How to download Windows 8 Developer Preview ?
Posted Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 5:14 am by Jason Cartwright
Microsoft are making the Windows 8 developer preview available to everyone, today. After being teased with demo’s during the Build Conference keynote, you probably want to try out the preview release. The good news is, there’s no keys or activation to deal with, effectively its open slather.
Expect activations later in the development cycle, usually around the beta stage. Given this is an early developer preview, clearly the goal is to get developers to write for it, so making it freely available makes a lot of sense.
The downside is that the current build doesn’t support upgrading from Windows 7, so you’ll need a clean install. This results in a better experience when going between OS’s as a general rule, so not entirely a bad thing.
Starting later tonight you can download the Windows 8 Developer Preview. This includes a 64-bit (x64) build with development tools to build apps, and a 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) build without development tools. The releases also include a suite of sample applications (please note these are merely illustrations of potential apps, not apps that we intend to ship with Windows 8).
The later tonight is obviously a reference to US time, this translates to around 4pm for those of us on AEST (GMT +10) time.
Update
The downloads have gone live early. Get the bits (ISOs) from http://dev.windows.com.
Log into Windows 8 with your LiveID
Posted Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 4:27 am by Jason CartwrightUpdate
Microsoft have just released a teaser site for the new functionality – http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowslive/skydrive/
It may not be Bingo, but one of my predictions from last night just became a reality. Windows 8 supports LiveID login ! Once your logged in, your settings from other machines come with you. Because the user profiles are now based on your LiveID, 542 Million people already use it, this means your account storage sits on SkyDrive.
You will also be able to manage and access content on other computers you own. Seen in the screen shots below, you can see the system and dvd drive of a work machine via the web interface. Better yet, application developers can take advantage of this storage via the Live API’s. As an example, applications can expose photos from your online services like SkyDrive, but also any Live connected services like Facebook, Flickr etc.
There was no mention of the changes to storage amounts, but its clear to handle these kind of data, unlimited would make a whole lot of sense. As for Windows Live Mesh being a strange separate product and storage bucket, that just got resolved, the end result is a much better experience for end users, one that will gain instant adoption by virtue of being included in Windows.
That’s it for the Build coverage for now. There’s sure to be more over the coming days, particularly after we get the Windows 8 bits later today.
Download the developer preview of Windows 8 in a few hours from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/home/
Windows 8 Refresh you PC feature
Posted Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 3:57 am by Jason Cartwright
We all know Windows machines, well computers in general, slow down after a while with all the crap we install. Microsoft have a great new solution coming in Windows 8 to solve this issue. Refresh your PC will return your computer to it’s out of box experience, however your files aren’t effected. This will reset Windows, without loosing data. Expect to require some free hard drive space for this to work.
If your the IT support for you extended family, this tool is likely to be a saviour for you. If troubleshooting is taking longer than half an hour, it’s likely faster to get your mum to use this option.
If you’d sell or give away your PC, there’s an option for that as well, which will actually remove your files. Make sure you’ve backed up before you use this one.
Windows 8 to improve multi-monitor support !
Posted Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 3:54 am by Jason Cartwright
Multiple monitors is a must-have setup for a lot of people these days. While Windows 7 made improvements to supporting multiple screens with shortcuts like Windows key + P, Windows 8 will go even further. Above you can see a desktop stretching across both dual displays.
Even better is the taskbar actually stretches across both displays. Currently in Windows 7 you need to resort to 3rd party tools to make this happen. These paid tools like Ultramon, just got made redundant. Application icons can optionally display only on the monitor that the application sits on.
Expanding Multi-monitor support even further, the new Windows 8 UI can be positioned on one monitor, with your traditional desktop on the other. Using a keyboard shortcut Windows key + down, you can switch this interfaces.
Windows 8 store, selling apps just got real easy
Posted Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 3:07 am by Jason Cartwright
The Windows 8 Store was just demo’d during the Build Keynote with some very interesting details. If your a developer, pay attention, you’ll like this. The Windows 8 Store is similar on the back-end to the Windows Phone application developer portal. Sign in with your account, submit your app, set a price and wait for it to be approved.
Applications will need to go through Microsoft Certification before reaching the Store to ensure quality and security for end users. Naturally the pay off here is Microsoft will host your application and the bandwidth associated, along with taking care of payment methods. The offset, which wasn’t discussed is what percentage cut Microsoft takes for selling apps through the Windows 8 Store.
Windows 8 store categories will include Featured, Games, Entertainment etc. In an impressive dog-food effort, the store itself is built using html + JavaScript, showcasing just how powerful web-based applications can be.
Standard Windows apps are also allowed to be sold through the store, avoiding the need for developers to rebuild apps, just to get in the app store. That’s great news for developers and the Store itself, expect the number of apps to grow, very quickly.
Windows 8 ‘Charms’
Posted Wednesday, September 14, 2011 at 2:51 am by Jason Cartwright
See that toolbar on the right ? Microsoft have finally announced an official name for it. Charms is the cross-application toolbar for Windows 8. The demo during the Build keynote showed the Search feature at the top, but other options include sharing, returning home with the start button, accessing devices and settings.
Despite being seen during the Windows 8 launch videos, Microsoft wouldn’t provide any label for this tool pane. We know know and can refer to it as charms. This is likely extensible or customisable, but we’ll have to wait till the developer preview of Windows 8 is available later today to confirm.
Update
Later in the keynote, Sinofsky also referred to the toolbar at the bottom of the Remote Desktop demo as Charms as well.
