of this year, probably in time for the holiday shopping period. At CES this year, Pocket-lint reported on a conversation they had with Microsoft that indicated a October release date.

They spoke with Janelle Poole who is the director of public relations of the Windows Business Group. She had this to say:

We haven’t talked about the release date and we generally don’t. We are talking milestone to milestone, so for us right now we’re talking about the next milestone being the consumer preview happening in late February.

One of the things that I think is a good guideline though is we’ve always said that Windows releases come round about every three years and this year will be three years in October since we launched Windows 7. So I think that’s a good guideline to consider.

It would make sense that this is when Windows 8 will launch, as October 3 years ago will be when Windows 7 launched, which is hard to believe. Windows 7 did also come to market earlier than expected thanks to a series of extremely stable betas and release candidates. I’m sure that Microsoft are working as hard as they can to get Windows 8 ready as soon as possible to cash in on the tablet boom and also get their new OS out on the latest line of ultrabooks that will be flooding the market this year.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft stick to their 3 year product cycle, or will they cut it down a little like they did with Windows 7?

When do you think Windows 8 will be released?

Let us know in the comments

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The guys over at Neowin managed to record a live Windows 8 demonstration by a Microsoft employee over at this year’s CES. One of the interesting aspects of the demo is that Windows 8 is shown on multiple devices and in different versions. This includes features that have not been on film before, like Microsoft Music, new mouse gestures or background colors. And while that is probably nothing to get too excited about, it provides everyone with a nice impression of what Microsoft is going to deliver with Windows 8.

One of the most important things that I personally take away from the demonstration is the fact that Windows 8 will indeed launch in the Metro interface, even on desktop PCs and traditional laptops.

A cool feature that has been demoed on the day was the ability to zoom in or out of the Metro UI, which is a very interesting option to get a better overview of all installed apps in Metro UI. The zoomed out mode furthermore can be used to group and move apps around, which should work a lot better than in standard mode, as it may mean a lot of scrolling until you reach the new position for the selected app or group of apps.

According to the demonstrator, Windows 8 will not make any compromises when it comes to the desktop. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft will keep that promise. Another feature that was demonstrated on the day was the ability to display Metro apps and desktop apps side by side on the same screen, which opens the door for some interesting options.

Here is another demonstration session that has been uploaded by another user to YouTube. It is basically the same session, with the difference that this one is not cut off in the middle.

After watching the new Windows 8 video, has your impression changed or remained the same? Let us know what you think of the operating system.

A Live Windows 8 Demo From CES is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

New images have appeared of the Start Screen personalization options in the Windows 8 beta.  In the images, posted online by TheVerge.com you can see shots from what they say is build 8175.  They show that Microsoft are sticking to their guns on a background to the Start Screen that’s far less customisable than what we’ve been used to for years (though give it some time and Stardock will come up with something as they always do).

There’s no custom desktop image for example though there are eight background patterns to choose from.  Then there’s a choice of nine colours.  This isn’t what most people would call “customisation” but its a start and we could still see more appear by the time Windows 8 ships (making people writing books like me redo lots of screenshots!)

I’ll let you judge from the images below what you think and it would be very interesting to see your comments.  It could be argued for instance that if you want to work primarily with the Windows 8 ‘traditional’ desktop that the blue, black and grey shades might be less Metro-like than the green we’ve seen in the Developer Preview, and will make the new Metro pop-ups less intrusive.  It remains to be seen however what Microsoft will release next month.

New Windows 8 Personalization Images Emerge is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

At CES 2012 Nvidia demonstrated Windows 8 running on a tablet powered by Nvidia’s new Tegra 3 processor, which is built on the ARM architecture rather than the traditional x86 that Intel and AMD use and dominate the market with.

In the past Windows didn’t support ARM processors which meant that Intel and AMD were the only real players in the processor market. However ARM processors have become more popular in mobile devices since they are more energy efficient and offer high performance as well as good battery life. Nvidia’s latest processor the Tegra 3 is a perfect example of this.

Microsoft said that they were going to add support for ARM processors in Windows 8, but apart from a brief glimpse at their Build conference last year, yesterday was the first time we finally got to see Windows 8 working and running on a Tegra 3 powered tablet.

Nobody really got to have a hands on with the tablet, and we’re not really sure what kind of one it is. At the moment all that you can see is the Nvidia branding on it. It’s rumoured that it could be by ASUS who produced the first Tegra 3 powered devices so it may possibly be a variation of their upcoming tablet.

Nvidia demonstrated a variety of demanding games running perfectly well on the tablet.

Nvidia’s CEO was very excited about the prospects this year. Between Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich and Windows 8, there’s ample opportunities for tablet makers and consumers coming up this year. It will be very exciting to see what tablets are released alongside Windows 8 when it hits the market towards the end of this year. I feel that if Windows 8 is to be a success, it really needs to enter with a big range of high spec tablets.

Nvidia Demonstrate Windows 8 On Tegra 3 Powered Tablet is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Previously we thought that the final build number for the Windows 8 beta build was going to be 8175. Sources said that the beta build had been signed off but now it looks like they were wrong. New information coming from WinUnleaked.tk states that the beta build is still in development, but a roadmap for it has been laid out.

According to their undisclosed sources, the Windows 8 Beta is currently in a pre-beta state and that the final beta build will not be 8175.

Here’s what the road map apparently looks like:

• From now until January 21st, it’s in Pre-Beta stage
• On January 23rd, Windows 8 will enter Beta “Escrow”
• Then from 23rd to the 28th, testers will be voting for the final Beta Build and then sign off the Beta.
• January 30th – The official Beta build is expected to be shown off at an internal preview

Targeted build number is now expected to be 8200.winmain_win8b1 not 6.2.8175.winmain.111217 -1215 as previously thought.

So it looks like it will be the beginning of February when we finally get out hands on the first official beta build of Windows 8.

Source:

Winunleaked.tk

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The closer we get to the actual release of Windows 8 ARM tablets the more I’m mulling over the pros and cons, and wondering just how successful such devices will actually  turn out to be.  At the moment Windows 7 tablets are pretty powerful machines.  They have a great many advantages over every other tablet with support for just about any USB device and the ability to run full desktop apps such as Microsoft Office.  Add to this a friendly tablet interface and surely you’re on to a winner!?  Alas then comes the problem.  There is only one but for most people it’s a deal-breaker, and that is the poor battery life that comes with running Windows on Intel x86 based chips.  A battery that dies on a tablet after about only four hours simply isn’t good enough and there’s no indications that things are going to change any time soon.

So a Windows tablet on ARM architecture must be the way to go then?  Well, actually no.  The problem with an ARM-based Windows 8 tablet is that you will not only forego the USB device support, but also the ability to run existing Windows desktop apps and suites.  You’ll have fantastic battery life but these two problems are, frankly, the reason most people want to use Windows on a tablet in the first place.

What they’ll be left with is essentially a blank slate (sic!) where all the software will be new and none of their existing Windows programs will run.  Is this what people want a Windows tablet for?  The Windows app store, despite Microsoft’s attempts to build developer excitement for Metro, will take some time to get going and build momentum.  It will be leagues behind the app stores for the iPad, Android tablets and even the HP TouchPad and Blackberry Playbook, and this situation will last for many months if not years.

So are Windows tablets going to prove disappointing for people?  Well, this is all in how Microsoft design the code and architecture of the ARM tablets.  If they go down the route of tablets as we know them now then they’ll be no more Windows than an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy Tab is now.  If they do find ways to run existing Windows software, that software will have to be recompiled or perhaps even completely re-engineered to run on them, and many if not most software companies won’t be interested in doing this given that the sales market will be comparatively small.

We might find out more about Windows ARM-powered tablets this week at the Consumer Electronics Show, but it’s becoming clear that Microsoft need to tell us what what types of hardware and software (if any at all) these devices will support when they come to market, probably in early 2013.  Until then if you’re considering buying a tablet I wouldn’t advise you to wait.  If you aren’t fussed about Windows desktop programs and USB devices then any tablet on the market these days will suit you (and prices on the Blackberry Playbook are tumbling) and if you want the full-fat Intel experience then there are a few Windows 7 tablets either out there or coming soon that will fit the bill for when the Windows 8 public beta begins.  But if you’ve been waiting for a tablet that runs Windows, supports all your desktop apps and has a great battery life, you could end up disappointed.

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Windows 8 is still nearly a year away from being released and we’re hoping to get a good look at it in the first public beta in about a months time. But many people who haven’t actually downloaded and installed the developer preview don’t know what’s new in Windows 8.

Well today I stumbled upon this great little infographic from thetechlabs which explains it all and makes it very easy to see the top 10 new features that are going to be in Windows 8. Personally I think some of these features aren’t necessarily worthy of a top 10 spot, but none the less it’s still a handy little infographic.

Do you agree with this list? What would you add or remove?

Let us know in the comments

Here’s the list:

1. Windows to go
2. Windows Store
3. Metro Style UI
4. Better Security
5. Internet Explorer 10
6. Faster Booting
7. Apps always on
8. Minimal Ram
9. Single Platform

Windows 8

Top Windows 8 Features Infographic is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

A hidden “easter egg” has been found in the Windows 8 Developer Preview by WinUnleaked.tk that reactivates the transparency on the very nice looking new Aero Lite interface, while disabling much of the extra eye-candy that comes with the full Aero glass effect on the desktop.

On initial inspection it’s unclear exactly how this new Aero Lite Glass differs from the standard Aero Glass effect, though closer examination reveals that it’s much simpler and forgoes effects such as highlights around the minimize, maximize and close buttons.  Also the back and forward buttons are a much simpler Metro style, which many people might prefer.

To activate this you just need to follow these simple instructions…

Navigate to the \Windows\System32 folder

Launch WindowsAnytimeUpgradeResults.exe

Given the title of the program that you launch to achieve this effect it’s unlikely this will still work with the final version of the operating system.  What is also unclear though is whether or not this second Aero will be available in Windows 8 as an option.  The fact that it exists now though will probably mean that it will be available afterwards as a registry hack.

Aero Lite Glass Easter Egg Found in Windows 8 is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

Microsoft in a new blog post has revealed detailed information about the new Storage Spaces feature of the Windows 8 operating system. Storage Spaces enables two new features in the Windows 8 operating system that were not available in previous client Windows systems.

It first can be used to create storage pools, a feature similar to Drive Extender that was part of Windows Server for a while. This basically allows users to create a joined storage pool from multiple discs. Storage pools can be created using different physical discs and connection methods. A basic example would be to combine a 2 Terabyte disk and a 1 Terabyte disc into a storage pool to have 3 Terabytes of data accessible under a single drive letter.

Instead of just creating a storage pool with a size of 3 Terabyte, Microsoft provides users with options to select a larger size right from the beginning. The core benefit here is that administration is easier when additional drives are added to the pool.

The second feature can be used to create virtual disks that behave just like physical discs in the operating system. Virtual disks offer capabilities like thin provisioning, and resilience to failure of underlying physical media.

Lets take a look at the terminology that Microsoft uses:

Thin Provisioning: Microsoft gives an example where two 2 Terabyte drives are assigned to a Drive Pool with an initial storage size of 10 Terabytes. The technology relies on on-demand allocation of data which improves the efficiency significantly.

Instead of having to connect drives to the computer that at least meet the 10 Terabyte requirements, users and system administrators can now use the 4 Terabyte of space they have for as long as it is sufficient. New storage devices can then be added once the storage reaches the physical limit.

The magic that allows us to create a 10TB mirrored space on 4TB of total raw capacity is called thin provisioning. Thin provisioning ensures that actual capacity is reserved for the space only when you decide to use it, for example, when you copy some files to the volume on the space. Previously allocated physical capacity can be reclaimed safely whenever files are deleted, or whenever an application decides that such capacity is no longer needed. This reclaimed capacity is subsequently available for usage by either the same space, or by some other space that is carved out from the same pool. We achieve all of this through architected cooperation between the underlying file-system (NTFS) and Storage Spaces.

Resiliency This optional feature can only be used if at least two hard drives are used to create the drive pool. It basically mirrors data on different disks of the pool, so that data can be recovered even if a physical disk fails. Resilience is achieved through mirroring and parity.

Another core (also optional) capability associated with a space is resiliency to failure of the physical disks comprising the storage pool. For example, the space we’ve illustrated above is a mirrored space (in other words, it has the mirrored resiliency attribute associated with it). This mirrored setting ensures that we always store at least two (and optionally three) complete copies of data on different physical disks within the pool. This way, despite partial or complete disk failure, you’ll never need to worry about loss of data. As a matter of fact, the physical disks comprising the pool are typically not even visible to other components within Windows or to applications running on your PC. By extension, the fact that some physical disks within the pool have failed, is completely shielded from other Windows components or applications. They continue to operate on the space, completely oblivious to the fact that Storage Spaces is working quietly in the background to maintain data availability. Additionally, upon disk failure, Storage Spaces automatically regenerates data copies for all affected spaces as long as sufficient alternate physical disks are available within the pool.

There’s another resiliency attribute, called parity, which directs Storage Spaces to store some redundancy information alongside user data contained within the space, thereby enabling automatic data reconstruction in the event of physical disk failure. While conceptually similar to mirroring, parity-based resiliency utilizes capacity more efficiently than mirrored spaces do, but with higher random I/O overhead. Parity spaces are well suited for storing data such as large home videos, which have large capacity requirements, large sequential (predominantly append) write requests, and an infrequent-to-minimal need to update existing content.

Here are screenshots of the new functionality. I suggested you check out Microsoft’s blog post for additional information and an FAQ that answers some of the most pressing questions that users and admins may have.

Microsoft Reveals Details About Windows 8′s Storage Spaces Feature is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

A few days ago I reported that the Windows 8 Beta build had been finalised and signed off with the build number 8175. This is almost definitely the build that will be released to the public next month when Microsoft distribute the Windows 8 Beta for testing. However, while everyone seems to have focused on Windows 8, they’ve also forgotten that Microsoft are hard at work with Windows Server 8 as well.

There hasn’t been too much coverage on this so far but Winunleaked.tk has posted a screenshot of the installation screen for Windows Server 8.

I know it’s not really much, but the poster says that the Beta version has come with a good few changes such as a refreshed Dashboard UI, new features and some code improvements. At the moment they’ve got it running on a Samsung slate and hope to have a few more screenshots in the near future.

I’m sure they’re will be plenty more beta leaks of both Windows 8 and Windows Server 8 as we near the release date of them, hopefully at the beginning of February.

Source:

Winunleaked

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One of the more interesting features in Windows 8, certainly from my perspective as the author of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” is the ability for Microsoft’s new operating system to self-repair and reinstall itself.  This isn’t actually as clever as it sounds but as a simplistic explanation it’ll do.

Microsoft have today though offered more insight into this process, called refresh and reset.  In a post on the Building Windows 8 blog they said “As we began planning for Windows 8, we asked ourselves: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you could just push a button and everything is fixed?’ We really wanted to focus on the concept of ‘push button’, which translated into a design goal that represents a simple to use, predictable, and fast solution.  The point of this is…

With Windows 8, there are a few key things that we set out to deliver:

• Provide a consistent experience to get the software on any Windows 8 PC back to a good and predictable state.
• Streamline the process so that getting a PC back to a good state with all the things customers care about can be done quickly instead of taking up the whole day.
• Make sure that customers don’t lose their data in the process.
• Provide a fully customizable approach for technical enthusiasts to do things their own way.

While this sounds like a wonderful solution to all your woes, it’s still not quite as wonderful as it sounds.  The two options will allow you to perform one of these tasks…

• Reset your PC – Remove all personal data, apps, and settings from the PC, and reinstall Windows.
• Refresh your PC – Keep all personal data, Metro style apps, and important settings from the PC, and reinstall Windows.

You’ll notice this says it will keep “Metro style apps” and doesn’t mention desktop apps.  This is because Microsoft will have a much tighter quality control on Metro apps and cite reasons in the blog including reinstalling bad apps and having little or no control over some installer types as the reason.  In fairness there probably are very good technical reasons why this is the case so there’s no need to disbelieve them here.

Windows 7 comes with an image backup system however in all editions that can be used with Startup Repair to restore your copy of Windows with all of your programs and settings intact.  Fortunately this hasn’t been forgotten and Microsoft have built it into the Rest options.

With this in mind, we’ve made it possible for you to establish your own baseline image via a command-line tool (recimg.exe). So when you get a Windows 8 PC, you will be able to do the following:

1. Go through the Windows first-run experience to configure basic settings.
2. Install your favorite desktop apps (or uninstall things you don’t want).
3. Configure the machine exactly as you would like it.
4. Use recimg.exe to capture and set your custom image of the system.

It’s not completely clear yet how this will work with the existing backup options, where a friendly wizard interface will walk you through the image backup process.  It is unlikely however that a command line will be the only way to do this.

So how long will it actually take to perform a refresh or a reset?  Microsoft timed the results on the machines they gave out to developers at their BUILD conference last september.

The refresh and restore options will also work from the new style Windows boot menu, should your copy of Windows be unable to start.

In Windows 8 Beta, there will also be a tool that you can use to create a bootable USB flash drive, in case even the copy of Windows RE on the hard drive won’t start. You’ll be able to start your PC with the USB drive, and fix problems by refreshing your PC or performing advanced troubleshooting. And if your PC comes with a hidden recovery partition, you’ll even have the option to remove it and reclaim disk space once you’ve created the USB drive.

It’s great that Microsoft are making these features more accessible and easier to use.  It is ironic however that the more stable and trouble-free Windows gets, the more troubleshooting and repair features are introduced.

Clearly these tools won’t suit everyone so I’m not concerned about whether there will be another edition of “Troubleshooting…”  I’ve also found on my own Windows tablet that the Developer Preview of the OS didn’t feel there was enough space to store all the rescue files and, as such when I went to try the tool it failed to work.  It might be that on some tablet devices where flash storage is at a premium, this may be the case in the future.

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Microsoft have today confirmed that Kinect will be coming to the PC early this year “not as a hack but as a commercial product with dedicated PC hardware”.  Some changes include a shorter USB cable and new firmware to allow close-up usage of the device.

It is probably safe to assume the new Kinect for PC will also be smaller than the one for the Xbox, due to the need to fit it into tight spaces on people’s desks.

In a blog post today the company said…

Kinect offers PC users (and developers) some unique capabilities that change the way people interact with their computers, including:

• Skeletal tracking
• Motion sensing
• Voice recognition
• Facial recognition

It is with Windows 8 that the Kinect is probably going to make the biggest impact, the decide will no doubt be usable with the new Metro interface that’s coming with the company’s next generation OS.  Being able to operate your PC apps with gesture controls, apart from bringing Minority Report’esque coolness to the PC for the first time, will also help those people who don’t have touch screens with their existing PCs.

In many ways this could save Windows 8 as the Kinect is already a much sought-after device, not just with the Xbox 360 but with a great many different people, including robotics and other researchers.  This will no doubt lead to a whole new range of Windows apps designed to harness the power of Kinect.  Obvious applications are programs for children and the disabled.

It will be with gaming though that the most interesting things will happen.  PC gaming has been on the decline for some time now and the advent and increasing popularity of all-in-one machines, which do not have the latest and fastest gaming hardware, are hammering more nails into the gaming coffin.  Could Kinect for the PC reinvigorate this?  Certainly with the big first person shooter titles, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Kinect will probably never be used.  The device could drive up the number of smaller and easier games however.

Microsoft have also long talked about being able to play the same game across the PC, Xbox 360 and Windows Phone, though this hasn’t really happened yet.  Having Kinect on a PC could enable people to play on two screens on their PC and Xbox in their home simultaneously.

Suffice to say the long-overdue arrival of the Kinect sensor for the PC is going to be a huge event, and Microsoft are hitting the ground running with incentives for companies that want to harness it for the PC (and they’re not just limiting this to games developers either) with “the BizSpark Kinect Accelerator incubation programme, which will give 10 tech-oriented companies using Kinect (on either Windows or Xbox360) an investment of $20,000 each and other benefits.” among other incentives on the Microsoft Developer Network.

By the time Windows 8 launches we’ll have a good feel for how Kinect will fit with the who PC architecture, how flexible, popular and effective it will actually be, and crucially, if it can give Windows 8 the edge and keep this often criticised operating system firmly on top.

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We’ve had a few leaks of Windows 8 builds recently that have been getting closer and closer to the beta build. Now it’s been reported that the Beta Build of Windows 8 has been signed off by Microsoft and is currently doing the rounds in a very close circle of testers.

The news was reported from Russian site Wzor and Win7vista. If the dodgy google translation of it is correct, then the Windows 8 Beta was signed off on December 29th 2011 and the official build number for it will be  6.2.8175.winmain.111217 -1215

Apparently the beta will also be distributed with the English, German, Japanese and Chinese language packs so more people will be able to test it out then the developer preview.

It’s really pretty difficult to make out anything more from the source, it’s anybody’s guess as to whether or not this is a legit claim, but Wzor seems to be pretty accurate in the past and it would make sense that the Beta build has been signed off now. Microsoft may well demonstrate it at CES 2012 which is just before the expected release date of the Windows 8 Beta in February.

For now we’ll just have to wait and see

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Microsoft are looking to improve security in Windows 8 greatly and we’ve already seen evidence of this with a new bootloader that prevents harmful software like rootkits from ever executing on your system. There’s several improvements in the BIOS security, however it has come under fire recently. Some people have said that it could prevent other operating systems from being installed on a Windows machine as they wouldn’t have the necessary signatures.

But now McAfee are predicting that because Windows 8 will be so secure on the software side of things, that hackers are more likely to go and try hardware based malware attacks instead, which are now seen as an easier option.

“Advances in the Windows 8 bootloader security feature have already caused researchers to show how they can be subverted through legacy BIOS,”

Intel are also looking to roll out it’s UEFI (unified extensible firmware interface) which could enforce secure booting on machines, which will again make it even harder for hackers to use traditional software methods of hacking. They’ll need to find away to get around these security features on the hardware side of things.

According to the report, we could see hackers attacking graphics processor functions, the BIOS and other various hardware components.

We will keenly watch how attackers use these low-level functions for botnet control, perhaps migrating their control functions into graphics processor functions, the BIOS, or the master boot record, In spite of our efforts to thwart their ambitions, attackers clearly see the value and power of attacking hardware and moving outside of traditional operating-system attacks.

This is actually a very interesting report. Basically what McAfee are predicting is that because Windows 8 has become a lot more secure on the software side of things, it now means that it’s made it more vulnerable to attack on the hardware side. Hackers will now see hardware as an easier target to attack the OS. If hackers manage to do this, it could make it very difficult to protect hardware against malware attacks etc.. as traditional antivirus systems don’t protect against hardware attacks.

Source:

McAfee Report

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One of the coolest things that we’ve seen come from Windows 8 is the new picture password log on feature. For those of you who don’t know, this is a new method of logging in. All the user has to do is draw a pattern and tap in a certain location and sequence to unlock their PC. It’s quite a cool feature if you ask me, however it’s been slated be some security experts.

Kenneth Weiss runs a three-factor authentication business called Universal Secure Registry and is the inventor of RSA’s SecurID token. Here’s what he had to say about it

I think it’s cute, I don’t think it’s serious security

Well that doesn’t say too much for it now then does it. Kenneth actually described it more like a Fisher-Price toy than a serious choice for secure computer access.

Read this post to find out more about the picture password

The concept is good, but from a security perspective there is some flaws. For example, if anyone sees you input the pattern it’s quite easy for them to remember. Unlike a traditional password where the pin/password that you enter is displayed as “*”, you’ll be able to see exactly what the user’s entering. Also it’s a bit of a pain trying to right down what your pattern is in case you forget it. It would have to be quite long winded to make sure that you get the pattern right.

However, because it’s so quick and simple to set one up and enter the password, I think we may find that more people will start using this. There’s plenty of people who don’t use a password what so ever so if they used this picture password it would be better than nothing wouldn’t it?

Also all you have to do is make sure that the wrong people don’t see you entering in your pattern and you should be ok. But I’d be interested to hear what you guys think of the picture password.

Is it a good feature that you will use? How secure do you think it is? What are it’s major flaws?

Let us know in the comments below

What Do You Think Of The Windows 8 Picture Password? is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.

There’s been much talk over the new Windows 8 App Store that’s set to be released alongside Windows 8 sometime next year. Microsoft hasn’t given us a chance to have a proper look at it yet, just shown us a few brief demo’s. However they have released a few bits of information to us over the last few weeks. One of the biggest things we discovered is that the Windows 8 App Store will be accepting open source apps.

It also looks like the Windows 8 App Store will be a great deal for app publishers as well. For a start, Microsoft will apparently allow publishers to keep all subscription money, which is unlike Apple’s policy on their app store. What’s more, Microsoft has also undercut Apple when it comes to the percentage of revenue that they will be taking over developers. Apple currently takes 30 percent of  an apps revenue, while Microsoft will only be taking 20 percent after an app has had a net of $25,000.

Another bonus is that Microsoft will allow developers to offer time and featured limited trial software which Apple does not currently allow on its store. Microsoft will also allow developers to choose a payment option of their own as well.

We have full platform support for free apps, trials (both time-based and feature-based trials) and paid apps, including in-app purchase…developers can also choose to manage their customer transactions directly, for example, with newspaper subscriptions, or to adopt a business model with offline fulfillment, such as for auctions,”  We don’t mandate a specific transaction engine and developers can use their own. They can also choose the ad control that works best for them.”

While some people have said that Microsoft is far too late to the game with Windows 8 and the Windows 8 App Store, there is one thing you need to remember. Over half a billion Windows 7 licenses have been sold and there’s over 1.25 billion Windows users around the globe. This dwarves the few million iPad’s that have been sold. Apple may have had a good head start in the tablet market, but with Gartner estimating that 400 million new Windows machines will be shipped next year, you can be pretty sure that a lot of them will tablets once Windows 8 is released.

Of course, the one major thing that could hold back the Windows 8 app store is that it probably won’t work on machines other than those running Windows 8. And since a lot of Windows 7 users probably will not jump to Windows 8 straight away, we could see a pretty slow pick up rate for Windows 8

Windows 8 Will Be A Much Better Deal For Publishers is a post from Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips - The Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumours & Screenshots. Visit Windows 8 News, Rumors & Tips for the Latest Microsoft Windows 8 News, Rumors, Tips, Themes, Wallpapers & Guides.