Redmond, Washington — Taking a different course than it did years ago, software behemoth Microsoft has portrayed just about every Windows launch since Windows 95 as the biggest change to computer operating systems, late on Tuesday pulled back the curtain on its new Windows 8 OS running on a Samsung tablet, designed to power not only personal computers but also rivals to Apple’s iPad.
Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live division at Microsoft, communicated the release at Microsoft’s “Build” Professional Developers Conference, being held this week in Anaheim, California, portraying the new OS as “an spectacular re-imagination of what Windows could be.”
The beta version, intended for developers, was posted to a company website shortly after 8 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and anyone who takes the time can download and have an early look at the next-generation OS.
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Windows 8 Start Screen (Credit: Microsoft) Click to enlarge…
The software giant will also begin to unveil Windows 8 this morning to 5,000 developers in attendance at the Anaheim Convention Center and the
company’s Build conference, will each get their copies along with a tablet produced by Samsung, preloaded with this early edition of Windows 8.
In a “Developer Preview PC,” as it is called, prepared for journalists and analysts provided in advance of the event, and as the company executives ran the budding operating system through its paces on an Intel Core i5 processor, a 1366-by-768 pixel touch sensitive display, a 64GB solid state drive, and 4GB of DDR3 memory, demonstrating sweeping changes to the way people will use their PCs.
Windows 8 was formulated to be Microsoft’s answer to criticism that it had ceded the tablet computer space to Google’s Android platform and Apple, which has dominated a market it ignited with the release of the iPad.
Certainly, there is little doubt Windows needs some re-imagining. It is still the most dominant operating system for PCs, used by more than 1 billion people around the globe. But PC growth has slowed to a crawl and this latest OS release is a decisive bid by Microsoft to remain at the heart of computing as the industry grows well beyond the PC.
“It is a blend, a hybrid, that attempts to present a person the advantages of an iPad and the advantages of a Macbook Air (Apple laptop) in a single device,” said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.
“This is going to be interesting,” he added. “The hardware optimizing it will likely be some touch-enabled ultrabook.”
Sinofsky emphasized touchscreen tablets on Tuesday as he boasted of the diverse types of hardware that Windows 8 will run after its official release. The operating system was also designed to let separate applications function together and to synchronize files across various Windows 8 devices. Sinofsky demonstrated the point by having a picture taken on a camera-enabled desktop computer pop up on a tablet.
“We re-imagined Windows,” Sinofsky said. “From the chipset to the user experience, Windows 8 works beautifully across a wide range of devices, from 10-inch tablets and laptops to all-in-ones with 27-inch high-definition screens without compromise.”
The week-long gathering will be crammed with sessions at which developers will be tutored in nuances of building applications for Windows 8. Microsoft gave customers their most-detailed look yet at the new operating system during a two-and-a-half-hour presentation at its BUILD Windows conference, which opened Tuesday and runs through Friday.
“It is a lot about how developers can build applications that brings about this new touch-centric environment,” said Wes Miller, research director at independent analyst firm Directions On Microsoft.
“Windows 8 is refurbished from the ground up,” he continued while at the conference. “We are really hearing tablet size and up, all the way into super-sized desktop computers.”
Rather than the familiar desktop photo covered with application and file icons, the new Metro user interface features square or rectangular tiles, (as shown in the image above). Some are static, such as the Internet Explorer or Control Panel tile. But others include dynamic content.
“Icons are yesteryear’s way of representing apps,” said Jensen Harris, partner director of program management in the Windows Experience group. “Tiles are the more modern way of representing apps.”
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Click to enlarge…
Tiles keep content flowing to the desktop, so that useful information surfaces for users rather than requiring them to fetch it.
“The idea is that you are always up to date about what is going on. You are always getting drawn into the apps,” Harris said. “The serendipity of the Web is being brought into Windows.”
Software masterminds unable to attend BUILD will be able to download developer copies of Windows 8 at dev.windows.com beginning at 0300 GMT on Wednesday.
Additionally, on a new Windows Dev Center site, Microsoft provided links to three different versions of Windows 8. The largest weighs in at 4.8GB and is a 64-bit edition that also consists of a developer tools such as a preview of Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Express and the SDK (software developers kit) for Metro-style applications.
There are two other editions available, a 64-bit version (3.6GB) and a 32-bit version (2.8GB) of the operating system, can also be downloaded. All downloads are available as a disk image in .iso format that must be copied onto a DVD or USB flash drive for installation purposes.
The downloads, which range from 2.8GB to 4.8GB in size, come with no restrictions, a company spokeswoman confirmed earlier in the day.
The preview requires a PC with 1GB of RAM (2GB for the 64-bit edition) and 16GB of hard drive space (20GB for 64-bit).
To install Windows 8 and the developers tools, users must overwrite the machine’s current operating system (XP, Vista or Windows 7) with a clean install. The smaller sans-tools versions, however, can be installed while retaining the files, user accounts and settings on a Vista- or Windows 7-powered PC.
As it typically does when it releases early-look software, Microsoft warned casual users to steer clear of Windows 8.
“The software is provided as is, and you bear the risk of using it,” said Microsoft on the download website. “It may not be stable, operate correctly or function the way the final version of the software will. It should not be used in a production environment.”
Windows 8 has to hit several more milestones before a polished version will be released to hardware makers for installation in devices heading for market.
“This is a pre-release product,” Sinofsky said. “You saw some little snafus today; there are going to be more of them.”
However, the company did not revealed any details on when Windows 8 will be launched, though many analysts expect it to debut sometime in 2012. The Windows 8 preview can be downloaded from Microsoft’s site.
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