Microsoft is
prepping to release its Consumer Preview of Windows 8 (also known as the beta)
sometime in the next few weeks. And although many details of the upcoming
operating system have already been revealed, a few new leaks suggest that the
company has some radical new alterations in store for users.
Chief among
these, possibly, is the loss of the Start button that long occupied the
left-bottom corner of the Windows desktop. According to The
Verge, which cited anonymous sources “close to Microsoft’s Windows 8
development,” the Start button that first appeared in Windows 95 is gone,
having been replaced by a “hot corner” and a “thumbnail-like user interface”
that offers previews of “where you will navigate to after clicking on the new
visual element.”
Either touch
or mouse input will activate this new interface. In contrast to past versions
of the operating system, Windows 8 will feature a start-screen of large,
colorful tiles linked to applications—the better to touch, in the case of
tablets. Users will also have the option of flipping to a more traditional
desktop interface.
Through its
official channels, Microsoft also provided some additional details about
Windows 8. According to the company’s Building Windows 8 blog, the beta will
feature the ability to “easily pin your favorite folders to Start,” a minimized
user-interface ribbon, and added hotkey information to the tooltips of relevant
buttons.
Microsoft is
actively tweaking Windows 8 in response to user feedback from the Developer
Preview and its blog postings. It has also adjusted the copy operation to pause
in the event of system hibernation or sleep, and included a new option to the
conflict-resolution dialog over two files with the same name.
“By checking
the box in the bottom left of the dialog,” read a Jan. 30 note on the blog,
“you can filter out all files that match on name, size (down to the byte), and
time (down to the granularity of the file system timestamp: 2 seconds for FAT,
100 nanoseconds for NTFS). The system will skip copying or moving these files.”
If Microsoft
ends up releasing the final version of Windows 8 late in 2012, it will be
exactly three years since it launched Windows 7, which became a monster seller
and, for many users, eliminated much of the bad odor associated with the
much-maligned Windows Vista. However, the success of Windows 7 could also work
against Windows 8, if users feel they’re upgraded too recently to consider
doing so again.
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