Windows 8 Features

Windows 8 is the upcoming version of Microsoft Windows that follows Windows 7. It features a new Metro-style interface that is designed for touchscreen, mouse, keyboard, and pen input. It also adds support for the ARM processor architecture in addition to the previously supported x86 microprocessors from Intel and AMD. Its server counterpart is codenamed Windows Server 8. A release date for the finished version of Windows 8 has not yet been announced. The most recent pre-release version is the Consumer Preview, which was released on February 29, 2012.

Development

Early announcements

In January 2011, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Microsoft announced that Windows 8 would be adding support for ARM microprocessors in addition to the x86 microprocessors from Intel, AMD and VIA.

On June 1, 2011, Microsoft officially unveiled Windows 8 and some of its new features at the Taipei Computex 2011 in Taipei (Taiwan) by Mike Angiulo and at the D9 conference in California (United States) by Julie Larson-Green and Microsoft's Windows President Steven Sinofsky. The main feature that was shown was the new user interface.

On August 15, 2011, Microsoft opened a new blog called "Building Windows 8" for users and developers.

Milestone leaks

1. A 32-bit Milestone 1 build, build 7850, with a build date of September 22, 2010, was leaked to BetaArchive, an online beta community, and to P2P/torrent sharing networks as well on April 12, 2011. Milestone 1 includes a ribbon interface for Windows Explorer, a PDF reader called Modern Reader, an updated task manager called Modern Task Manager, and native ISO image mounting.
2. A 32-bit Milestone 2 build, build 7927, was leaked to The Pirate Bay on August 29, 2011 right after many pictures leaked on BetaArchive the day before. Features of this build are mostly the same as build 7955.
3. A 32-bit Milestone 2 build, build 7955, was leaked to BetaArchive on April 25, 2011. Features of this build included a new pattern login and a new file system known as Protogon, which is now known as ReFS and only included in server versions.
4. A Milestone 3 build, build 7971, was released to close partners of Microsoft on March 29, 2011 but was kept under heavy security. However, a few screenshots were leaked. The "Windows 7 Basic" theme now uses similar metrics to the Aero style, but maintains its non-hardware accelerated design, and also supports taskbar thumbnails. The boxes that encase the "close, maximize, and minimize" buttons have been removed, leaving just the signs.
5. A 64-bit Milestone 3 build, build 7989, leaked to Win7vista on June 18, 2011 after screenshots were revealed on MDL (My Digital Life) forums. An SMS feature, a new virtual keyboard, a new bootscreen, transparency in the basic theme, geo-location services, Hyper-V 3.0, and PowerShell 3.0 were revealed in this build.

Developer preview and BUILD conference

Microsoft unveiled new Windows 8 features and improvements on September 13, 2011, day one of the BUILD developer conference. Microsoft also released a developer preview (build 8102) of Windows 8 for the developer community to download and start working with. This developer preview includes tools for building "metro style apps", such as Microsoft Windows SDK for Metro style applications, Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows 8 Developer Preview and Microsoft Expression Blend 5 developer preview. According to Microsoft, there were more than 500,000 downloads of the developer preview within the first 12 hours of its release. The Developer Preview introduced the Start screen. The Start button opens the Start screen instead of the Start menu in this build.

On 16 February 2012, Microsoft postponed the expiration date of the developer preview. Originally set to expire on 11 March 2012, this release is now set to expire on 15 January 2013.

Consumer Preview

On 29 February 2012, Microsoft released Windows 8 Consumer Preview, the beta version of Windows 8, build 8250. For the first time since Windows 95, the Start button is no longer available on the taskbar, though the Start screen is still triggered by clicking the bottom-left corner of the screen and by clicking Start in the Charm. Windows president Steven Sinofsky said more than 100,000 changes had been made since the developer version went public. In the first day of its release, Windows 8 Consumer Preview was downloaded over one million times.

Windows 8 New features

Metro UI

Windows 8 will employ a new user interface based on Microsoft's Metro design language. The Metro environment will feature a new tile-based Start screen similar to the Windows Phone operating system. Each tile will represent an application, and will be able to display relevant information such as the number of unread messages on the tile for an e-mail app or the current temperature on a weather application. Metro-style applications run in full-screen, and are able to share information between each other using "contracts". They will be available through the new Windows Store. Metro-style apps are developed with the new Windows Runtime platform using various programming languages, including C++, Visual Basic, C#, and HTML/JavaScript.

The traditional desktop environment, for running desktop applications, is treated as a Metro app. The Start button has been removed from the taskbar in favor of a Start button on the new charm bar, as well as a hotspot in the bottom-left corner. Both open the new Start screen, which replaces the Start menu.

Other features

1. Internet Explorer 10 will be included both as a Metro-style app, which will not support plugins or ActiveX components, and a desktop version which resembles Internet Explorer 9 and will maintain legacy plug-in support.
2. Ability to sign in using a Windows Live ID. This will allow for the user's profile and setting to be synchronized over the internet and accessible from other computers running Windows 8, as well as integration with SkyDrive.
3. Two new authentication methods: picture password, which allows users to log in by drawing three gestures in different places on a picture, and PIN log in, which allows users to authenticate using a four digit pin.
4. Windows Explorer will include a ribbon toolbar, and have its file operation progress dialog updated to provide more detailed statistics, the ability to pause file transfers, and improvements in the ability to manage conflicts when copying files.
5. Hybrid Boot will use "advanced hibernation functionality" on shutdown to allow faster startup times.
6. Windows To Go will allow Windows 8 to be run from a bootable USB device (such as a flash drive).
7. Two new recovery functions are included, Refresh and Reset. Refresh restores all Windows files to their original state while keeping settings, files, and Metro-Style apps, while reset takes the computer back to factory default condition.
8. Native USB 3.0 support
9. A new lock screen

Secure boot

Secure boot is a controversial UEFI-based feature to "prevent unauthorized firmware, operating systems, or UEFI drivers from running at boot time".

Microsoft will require new PCs to have the UEFI secure boot feature enabled by default to be given Windows 8 certification. Microsoft requires that manufacturers must offer the ability to turn off the secure boot feature on x86 hardware, but they must not offer such an option on ARM hardware.

Effects on the use of other operating systems

In September 2011, Matthew Garrett, a Red Hat developer, raised the possible risk of Microsoft locking out alternative systems, leading to media coverage. Microsoft addressed the issue in a blog post, stating "the customer is in control of their PC. Microsoft’s philosophy is to provide customers with the best experience first, and allow them to make decisions themselves" which was largely interpreted that they would allow OEM manufacturers to choose whether to allow users to disable the feature or not, however in January 2012, the company reversed their position and revealed ARM manufacturers must not allow Secure Boot to be disabled, causing concerns, particularly in the Linux community.

Canonical and Red Hat, two of the biggest companies involved with Linux, released a whitepaper regarding the issue, recommending that "PCs include a User Interface to easily enable or disable Secure Boot".

In reaction to the situation, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, writing for ZDNet, suggested Microsoft is locking out other systems for vendor lock-in reasons, among other hypotheses. Glyn Moody Writing for PCWorld, noted "The concern here, of course, is that Microsoft's approach seems to be making it hard if not impossible to install GNU/Linux on hardware systems certified for Windows 8." Thom Holwerda, writing for OSnews, a website dedicated to alternative operating systems, argued "This effectively makes it impossible to boot anything but Windows 8 on these ARM devices" adding that secure boot has the effect of "rendering these devices entirely useless as general computing devices" The FSF also criticized the decision, saying "Microsoft has pushed its power grab even further on ARM computers".

Windows 7 Features

Desktop
Themes

Support for themes has been extended in Windows 7. In addition to setting the colors of the window chrome, desktop background, desktop icons, mouse pointers and sound schemes, themes in Windows 7 include desktop slideshow settings. A new control panel interface, accessible through the "Personalize" context menu item on the desktop, has been introduced which provides the ability to customize and switch between themes, as well as download more themes from Microsoft's web site. Support for "theme packs" is included; theme packs are cabinet files with an extension of .themepack, and consist of a .theme as well as any number of image, sound, icon, and mouse cursor files.Windows 7 recognizes this file format and will switch the user's theme to the theme contained inside when opened. A Windows 7 theme can also specify an RSS feed from which new desktop background images can be downloaded.
The default theme is titled "Windows 7", which consists of a single desktop background codenamed "Harmony" and the same sound scheme, desktop icons and mouse pointers as Windows Vista. Six new "Aero Themes" are included: Architecture, Characters, Landscapes, Nature, Scenes, and an additional country-specific theme that is determined based on the defined locale when the operating system is installed. The Windows 7 Beta includes themes for the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Japan, South Africa and Australia, and while the theme for the user's home country is the only one displayed in the user interface, the files for all these themes are included in the operating system installation.Each of the themes included with Windows 7 consists of six desktop backgrounds each at 1920x1200 resolution; none of the desktop backgrounds included with Windows Vista are present in Windows 7. The country-specific desktop backgrounds depict both famous places in those countries (such as the Sydney skyline) as well as country scenes. A number of sound schemes are included, each associated with an included theme: Afternoon, Calligraphy, Characters, Cityscape, Delta, Festival, Garden, Heritage, Landscape, Quirky, Raga, Savanna, and Sonata.
Additional theme packs are available as free downloads from Microsoft's web site.

Desktop Slideshow

Windows 7 includes a desktop slideshow that changes the desktop background in a designated amount of time with a smooth fading transition. This feature supports pre-downloaded sets of wallpapers and also supports photo RSS feed.
  
Gadgets
Windows Vista introduced Gadgets and a sidebar which provides the ability to anchor Gadgets to the side of the user's desktop. In Windows 7, the sidebar has been removed, while gadgets can still be placed on the desktop. Gadgets snap to certain positions on the desktop and from each other; dragging with the Shift key held down prevents gadgets from automatically snapping into position. Windows 7 adds a Windows Media Center gadget to the default collection while removing the Contacts and Notes gadgets.
Managing gadgets is more closely integrated with Windows Explorer, but the gadgets themselves continue to operate in a separate sidebar.exe process. The Desktop context menu includes a new "Gadgets" menu option to access the gadget gallery, and a "View" sub-menu option to show or hide gadgets. Hiding gadgets results in the sidebar.exe process being unloaded, which Microsoft says is a power-saving practice. Unlike Windows Vista, all gadgets run in a single process, which saves memory, and the process is not run at all if the user has no gadgets on the desktop. Gadgets can be brought to the foreground on top of active applications by pressing Win+G.

Branding and customization
OEMs and enterprises are able to customize the logon screen wallpaper of Windows 7 that is displayed before a user logs on.



Windows Explorer
Libraries
Windows Explorer in Windows 7 supports file that aggregates content from various locations – including shared folders on networked systems if the shared folder has been indexed by the host system – and presents them in a unified view. The libraries hide the actual location the file is stored in. Searching in a library automatically federates the query to the remote systems, in addition to searching on the local system, so that files on the remote systems are also searched. Unlike search folders, Libraries are backed by a physical location which allows files to be saved in the Libraries. Such files are transparently saved in the backing physical folder. The default save location for a library may be configured by the user, as can the default view layout for each library. Libraries are generally stored in the Libraries special folder, which allows them to be displayed on the navigation pane.
By default, a new user account in Windows 7 contains four libraries for different file types: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. They are configured to include the user's profile folders for these respective file types, as well as the computer's corresponding Public folders. The Public folder also contains a hidden Recorded TV library that appears in the Windows Explorer sidepane when TV is set up in Media Center for the first time.
In addition to aggregating multiple storage locations, Libraries enable Arrangement Views and Search Filter Suggestions. Arrangement Views allow you to pivot your view of the library's contents based on metadata. For example, selecting the "By Month" view in the Pictures library will display photos in stacks, where each stack represents a month of photos based on the date they were taken. In the Music library, the "By Artist" view will display stacks of albums from the artists in your collection, and browsing into an artist stack will then display the relevant albums.
Search Filter Suggestions are a new feature of the Windows 7 Explorer's search box. When the user clicks in the search box, a menu shows up below it showing recent searches as well as suggested Advanced Query Syntax filters that the user can type. When one is selected (or typed in manually), the menu will update to show the possible values to filter by for that property, and this list is based on the current location and other parts of the query already typed. For example, selecting the "tags" filter or typing "tags:" into the search box will display the list of possible tag values which will return search results.
Arrangement Views and Search Filter Suggestions are database-backed features which require that all locations in the Library be indexed by the Windows Search service. Local disk locations must be indexed by the local indexer, and Windows Explorer will automatically add locations to the indexing scope when they are included in a library. Remote locations can be indexed by the indexer on another Windows 7 machine, on a Windows machine running Windows Search 4 (such as Windows Vista or Windows Home Server), or on another device that implements the MS-WSP remote query protocol.




Federated search
Windows Explorer also supports federating search to external data sources, such as custom databases or web services, that are exposed over the web and described via an OpenSearch definition. The federated location description (called a Search Connector) is provided as a .osdx file. Once installed, the data source becomes queryable directly from Windows Explorer. Windows Explorer features, such as previews and thumbnails, work with the results of a federated search as well.

Miscellaneous shell enhancements

Windows Explorer has received numerous minor enhancements that improve its overall functionality. The Explorer's search box and the address bar can be resized. Folders such as those on the desktop or user profile folders can be hidden in the navigation pane to reduce clutter. A new Content view is added, which shows thumbnails and metadata together. Two new buttons are added: A button to toggle the preview pane and another to create a new folder. Finally, storage space consumption bars that were only present for hard disks in Windows Vista are now shown for removable storage devices.
Other areas of the shell have also received similar fine-tunings: Progress bars and overlay icons may now appear on an application's button on the taskbar to better alert the user of the status of the application or the work in progress. File types for which property handlers or iFilters are installed are re-indexed by default. Previously, adding submenus to shell context menus or customizing the context menu's behavior for a certain folder was only possible by installing a form of plug-in known as shell extensions. In Windows 7 however, computer-savvy users can do so by editing Windows Registry and/or desktop.ini files. Additionally, a new shell API was introduced designed to simplify the writing of context menu shell extensions by software developers.


Start menu

The start orb now has a fade-in highlight effect when the user moves the mouse over it.
Windows 7's Start menu retains the two-column layout of its predecessors, with several functional changes:

1. The "Documents", "Pictures" and "Music" buttons now link to the Libraries of the same name.
2. A "Devices and Printers" option has been added that displays a new device manager.
3. The "shut down" icon in Windows Vista has been replaced with a text link indicating what action will be taken when the icon is clicked. The default action to take is now configurable through the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties window.
4. Taskbar Jump Lists are presented in the Start Menu via a guillemet; when the user moves the mouse over the guillemet, or presses the right-arrow key, the right-hand side of the Start menu is widened and replaced with the application's Jump List.

The search box, first introduced with Windows Vista, has been extended to support searching Control Panel items. For example, clicking the Start button then typing "wireless" will show Control Panel options related to configuring and connecting to wireless network, adding Bluetooth devices, and troubleshooting. Group Policy settings for Windows Explorer provide the ability for administrators of an Active Directory domain, or an expert user to add up to five Internet web sites and five additional "search connectors" to the Search Results view in the Start menu. The links, which appear at the bottom of the pane, allow the search to be executed again on the selected web site or search connector. Microsoft suggests that network administrators could use this feature to enable searching of corporate Intranets or an internal SharePoint server.


Taskbar

The Windows Taskbar has seen its most significant revision since its introduction in Windows 95. The taskbar is 10 pixels taller than in Windows Vista to accommodate touch screen input and a new larger default icon size (although a smaller taskbar size is available), as well as maintain proportion to newer high resolution monitor modes. Running applications are denoted by a border frame around the icon. Within this border, a color effect (dependent on the predominant RGB value of the icon) that follows the mouse also indicates the opened status of the application. Applications can be pinned to the taskbar, so that shortcuts to them appear when they are not running. The glass taskbar is also more transparent. Taskbar buttons show icons by default, not application titles, unless they are set to 'not combine'. In this case, only icons are shown when the application is not running. Programs running or pinned on the taskbar can be rearranged.




Pinned applications
The Quick Launch toolbar has been removed from default configuration, but may be easily added. The Windows 7 taskbar is more application-oriented than window-oriented, and therefore doesn't show window titles (these are shown when an application icon is clicked or hovered over, provided there are multiple windows for the application). Applications can now be pinned to the taskbar allowing the user instant access to the applications they commonly use. There are a few ways to pin applications to the taskbar. Icons can be dragged and dropped onto the taskbar, or the application’s icon can be right-clicked to pin it to the taskbar.


Thumbnail previews

Thumbnail previews which were introduced in Windows Vista have been expanded to not only preview the windows opened by the application in a small-sized thumbnail view, but to also interact with them. The user can close any window opened by clicking the X on the corresponding thumbnail preview. The name of the window is also shown in the thumbnail preview. A "peek" at the window is obtained by hovering over the thumbnail preview. Peeking brings up only the window of the thumbnail preview over which the mouse hovers, and turns any other windows on the desktop transparent. This also works for tabs in Internet Explorer: individual tabs may be peeked at in the thumbnail previews.Thumbnail previews integrate Thumbnail Toolbars which can control the application from the thumbnail previews themselves. For example, if Windows Media Player is opened and the mouse is hovering on the application icon, the thumbnail preview will allow the user the ability to Play, Stop, and Play Next/Previous track without having to switch to the Windows Media Player window.


Jump list
These are menu options available by right-clicking any icon on the taskbar or by holding the left mouse button and sliding towards the center of the desktop on an icon. Each application has unique jump lists which correspond to the features unique to the application, such as files recently opened or common tasks. For example, a Microsoft Word jump list might display all the recent documents opened; the Windows Media Player jump list displays recently played tracks and playlists that have been played. Internet Explorer's jump list displays recent history of websites and the ability to open a new tab or start InPrivate Browsing. Windows Live Messenger's jump list displays select common tasks such as instant messaging, signing off, and changing online status. While up to 10 menu items may appear on a jump list by default, Windows 7 provides the ability to customize this.



Notification area
The notification area has been redesigned; the standard Volume, Network, Power and Action Center status icons are present, but no other application icons are shown unless the user has chosen them to be shown. A new "Notification Area Icons" control panel has been added which replaces the "Customize Notification Icons" dialog box in the "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" window first introduced in Windows XP. In addition to being able to configure whether the application icons are shown, the ability to hide each application's notification balloons has been added. The user can then view the notifications at a later time.
A triangle to the left of the visible notification icons displays the hidden notification icons. Unlike Windows Vista and Windows XP, the hidden icons are displayed in a window above the taskbar, instead of on the taskbar. Icons can be dragged between this window and the notification area.The notification area has been redesigned; the standard Volume, Network, Power and Action Center status icons are present, but no other application icons are shown unless the user has chosen them to be shown. A new "Notification Area Icons" control panel has been added which replaces the "Customize Notification Icons" dialog box in the "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" window first introduced in Windows XP. In addition to being able to configure whether the application icons are shown, the ability to hide each application's notification balloons has been added. The user can then view the notifications at a later time.
A triangle to the left of the visible notification icons displays the hidden notification icons. Unlike Windows Vista and Windows XP, the hidden icons are displayed in a window above the taskbar, instead of on the taskbar. Icons can be dragged between this window and the notification area.







Aero Peek

In past versions of Windows, the taskbar ended with the notification area on the right side. However, there is now the Aero Peek button, which, when clicked or hovered over with the mouse, displays the desktop and gadgets by turning all windows transparent. This replaces the Show Desktop shortcut in the Quick Launch bar in previous versions of Windows. Aero Peek exhibits the same features used by the thumbnail previews, except it applies them to the desktop. If the mouse hovers over it, all windows are transparent, as shown in the picture. If the button is clicked, all applications are minimized, and when clicked again, they are restored.