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Microsoft has not yet announced a ship date for Windows 8, although some major media outlets speculate it might be available in late 2012. Reviewers consider that there is little reason to choose Windows 8 over Windows 7, unless using a touch-screen device.
History & development
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 traditional x86 microprocessors from Intel & AMD.
A 32-bit Milestone 1 build, build 7850, with a build date of September 22, 2010, was leaked to BetaArchive, an online beta community, which was soon leaked to P2P/torrent sharing networks 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, & native ISO image mounting.
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.
A 32-bit Milestone 2 build, build 7955, was leaked to BetaArchive on April 25, 2011. Features of this build were a new pattern login & more.
A 64-bit Milestone 3 build, build 7959, was leaked to BetaArchive on May 1, 2011. This build is notable for being the first publicly leaked Windows Server 8 build, as well as the first leaked 64-bit build.
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, & also supports taskbar thumbnails. The boxes that encase the "close, maximize, & minimize" buttons have been removed, leaving just the signs.
A 64-bit Milestone 3 build, build 7989, leaked to BetaArchive on June 18, 2011 after screenshots were revealed the previous day. An SMS feature, a new virtual keyboard, a new bootscreen, transparency in the basic theme, geo-location services, Hyper-V 3.0, & PowerShell 3.0 were revealed in this build.
Other new features found in leaked builds include a new Welcome screen, a new packaged application model called AppX that is based on Silverlight & Open Packaging Conventions, as well as a setting to automatically adjust window color to fit the wallpaper. There is also a stripped down "Immersive" version of Internet Explorer, similar to the mobile version of Internet Explorer, but using the desktop Trident rendering engine & a new "Hybrid Boot" option that uses "advanced hibernation functionality" on shutdown to allow faster startup times. Another is the ability to create a Portable Workspace: an installation of Windows 8 on a USB storage device.
At the Microsoft Developer Forum in Tokyo on May 23, 2011, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that the next version of Windows will be released the following year (in 2012).
"And yet, as we look forward to the next generation of Windows systems, which will come out next year, there's a whole lot more coming. As we progress through the year, you ought to expect to hear a lot about Windows 8. Windows 8 slates, tablets, PCs, a variety of different form factors."
However, the company quickly corrected Ballmer's words in a company statement issued that afternoon.
"It appears there was a misstatement. We are eagerly awaiting the next generation of Windows 7 hardware that will be available in the coming fiscal year. To date, we have yet to formally announce any timing or naming for the next version of Windows."
On June 1, 2011, Microsoft officially unveiled Windows 8 & some of its new features at the Taipei Computex 2011 in Taipei (Taiwan) by Mike Angiulo & at the D9 conference in California (United States) by Julie Larson-Green & 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 & developers.
Microsoft unveiled new Windows 8 features & improvements on September 13, 2011, day one of the BUILD developer conference. Microsoft also released a Developer Preview build (Build 8102) of Windows 8 for the developer community to download & start working with. Windows 8 Developer Preview can be installed on virtualization platforms including VMware Workstation & Oracle VirtualBox. The host's CPU must support hardware virtualization, & the virtualization usage - enabled in VM, in order installation to succeed.
Microsoft has shown a development roadmap at the BUILD conference stating that the next milestone will be Beta, Release Candidate, RTM, & general availability.
According to Microsoft, there were more than 500,000 downloads of the Windows 8 Developer Preview within the first 12 hours of its release.
On September 16, 2011, Microsoft announced that the Immersive Version of Internet Explorer 10 will not work with Adobe Flash or any other ActiveX plugins. Instead, it will use HTML5. The Desktop Version of IE10 will continue to support ActiveX plugins, including Flash.
Features
Features expected to be introduced in Windows 8 include USB 3.0 support (from a standard install disc), a ribbon interface in Windows Explorer, the Windows Store, the Protogon Filesystem, Windows To Go, among others.
Hardware requirements
The system requirements for the Windows Developer Preview (a pre-release version of Windows 8) are similar to those of Windows 7.
Minimum hardware requirements for Windows Developer Preview Architecture x86 (32-bit) x86-64 (64-bit)
Processor 1 GHz x86 processor 1 GHz x86-64 processor
Memory (RAM) 1 GB 2 GB
Graphics Card DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM driver model 1.0
(Not absolutely necessary; only required for Aero hardware acceleration. Graphics processors with no WDDM support will fall back to software rendering of Windows Aero & other 3D-accelerated graphics.)
HDD free space 16 GB of free disk space 20 GB of free disk space
A multi-touch screen is also required to take advantage of touch input. For Metro applications, a screen resolution of 1024x768 is required.
Building new touch hardware for Windows 8
Keeping the user experience at the top of the requirements, Windows 8 will kick off a new generation of computing devices, & it is only natural that touchscreen technologies will evolve with it. Our goal on the Windows team is to work in lock step with external hardware partners in the development of new hardware that will more fully support Windows 8 requirements, & ultimately provide the smooth, responsive, & natural touch experience that Windows users expect. Our continuing work with our touch hardware partners, suppliers, IHV’s (independent hardware vendors), & PC manufacturers will help us together deliver an immersive & intuitive touch experience in Windows 8.
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