All about Windows 8 Consumer Preview
Maybe i think this windows more powerfull if the device had touch screen hardware.
Metro-style user experience
Interaction between Metro and desktop may be confusing
Windows Store for all Metro-style apps
The so-called Consumer Preview version of the next version of Windows, code-named Windows 8, debuted on February 29 (as promised). As with the September 2011 Developer Preview, this version is open to the public. But the Consumer Preview offers a more feature-complete peek at Windows 8 than did its predecessor. This version's well-rounded user experiences work not just with touch, but also with the mouse- and keyboard-input types that are common on today's PCs.
How you feel about Windows 8 depends on whether you accept that the Apple iPad and its tablet ilk are ushering in a new era of simpler, more approachable computing experiences. There's little doubt that Apple's devices (not just the iPad, but also the iPhone and, to a much lesser extent, the Mac) are making huge inroads with both average users and businesses of all sizes. So Microsoft's response—what it calls a "no compromises" vision for Windows that addresses both the touch-friendly, iPad-like future and the more pedestrian, workhorse scenarios for which we use more traditional computers—is at least timely.
It's also debatable whether the strategy makes any sense. Rather than take the more aggressive Apple approach and abandon the past for a new, lighter platform, Microsoft has chosen to drag its past (i.e., the Windows desktop environment) kicking and screaming into the future. In Windows 8, we see a strange mix of dual—and, dare I say, dueling—environments, duking it out for our attention. The result is powerful and backward-compatible, but confusing.
Dueling Desktops
Figure 1 shows the first of these two interfaces, the Windows desktop. This desktop has been spiffed up with a handful of new features, including a new Ribbon-based Windows Explorer, a new file copy-and-move experience, a new Task Manager, and integrated browsing of ISO and Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) disk image files. But Microsoft makes it obvious that this legacy UI now plays second fiddle. The desktop that we know, love, and understand is not where the software giant's attentions lie in this release.
Figure 1: Windows 8 desktop
Instead, up front and center is the second and newer of these two user experiences, which (annoyingly) doesn't even have a proper name. I call it Metro because it provides what Microsoft calls immersive, Metro-style experiences:
a new lock screen
a new Start screen, which replaces the Start menu that we've used since Windows 95, as well as the application-launching functionality of the Windows 7 taskbar
a new runtime environment, called WinRT, which supports new, full-screen, Metro-style apps
a slew of system-level UIs that cross between both UIs
Is it a mess? You bet it is, but in some ways it's a beautiful mess. Metro, which Figure 2 shows, is attractive. And although power users will shudder at the thought of its full-screen apps and experiences, the Consumer Preview proves that this environment works well with mouse- and keyboard-based machines, as well as with the touch-based tablets and hybrid devices. Microsoft has extended the Developer Preview's touch-based edge UIs, in which users swipe the edges of a touch screen to accomplish various actions, with a full selection of screen-corner hotspots (for mice) and keyboard actions and shortcuts. It all works surprisingly well—once you figure out what's going on.
Figure 2: Metro-style Start screen
One key to this system is that certain Metro experiences, such as the Start screen, PC settings, and Metro-style apps, are available whether you're in Metro or in the desktop. These include a new application switcher called, logically enough, Switcher, which Figure 3 shows; the new Start experience, which replaces the old Start button; and charms, a curiously named but useful set of system capabilities that includes Search, Share, Devices, and Settings. Charms are powerful, as it turns out, and context-sensitive. For example, when you access Settings from the desktop, you see desktop-related settings options; when you access Settings from a Metro-style app, you see settings that are relevant to that app.
Figure 3: Switcher
The interaction between Metro and the desktop might be confusing at first. It might help to consider the desktop as an app of sorts, something that runs underneath Metro rather than alongside it. That isn't what's really happening, at least not technically. But when you consider that the desktop environment was essentially the OS in previous Windows versions, you really do need a way to wrap your mind around its subservient nature in Windows 8.
The Metro Experience
So, the desktop works mostly as it did before, aside from the previously mentioned additions and a handful of UI deletions to accommodate the Metro UI. The real changes in Windows 8 come via that new Metro user experience. And it makes itself known from the get-go: Setup has been updated yet again, to be faster and sleeker. (IT pros will note that a handful of configuration options need to be completed after setup, making the gains there somewhat illusory.) The final phase of setup, called the out-of-box experience (OOBE), has been significantly updated with a Metro look and feel.
That new Metro-style user experience carries on from there, with a Metro-fied lock screen that will immediately be familiar to Windows Phone users (as Figure 4 shows). It has app-notification icons for such tasks as email, calendar, and even weather. And unlike the Windows Phone version, the desktop version of the Metro interface is extremely customizable. You can log on to the PC by using a smartphone-like PIN or picture password, which is fun. But the big news is that non-domain users can now log on directly to their Microsoft ID (formerly Windows Live ID), instead of linking the accounts later. In Windows 8, this capability accomplishes a lot, as many settings can be automatically synced between PCs that use Microsoft cloud services. (I've been told that domain users can link their accounts to a Microsoft ID, but I couldn't find the setting to do so in the Consumer Preview.)
