Microsoft announces Windows 8 and offers up the consumer preview

Change has been brewing in Redmond for awhile, and today at Mobile World Congress Microsoft revealed Windows 8 in its consumer preview entirety. Here's a look at everything we now know about the new operating system.

After much ado, Microsoft finally officially announced Windows 8 at its Mobile World Congress press conference this morning. Windows 8 has become increasingly important to Microsoft, a sort of reperations to address the consumer complaints and flaws of past operating system releases. Now the consumer preview download is available, and you can expect to find a whole new beast in Windows 8.
The term the team tossed around most at the announcement was “fast and fluid” – two things even the most ardent Windows lovers might not be quick to call the platform. But Windows 8 is all about change and Microsoft is not shying away from making big moves here. President of Microsoft’s Windows Division, Steve Sinofsky, said Windows 8 represents a “generational change,” and that the last update of this significance was Windows 95 – which if you do your math correctly was 16 years ago.
As can be expected, Microsoft offered a thorough look at how Windows 8 will translate between screens, unifying its tablet, laptop, and desktop presence. This means touchscreen or not, consumers will finally be able to find the same experience regardless of device, a division that’s previously plagued Windows users and kept Microsoft from seriously competing in the new wave of electronics flooding the market. Now your usage will move from screen to screen with you so you have a sort of permanence across devices: Microsoft showed how bookmarks, pins, apps, everything moves with you from your phone to your tablet to your laptop to your desktop.
A big introduction and something that Microsoft has been mentioning for awhile is Charms. These are essentially icons that make it quicker and easier to get around Windows 8. Swiping from the right edge of a device, or moving your mouse to the upper right hand corner, reveals these Charms and their basic tasks – like Start, Share, Search, and Settings. Really, they’re just shortcuts,  but they are easily identified and quick to get to.
Windows 8 is also bringing apps to your devices via the Windows Store – all of which Microsoft announced will be free for the Consumer Preview. So download away.
In the meantime, a few other things worth mentioning from today’s press conference:

• Goodbye CTRL+ALT+DELETE. Windows 8 will get rid of the all too familiar login key code. Now you’ll just have to hit “Enter.”
• Windows to home. Hitting the Windows icon key will now take you to your home screen.
• Marrying inputs. Windows 8 is essentially Microsoft’s first attempts to address how we use multiple electronics. Thankfully it’s not entirely isolating traditionalists and going all touch. You can use touch, a mouse, and a keyboard all at once if you like, something demoed during the press conference.
• Universal search. Microsoft has showed us this before, most recently at CES. Anything you search for brings up everything about it: video, Web, document results – you name it.
• SoCs. Microsoft announced Windows 8 will run on four SoCs: the Nvidia Tegra 3, the Qualcomm Snapdragon, the Texas Instruments OMAP, and the Intel Cloverfield. All apps are chip independent, so they will work on ARM or x86 – developers can use the same code.
• Rebirth of the Surface? Microsoft also brought out an 82-inch, Gorilla Glass Microsoft Surface running Windows 7 and claimed that up to 10 people could use it at the same time.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview: What works and what doesn’t

Our unfiltered thoughts on the good and bad aspects of Microsoft's newly released Windows 8 Consumer Preview. It's looking better, but we've got a long way to go before this is ready for prime time.

It’s a dangerous prospect, given how many times it’s already crashed, but I’m typing this on a Windows 8 laptop. Yesterday, Microsoft released the next free public version of its new Windows 8 operating system. Though it’s called a “Consumer Preview,” I can’t help but note how much more like a beta it feels. It’s come a long way since the Developer Preview was released a few months ago. If you have a spare Intel-based laptop or tablet (we installed it on an HP Folio 13 Ultrabook), you can download and install it for free, but we must warn you: It’s still riddled with bugs and incomplete functionality. Then again, can we expect otherwise?

What is Windows 8?

Before I begin my diatribe on what is good and bad in the new pre-release of Windows 8, perhaps I should explain what it is. Windows 8 is Microsoft’s attempt to bring the many fantastic and sensible innovations that Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android, and Microsoft’s Windows Phone smartphones have brought to the world of computing. And it’s also an attempt to rework Windows as a “touch-first” operating system, meaning that its interface is simple and designed to be used in touch tablets similar to the iPad. Future laptops and PCs will likely have touchscreens as well. That’s just the direction things are headed. So Microsoft’s goal is to create one platform that can serve a keyboard and mouse just as well as a touchscreen.
It’s a difficult problem to solve and there is no easy solution, but Microsoft has taken a uniquely Microsoft approach. It is hoping to please everybody by including a near-complete version of Windows 7 and a brand-new interface based almost entirely on Windows Phone 7. The new Windows Phone “Metro-style” user interface has all of the best features of smartphones: apps that install (and uninstall) with ease, a more flexible homescreen, an app store, much simpler menus, an email app, a calendar app, other basic apps, and the ability to perform tasks while the computer is ‘sleeping.’ These are just a few benefits, of many. The only downside is that smartphones and tablets have not yet been home to the complex, professional applications and features that PCs are known for. It may be more fun to check your email in one of these interfaces, but when you want to use Photoshop, there’s just no way. This is why the Windows 7-like desktop is also present. Microsoft calls this mishmash “no compromises,” and it may be right, in a way, but it ain’t “no complaints.” Not just yet.
Below are the good and bad points of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

The Good

In a recent article, I laid out five features Microsoft should add to Windows 8 in the Consumer Preview. These included a proper app list, usable multitasking, a cleaner classic desktop, more flexible live tiles, and alternatives to the Windows 8 store. Surprisingly, many of these points were fixed. Perhaps my demands were too reasonable?

An Apps List: In the Developer Preview, there was no list of installed apps — something that’s present in Windows Phone. The Consumer Preview fixes this. A full list of apps is now accessible with a right click, and it is glorious. You can uninstall apps, pin them to the Start Screen, and perform a number of other actions from this screen. Easy peasie. Better still, Windows 7 apps and features are also in this list.
Right clicking: Speaking of right clicking, Microsoft has added it in. When you right click (or swipe down from the top or bottom of the screen on a tablet), menus will pop up on the top or bottom filled with app-specific options. This opens up a lot of possibilities for app creators.
Charms bar: Swiping in from the right side of the screen (or moving your mouse to the lower or upper right corners of the screen) brings up the improved charms bar, which has app-specific settings, PC settings like Wi-Fi and volume, a sharing button, and a devices button as well as a link to the Start Screen, if ya need it. The app-specific settings do seem a bit repetitive since the right-click menus should accomplish that, but oh well. The Charms bar actually works.
Start Screen customization: You can’t yet resize pinned Live Tiles, but you can now move them around with ease and create your own groups of apps. If you want to name those groups, just hit the zoom out button on the lower right corner of the screen and right click the group you wish to name. It’s all quite intuitive.

Windows 8 App Store: The app store is quite new, but it’s already working out well. Installing apps is a one-click process, as is removing them. The Windows Store will have paid content when W8 launches, but for now, you can download anything. There are about 100 apps — perhaps a few less. Windows 7 applications can also be downloaded and installed in much the same way that they have been installed since Windows 95. You can download Windows 7 applications from the Web, or install them in all the ways that you used to like CD, DVD, USB, or SD.
Multitasking: There are still problems with multitasking, but you can now grab more than just your previous app by swiping in from the left side of the screen (or moving your mouse to the upper left). A listof the last six or so open apps displays on the left, much like how Android tablets or Windows Phone displays previously used apps. Alt + Tab now works as well, so you can swap between apps that way as well.
Windows 7 is a bit better looking: The Windows 7 theme has been reworked ever-so-slightly to look more square.
Flow: This is an ugly little color-pipe-connection game, but dammit, it’s addictive. I’m on level 31 and I cannot stop playing. I’m a Flow master. Try it out.

what full Windows 8 Metro application

While users have been testing out Windows 8 Consumer Preview, XGMedia redesigned Skype to give future users an idea about what Windows 8 apps will look like, and the design principals behind Metro.

With the arrival of Windows Metro in Windows 8, developers must begin working around new design principals. But what will third-party Metro-style apps look like? XGMedia, coming off of the latest Microsoft conference to educate developers on the Metro-style design principals, took to redesigning Skype as a functional case study.
As Microsoft explicitly states in its developer’s guide, “Content is the heart of Metro-style apps, and putting content before chrome is fundamental to the design of Metro style apps. Everything else is accessory—or chrome—that helps present and enable interaction with the content.”
While some may argue that Windows Metro style isn’t the most desirable interface, Microsoft must be credited for forcing developers to design in a way that strips away the complexities that exist in navigating an application to view its content. Metro-style apps are in fact meant to be designed to be used with our fingers. You can even say that Metro seeks out the minimalist in developers.

Windows Phone 7 may get Instagram before Android

Rumor has it that the hit app will be making its way to Windows Phones before it debuts on Android.

Instagram has catapulted to major success, winning iPhone’s app of the year and spawning an entire ecosystem of smartphone photo products. Despite its enormous popularity, the app has remained rather simple, with only one major upgrade being issued and the team staying relatively small.
But an Android app has always been the biggest priority for Instagram, and CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed as much during Le Web this year.
Now, it appears that Windows Phone 7 users will get their hands on the much-anticipated app first. Insiders tell FastCompany that just may be the case. “A source recently left the impression that the Windows Phone team has possibly been working with the folks from Instagram,” says the site. Systrom would not confirm or deny the rumor. “Other than having pre-announced Android, we don’t comment on roadmap stuff.”
Momentum has been building for WP7. The Nokia Lumia 900 has been incredibly well-received, and Microsoft has been hard at work fine-tuning built-in features for its fleet of phones. Of course, all along Windows Phone has been praised for its metro user interface, which Microsoft has been unifying across its products.
But the platform has struggled with apps—in comparison with Android and iOS. It would be a huge coup to get Instagram on board before its major competitor, and also act as a signal for other developers out there playing the wait-and-see game with WP7. WP7 may have pundits rooting for it, but consumers aren’t going to leave their current mobile operating system if they can’t take their apps with them. And Instagram has one of the most loyal user bases out there.
Obviously, the news has to make Android sweat a little. Systrom said that an Android app was due by the end of 2012, though, so it can’t be too far off in the future if his initial projections were correct. But it’s more what deferring to WP7 says about the market competition—that the tide might be turning for developers.

get Macs and PCs to play nice together

Macs and PCs may work differently, but they can coexist together. Learn how to comfortably straddle the gap between both operating systems with these simple tips.

Microsoft and Apple have always been competitors on some level, and as a result, their fans often contain a bit of that old competitive spirit. It’s not uncommon for Mac buyers to become overnight loyalists, but Windows has an entrenched fanboy battalion as well.
Given the situation, it’s almost unnatural to think that – *gasp* – someone might own both a Windows PC and a Mac. Can you imagine the nerve? In the same household! Yet it does occur. In fact, I myself own a Windows PC as well as a MacBook, and so far one hasn’t killed the other (or me) while I slept.
With that said, getting the two to play nice can take some time. File, software, and hardware compatibility issues are not as bad as they were a decade ago, but they do exist. Fortunately, there are ways to overcome them.

Conquering old-fashioned file compatibility problems

There was once a time when trying to move a file between a PC and a Mac was a real hassle. Software on each end was wildly different, so files saved on a Mac often could not be opened in Windows without some form of conversion. 
Today, this problem has lessened. However, the two operating systems continue to use different file systems. Windows relies on NTFS, while OS X uses HFS Plus.
This has no impact on actual file compatibility. A Word document written on a Mac using HFS Plus can be opened on an NTFS file system Windows PC. The problem is the method of file transfer. Macs can read files on an NTFS drive, but can’t write to an NTFS drive, while Windows can neither read nor write to HFS Plus drives. If you normally use physical media to transfer files, this could be a stumbling block.
What’s the solution? Get FAT…32. This file system, which was used by Windows back in the Windows 95/98 era, is read/write compatible with both Windows and Mac OS X. Thumb drives and external hard drives formatted with FAT32 will be compatible with both systems. Problem solved right?

Software compatibility continues to disappoint

Software is still a compatibility sticking point between Macs and PCs. It is still up to a developer to code for either operating system.
Microsoft’s debut of Office for the Mac was the only major software compatibility change to recently take place (and even this occurred years ago), but it was important. Basic productivity tasks are now much easier to complete if you own both platforms because you’ll have a set of familiar and compatible programs available on both.

However, it’s almost universally true that you must purchase the Windows and Mac versions individually,