Microsoft today released their new SkyDrive app for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 which finally competes head on with services like Mozy and Dropbox for online backup.  You can read Martin’s full writeup here, but as people will now be using this to create online backups of their files I thought I’d show you how to get the very best from it.

I always recommend, and indeed I always have recommended moving your personal files and folders away from Windows.  This means moving them to a different physical hard disk or partition.  The advantages of doing this is that if something goes wrong with Windows and you have to reformat your hard disk, you won’t lose all your files too.  You can move your user folders in Windows by following these simple steps…

1. Click your name in the top right of the Windows Vista / Windows 7 Start Menu
2. Select the user folders you want to move, I suggest Downloads, Favorites, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures and My Video
3. Right-click on the selected files and click Cut from the menu that appears
4. Move to the hard disk or partition where you want to store your files
5. Right-Click and select Paste

It’s slightly more complex with SkyDrive though as you may have a tremendous amount of files that you perhaps don’t want to store online, such as your music and video; don’t forget there’s still a limit of 2GB per file on upload and some videos might be larger than this and a maximum of 125GB online storage even if you pay for it.

I would suggest then creating two store folders for your user files and moving them away from Windows in two steps.  One folder for the files you just want to keep on your computer, and another folder for things you want to sync and backup in the cloud.  So you would end up with, for example D:\Files and D:\SkyDrive.  Alternatively you could create these within a sub-folder if you have other content on the disk.

Myself I am only backing up my Documents and Pictures folders to SkyDrive so these are in my new SkyDrive folder on a separate hard disk and the other user folders, Music, Video etc. are stored in the Files folder.

There is a good reason for this.  When you install SkyDrive it asks you what folder on your hard disk you want to use for the local storage of SkyDrive files.

By default, as you can see here it chooses your C:\Users folder but this isn’t keeping your files away from Windows.  So why does this matter?

This matters because in order to upload new and additional files to SkyDrive you drag and drop them into this folder on your hard disk and the SkyDrive sync software takes care of the rest.  If you have to wipe your Windows installation, you then have to wait for everything to sync back down from the cloud again before you get your files, as this will be your own local copy.

This is where you hit the Change button and you point the SkyDrive app at your new SkyDrive folder.  This already contains all the files you want to store and keep a backup of in the cloud, but they’re safe and away from your copy of Windows.  This would be the D:\SkyDrive folder we created earlier.  Remember if you have already installed SkyDrive you can uninstall and reinstall it to change the default store folder.

SkyDrive doesn’t mind that the files are here and will merrily sync the files in these folders up to the cloud and your new online backup.  I hope this helps you get the very best out of SkyDrive online backup.  This is a great new service and with the correct set-up you can be trouble-free for years.

How to Get the Best Cloud Backup / Sync Out of MSFT’s new SkyDrive App was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

Hi all, it’s that time of the month again (every first Thursday) for my free webcast and I think this month’s one is going to be very popular.  Manually Removing Viruses and Malware from Windows 7 is a masterclass in what you need to do to get meanies and nasties off your computer.

On the O’Reilly website, who are hosting this free event, they say…

Getting a virus on your computer is a pain and they’re becoming ever more difficult to remove. In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out, talks you through the process of manually and safely removing viruses and malware from your computer without damaging your files or Windows itself.

It can be extremely difficult to remove malware and viruses, especially when they will almost always keep on running in Safe Mode so you can’t even get at them there.  I’ll talk you through all the steps you need to perform, how and when you need to do them and tell you what you need to shut down when and where.

This webcast also delves into some of the Administrative tools in Windows 7 that you may not be familiar with or may not have used before.  Everything is explained and you should be ready to clean up infected computers from then on.

The webcast starts at 10AM PT San Francisco | 6pm – London | 1pm – New York | Fri, Apr  6th at 3am – Sydney | Fri, Apr  6th at 2am – Tokyo | Fri, Apr  6th at 1am – Beijing | 10:30pm – Mumbai and last for one hour.  There will also be a Q&A session afterwards where you will be able to answer questions, and the chat room is always busy with people offering advice as well.

I hope to see you all there.  Again the webcast is completely free and you can register here.

Manually Removing Viruses and Malware from Windows 7 – Free Webcast was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

There’s a certain concern raised when a book you’re writing suddenly appears on Amazon when you’ve only written a quarter of it  :/  That said, it’s still very exciting and today this is the first look (for me too) of the cover for the first of my new Windows 8 books.  I don’t know about you but I think it looks really cool.

The new “Windows 8 Power Users Guide” is the first commercial edition of my self-published Power Users Guide series, the Windows 7 one is still available for download completely free here.  If you are wanting to, or even just thinking of writing a Windows 8 book because it’s a career you’d like to get into I want this book to speak up for each and every one of you, and indeed this is what the dedication inside the cover will say.

It’s a great time to self-publish a book as many services, including Amazon itself allows you to sell your eBooks and much more through their CreateSpace service.  Writing the book doesn’t need to be difficult either, my original Windows Vista Power Users Guide was just 68 pages and still had great reviews.

So what would your take on a Windows 8 book be and who would you write for?  Your market and knowing the competition is very important.  Perhaps you want to write for complete computer newbies.  Here you’d be competing with the Dummies books and Microsoft Press’ Step-by-Step books which are usually 500 pages, black and white and heavy going.  There’s also my own forthcoming Windows 8: Out of the Box which is none of these things and perhaps you’d want to write something closer to that.

Maybe you want to write an in-depth guide for enthusiasts or IT Pros, much like the new Windows 8 Power Users Guide.  There’s no need to cover the entire OS in-depth.  Just the pieces you feel are appropriate for your book.

So consider this a rallying call.  If I can do this then anybody can, I genuinely mean that.  If you want to write a book on Windows 8, Windows Server 8, Office 15 or any new product it’s never been easier and there’s never been a better time.

The Windows 8 Power Users Guide Now Availble for Pre-Order on Amazon was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

As the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out from Microsoft Press you might think I’d know absolutely everything about problems and issues with Microsoft’s new OS.  But there an almost infinite number of variations of software and hardware being used with Windows and so the problems that can be encountered will always be many and varied.

No though we have a new version of Windows currently in beta, and being released later this year.  But for all of you currently using the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (which still isn’t finished and will have bugs in it anyway) what are the issues you are facing, what problems have you encountered with the OS and have you even found any esoteric fixes?

If so, then please post any problems, bugs or issues that you encounter that can prevent happy usage of the OS in our Windows 8 Help Forum.

The problems would include…

• Startup problems
• Networking issues
• Peripheral and hardware issues
• Software incompatibilities
• Administration problems
• Security problems
• Stability issues
• Problems unique to Windows 8′s new features

…and also any suggestions you might have for things to go into a next edition of the book, should it even exist 

It would also be very interesting to hear how you feel the first book could be improved and what cool ideas you have for it.  Feel free to leave a comment with your suggestions, problems and hopefully a few fixes too    I was very lucky with the first edition of Troubleshooting that there was no competition in the market.  Next time the situation is bound to be very different and as you’re all brilliant problem hunters here at Everything Internet (formerly Windows7News and Windows8News), I know you’ll have many interesting suggestions.  Thanks all.

Send me Your Windows 8 Troubleshooting and Other Problems was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

The Windows key on our keyboards can do many things, at least when paired with another key in a shift-type arrangement.  We’ve long known now that there would be many more keyboard shortcuts in Windows 8 to help users perform tasks that would otherwise be done with gestures and touch, and now the company has blogged about all those keyboard shortcuts.  Microsoft’s Rob Margel released the list on his MSDN blog and there are certainly a lot of them.  In fact it can be argued that there are too many for the typical user to ever remember.

What is more likely however is that some of the more usaful ones, such as Win+C to bring up the Charms menu, Win+X for the admin menu and Win+B to switch to the desktop from within the new Metro Start Screen will be the most used and remembered.

Below is the complete list of keyboard shortcuts for Windows 8.

Windows key – Brings up the Metro start screen. You can start typing to search for an app, just like the Win7 start menu.

· Win + B – Switch to the (classic) Windows desktop and select the tray notification area.

· Win + C – Brings up the Charms menu, where you can search, share, and change settings.

· Win + D – Brings up the old Windows desktop.

· Win + E – Launch Windows Explorer with Computer view displayed.

· Win + F – Brings up the Metro File search screen.

· Win + H – Opens the Metro Share panel.

· Win + I – Opens the Settings panel, where you can change settings for the current app, change volume, wireless networks, shut down, or adjust the brightness.

· Win + J – Switches focus between snapped Metro applications.

· Win + K – Opens the Devices panel (for connecting to a projector or some other device)

· Win + L – Lock PC and return to Lock screen.

· Win + M – Minimize all Windows on the desktop

· Win + O – Locks device orientation.

· Win + P – Choose between available displays.

· Win + Q – Brings up the Metro App Search screen.

· Win + R – Switch to the (classic) Windows desktop and display the Run box.

· Win + U – Switch to the (classic) Windows desktop and launch the Ease of Access Center.

· Win + V – Cycles through toasts.

· Win + W – Brings up the Metro Settings search screen.

· Win + X – Launch Start Menu.

· Win + Y – Temporarily peek at the desktop.

· Win + Z – Opens the App Bar for the current Metro application.

· Win + Page Up / Down – Moves tiles to the left / right.

· Win + Tab – Opens the Metro application switcher menu, switches between applications.

· Win + , (comma) – Aero Peek at the desktop.

· Win + . (period) – Snaps the current Metro application to one side of the screen. (Right side)

· Win + Shift + . (period) – Snaps the current Metro application to the other side of the screen. (Left side)

· Win + Space – Switch input language and keyboard layout.

· Win + Shift + V – Cycles through toasts in reverse order.

· Win + Enter – Launches Narrator

· Win + Arrow Keys – Switch to the (classic) Windows desktop and enable Aero Snap

Microsoft Release Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcut List was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

For those people still using older Microsoft Windows Mobile smartphones and devices the latest discontinuation notice for the closure of the Marketplace for those handsets have been sent out by Microsoft.

In the email the company say that “Microsoft is discontinuing the Windows Marketplace for Mobile service for Windows Mobile 6.x. Please review the details below to familiarize yourself with the changes”.  They go on to detail exactly what the closure will mean for people.

Beginning May 9, 2012, the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace service will no longer be available. Starting on this date, you will no longer be able to browse, buy or download applications directly on your Windows Mobile 6.x phone using the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace application and service.

Applications and games acquired from the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace service installed on your Windows Mobile 6.x phone will continue to work after the service is discontinued on May 9, 2012. However, additional downloads of these applications and games from the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace service will no longer be available.

This closure doesn’t mean that the handsets themselves will stop working after the 9th May 2012, just that users will no longer be able to download apps from the marketplace, and that there will be no further updates available for apps either.

If you are still using a Windows Mobile device, they proved very popular in businesses because of their Exchange email and Group Policy support, then you should make sure you download any new and update any existing apps before this time.

Microsoft also point out that in the event a phone is wiped or reset, either deliberately or accidentally, there will be no way to get the apps back onto the handset after this time.

Please note: All phone data, including applications acquired through the Windows Mobile 6.x Marketplace service, data and user-specific settings, will be deleted from your Windows Mobile 6.x phone in the event that your phone is wiped or “hard reset.” Any data on a removable storage card, if present, will also be deleted if your phone is wiped or “hard reset”.

Microsoft sign off the email with a reminder that the marketplace for their new Windows Phone operating system already includes “over 60,000 applications and games” should people wish to switch to a new handset.

Windows Mobile Marketplace to Close, May 9th 2012 was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

When Microsoft released the Windows 8 Consumer preview recently they described it as “feature complete”, which came as no surprise to anyone.  The Windows 7 beta was also feature complete and indeed “feature locked”.  Between the release of the beta in January 2009 and the final product that October absolutely nothing changed.

This won’t be the same for Windows 8 however where several features within the operating system are either unfinished or simply missing completely.  One indication that this might happen was shortly after the Developer Preview was released which was missing Windows Media Centre, a perhaps little used feature that’s crucially important to those people, including myself, who do actually use it.  I for instance have had a Media Centre PC as my main means of receiving and recording live TV in my living room since 2003.

Microsoft had to announce shortly after the DP was released that Media Centre was going to be in the final version of Windows 8, but that it simply wasn’t finished yet.  It is in the Consumer Preview but it’s the earlier Windows 7 version and not a swanky new one.  We know this because it doesn’t have a new Metro interface or the new Windows 8 logo.

Another feature that is missing is Windows To Go.  We can imagine that this feature is actually very difficult to code and, like the Storage Spaces feature might be a bit late.  Storage Spaces has been finished for the Consumer Preview however, primarily I think because it’s loosely based on a similar feature that’s been kicking around Windows Home Server for several years now.  Windows To Go, where you can boot your entire copy of Windows 8 from a USB pen drive on any other computer, is completely absent from the Consumer Preview version however.

Some people have also said that the new Hyper-V virtualisation client in Windows 8 is also missing from the Consumer Preview.  This actually isn’t the case, it is there but it’s just switched off.  If you go into Programs and Features and then select Turn Windows Features on and off you will see it in the list.  Ticking it will activate it though your computer might need to reboot.

What is unclear is if these missing features, and indeed any more that we may not yet know about, will be tricked down through Windows update or separate ISO installation files, or if we won’t get to see them until the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) version of the operating system?

As a Windows author this is personally very frustrating as it’s impossible to write about features that either don’t exist or that there is no information about, let alone the problems associated with getting screen grabs of them.

For everyone else though just these two missing features are ones that have got people very excited, and I’m sure many people hope that Microsoft do release or at least announce something soon.

Windows 8 is very different to the Windows 7 in that is certainly not “feature locked”.  Despite being based on the already very stable Windows 7 code-base it is actually quite unstable at times with certain software elements prone to crashing.  This will no doubt be the fault of the new WinRT run-time engine powering Metro which may also be unfinished.

It will be great to see a final and complete Windows 8 however, especially as an author, and I’m sure the world can’t get access to these features soon enough.  What do you think about the incomplete or missing features in Windows 8?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

If the Windows 8 Consumer Preview is ‘Feature Complete’ Where are the Missing Features? was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

Nokia’s Lumia 800 Windows Phone, while lovely, had some problems with battery life when it first appeared.  Nokia and Microsoft rushed out a patch that fixed the problem but now it is being reported that a new update to the phone’s firmware, version 1600.2487.8107.12070 goes even further and may triple the battery life of the handset.

WPCentral forced the update onto a handset and reported the staggering result.  “We can testify that 12070 has nearly tripled our battery life since we forced-upgraded from 11401, making this a worthy and important update for Lumia users.”

This great news almost seems too good to be true as a tipling of battery life would push the Lumia 800 into first place in the battery stakes ahead of Apple’s iPhone.  Currently it is common to have to charge any smartphone once a day, though some can be really terrible under heavy usage.  This news could mean that we’re not far from only having to charge the handsets every few days or perhaps even once a week in the foreseeable future.

It is also interesting to note that it’s not just the physical battery that gives us a good or a bad life.  The firmware, software, operating system and the way the battery is used and managed have a significant impact on battery life.

In addition to the improved battery usage WPCentral are also reporting that the update “tweaks the camera’s white balance a little and sound is improved via the bass response.”

The update is already rolling out to Lumia 800 users in Singapore and the rest of the world can be expected to follow soon.  The Lumia 800 is already the world’s most desirable Windows Phone and one of the the most desirable smartphones on the market.  I have used one for a month on loan from Nokia and I can confirm that it is indeed a fantastic handset.  This firmware update can only make what is already brilliant, even better.

Will Lumia 800 Update Triple Battery Life? was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

It will never be possible to simplify productivity software as complex as Microsoft Office down to a Metro UI level, which is why it has been reported that the Office team at Microsoft aren’t keen to release a metro version.  However a new leaked series of screenshots published on The Verge seem to show that some Metro visual elements have indeed made the move from Windows.

This new cleaner interface is probably what we would expect but Microsoft have long worked to make Office easier to use and to make documents and features within it easier to find.

It is actually quite difficult to improve on Microsoft Office and this is a problem the company has faced for some years now.  For many people versions such as Office XP offered every feature they needed and many more consider Office 2003 to be the definitive version.  This being the last version before the introduction of the Ribbon interface in Office 2007.

The Ribbon still exists in Office 15 and is the one interface element that could port successfully to Windows 8′s new Metro UI.  In fact this blogger has been left wondering why it isn’t there already?  This alone could make for a reasonable version of Office for Metro.

With Office 15 Microsoft’s focus has been on productivity and helping people to get things done.  This is a much better approach then working on features.  As I mentioned earlier most people only use a tiny proportion of Office features and many people are content to use the stripped-down free Office 2010 Starter that ships with new Windows PCs or even the free Office web apps.  The ARM version of Windows 8 will also come with free desktop versions of Microsoft Office, though how usable they will be remains to be seen given the history Windows 7 has on tablets.

A public beta of Office 15, which does still not have a formal name, is expected to be released in the summer with a final version due at the end of the year or early next.

Office 15 Screenshots Show Metro-Style Simplification was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

Those of you who know me might know that up until now I’ve been wary about Windows 8.  Until now I’ve been a big supporter of Microsoft’s products.  After the unveiling of the Windows 7 beta just over three years ago I’ve felt that the company had got its mojo back, and was finally headed in the right direction.  The quality of the products they have released the last three years including the Live Essentials Suite, SkyDrive, Kinect, Windows Server 2008 and especially Windows Phone gave me confidence that they had put years of stale development behind them.

I completely understood when the company unveiled a tablet interface for Windows 8 and also understood why they talked about this and nothing else.  Alter all, in order for this new Metro platform to succeed at all it has to be popular straight off the bat with huge volumes of high-quality apps and hardware manufacturers all across the world throwing their weight behind it.  So when Microsoft chose not to talk about the desktop or features for IT Pros and businesses I wasn’t concerned.

This doesn’t mean that IT Pros and businesses haven’t had their own concerns and my mailbag has been consistently full of queries and requests to give talks on the subject.  All I’ve been able to say is “it’s not finished” and “there’s still a lot more to come”.  Well it’s now here and initially I was terribly disappointed.  There was no Group Policy setting to set the desktop as the default UI, it was seemingly difficult to find and access some of the administration tools and then the company announced that those tools were being left out of the ARM edition completely.  With my head in my hands I wondered if the bad old days were back and if Microsoft wasn’t shooting itself in the foot.

Now I’ve spent some time living and working with Windows 8 and it’s really won me over.  What’s more it’s done it entirely on its own merits.  So what is it that has won me over and why?  Well I want to start from the basic premise that it isn’t perfect, but neither was Windows 7, which I really love.  Windows 7 was a half-way house for me and neither part was done properly.  The old Start Menu still existed but it was now alongside a new way to launch programs, the Taskbar.  Why did we need both methods, it made little sense to me.  What was really needed was an expansion of jumplists to hold software buckets, with the Taskbar icon itself being the containing folder for a program in the same way folders exist in the Start Menu, and for the jumplist to contain recently accessed files alongside the other sub-programs that appear, and for the Taskbar icon to be programmable to launch one of those programs (ie, the main one).  This always struck me as a far more sensible way to move forward.  With this in place the Start Menu could be removed completely.

Unfortunately software developers didn’t agree and you still don’t find software with a “Pin to Taskbar” option when you install it.  They still all still offer the old “Pin to Quick Launch Area” option though when there is no reason in Windows 7 to use the Quick Launch area at all.  With Windows 8 I wasn’t expecting these concerns to be addressed but I was very pleased when the Start Menu was removed.  What really annoyed me though was  that there was no real alternative in place to it.  No expanded Jumplists, no way auto-pinning of installed desktop software to the Taskbar, no joined-up thinking.

Coupled with the new Start Screen being locked as the default UI and I was beginning to lose hope.  Having actually used Windows 8 for a while now though I can confirm that it really is much easier to stay and work on the desktop than you might think.  In a computing session there really is no need to go to the Start Screen and, when you do if you’re not the type of user who would want to use Metro apps, there’s no real incentive to stay there.  Currently I am using my Start Screen as a series of desktop widgets, rather like the widget view on the Mac desktop, to just give me live and up to date information on a wide range of things at the push of a single button.  Again that single button-push gets me back to where I need to be.  Used this way the Start Screen is really rather elegant.

Metro itself is an excellent way forward and for consumer users for the coming years I’m not really going to criticise it much.  Sure it’s not perfect but Windows 7 wasn’t perfect either (in fact I’d challenge you to ever point to any operating system on any platform that was).  It’s easy to see where some things can and will be improved over time, or where there is scope to do so.  Full-screen apps being the default is one area where we might see significant change for example and the expansion of menus and the inclusion of the Ribbon interface are others.

Once you get past the fact that Windows 8 isn’t perfect you try to find a way to use it that best suits you.  I rather like the widget approach and can see it being very useful to me in the future.  My concerns about getting to the administrative tools have been completely allayed and I’m being every bit as productive in the OS and on the desktop as I am in Windows 7.

So the time has come for me to admit not that I was wrong, but that I judged Windows 8 far too harshly.  It is every bit as good as Microsoft could make it given the time available.  It’s not perfect but nothing else is either, and while it might not be for everybody, I can certainly find a place for it in my world.

How Windows 8 won me over was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

In my main review of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview I decided to split it into four parts, each one focused on a different type of Windows user to see how suitable this new operating system would be for them.  Split across Windows8News and our sister site gHacks I’ve so far written about Consumers and IT Pros and soon I’ll write on gHacks about Businesses.  Here though I want to concentrate on Enthusiasts.

So far it’s been a resounding win for Consumers but it’s too close to call for IT Pros.  You might think then that it will also be a win for Enthusiasts but first let’s have a look at what an “Enthusiast” is.  These people won’t commonly use their computer for work but they will have a powerful machine that they will perhaps have built themselves.  They’re usually early-adopters of new technology with a disposable income that affords them the luxury to stay at or near the cutting edge.  These people will commonly want a high-end graphics card and an SSD in a new computer and will probably do a fair amount of gaming on the machine.

With building their own computer will come a fair amount of technical knowledge.  These people will know how Windows works under the bonnet much more than an average IT Pro, who will concentrate more on getting work done.  To this end they’ll be familiar, at least in part, with the Windows Administrative Tools and they’ll not be averse to using patches and mods to change an operating system to suit their needs.

So with Metro and the new Start Screen will these people suddenly face a barrier that they won’t like?  Microsoft have made some efforts to make the Administrative Tools easy to access.  All you now need to do is mouse to the bottom left of your screen, where you would have previously found the Windows button and right-click.  It’s not an obvious method of getting to the tools however and many enthusiasts might find themselves becoming frustrated with how difficult some of these features are to find normally.

As I mentioned though these people will not be averse to installing mods and patches, they probably already have an account with Stardock for their software.  It won’t be too long then before they install something that makes Windows 8 work the way they want it to.  After this time they’ll be perfectly happy and will either stick with just the desktop or the new Start Screen.  Let’s not forget too the integration with the Kinect, Xbox and Xbox Live.  These just add additional value to a product for both hard core and casual gamers.

When it comes to multi-touch these people will almost certainly want to use it for design and play.  When they can afford it they’ll buy themselves a touch-screen, never wanting to be left out of the next big thing, and use multi-touch extensively for viewing photos and more.

On that Start Screen how might they react to it?  I believe that for enthusiasts the Start Screen is a great idea.  All of their games and software will be available to them all of the time, easily customisable into groups.  They’ll probably also use live tiles for apps much like widgets are used on the Windows 7 desktop or in OS X on the Mac.  These people don’t want to fuss around dipping into lots of different pieces of software to find information when there are zombies to kill!

With the same software compatibility that Windows 7 has I believe that Windows 8 will be a win for enthusiasts.  They’ll grow to love the Start Screen and they’ll find that in some ways the OS is actually slightly easier to administer than Windows 7 before it.  So the call is right, for enthusiasts Windows 8 can only be a winner.

Windows 8 for Enthusiasts was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

Windows 8 has been criticised by some IT Pros and businesses for, seemingly, forgetting all about them.  Now though it is beginning to emerge that Microsoft hasn’t forgotten about them after all.  On the face of things access to the full Control Panel, Administrative tools and Computer Management Console are difficult.  It’s not easy to access the Run panel or start the Command Prompt with Administrator rights.

If you mouse to the bottom left of your screen though and right-click (yup, this is a mouse only action) you get a menu giving you quick and easy access to all of the administrator tools and more.  Here you will find Programs and Features for uninstalling software, Network Connections, Power Options, the Event Viewer, System, Device manager, Disk Management, Computer Management, the Command Prompt (also with Administrator rights), the Task manager, Control Panel, Windows Explorer in case you accidentally unpin it from the Taskbar), Search and Run.

This will be welcomed by a great many people as, to be honest, it makes accessing some of these tools even easier than in Windows 7.  Previously you could right-click on Computer in the Start Menu to bring up the Computer Management Console or simply access the full Control Panel from there.  Some more advanced features however were slightly more complex to access.

The removal of the Start Menu from Windows 8 meant that on the face of things some features and software would be harder to access.  It is good to see that Microsoft have addressed this problem in a sensible and common-sense way.  This bottom-left screen right-click works in both the new Start Screen and the desktop.

It is interesting to note that in the Group Policy settings for the Consumer Preview the references to both the Start Menu and the Classic Start Menu still exist.  This bodes well for people looking for third-party hacks to turn them back on.  No doubt many more useful information will be found in Group Policy and the Windows Registry in the coming weeks.

Additionally the screen grab feature has at long last been improved with WinKey+PrntScrn now automatically saving a screen grab for you in your Pictures folder.  There’s no longer any grabbing and saving of an individual window using this feature meaning that it’s still no alternative to third-party tools, but for casual use this will be welcomed by many.

One of the most useful, and most hidden, tools in Windows 7 has also survived in Windows 8.  The Problem Steps Recorder, that can only be accessed by searching for PSR, takes screenshots of your desktop when something changes, automatically highlighting the change and annotating the image(s) with technical details of what is going on at the time.  This is an incredibly useful diagnostic tool for Windows and was originally only intended as a temporary tool for the Windows 7 beta, thus explaining why it never made it into the Start Menu.  Testers and IT Pros liked the feature so much though that Microsoft agreed to keep it in the final product.  It is very nice to see it is in Windows 8 as well.

Here at Windows8News we’ll continue to keep you up to date on everything that’s found in Windows 8.  Why not tell us what you think of this features in the comments below?

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I was considering what was the best way to write a review of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and thought it might be best to split it into four different articles, with each one being aimed at a different type of Windows 8 user.  So across Windows8News and our sister site gHacks I’ll write in the next couple of days about Windows 8 for Consumers and Enthusiasts (at Windows8News) and for IT Pros and Business (on gHacks).

It is appropriate to write reviews now too and pass judgement as Microsoft have declared Windows 8 feature locked, something that was also done with the Windows 7 beta and that hasn’t come as a surprise to anyone.  In this first part of the review I want to look at how consumers might use Windows 8 and what there is in it for them.

In a way consumers have always had the hardest time with Windows.  The operating system was originally designed for business and enterprise users after all.  They’ve had to get used to drop down menus, business productivity suites at home (many of which offer much more power, functionality and as a result, buttons and options, than the home user would ever want or need) and an interface focused primarily on getting work done.  At no point since the creation of Windows by Microsoft have consumers had an easy time of things.

Now that is all set to change with what can be argued is an entirely consumer-focused operating system.  It’s still not going to be a completely easy ride for consumers though because with a new UI comes a new learning curve.  Some people might be resistant to this such as the elderly who have had trouble learning how to use a computer for the first time might not want to have to start learning it all over again.

This problem will reduce over time and more and more consumers move to touch screen devices, let’s face it there’s not that much consumers want to do with computers that requires a full-time hardware keyboard anyway.  For the moment though, and on existing computers, some of the mouse and keyboard controls are fiddly.

As a result we can expect a plethora of help and how-to guides and books to appear in bookshops and on magazine stands when Windows 8 goes on sale, including my own “Windows 8: Out of the Box” from O’Reilly, which will of course be excellent and much better than the competition 

Looking at the consumer computing market however it’s very clear that any interface learning curve will not be something that anybody will worry about.  Just look at how people have taken to smartphones, Android tablets, iPads and Windows Phones without quibble and are using them happily.  So people using Windows 8 for leisure will have everything going for them.

One of, if not by far the best feature for consumers will be the ability to take your Internet favourites and Windows 8 preferences with you wherever you go.  Simply by logging into a Windows 8 computer with your Live ID the system will automatically download these for you, so it will be like working on your own computer.  The privacy implications of this feature have yet to be determined and it is something that I will be looking into.  What happens to your Internet favourites etc on a computer you will no longer use and that’s owned by somebody else?  Will they have access to them etc..?  For now though we can assume that Windows 8 is safe and secure for consumers.

The inclusion of anti-virus, however difficult Microsoft seem to have made it to find, is also something that will give people extra peace of mind.  In fact the whole experience of using Windows 8 is that only the things you actually want to do are in the foreground, with everything else pushed backwards, out of sight.  As an experience in how to create a truly consumer-focused operating system Windows 8 seems right on track.

One of the areas where Windows 8 will truly lead the tablet revolution is the includion of sensible multi-user profiles.  This is something Windows users have always enjoyed but none of the other tablet operating systems currently support it.  I say currently because we can probably expect Android to bring this feature in with a future edition of the OS.

So for the first part of this review, we can call Windows 8 a win and a resounding one at that.

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I’m going to reserve my judgement over the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (beta) that was released yesterday and probably write this up in a multi-part review with specific articles targeting consumers, enthusiasts, IT pros and businesses spread across Windows8News and our sister site gHacks (for the latter).  I know that you’re all itching to hear our first impressions however so I thought I’d write these up here.

I’m writing this from the point of view of an IT pro who spends the vast bulk of my time in Windows creating and generating content.  Be this articles here, emails, Word or Excel spreadsheets, graphics or video so I’m a big content creator.  It’s fairly obvious then that straight off the bat Windows 8 is going to offer me very little as almost everything I’ll want to do will be on the desktop, and all the advanced features in Windows that I like to use will also not be found in Metro.

Some of this will change over time as great Metro apps come along to give us new and imaginative ways to create and generate content within Microsoft’s new UI, but for right now it’s still the desktop all the way.  I wanted to set this out properly before I began as it’s important when offering my first review of the Consumer Preview that I understand where I’m coming from as much as you do.

If you are thinking of installing the CP as your main OS I would be very careful.  On my Windows tablet everything works fine but my laptop wasn’t so happy.  Here the touch-screen drivers initially didn’t work and after some tweaking only responded to single touch despite reporting multi-touch support.  Also when I performed an upgrade over Windows 7 as a test many things in the Windows 8 desktop crashed when I used them, and even the Metro Calendar wouldn’t start.  This is a beta operating system and should be treated as such!

As promised the first thing I looked for was a way within Group Policy or otherwise to set the desktop as the default UI.  I’d been privately told by a couple of ‘softies that such a feature would indeed exist, but no matter how deep I looked I couldn’t find it.  However references to the ‘classic’ Start Menu still exist in Group Policy so it is only a matter of time before some hacks appear to allow you to set the desktop as the default UI and, no doubt, have a selection of on or off Start Menus.

This is where my initial impressions sit at the moment with my feeling about Windows 8 much the same as I did with XP.  With this operating system it was very common for IT pros and enthusiasts to install all manner of patching and hacking tools to modify the UI.  With Vista and Windows 7 I didn’t have any at all but I can feel myself going back to this.

For those of you who like Star Trek movies you may have noticed the in-joke in the title to this article, but it’s a common things even some people within Microsoft have said to me.  In many ways Microsoft don’t need to be worried too much about this as businesses only upgrade to each alternate version of Windows anyway so they can focus here on getting the consumerization of the OS right.

On this score they’ve succeeded spectacularly.  Windows 8 is the very first version of Windows you can properly use if you have no IT skills at all.  Sure there’s a learning curve which many people still may not like, but it’s not a difficult one and the recent adoption of alternate operating systems such as Android have proven that this isn’t a barrier for people.  For less casual users though much of the power of Windows 7 is now buried or hidden within the OS, and new cool features such as the Hyper-V virtualization tool can be hard to find.

I’ll bring you my full review over the next few days and my fellow editors here will give you theirs from their own perspective as well.  Hopefully this will give you a really well-rounded view of the OS, so you can decide if it’s going to be right for you.

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At an event at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft have this afternoon released the Consumer Preview (beta) for Windows 8 to the public.  You can download it from http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/download

It was interesting to hear what Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky was saying about the new operating system though, as it gives an interesting insight into why Microsoft have done what they have.

He began his keynote by saying. ”We knew of course when we did the developer preview that the UI wasn’t done — lots of it wasn’t done. The goal was to get it out there and get people to understand what we were after.”  This is a tacit reminder that the negative feedback the Developer Preview received wasn’t something he felt was justified (though he did release it publicly!).  He went on to say “But today every element of the OS has been touched and improved as we prepared for the consumer preview of Windows 8.  Since the developer preview in September, we have made over 100,000 changes in Windows 8. We think of it as complete all the way through.”  Needless to say Microsoft now consider Windows 8 to be finished (bug hunt not withstanding).

He went on to describe Windows 8 as “a generational change the product.” which is true as, just as he said, it’s the first major update since Windows 95, at least cosmetically.

During his keynote however there were three other statements that I thought were very interesting…

“We wanted to scale across skill levels from the beginner to the hardest-core multi-monitor professional.”

“Connection to the cloud is a very important part of how we thought about Windows 8.”

“And everything comes together with our Metro-style design language. It’s designed to scale with the capabilities of the devices. Whether you’re on a small form factor through PCs through a console you’re using with Kinect.”

It’s clear that Microsoft want Windows 8 to be an operating system for everyone, and that they see a unified operating system approach as the way forward.  Only time will tell if this is the best and correct strategy.  He described this as “PCs without compromise” and the next demonstration, about tablets, went on to discuss cross platform apps.  The Windows blog, helping to launch the beta, said Microsoft were Reimagining Windows…

With Windows 8, the whole experience of Windows has been reimagined. It’s designed to work on a wide range of devices , from touch-enabled tablets, to laptops, to desktops and all-in-ones. We’ve designed Windows 8 to give you instant access to your apps, your files, and the information you care about most so you can spend less time navigating and more time doing what you actually want to do. You can move between Windows 8 PCs easily and access your files and settings from virtually anywhere. We’ve made touch a first-class experience and navigating with a mouse and keyboard fast and fluid. And just like Windows 7, reliability and security features are built in. It’s the best of Windows 7, made even better.

Over the next few days we will dissect the Windows 8 Consumer Preview and give you the answers to the questions you’ve been asking us.  We will go in-depth and take a good look, a really good look at what this new operating system means, what the true impact and scale of the company’s new Metro UI is and we’ll discuss if this is the right upgrade for you or your computer when it is released for sale later this year.  They do point out though that this product still is a beta, and not finished.

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview is just that: a preview of what’s to come. It represents a work in progress, and some things will change before the final release. This means you’ll encounter some hiccups and bugs. One of the great things about widely releasing a preview like this is that it gives us a chance to get a lot of feedback through telemetry, forums, and blog posts on where we can smooth out some of the rough edges.

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Tomorrow Microsoft are set to formally unveil the Windows 8 (beta) Consumer Preview to the world at the Mobile World Congress and many people around the world will be eagerly waiting for the live webcast that always accompanies these events.  Now however ComputerWorld are reporting that Microsoft will not be streaming the event live, and it is unclear if it will be shown afterwards either.

The event starts at 3pm local time (2pm GMT, 9am EST, 6am PST) and the download for the Consumer Preview is expected to go live at some time during the event itself.

It is unusual for Microsoft to not publicly stream such an event and many people will be disappointed.  There is no word yet on who will present the event though it will probably be fronted by Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky.  Some have speculated that the MCW event is an odd event at which to unveil a desktop operating system, and that it demonstrates how tablet-centric Microsoft’s new operating system is.  This is causing some concern, especially with IT Pros who will be viewing Windows 8 with caution.  Of course we’ll bring you all the latest news here at Windows8News as it breaks and full screenshot galleries of the Consumer Preview build.

The invitation only event will be held at the Hotel Miramar in Barcelona, Spain and much of the detail about the operating system has been shrouded in secrecy.  I have been at a Microsoft event today however and was told that Microsoft staff have been allowed to download and install the build on their own computers ahead of the unveiling event tomorrow.  Other than that company staff are under extremely strict secrecy rules and no more information was forthcoming.  It can only be assumed that after tomorrow is out of the way and Microsoft staff are allowed to begin talking about the product, that there will be huge sighs of relief from within the company corridors.

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This time last year the internal codename for Windows 8 at Microsoft was Windows vNext (Version Next). This is perhaps just to be considered a product codename in the same way that Windows 7 was known as Vienna (much to the annoyance of people who lived in the Austrian city) and previous editions were named after locations in the Microsoft executives favourite ski resort in Canada, Whistler, named after the ski resort that was later the location for the 2010 Winter Olympics, Longhorn which is a cafe at the resort and Blackcomb that was an early designation for Windows 7.

Anybody who asked a Microsoft staffer what vNext meant the standard reply was “the next version of Windows” but the truth probably goes much deeper than that and I can’t help but wonder if Windows Next was seriously considered for a while as a product name.

The reason behind this is that a year ago Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft CEO, began talking about what we now know as Windows 8. He was using words like “bold” and describing it as “risky”. When September came around we realised just what he meant as the Metro interface we’d been shown previously was unveiled as the new default UI for the operating system. Windows was being reinvented, re-engineered and effectively rebranded as a new type of OS.

In this context the name Windows Next makes complete sense. If you are completely redesigning an operating system from the ground up, as Apple did with OS X, why not give it a bold new name? There are reasons to stick with Windows (version number) however. These include familiarity, people might not necessarily have known that Vista followed XP, or that Next followed 7. It is always clear that 8 follows 7 and a standard numbering system has worked very well for Microsoft Office and Windows Server for some time.

There is also the fact that many things are construed from a name. Vista for instance was very appropriately named as it was lovely to look at, but difficult to actually interact with! If Microsoft had pressed ahead and called this next release Windows Next, and it didn’t turn out to be this, or was a failure of the likes of Vista, then the company and its products could be held to ridicule… or worse. Given the way some people seem to feel about the new Metro user interface, this could well have happened.

It is interesting to think though that Microsoft could have considered the name “Windows Next” for this product. It seems very appropriate in many ways, but all things considered, Windows 8 is perhaps a choice that is more sound. It would be very interesting to hear what you think though. Do you think Microsoft could or should have called this new OS release “Windows Next” or do you think sticking with numbers is the way forward?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

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One of the most requested features for Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud storage and syncing service, which already comes with a healthy 25Gb of free space. appears to be almost ready for release.  Brazilian website gemind.com has released some screenshots that show extra storage of 20Gb, 50Gb and 100Gb for an additional $10, $25 and $50 per year.

It is also rumoured that Microsoft are set to raise the file size limit for uploads from 100Mb to 300Mb, which will make SkyDrive much more suitable for video storage.  Lastly there is talk of the company preparing Windows and Mac-specific versions of a SkyDrive app, though it is already that some basic SkyDrive functions are already part of Windows 8.  These will be necessary though as the current web-interface for uploading files to SkyDrive is unfriendly and featureless.

Microsoft is clearly aiming their sights at DropBox, the current market leader in cloud storage and it should do well, especially if the Live Mesh file sync client is allowed to use all of the available space, rather than the current 5Gb limit for cloud storage.

There is still along way for SkyDrive to go before it becomes a no-brainer for users, including the ability to strip attachments out of Hotmail (both sent, received and old and new) to help people who use Windows Live Mail or the Outlook Hotmail Connector plug-in, but this is a very welcome start.

There’s absolutely no word yet on when the extra services will be launching, but it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that they’re definitely coming and that they will be rolled-out gradually as usually happens with Microsoft products.  Usually countries such as US, UK and some major European countries get the first call with others rolled out within a few months.

It is also rumoured that Google is planning a similar service, though GDrive rumours have been around for some considerable time now.  Google have had difficulty with their non-search and advertising products, especially when it comes to integration.  Microsoft conversely is the current king of the integrated service and clearly this move with SkyDrive is intended to keep them at the top.

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A new logo for Windows 8 was doing the rounds last week, and many people considered it to be a fake.  It transpires however that this new logo is in fact the real deal, as Microsoft have officially unveiled it today on their Windows blog.

The new logo, which is reminiscent of Microsoft’s new Metro interface, is apparently a window, not a flag (as per previous versions of the Windows logo).  In their blog post the company said…

With Windows 8, we approached the logo redesign with a few key goals on mind.

1. We wanted the new logo to be both modern and classic by echoing the International Typographic Style (or Swiss design) that has been a great influence on our Metro style design philosophy. Using bold flat colors and clean lines and shapes, the new logo has the characteristics of way-finding design systems seen in airports and subways.

2. It was important that the new logo carries our Metro principle of being “Authentically Digital”. By that, we mean it does not try to emulate faux-industrial design characteristics such as materiality (glass, wood, plastic, etc.). It has motion – aligning with the fast and fluid style you’ll find throughout Windows 8.

3. Our final goal was for the new logo to be humble, yet confident. Welcoming you in with a slight tilt in perspective and when you change your color, the logo changes to reflect you. It is a “Personal” Computer after all.

The blog provides a commentary on the evolution of the Windows logo.  The new logo, similar to the logo for the company’s Windows Phone operating system, will be available in any colour and is much simpler than the logo that has come before and that we’ve been using in one for or another for decades.

This is the most significant change to the Windows logo in all that time, but it could be argued that Windows 8 is also the most significant change to the operating system in just as long.  The Windows logo however is one of the most recognised logos on the planet, and it remains to be seen how easily people will recognise the new one.  The full logo is below.  So what do you think of the new logo?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

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Next week I’ll start writing not just one, but two new Windows 8 books, I’ll find the time somehow and have already booked a nice summer break to recover  :}  I always want to make my books as great and as readable as they can possibly be, so I thought I’d introduce them to you here and ask what it is that YOU want to see in them.

The Windows 8 Power Users Guide is the first commercial version of my self-published Power Users Guide series.  The book is getting a content makeover this time around and will be for enthusiasts and IT Pros who either want to find out how to use Windows 8 like the pros do, or who already are a pro and want to really unlock the power of the OS.

Windows 8 Out of the Box is a very different book for a very different market.  This book will be for complete computer newbies or non-technical people.  It will focus on the things we all actually do with our computers and work through simple and, crucially, short instructions on how to achieve the most common computing tasks.  This will include things that Windows 8 might not be able to do natively but that we use our computers for day to day.

Here at Windows7News and Windows8News you’re always full of great ideas.  Are there any areas you’d particularly like me to focus on, perhaps virtualization or deployment in the Power Users Guide or advanced photo editing or home networking in Out of the Box.  Why not let me know in the comments below and you can help shape these books to become the very best that they can be.  Thank you all 

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A new Windows 8 logo has apparently been spotted in both a leaked build of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (beta) and also on a new tablet.  The logo, which is a Metro’fied version of the standard Windows squares is seen on the new Charms menu and seems quite fitting for Metro.  The new images come from Chinese site cnbeta.

It is also reported that the existing Windows logo remains on the boot screen for the operating system, which implies that either Microsoft are trying to create a distinct identity for metro or that the build the images were taken from wasn’t complete.

NeoWin has had a crack at deciphering the Chinese text and it appears the Charms bar image is a rendering of what the Charms bar could look like with the new logo.  This it’s impossible at this stage to determine the authenticity of this logo or its use with Windows 8.

The Windows logo that we are all familiar with has been with us for several decades and is easily identified around the world.  It is unlikely then that Microsoft would move away from it completely or even partially.  If however the company wants to create a completely separate identity for either Metro or Windows tablets then such a move is possible.  It would be a good way to differentiate Windows running on ARM from its desktop counterpart.

We will have to wait another week or two to know whether this new logo is real or just a hoax, and if and where it will be associated with Windows 8 and Metro.  Why not tell us what you expect Microsoft to do, or also what you think of the alternate logo design.  You can leave your comments below.

UPDATE:

It doesn’t take much digging to discover a hoax!  See below…

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Of all the people in Microsoft we’d like to hear more from, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky is by far the quietest and most secretive.  That was until a few days ago when he suddenly appeared on Twitter, or did he?  The account wasn’t the man himself, being clear that “Oh, I’m not ‘the’ Steven Sinofsky by the way. He’s got a little project to focus on for now.”

Microsoft acted swiftly and uncharacteristically politely by tweeting the individual behind the account saying “@StevenSinofsky please see guidelines on parody and impersonation. Your account is not following them them and has been reported.” before eventually taking a slightly softer tone when replying to another user about the account.  ” … all in good humor, too much mail from confused people as account name a bit too real. follow the rules is all we ask .”

The incident, as reported by NeoWin, has now been resolved with the account being renamed @FakeSinofsky but his promise of free Windows on ARM tablets for all TouchPad owners was both interesting and amusing, both because of the dwindling support TouchPad owners who are still using WebOS are finding, but also because anybody in this position is likely to think that WebOS is better.

Twitter has a great many fake accounts for celebrities and notable people of which Steven Sinofky is just one of the most recent, and Twitter has strict rules for such accounts though it does allow them.  So long as people know that an account is fake there’s really no harm that can be done and it’s all in a bit of fun.  It is reassuring that Microsoft’s legal people haven’t stepped in and taken a harder line on this occasion as might have been expected.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, a great many people online have been criticising Sinofsky for remaining so quiet and not coming forward with the answers to the questions they have been asking about Windows 8.  This could be because at the time those answers didn’t exist, it could have been that Microsoft needed and wanted to steer the dialogue in a certain direction (which is the most likely) or it could be that they didn’t care or want to (unlikely this one).

The sad news though is that HP TouchPad owners won’t be receiving a new Windows on ARM tablet.  As a TouchPad owner myself I can only say Damn!

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Microsoft has long been concerned about students with academic email addresses buying cheap copies of Windows and Office for friends and family members with the hefty discounts they get with their academic email address.  Now though the company has decided to crack down on the practice by offering a new version of Office 2010 instead.

The new suite, “Microsoft Office University 2010″ is only for those in colleges and universities and replaces the old Student edition.  It you are a student or a member of staff with a .ac email address (as it’s impossible for Microsoft to tell one from another) you can buy the suite which is now on sale in the US for $99.

It contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher and Access and doesn’t come with a product key.  Instead it uses an online activation system where you have to log in with your student email address in order to get the software to work.

My concern is that if you are in the last year or two of your study this could present quite poor value for money as, as soon as you no longer have access to your .ac email address, and some universities can be very quick to rescind them, you will no longer be able to reactivate the product.

One some PCs that aren’t used for much this might be fine for a while, but eventually something will happen that will cause you to have to reinstall Windows, or you will upgrade to Windows 8, perhaps by buying a new computer.  Suddenly then you’ll find the software you’ve paid for can’t be activated or used.  In the new FAQs for the product Microsoft say…

Office University 2010 does not come with a product key. Your eligibility will be verified online before completing purchase. This product will not work without successful verification as you will not have a product key.

You will be required to verify your eligibility online to use this software. 1.Go to www.office.com/verify. 2.Sign in with your Windows Live ID or create one using any email address. 3.Provide your school email address, sign-in ID, or international student identity card (ISIC).

Once you pass verification, the online site displays the product key.

In many ways Office 2010 Home and Student, which is around the same price but can activate on up to three computers, offers much better value for money.  It only includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote but these are the only apps most people need.  While some people might miss Outlook, Microsoft’s free Windows Live Mail offers many of the same features and there are free alternatives to Publisher and Access available.

It is completely understandable for Microsoft to change their stance regards academic activations, but to not reduce the price of the product, leaving it the same as before but unusable after you leave college or university, is an unwelcome surprise.  If you live in a country where the full version of Office 2010 Student is still on sale, and you’re considering buying it, I’d recommend you do so while you can.  It is still available in the UK and other countries for a limited time.

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Microsoft have now announced much more about their plans for Windows 8 running on ARM architecture including the somewhat curious decision to support the full Windows desktop, even though almost nothing can run on it.  But the fact that the desktop exists at all, and this means that it might be possible to install software that doesn’t come directly from the new Windows Store, leaves an interesting malware question mark over the platform.

So far, Windows 8 on ARM is the most malware resistant operating system on the planet!  I’ve always wanted to say that but this time it’s actually true    No malware at all exists that can infect this platform as nobody’s been able to write anything for it yet.  Thus, Windows 8 on ARM for the primary reason that it will be an embedded OS, will go on to be the most secure version of the operating system ever.  This won’t stop some forms of malware that try to trick users into giving up sensitive details, especially in the desktop version of Internet Explorer that will still support plug-ins (but ONLY ARM-encoded plug-ins I might add!) but nothing will be able to attack the operating system directly.  This will make Windows 8 on ARM just like iOS, QNX or WebOS in being malware resistant.  I’m leaving Android out of this as Google don’t monitor apps as they’re submitted and thus the platform does have a malware problem.

But this question mark over the Windows desktop and whether you will be able to install apps separately from the Windows store still needs to be answered.  What’s more another question Microsoft have yet to answer is whether Windows 8′s new in-built anti-virus software, Windows Defender, a rebadged version of Microsoft Security Essentials, will also be in the ARM version of the OS.  In theory there’s no need to ever have it, or any other anti-virus protection on the ARM platform.  With Microsoft vetting everything that comes through the Windows store, and only downloadable malware to worry about it again will be as secure as iOS, QNX and WebOS, where the majority of tablets run fine with no anti-malware protection whatsoever.

I do find it curious that Microsoft aren’t yet addressing these problems.  It’s very likely, and I will expect this, for Microsoft to say that the ARM devices will ONLY support apps and software from the Windows Store.  It’s also likely that nobody will ever release desktop software for WIndows on ARM either as the market for such programs will be too small to justify the enormous development costs.  The ARM desktop then will only ever be used for six programs.  File Explorer (formerly known as Windows Explorer), Internet Explorer (for which no plug-ins with the possible exception of Flash will ever exist) and Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote (none of which in all likelihood will support VB scripts or Macros).

I’m left wondering then if Windows 8 running on ARM processors could truly be as secure as the competition.  This is Windows and Microsoft though so you can imagine why I’m having a nagging doubt.  The company’s track record with security in Windows isn’t exactly stellar.  Windows 7 with User Account Control might be a nice and secure platform to work on, but nobody in their right mind would ever consider using it without having some type of malware protection installed.  There will still be the WIndows SmartScreen protection, but will this help?  You need an active Internet Connection to use it and how effective can it be anticipating threats that don’t yet exist?

So what do you think about the security of both Windows 8 running on ARM processors and Windows 8 running on Intel?  Do you think that Microsoft will include Windows Defender with the ARM version or will people never need it at all?  Do you expect to be able to install programs on the ARM desktop, or for tablet manufacturers to begin making machines with full USB ports so you can plug pen drives into them and do exactly that?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

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Microsoft have released an extensive blog post and a video about Windows 8 running on ARM processors.  The video also shows off new apps that have not been seen before including email and calendaring.  One of the biggest questions about Windows 8 on ARM has now been answered, will there be a desktop.  The answer to this is a resolute yes.  In the post Microsoft said…

“WOA (Windows on ARM) includes desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. These new Office applications, codenamed ‘Office 15,’ have been significantly architected for both touch and minimized power/resource consumption, while also being fully-featured for consumers and providing complete document compatibility. WOA supports the Windows desktop experience including File Explorer, Internet Explorer 10 for the desktop, and most other intrinsic Windows desktop features—which have been significantly architected for both touch and minimized power/resource consumption.”

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This does raise some interesting questions.  For example will these four Office apps be full or cut down versions, more like the free Office web apps?  It also indicates that, for the time being at least, Microsoft have abandoned all development on a Metro version of Office.  This is a tremendous shame given that Adobe Photoshop Touch has already shown how powerful touch apps can be, and that Microsoft’s Ribbon, which is already touch-friendly but can be found nowhere in Metro, would suit the form factor very well indeed.

The question also needs to be asked of what will people use or need the desktop on ARM devices for, and will they ever use it?  I’ve written about this on our sister site gHacks today where I make the case for once again splitting Windows into consumer and business versions.  In short though the main problem will stem from the fact that it is unlikely software houses will recode their existing Windows software for ARM chips (existing x86 and x64 software will not run on the new platform, even in an emulator).  This will leave a desktop with only four Office apps, Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer and I can’t help wonder if this will confuse the people who want to use their existing software, and annoy IT Pros and business in equal measure.

Either way the video, which you can see below the screenshots here, shows Windows 8 being very speedy on an ARM machine.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise as I’ve tested Windows 7 on a 1GHz AMD C50 processor and it was extremely quick and responsive.

The video, as I said, also shows off new apps, and I’ve taken some screen grabs of them here for you to see.  I have to admit the new email and calendaring apps look lovely, and every bit as pretty and functional as I’d hoped.  Another question that’s been answered is will there be a dedicated Metro file manager.  The answer to this too is yes and a screenshot can be seen below.  There is much more in the video itself.

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Those of you who follow me regularly will know that last year I designed a new Metro-themed skin for my own website, The Long Climb and that if I’m honest it’s not worked very well.  The reason being that what I ended up with was a half way house between a new Metro website and a traditional style blog.  Clearly I was going to have to think again and do some major overhauling of the interface to get it right.

This got me thinking in some depth about what would make a really good Metro website and why that would be.  It’s not just a case of putting together some blocks with stuff on them along with a few circular icons and hoping for the best.  When designing a new website there are all manner of things to consider such as the visual order of the items you see on the page and how the reader is drawn around the page, how items will fit together (which is especially important on a Metro site when symmetry is vital but elements are all different sizes) and how you might accommodate external items such as advertising.

Then you need to consider how to accommodate different types of device.  These include smartphones, tablets of varying makes and sizes and full PCs where, with people running Windows 8 they could be using the Metro version of Internet Explorer, full screen on a 1920 pixel wide monitor.  These all have to be accommodated for so an adaptable design is required that will automatically rescale the elements on a page to fit the width of the browser window.

Then you have to consider that different web browsers on different devices operate in a variety of ways with some supporting plug-ins and some not, such as iOS and the Metro version of IE10 in Windows 8 not supporting Flash (or any plug-ins at all come to that).  It was clear then that the website would have to be true HTML5 in order to have any kind of longevity.

On a device such as Windows Phone or a Windows 8 tablet or computer the design also needs to feel natural and a comfortable fit for the user interface.  When Microsoft designed the Metro UI concept it wasn’t just about slapping some blocks together, it was about using symbols and iconography that we’re used to in our daily lives that allow the content to shine while making the interface itself fade into the background.

Suffice to say that when I really got into this I realised just what a major project I had taken on, especially when I began to think of all things I would want to do with the site in the years to come.  I needed a proper and full design brief then and so began to write such a document to help me get my ideas together, and that a designer and coder could use as a bible when actually building the site.  I thought I’d share this document with you, firstly as it ended up being a 52 page behemoth on how you can design and build a Metro website, but also because I thought you might find some of the content interesting or even useful if you are planning to design and build your own Metro website.

You can view and download the book on this HERE, sadly the embedding here didn’t want to work.  This new website will go live for me sometime this year.

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Say what you like about Windows 8 (and who isn’t) but it’s embracing new technologies like never before.  This got me looking at Apple’s desktop operating system, OS X, and asking myself if Windows 8 might leave the Lion trailing far behind in its dust.  First things first though, I’m not going to assume that Windows 8 will be a tablet operating system, as that would be unfair given that Windows in its various forms currently runs on about 1 billion desktops and probably about thirty or forty tablets worldwide.  I’m also not anti-Apple, as OS X is a very polished and accomplished operating system that almost nobody has a bad word to say about.  What I want to do is take each operating system on its merits and compare these two operating systems as they will stand, shoulder-to-shoulder this October when Windows 8 is expected to launch.

This means we will still be using OS X Lion on iMacs because Apple’s desktop OS release schedule usually means they release something new every eighteen months to two years, and with Lion coming out in the summer of 2011, that means the next big cat will lag from a few months to as much as a year behind Windows 8.  So where will these two operating systems stand and why, do I think anyway, Windows 8 will be ahead of the pack?

Let’s start with touch, as Windows 8 is centred around it in a way no desktop operating system ever has been before.  This is significant because when you look at it objectively Windows is the only desktop operating system to ever feature touch.  It’s never been in OS X or GNU/Linux and, although most people expect the next generation iMacs and Macbooks to be multi-touch enabled they might not appear for another year or more.  Touch is important as any new way to interact with our computers opens up opportunities both for existing users and people who are new to technology.  This can include the elderly, disabled or very young children, all of whom can have trouble with keyboards.

Touch brought with it handwriting recognition to Windows, which has now been with us in some form or another since around 2005 when Microsoft first introduced the concept of the tablet PC.  The handwriting recognition in Windows is really quite mature now and far ahead of the competition.  Apple, by contrast doesn’t even offer the feature on the iPad and it has to be added via a third-party app.  Again this offers new ways to interact with our computers and opens them up to new people and new markets.

While we’re on the subject of interfaces there can be little doubt that Microsoft’s Kinect sensor will revolutionise the way we use PCs in the same way it has done for gaming.  It may only be useful for broad swipes but imagine the fun people will have playing with it on a new laptop, or the benefits it can bring to the physically handicapped?

It’s not just in interfaces that Microsoft is leagues ahead of Apple.  Data encryption is another area where they still rule the roost.  No matter how secure people might tell you their Macbook is, it’s still vulnerable to being dismantled and having the hard drive removed.  Microsoft’s Bitlocker drive encryption technology has now been with us since 2005 and is widely considered as the business data encryption tool.  This is at a time when data protection and data encryption are more important than ever before.

Add to this new technologies such as hard disk storage pooling, new advanced file management features and the Windows To Go feature, which will allow you to load your entire copy of Windows 8, including all it’s installed software onto a bootable USB pen drive and Windows 8 is clearly well in the lead.

If you want to come back now and say that the average desktop user doesn’t need any of these features then I would say this to you.  Each one of the very few technologies I’ve listed here is either currently making a big difference in the world today, or is set to do so very shortly (such as Windows To Go).  There is nothing here that can be considered frivolous or useless in any way.  In short I could suggest, if I dare, that Apple have spent so long concentrating on the smartphone and tablet space that they’ve simply taken their eye off the desktop and when they had chances to import some of these technologies into OS X, remember that OS X and iOS run on the same core kernel, they missed the opportunity.

There are also, and this is important to say, areas where OS X is ahead of Windows.  While some of these areas have been historically significant, such as user security, OS X doesn’t currently lead in any meaningful way, and with the technologies that are making a big impact in the world today.

The reason I say this is because, while the focus of Windows 8 might be on it’s funky new Metro front end, many people will be comparing Windows and OS X and wondering why the precocious Metro upstart is so far ahead.  Apple clearly has some catching up to to, and they’d better hurry because I do actually want to buy an iMac, but until they begin to support touch they can forget it.

Will Windows 8 Leave OS X Trailing in its Dust? was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

There are times in life when people can’t help but cry out “why has this taken so long?” and today could indeed be considered one of those days as Microsoft, in conjunction with UK Child Protection Agency CEOP have released a child-friendly version of their Internet Explorer web browser

The browser is essentially IE9 as standard with some additional web links and Jumplists embedded into it, and the browser’s content protection feature already turned on.  There is a dedicated startup tab for the “ThinkuKnow” website, where children can get online safety advice, and a kid-friendly jumplist with quick links to services such as their online Safety Centre.

With so many more children now online and at much younger ages than ever before this will be welcomed by parents both in the UK and elsewhere, where the parental control features will still work.

While kids can see CEOP links in the Jumplist, parents will see a different jumplist where they will be able to set the age range of their child or children.  From this IE9 will take over and block any inappropriate content.  There are also settings for both teachers and vulnerable adults, making the browser useful in places where computers are accessed by mentally handicapped people you might not wish to view such material, or where you might not want inappropriate web content appearing in a classroom.

Now I should point out that this is no catch-all and occasionally some things will filter through, but as a general idea goes I have to take my hat off to Microsoft but chastise them equally for taking so long to get around to it.  Frankly this feature should have been built into Windows years ago.

You can download the modified browser from the ThinkuKnow website and if you have young children, the browser supports children up to 16 years of age, then it can only be a worthwhile addition to the family PC.

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There’s still a lot we don’t know about Windows 8, and won’t for the next couple of weeks until the Consumer Preview (beta) is released.  I know that there’s still an awful lot to come, especially for business users, IT Pros and Enthusiasts that we’ve not seen, or even heard of yet.  But of the things we do currently know about this new operating system what I am personally most excied about?  As a Windows MVP and a Windows Author, with my “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” already out the door and two Windows 8 books currently being written (plus at least one more to come after that) I’ll know this new operating system inside out (if you’ll excuse the pun) by the time it ships.

This is the case with Windows 7 where I use a great many of the operating system’s more advanced and perhaps less-known features every day.  These include Aero Snap which allows me to work on two documents side by side, Taskbar Jumplists for pinning of regularly used files, including some I store up in Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud service and networking features that make sharing and working on different files on different computers a doddle.

Assuming I’ll continue to use all of these, I thought I’d detail here which of the features that will be completely new to Windows 8, I’m most looking forward to, and why.

8 : Reset and Refresh

As the author of a Windows 7 Troubleshooting book, the idea of a quick way to reset Windows is very useful and extremely compelling.  This isn’t a basic “quick fix” feature either, as it’s programmable with your own custom Windows images.  So you can create an image of a fully-working and installed system, complete with all your software and settings, and use the Reset option to quickly roll back to a fully working copy of Windows.  As a way to expand on the System Image functionality goes, this is a winner in my book.

7 : Live Tiles

I might probably use the desktop more than Metro, but I have rather grown to love Live Tiles on my Windows Phone.  With the Live Tiles on the new Windows 8 Start Screen I can see just how much additional information they will be able to provide and just how useful they could really be.  For example I could check my latest emails, look at my calendar, see what the weather’s doing, see who just mentioned me on Twitter and more by just sitting there.  I wouldn’t have to do anything at all!  That’s really quite cool.

6 : Multi-User Tablets

My biggest beef with modern tablets is how they lock you into a single-user account, forcing you to buy an extra tablet for each other person in your household who wants to use one.  Windows 8 will finally change all that, bringing multiple-user accounts to tablets for the first time.  Apart from the obvious cost-saving to households and businesses, this single feature will elevate Windows 8 above the competition whenever the salesman in the shop begins to talk about it.

5 : Improved File Management

The changes and improvements to file management in Windows 8 are such that I can’t help but wonder why it’s taken so long to do things that are so obvious.  The new copy and replace dialogs are extremely helpful and the simple fact that you will be able to pause a copy or a move operation, shut your computer off, go out for the night with friends, and continue the copy from where you left it the following morning is, frankly, worth the upgrade on its own!

4 : Better Windows Phone Sync

I love my Windows PC and I equally love my Windows Phone, but no matter how good the Zune Desktop software is, it’s becoming very old hat to use software such as this to synchronise the two.  While many of the details are still secret, it’s become apparent that Windows 8 will be able to synchronise with your Windows Phone directly, which will bring many added benefits, much of which we don’t yet know, but extra functionality (please synching of Internet bookmarks) is bound to be a part of the package.

3 : Hyper-V

I use Virtualisation, in the form of XP Mode, every single day to run an old Microsoft graphics package that I love, but that won’t run fully in Windows 7.  The incluison of Microsoft’s excellent type-0 hypervisor, baked into the OS for the first time will solve many a problem for many people, and help make Windows 8 the most compatible version of Windows yet… until all support for XP ends of course but we’ll cross that bridge later.

2 : Windows To Go

It’s one thing to be able to carry files around with you on a pen drive, but so far it’s been the preserve of expensive third-party software to allow you to run the entire operating system from a pen-drive.  Now, Windows 8 will bring you the opportunity to carry your copy of Windows, and it’s software, with you wherever you go.  No longer will we need to fret about leaving the laptop at home.  Just plug the pen drive into any PC and, hey presto, there it is.

1 : Kinect

As a favourite thing to look forward to with Windows 8, how could anything except the Kinect sensor integration, complete with it’s “Minority Report” operation of the new Start Screen not top the list?  It may not be useful for anything but broad gestures, but by ‘eck it’s gonna be fun to play with when we get it!

There are other things I’m looking forward to as well such as pooled storage, better battery life and more mobile working support, and no doubt even more will appear when I get a copy of the beta.  What are you most looking forward to in Windows 8?  Why not tell us in the comments.

8 Things I’m looking Forward to in Windows 8 was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

Last week I wrote about how a leaked Microsoft Windows Phone video, aimed at Nokia and perhaps other partners detailed some of the features we can expect with the next major update to the Windows Phone operating system, currently codenamed “Apollo” and due perhaps towards the end of this year.

What was missing were details of new screen sizes and form factors that would be supported.  Currently all Windows Phone have a standard screen resolution of 480 by 800 pixels and other handsets sporting Android and Apple’s iPhone are going much higher than this.

Now, TechRadar have obtained a photograph of a Nokia slide detailing new Windows Phone form-factors.  While this slide doesn’t demonstrate the any new resolutions directly it does show some different sizes for handsets, including a really dinky, iPod Nano-sized one (though I’m not sure how useful something this size would be as a phone.

The interesting part is the form-factor shown on the far right of the slide which, unless I miss my guess, looks remarkably like a 7-inch tablet!

It’s been rumoured for a while now that the next version of Windows Phone will be based on the Windows 8 MinWin kernel.  This makes complete sense from Microsoft’s point of view as just having a single operating system kernel across their products, as Apple does, makes development and patching much faster and more efficient.

If this Windows Phone form-factor is indeed a 7-inch tablet, what would it be running?  Would it be Windows Phone (which the slide seems to suggest), Windows 8 or will Windows Phone and Windows 8 indeed become the same product by this point?

To be honest it’s too difficult to call but Microsoft already squashed their fantastic Courier tablet prototype as they didn’t want two competing tablet operating systems on sale from the company.  It is unlikely then that Windows Phone, as it currently stands, would ever be allowed to run on a tablet device.  It’s also entirely possible that the information Nokia are putting out in this slide is either erroneous or just plain wrong.

Either way this slide is fascinating and will no doubt start all manner or speculation around the web on what Microsoft sees as the future of their two mobile operating systems.  What do you think, and what would like to see happen with Windows Phone and Windows 8?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

New Windows Phone Form-Factors Emerge, with one Huge Surprise! was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

Chinese website PC Beta has released new screenshots from the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (beta) showing that the Start Screen wallpaper we’ve seen in the Developer Preview probably won’t be the only one available when we see the full beta later this month.  While full details of exactly what and how many wallpapers will be available, until Stardock get their way, the image of the new rings wallpaper isn’t an unpleasant one.

The screenshots also show a modified Charms bar with new icons and a slightly modified Control Panel, now called PC Settings, where the descriptive text from items has been removed.  Finally these is a screenshot reinforcing the news that the Windows Start Orb has now been removed from the desktop.  Rumour has it however that it reappears if you mouse over to the bottom left of the Windows desktop taskbar.

Much still isn’t known about the Windows 8 beta, probably too much frankly and there are a great many quite legitimate questions that people are asking.  It is clear though that Microsoft have done a great deal of work since last August when they would have signed-off on the Developer Preview build, and that they’ve taken on board much of the feedback they received from that build.

One piece of feedback concerned the blanket alphabetical way in which apps were treated in the search screen.  One of the new screenshots shows apps now arranged into categories, as per the current Start Menu.  It’s probably not a perfect implementation, but it is at least a significant improvement over what we’ve seen before.

What do you think of these screenshots and the new look?  Do you like it?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

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The wallpaper images have  been posted here originally.

New Windows 8 Wallpapers and Charms Bar Shown in Leaked Screenshots was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

Some details of thew next big release of Windows Phone, codenamed ‘Apollo’ have emerged today from a video hosted by Windows Phone chief Joe Belfiore for partners including Nokia, and seen by PocketNow.  The video covered a few themes that are all logical evolutions of the platform.

Hardware

Windows Phone 8 is set to have some changes made to the supported hardware now that it is a mature platform.  These changes include support for multi-core processors and three new screen resolutions.  These weren’t specified but we can expect them to be both lower and higher than the current 800 by 480 pixels.  This will allow new high-end handsets to compete more effectively with the iPhone and some Android phones, while also opening up new markets for low-price smartphones, a market Microsoft has been keen to get into.  NFC will also be supported for contactless payments and finally Micro SD Card support is coming to the platform which will be welcomed by many people.

Windows 8 Integration & Data Management

The new version of Windows Phone will work more effectively with Windows 8, no longer requiring the Zune desktop software to synchronise music, photos and files. There’s no word on how Microsoft will actually do this but there will be a new “syncing relationship” with Windows 8.

There will also be a new Xbox companion app for Windows 8 and better SkyDrive support, which might explain the different Windows 8 sync.  For those worried about their data connection the OS will be better able to handle WiFi networks, automatically prioritising them for data, and providing a Live Tile showing your data usage and throughput.  It will also auto-connect to available and appropriate networks, though presumably security conscious owners will be able to turn this feature off.

Internet Explorer 10 on the phone will also use a proxy server to compress images.  Microsoft say this can save up to 30% of the total browsing data usage on the phone.

Developers

Microsoft are going to continue the already excellent work they are doing for app developers by further improving the tools that can convert iPhone and Android apps for Windows Phone.  Belfiore apparently said he expects 100,000 apps for Windows Phone by the time Apollo is available at the end of this year.

Business Support

Businesses are also being catered for with better features including 128-bit full disk Bitlocker encryption and, finally, the ability to deploy custom apps directly from a Windows Server environment without having to go through the Windows Phone app store.

The Apollo update is expected at the end of this year along with handsets that will have it pre-installed.  This probably means we will begin to see leaked details of these new handsets around late summer with releases in late October to get them out for the Christmas market.  A launch at this time will match the expected launch of Windows 8 and Windows Server 8.

These are just a few details of the next major update for Windows Phone that is still also rumoured to run on the Windows desktop MinWin kernel.  We will no doubt hear further details later in the year but it is clear that Microsoft are aiming to ‘evolve’ the operating system in sensible and organic ways, with the better integration with Windows 8 a particularly good idea.

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Microsoft are desperate to squash Windows XP.  The operating system is now more than 10 years old and has been replaced twice!  Yet, despite all of this, and because Vista was late and (frankly) rubbish, millions of people are still using the “comfortable old shoe” and despite their now being less than 800 days left for extended malware and security patch support, they are mostly resolutely refusing to upgrade, insisting that Microsoft will have to back down instead and continue support until their computers eventually die, or perhaps even longer.

Now figures released from NetMarketShare appear to show that Windows XP usage actually increased slightly in January of this year, up to 47.19% from 46.52%!

XP’s usage has been steadily declining since the launch of Windows 7, with a very healthy 56.78% of computers using it in March 2011 compared to just 25.23% of computers running Windows 7.  Now Windows sits at 36.4% but this still lags more than 10% behind Windows XP, which resolutely refuses to die.

Data released by other companies in the coming months may show XP still on the decline, or they may back up these figures.  It is interested to see a small jump in XP usage however which also comes in a month that saw Windows 7 usage drop slightly from 36.99% to 36.4%.

XP users are becoming a bit of an odd bunch, maintaining their unconditional love for an operating system that’s widely known to be very insecure and was a figure of fun throughout its main life.  Around the time XP was being installed on new PCs, it was generally considered that GNU/Linux users were the people who declared unconditional love for their operating system.

Now though Linux is widely considered good enough to switch to on a full-time basis and nobody would ever criticise Apple’s resolve again.  Windows 7 users can now sit safe from name-calling and fun-poking, knowing that they’re as secure as they need to be and it’s XP users who are on the receiving end of the jokes that GNU/Linux users received in the past.

So what is your view of this news?  Do you believe it or do you fully expect XP to usage to drop further?  Are you still using XP and don’t want to move to WIndows 7 or Windows 8?  Why not tell us in the comments below.

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Windows XP has long been a thorn in Microsoft’s side.  It’s as comfortable as an old show for many people who skipped over Windows Vista due to its awful reputation and the late delivery of that OS.  Now it’s over ten years old, was written for the beginning of the Internet revolution and simply can’t cope with the security demands of the modern age.  The company has been working very hard in recent years to encourage companies to move away to Windows 7, which is a very compatible and secure OS, but it’s not been entirely successful.

Part of the problem is because many companies are using bespoke software designed for XP or Internet Explorer 6 that simply won’t run in Windows 7 and more modern browsers.  These companies have resisted for years any call to re-engineer these software packages.  Now though the end is coming fast.

Windows XP is already out of mainstream support where service packs and upgrades are provided to support new standards and technologies.  Now there are less than 800 days left until extended support ends also.  This deadline has already been extended by Microsoft once because of the Vista debacle, but it won’t be extended again.  After April 2014 there will no longer be any updates or patches to maintain security or stability in the operating system.  When this happens we can be certain that malware writers and criminals the world over will be targeting XP with new zeal and fervour.

It’s odd that it seems only recently that I was reporting that XP only had 1,000 days of support left.  That last 200 days has gone very quickly indeed and it won’t be long before I’ll be reporting only 500 days of support left and then 300 days, less than a year.

I believe it’s only at this point that companies will begin the rush to migrate, but it can take 18 to 24 months to complete such a migration and it’s a huge undertaking for any IT department to manage.  It’s becoming clear though that companies need to start taking this issue seriously, and that home users and enthusiasts should begin to think about saving up for a newer computer themselves.  Windows XP is now well into its final days, and the clock is ticking.

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Windows has always come in different versions known internally as Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) that currently include the names “Home Premium”, “Professional”, “Enterprise” and “Ultimate”.  Historically, when the consumer and retail versions of Windows were developed separately the SKUs included titles such as “Windows for Workgroups” or “Windows 98″ and “Windows NT 4.0″.  It’s accepted then that each new versions of Windows will come with multiple SKUs.

There are some legalistic reasons for doing this as well which include the N editions that are make available within the European Union and are full versions of Windows but without Windows Media Player, and special editions for emerging markets.  This is very different to the approach taken by Apple where there are only two versions of each OS X release, “Desktop” and “Server”.

This week though somebody within Microsoft told me that we should expect just a single SKU for Windows 8 which came as a surprise to me.  Now I’m not taking this snippet of information as authoritative as it wouldn’t be the first time a Microsoft employee has misinterpreted some snippet of news from within the company and given me the wrong information, or perhaps even disinformation, who knows.  Therefore I wouldn’t assume that this information is gospel, but it does raise some very interesting questions.

Technically there could just be a single version of Windows 8.  It would be excellent news for home users who would gain access to useful features such as the Hyper-V virtualization client, as XP Mode was only supported in Windows 7 Professional and above.  It would also make it clear to people what features they were getting with the OS.  Any Systems Administrators might not be so happy though to have to hide the games, Windows Media Centre and the like in Group Policy, a task that would just be time consuming.

Also the aforementioned special editions that are sold within the EU wouldn’t be a problem either, as you would either buy “Windows 8″ or “Windows 8 N” (not that anybody ever does!).  But what about Windows 8 on ARM-powered tablets and what about cheaper editions for emerging markets?  For the latter they are commonly limited to running three programs at a time and don’t include many of the more business-oriented features.  If there was a single version of Windows 8 then it would either have to have a massive price-drop worldwide to match the price in these emerging markets, or Microsoft would have to abandon these markets completely.

There is also no word yet on whether Windows on ARM will even support the desktop.  After all the current desktop software for Windows would need to be re-engineered and nobody’s going to do that given the small size of the overall market and the low maximum price people are prepared to pay for tablets software.  The ARM version of Windows would have to be its own SKU anyway in practice, being completely incompatible with Intel architecture and probably only available to OEMs as well.

For these reasons and more I find it difficult to believe that there will only be one SKU for Windows 8, but my source in Microsoft seemed pretty determined that this will be the case.  We may have to wait several months for the announcement of what will really be happening with Windows 8 editions.  Until then it would be interesting to hear your views on this.  Why not tell us below!?

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In the run up to Barack Obama’s annual State of the Union Address to the US congress the official White House web site has put a video online where the Senior Advisor to the President, David Plouffe talks about it and explains the process behind it.  NeoWin however have spotted an interesting process taking place behind him with the default Windows XP screensaver logo appearing on his computer monitor.

So why is this important and why should we care?  We all know that the business that goes on within the White House is some of the most important and secret to take place anywhere in the world, and that there are classified documents on the computers of the White House and the Pentagon covering all manner of subjects that the world should probably never see (wikileaks and other public interest aside obviously).

We also know though not only that Windows XP is very close now to the end of all support, it is already out of mainstream support so will no longer be updated with service packs and updates, but in two years it will be out of all security support altogether.  It is also the most insecure version of Windows currently still in use.  Not only because of a complete lack of User Account Control or any Unix-type security, but because of the default web browser, Internet Explorer 6, which both Microsoft and major web giants have been trying to kill for years.

It matters then that major security and governmental establishments shouldn’t be using something as insecure as this and that they should be moving to either a more up to date version of Windows, such as Windows 7 which is considered by some security experts to be at least as secure as Mac OS X, if not more so, or to a different and more secure operating system altogether.

I’ll let you decide how important you think this is but NeoWin cite a Gartner group reports from late last year which said…

With support for Windows XP ending in April 2014, we believe it would be dangerous for organizations now running XP to attempt to skip Windows 7 and move directly to Windows 8. Organizations running Windows XP and working on Windows 7 migrations: Continue as planned; do not switch to Windows 8.

We can only hope the White House is already migrating to Windows 7 and that they don’t leave it too long to make the change completely.

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We’ve had the “Developer Preview” of Windows 8 and now that the beta is due in the next month we could find it being called the “Consumer Preview”, at least according to Janelle Poole, Microsoft’s director of public relations who in a statement at CES was found to have said…

We haven’t talked about the release date and we generally don’t. We are talking milestone to milestone, so for us right now, we’re talking about the next milestone being the Consumer Preview happening in late February.”

ZD Net blogger Mary Jo Foley reported the phrase yesterday for the first time and is wondering if this will indeed be the official title for the beta with perhaps the release candidate being the “Enterprise Preview”.  In her blog post she said…

Such a name also could help Microsoft’s PC partners who need a way to make new tablets and PCs that they’re bringing to market from now until the time that Windows 8 is shipping seem more up-to-date and palatable. (”This runs the Windows 8 Consumer Preview — so you know it’ll be able to run the final Windows 8 with no problem.”)

Let’s have a look at what this might mean though if it happens.  So far Microsoft have been promising somewhere near 300 features for IT Pros that were not ready in time for the Developer Preview release last September.  We still don’t know what most of these features are but some have leaked including new multi-monitor support features and the ability to pool the storage on your computer in a RAID-like system.

IT Pros are still very concerned about Windows 8 however, I’m giving a talk this Thursday to a large group of them in Manchester which is one of the UKs biggest technology hubs, and this isn’t the first such talk I’ve been asked to give.  What will they take from the name “Consumer Preview”?

It’s mostly likely I think that Microsoft are desperate for Windows 8 to be popular with consumers and that they want to reassure the general public that while they might be very late to the tablet game, by some three years or more, that they’re ready now and Windows 8 tablets are what they should be buying later in the year.

It’s true that Microsoft are pinning a great deal on this release and if it fails to gain serious traction in the consumer space, IT Pros will probably feel as though they were left behind for a pipe-dream.  The fact that Microsoft will want to focus very hard on consumers then will not come as a surprise to anybody, especially with major businesses only now migrating to Windows 7.

There is also the fact, as Mary Jo points out that “the current Windows organization doesn’t show code publicly at all until it’s pretty much set in stone and going to be tweaked very minimally.”  We can be pretty sure that the beta, or Consumer Preview will be very usable day to day in the same way that the Windows 7 beta was.  Microsoft already have a live Windows Update feature working with the Developer Preview (though it won’t update to the beta), but it’s possible that the beta might just update to the release candidate if it’s close enough to completion.

If enough millions of people then update their computers to the Windows 8 beta, then in theory all Microsoft need to do at the end of the process is to sell them a new product key online and people can continue using Windows 8 without having to reinstall.  We still know nothing about this though and it might not happen this way.

It is clear though that Microsoft at this point are focusing much more on consumers than in IT Pros.  This doesn’t mean they don’t care about, or aren’t going to cater for IT Pros.  It just means that the company has decided to put all of its marketing might behind the consumer angle in the same way they have in the last year with Windows Phone.

So next month we’ll see what happens with the beta and what it is called, as soon as we know we’ll report back to you here at Windows 8 News.

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Before you get all concerned about Windows 8 being doomed and Windows tablets being something that nobody will buy let’s get some perspective.  Monica Chen and Joseph Tsai at DigiTimes have today said that Intel-based Windows 8 tablets could cost between $599 and $899 dollars when they go on sale later this year.  This is exactly what they currently cost and shouldn’t be unexpected by anyone.

In their article they say that…

Intel and Microsoft [are] both…unwilling to drop their related hardware and software quotes, and as a result, it could push consumers from wanting to purchase the devices.

This information should probably be taken with a pinch of salt, as should the whole story probably.  I wanted to comment on this story and add some balance to the argument.

It is true that the majority, probably over 80% of all Windows 8 tablets will be based on ARM designed processors.  This will be because these machines will have a significantly higher battery life than their Intel equivalents, be thinner and lighter in all probability and be cheaper as well.

One of the reasons for the price difference is that ARM-based motherboards don’t have to support all the hardware that an Intel board will.  There will be no support for external USB devices not even USB 3.0, no firewire, Thunderbolt or even support for SATA, Gigabit Ethernet and everything else that goes with a modern PC.

In part it is all these extras that drain the battery of Intel-based tablets faster, coupled with the fact that their ARM equivalents are lower-power and more efficient with the electricity provided to them.

Intel are working on new chips, though it should come as no surprise to anybody that they will be some way off and currently all the major tablet manufacturers will be eyeing up ARM as the way to make their sexy new Windows 8 tablets attractive to consumers.

Microsoft will not, as DigiTimes suggests, drop Intel as a supported chip manufacturer.  This can simply never happen without jettisoning not only Windows 8 as it stands but an entire ecosystem of hardware and software and billions of computers and users worldwide.

DigiTimes’ article is certainly sensationalist and it’s gotten a lot of coverage this evening.  It’s hardly factual or reasonable however to point out that when Intel Windows 8 tablets go on sale, the fact that they will cost the same as Windows 7 tablets do now will be a shock.  These tablets will commonly carry Core-i5 processors and 4Gb or more of RAM, as they do now, and be extremely powerful tools for IT Pros, designers and other professionals.  These tablets simply will not be targeted at the average consumer but instead at people who need the power to run full desktop suites on the go.

In a way it’s a shame to see articles such as this as they don’t help.  There is still a great deal we don’t know about Windows 8 and about how it will perform, especially on battery life, on the next generation of Intel chips.  We will find out, in the fullness of time, and we’ll discover how much these devices will cost us.

DigiTimes’ “sources” don’t seem to like either Microsoft or Intel very much at all, but frankly… balance is much more important.

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New images have appeared of the Start Screen personalization options in the Windows 8 beta.  In the images, posted online by TheVerge.com you can see shots from what they say is build 8175.  They show that Microsoft are sticking to their guns on a background to the Start Screen that’s far less customisable than what we’ve been used to for years (though give it some time and Stardock will come up with something as they always do).

There’s no custom desktop image for example though there are eight background patterns to choose from.  Then there’s a choice of nine colours.  This isn’t what most people would call “customisation” but its a start and we could still see more appear by the time Windows 8 ships (making people writing books like me redo lots of screenshots!)

I’ll let you judge from the images below what you think and it would be very interesting to see your comments.  It could be argued for instance that if you want to work primarily with the Windows 8 ‘traditional’ desktop that the blue, black and grey shades might be less Metro-like than the green we’ve seen in the Developer Preview, and will make the new Metro pop-ups less intrusive.  It remains to be seen however what Microsoft will release next month.

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The closer we get to the actual release of Windows 8 ARM tablets the more I’m mulling over the pros and cons, and wondering just how successful such devices will actually  turn out to be.  At the moment Windows 7 tablets are pretty powerful machines.  They have a great many advantages over every other tablet with support for just about any USB device and the ability to run full desktop apps such as Microsoft Office.  Add to this a friendly tablet interface and surely you’re on to a winner!?  Alas then comes the problem.  There is only one but for most people it’s a deal-breaker, and that is the poor battery life that comes with running Windows on Intel x86 based chips.  A battery that dies on a tablet after about only four hours simply isn’t good enough and there’s no indications that things are going to change any time soon.

So a Windows tablet on ARM architecture must be the way to go then?  Well, actually no.  The problem with an ARM-based Windows 8 tablet is that you will not only forego the USB device support, but also the ability to run existing Windows desktop apps and suites.  You’ll have fantastic battery life but these two problems are, frankly, the reason most people want to use Windows on a tablet in the first place.

What they’ll be left with is essentially a blank slate (sic!) where all the software will be new and none of their existing Windows programs will run.  Is this what people want a Windows tablet for?  The Windows app store, despite Microsoft’s attempts to build developer excitement for Metro, will take some time to get going and build momentum.  It will be leagues behind the app stores for the iPad, Android tablets and even the HP TouchPad and Blackberry Playbook, and this situation will last for many months if not years.

So are Windows tablets going to prove disappointing for people?  Well, this is all in how Microsoft design the code and architecture of the ARM tablets.  If they go down the route of tablets as we know them now then they’ll be no more Windows than an iPad or a Samsung Galaxy Tab is now.  If they do find ways to run existing Windows software, that software will have to be recompiled or perhaps even completely re-engineered to run on them, and many if not most software companies won’t be interested in doing this given that the sales market will be comparatively small.

We might find out more about Windows ARM-powered tablets this week at the Consumer Electronics Show, but it’s becoming clear that Microsoft need to tell us what what types of hardware and software (if any at all) these devices will support when they come to market, probably in early 2013.  Until then if you’re considering buying a tablet I wouldn’t advise you to wait.  If you aren’t fussed about Windows desktop programs and USB devices then any tablet on the market these days will suit you (and prices on the Blackberry Playbook are tumbling) and if you want the full-fat Intel experience then there are a few Windows 7 tablets either out there or coming soon that will fit the bill for when the Windows 8 public beta begins.  But if you’ve been waiting for a tablet that runs Windows, supports all your desktop apps and has a great battery life, you could end up disappointed.

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Since shortly after Windows Phone first appeared Microsoft have very helpfully been keeping users around the world updated as to the status of update rollouts through their Where’s My update website.  The reason this is helpful is that once Microsoft have signed off on an update it then has to pass through two additional testing stages before consumers can install it on their handsets.

The first stage is with the handset manufacturers who check that the update is compatible with their handsets and any bespoke software they have installed.  Lastly it goes to the mobile networks who run the same tests.  If any problems are found the company has to go back to Microsoft and work on updating either their own software (which is more likely) or figuring out what it is in the Windows Phone update that’s causing them problems.

While it is extremely unlikely that problems will be found these two additional testing phases can drag out an update rollout for several months with some mobile carriers (Telefonica, you know who you are!) delaying updates the longest.  Thus the website has been extremely useful for a great many people.

Now though Microsoft have decided to discontinue the website.  In a blog post the General Manager of Customer Experience Engineering, Aric Hautala, said…

There are also a few changes on the way for the blog and website. As we continue our growth, we won’t be individually detailing country, model, and carrier details on the Where’s My Phone Update? site any longer.

This will come as a disappointment to many who may have felt that their handset manufacturer or mobile operator has let them down in the past.  There will now be no way of knowing when you will be able to receive the next update until you see a message displayed on your phone.

The next update is also coming iminently, although it is only a minor patch and bug fix…

This week we started to make a new Windows Phone update —8107—available to many Windows Phone customers. The update, available to all carriers that request it, is part of our ongoing maintenance of Windows Phone.

Microsoft do have ways for people to feed back about Windows Phone too, if you have a comment, suggestion or gripe…

Looking back at 2011, we enacted many behind-the-scenes tweaks and improvements to the update process itself. With your help, the process has matured and will continue to do so. I can’t emphasize enough how much everyone here appreciates your incredible passion and support for Windows Phone. We love this phone and take your feedback and comments very seriously. We listen and want to know what’s on your mind—whether it’s via our blogs, Twitter, Facebook, or the Windows Phone Suggestion Box.

…though there’s no actual guarantee that your comments will be directly acted upon it’s better than the offerings made by other companies, or indeed other Microsoft product Groups such as Windows which is notoriously secretive.  I personally will miss this valuable website, it’s come in extremely handy not just for myself but for many thousands of other Windows Phone users.

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A hidden “easter egg” has been found in the Windows 8 Developer Preview by WinUnleaked.tk that reactivates the transparency on the very nice looking new Aero Lite interface, while disabling much of the extra eye-candy that comes with the full Aero glass effect on the desktop.

On initial inspection it’s unclear exactly how this new Aero Lite Glass differs from the standard Aero Glass effect, though closer examination reveals that it’s much simpler and forgoes effects such as highlights around the minimize, maximize and close buttons.  Also the back and forward buttons are a much simpler Metro style, which many people might prefer.

To activate this you just need to follow these simple instructions…

Navigate to the WindowsSystem32 folder

Launch WindowsAnytimeUpgradeResults.exe

Given the title of the program that you launch to achieve this effect it’s unlikely this will still work with the final version of the operating system.  What is also unclear though is whether or not this second Aero will be available in Windows 8 as an option.  The fact that it exists now though will probably mean that it will be available afterwards as a registry hack.

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One of the more interesting features in Windows 8, certainly from my perspective as the author of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” is the ability for Microsoft’s new operating system to self-repair and reinstall itself.  This isn’t actually as clever as it sounds but as a simplistic explanation it’ll do.

Microsoft have today though offered more insight into this process, called refresh and reset.  In a post on the Building Windows 8 blog they said “As we began planning for Windows 8, we asked ourselves: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you could just push a button and everything is fixed?’ We really wanted to focus on the concept of ‘push button’, which translated into a design goal that represents a simple to use, predictable, and fast solution.  The point of this is…

With Windows 8, there are a few key things that we set out to deliver:

• Provide a consistent experience to get the software on any Windows 8 PC back to a good and predictable state.
• Streamline the process so that getting a PC back to a good state with all the things customers care about can be done quickly instead of taking up the whole day.
• Make sure that customers don’t lose their data in the process.
• Provide a fully customizable approach for technical enthusiasts to do things their own way.

While this sounds like a wonderful solution to all your woes, it’s still not quite as wonderful as it sounds.  The two options will allow you to perform one of these tasks…

• Reset your PC – Remove all personal data, apps, and settings from the PC, and reinstall Windows.
• Refresh your PC – Keep all personal data, Metro style apps, and important settings from the PC, and reinstall Windows.

You’ll notice this says it will keep “Metro style apps” and doesn’t mention desktop apps.  This is because Microsoft will have a much tighter quality control on Metro apps and cite reasons in the blog including reinstalling bad apps and having little or no control over some installer types as the reason.  In fairness there probably are very good technical reasons why this is the case so there’s no need to disbelieve them here.

Windows 7 comes with an image backup system however in all editions that can be used with Startup Repair to restore your copy of Windows with all of your programs and settings intact.  Fortunately this hasn’t been forgotten and Microsoft have built it into the Rest options.

With this in mind, we’ve made it possible for you to establish your own baseline image via a command-line tool (recimg.exe). So when you get a Windows 8 PC, you will be able to do the following:

1. Go through the Windows first-run experience to configure basic settings.
2. Install your favorite desktop apps (or uninstall things you don’t want).
3. Configure the machine exactly as you would like it.
4. Use recimg.exe to capture and set your custom image of the system.

It’s not completely clear yet how this will work with the existing backup options, where a friendly wizard interface will walk you through the image backup process.  It is unlikely however that a command line will be the only way to do this.

So how long will it actually take to perform a refresh or a reset?  Microsoft timed the results on the machines they gave out to developers at their BUILD conference last september.

The refresh and restore options will also work from the new style Windows boot menu, should your copy of Windows be unable to start.

In Windows 8 Beta, there will also be a tool that you can use to create a bootable USB flash drive, in case even the copy of Windows RE on the hard drive won’t start. You’ll be able to start your PC with the USB drive, and fix problems by refreshing your PC or performing advanced troubleshooting. And if your PC comes with a hidden recovery partition, you’ll even have the option to remove it and reclaim disk space once you’ve created the USB drive.

It’s great that Microsoft are making these features more accessible and easier to use.  It is ironic however that the more stable and trouble-free Windows gets, the more troubleshooting and repair features are introduced.

Clearly these tools won’t suit everyone so I’m not concerned about whether there will be another edition of “Troubleshooting…”  I’ve also found on my own Windows tablet that the Developer Preview of the OS didn’t feel there was enough space to store all the rescue files and, as such when I went to try the tool it failed to work.  It might be that on some tablet devices where flash storage is at a premium, this may be the case in the future.

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Metro themed websites are suddenly becoming very popular.  I updated my own website (below) to Metro last month, partly because it’s Microsoft products I write about mostly, but also because it makes for a touch-friendly website and I firmly believe that all websites should at least be considering the move to touch by now.

With Metro now appearing across all Microsoft’s platforms including the Xbox 360, it is soon going to be an interface with which people are very familiar.  This doesn’t mean that other people, such as myself, should always ape the design.  There will be scenarios however when it will be appropriate if used tastefully.

Now though Microsoft UK have updated their Windows Phone website to a Metro style and it’s dividing opinion, in no small part because of the size of the “live tiles” they’re using on the front page.  It’s a new interactive design that’s based around images.  That means it’s not always clear what image relates to what article until the intro-text slides into view.  You can hover your mouse over a tile to get the text detail to slide in, but that’s not exactly touch-friendly.

This raises all manner of questions about the uses for both Metro and touch on websites and I wanted to throw this open to you for conversation.  There will be all manner of Metro-style themes appearing on the web in the next few years, some will be great and some will be awful.

What do you think would make a good Metro website?  Would it require that it must be touch-friendly or is the way the new Windows Phone website does things enough for you?  Is it even important to you that websites support touch at all, or is this one of the most important moves you think the web needs to make?

Do you perhaps feel that the move to Metro is stifling good design (I remember some of the best website designs I’ve ever seen came around the turn of the 21st century) or that the move to a more ‘unified’ interface across the web-based on a touch interface would be the way to go, as opposed to the ‘unified’ interface the web currently supports of a toolbar with drop down menus approach that has been common for years now.

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Microsoft have today confirmed that Kinect will be coming to the PC early this year “not as a hack but as a commercial product with dedicated PC hardware”.  Some changes include a shorter USB cable and new firmware to allow close-up usage of the device.

It is probably safe to assume the new Kinect for PC will also be smaller than the one for the Xbox, due to the need to fit it into tight spaces on people’s desks.

In a blog post today the company said…

Kinect offers PC users (and developers) some unique capabilities that change the way people interact with their computers, including:

• Skeletal tracking
• Motion sensing
• Voice recognition
• Facial recognition

It is with Windows 8 that the Kinect is probably going to make the biggest impact, the decide will no doubt be usable with the new Metro interface that’s coming with the company’s next generation OS.  Being able to operate your PC apps with gesture controls, apart from bringing Minority Report’esque coolness to the PC for the first time, will also help those people who don’t have touch screens with their existing PCs.

In many ways this could save Windows 8 as the Kinect is already a much sought-after device, not just with the Xbox 360 but with a great many different people, including robotics and other researchers.  This will no doubt lead to a whole new range of Windows apps designed to harness the power of Kinect.  Obvious applications are programs for children and the disabled.

It will be with gaming though that the most interesting things will happen.  PC gaming has been on the decline for some time now and the advent and increasing popularity of all-in-one machines, which do not have the latest and fastest gaming hardware, are hammering more nails into the gaming coffin.  Could Kinect for the PC reinvigorate this?  Certainly with the big first person shooter titles, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Kinect will probably never be used.  The device could drive up the number of smaller and easier games however.

Microsoft have also long talked about being able to play the same game across the PC, Xbox 360 and Windows Phone, though this hasn’t really happened yet.  Having Kinect on a PC could enable people to play on two screens on their PC and Xbox in their home simultaneously.

Suffice to say the long-overdue arrival of the Kinect sensor for the PC is going to be a huge event, and Microsoft are hitting the ground running with incentives for companies that want to harness it for the PC (and they’re not just limiting this to games developers either) with “the BizSpark Kinect Accelerator incubation programme, which will give 10 tech-oriented companies using Kinect (on either Windows or Xbox360) an investment of $20,000 each and other benefits.” among other incentives on the Microsoft Developer Network.

By the time Windows 8 launches we’ll have a good feel for how Kinect will fit with the who PC architecture, how flexible, popular and effective it will actually be, and crucially, if it can give Windows 8 the edge and keep this often criticised operating system firmly on top.

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There was a time when Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser had a healthy 95% of the overall browser market.  This didn’t even mean that their main opposition on the PC had the other 5% as you had to factor into this the Apple Mac on which people ran Safari.  Sadly this was the time of IE6 where the browser had little or no competition and, as such, innovation was stifled as Microsoft felt they had nothing to compete against.

The birth and fast growth of Firefox fortunately changed all that and now the horribly buggy and insecure nightmare that is IE6 is firmly on its last legs, supported only in some businesses where the cost or redeveloping bespoke web apps is prohibitive, and in emerging computing markets such as China.

Now the latest figures released by StatCounter show that IE usage worldwide has dropped below 40% for the first time (IE still sits at 52% according to Net Applications), a drop of almost 10% in the last year alone.  The figures also show that Google’s Chrome browser is now firmly in second place with extremely steady growth, overtaking Firefox which has been dwindling ever so slightly.

Behind these figures will be the birth of smartphones and tablets, almost all of which run a non-Microsoft browser and things such as the Browser ballot screen, seen by EU residents, where Microsoft ask Windows users to choose which browser they want to use.

With Windows 8 Microsoft are beginning the fight back as the new Metro version of IE10 is embedded deep into the operating system and there’s no indication yet that Mozilla or Google are developing Metro versions of their own browsers.  In fact it’s really quite cunning the way Microsoft have gone about this with Metro as, because of the way Metro apps are generally styled, it will probably be difficult for anybody to tell different browsers apart from one another.  Microsoft are no doubt counting on this to help grow IE market share once again.

How successful this strategy will be remains to be seen but it’s very clear that Google are doing the right thing with Chrome, in fact their browser is very hard to criticise at all, unlike Firefox which many consider to be heavy and bloated.  Innovation with Internet Explorer tends to come only every couple of years but Google offer far more frequent updates, as Mozilla do, and are therefore able to respond to the needs of their customers far more quickly.  With Windows 8, Microsoft have said that the Metro version of IE also won’t support any plugins (Flash, Acrobat etc.) making this a place where rivals could seize the opportunity.  With its stripped-down approach though, it’s likely that any Metro version of Chrome would go the same way.

With Windows 8 not due out until the very end of this year we can expect these figures to continue their current trend.  This could see Chrome and IE converge in the summer as both sit equally on around 35% market share.  At this point the battle really will begin and Chrome could very likely be the world’s most popular browser by the end of the year, something not achieved by any browser since the early years of Netscape Navigator in the 1990′s.

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As the most up and coming Internet and financial super-power in the world, it should hardly come as a surprise that China has become the latest target for cyber-criminals.  In recent attacks some 45 million people have had their personal details stolen and now the BBC is reporting that the ten largest search engines in the country have signed an anti-phishing scheme to help combat this new wave of online crime.

What the BBC isn’t saying though is that, according to Microsoft’s own figures on the IE6Countdown website China is the only country left in the world where the horribly buggy and insecure 6th version of Microsoft’s web browser is still in common use.  As of today the figure for China sits at 27.9% of all browser usage in the country.

By comparison to this the next most exposed countries which include South Korea, Japan and India sit at 8.9%, 6.5% and 6% respectively.  Western countries are faring batter with the USA at just 1%, the UK at 1.8% and Germany at just 1.1%.  The Scandinavian countries are definitely faring best though with 0.5% of browsers in Denmark being IE6, 0.4% in Finland and Sweden and just 0.2% in Norway.

While the worldwide usage of Internet Explorer 6 has dropped massively in the last two years, it is in far eastern countries where its fared poorly.  In China, the government of which doesn’t approve of Microsoft’s globalist tendencies, the latest versions of Windows have failed to make significant inroads and much of the country still uses older, pirated copies of Windows XP.

The software piracy market in China and surrounding countries is huge and opens up all manner of other problems including pirated and cracked operating systems and software coming pre-loaded with malware.  China presents a particular problem with that one country accounting for more than 50% of all IE6 usage worldwide.

The Chinese government are working with search engines and banks to do what they can to limit the spread of malware and provide better security online, but this will involve a great deal of public education.  Of course there are many free alternatives to IE6 but people in the country just don’t seem to be using them.

The problem doesn’t just end at the desktop however as company servers, presumably also running older and possibly pirated software are major targets for criminals.  The BBC reported that “On Christmas day, the hugely popular Tianya chat site revealed that the login names and passwords from 40 million of its users had been stolen. All risk being plundered by attackers as the information was held in plain text.”

China currently has around 485 million web users and the number is growing exponentially.  Microsoft previously released cheaper versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 for emerging economies including China but with wages in the country a tiny fraction of what they are in the rest of the world the company isn’t willing to even release sales figures.

The problem continues to be exacerbated as newer versions of web browsers and other software won’t install or run on Windows XP, despite mainly being free products that the people in these countries can use to protect themselves.

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As the author of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” I get asked all manner of questions all the time on how to fix or diagnose problem A, B or C.  To help with this I run a regular series of live webcasts through the O’Reilly website.  The latest of these is by far the most popular and requested.  Diagnosing and Repairing Difficult Problems in Windows 7.

Windows 7 is by far the most stable and reliable version of the OS that Microsoft have ever produced, but as a piece of software it contains millions of lines of code and it’s a huge and extremely complex beast.  This can make diagnosing any difficult problem an extremely daunting experience.

In this live webcast, which if you miss it you can view afterwards if you have pre-registered, I’ll show how you don’t even need third-party tools to complete complex diagnostics, with a tour of a plethora of helpful diagnostic utilities that are already a part of Windows 7.

The webcast is completely free, live and starts at 10AM PT – San Francisco | 6pm – London | 1pm – New York | Fri, Jan 13th at 5am – Sydney | Fri, Jan 13th at 3am – Tokyo | Fri, Jan 13th at 2am – Beijing | 11:30pm – Mumbai on January 12th 2012.

It can be difficult enough finding out what’s gone wrong with windows 7 or a program, but some problems can be a nightmare to diagnose. In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out talks you through how to diagnose really stubborn and hidden problems in Windows 7, and explains how you can go about fixing them.

The webcast will last for approximately 60 minutes and is part of a regular series that, from February, will return to its regular First Thursday spot.  You can register for this free webcast here.  The next webcasts will be…

February 2^nd 2012 – Using Virtualisation in Windows 7

Despite Microsoft’s best efforts, Windows 7 won’t run every piece of software and some of it you might really want or need.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out explains how you can use free virtualisation tools in any edition of Windows 7 to keep valuable and useful older software working in a safe and secure way.

March 1^st 2012 – Building a Bomb-Proof Backup Strategy

Backup, Backup, Backup is a common mantra, but often it’s easier said than done maintaining a good backup strategy due to the time and effort involved long-term.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out talks you through how you can build a simple, hands-free backup strategy that is quite literally bombproof.

April 5^th 2012 – Manually Removing Viruses and Malware from Windows 7

Getting a virus on your computer is a pain and they’re becoming ever more difficult to remove.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out talks you through the process of manually and safely removing viruses and malware from your computer without damaging your files or Windows itself.

May 3^rd 2012 – Building and Upgrading a PC

With computers now more powerful than ever before, and with wallets being squeezed, there are more and more reasons to hang on to your existing equipment.  But how can you breathe new life into an ageing PC on a tight budget?  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out shows you how to quickly and simply get extra life and performance out of your PC, fix common hardware faults and what to look for to build a fantastic new PC from scratch.

June 7^th 2012 – Managing Family Safety in Windows 7

The Internet is a dangerous place and every parent worries about what their children might be doing, and what they might be exposed to online.  In this webcast, Mike Halsey, the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out walks you through the process of keeping your children and your family safe online from viruses, criminals and inappropriate content with simple to use free tools.

Diagnosing and Repairing Difficult Problems in Windows 7 Free Webcast was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

I’m not normally interested in reviewing smartphone apps, but the release last week of SkyDrive for Windows Phone is a special case.  SkyDrive is already integrated into the Windows Phone in several ways, and we can expect a full SkyDrive explorer to come in a a future release of the operating system.  I’m curious about this release though as it both is and definitely very isn’t a Windows Phone app.  Let me explain.

For an app that is so vital to the core of Windows Phone, the Office and Picture hubs are tied to it, this app seems to have been written not by Microsoft but by some third party with its own designs on what a Windows Phone app should look like.  In fact it strays from the established Metro look and feel so much that you can’t help but wonder if it was written by Microsoft at all.

It begins with the tile for the app being a completely different colour to any of the pre-set Metro colours available.  You’ll see in these screenshots too how is abandons the simplicity of the Metro look and feel in favour of much more traditional folder icons.  This might make some people wonder if they in fact want to use it.  Perhaps I’m being a metro purist here but a consistency across a UI is often pleasing and helps maintain a familiarity with both the apps and the operating system.

What’s more, Microsoft have gone to great lengths to promote Metro far and wide, even now including it as the main interfaces for the Xbox 360 and Windows 8.  So was this app written by people within Microsoft who perhaps don’t like Metro and have their own ideas on what an interface should look like?  The Windows Live and Windows Phone divisions at the company are very seperate entities and so this isn’t so much of a stretch to believe.

In use it is an excellent app.  It provides extremely quick access to SkyDrive and your files and gives you complete control over them, not just read but creation and deletion too.  You’ll see from the screenshots here though that the loading of thumbnail images can cause a few problems.  If you have a Windows Phone and keep any files and documents stored on the SkyDrive service then this free app is a must.  It still seems a little odd though that it looks quite the way it does.

SkyDrive for Windows Phone Review was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

When Nokia’s strategic partnership with Microsoft to use Windows Phone on all their forthcoming smartphones was announced early this year it caused considerable excitement.  The company’s own ageing Symbian operating system was failing and their partnership with Intel to produce MeeGo wasn’t going anywhere.  Nokia was in trouble and leaked memos only served to confirm it.  Windows Phone wasn’t going anywhere either, having faded into the background within just a few months of launch.

Now then the eyes of the world were on Nokia’s first Windows Phone handset, the Lumia 800, and the company has kindly sent me one for review.  This handset is the black model, the first to market but it does also come in other colours including a very fetching pale blue.  It has fantastic build quality with four silver buttons on the right side for volume, power and camera and a headphone jack on the top.  The USB port is concealed behind a pop up flap, as is the SIM card slot.  The battery is internal and non-removable, but this shouldn’t be a problem for all but the most hardened road-warriors.

The build quality is simply excellent.  It uses the same hardware as the company’s recent N9 handset with a glorious almost full-front glass cover and fine attention to detail throughout.  It’s a little heavier than a standard Windows Phone but it sits very comfortably in the hand and is equally as comfortable when making calls, something not every phone can claim to be.

There’s an 8MP camera with a Carl Zeiss Lens and dual LED flash on the back and a 1,400MHz processor, 512Mb of RAM and a healthy 16Gb of storage inside along with all the usual technology that you’d expect from a modern smartphone.

In use there are a few issues with it.  The problems with battery life have been fixed by a rushed-out patch, but the camera leaves photos looking a bit pale and washed out.  The camera with Xenon flash on my HTC Mozart and even the dual LED flash camera on the new HTC Titan are better, this camera isn’t up to Nokia’s usual high standards.

The screen too looks a bit small under the huge glass screen.  It’s 3.7 inches though and you soon get over this.  On standard (medium) brightness though white backgrounds look a little creamy and the curse of the AMOLED screen returns with live tiles seeming fuzzy around the edges when viewed up close.

I’m also concerned about the pop up flap covering the micro-USB socket.  It’s hard to open some times and looks flimsy enough to break over time.  If this flap were on the bottom where you wouldn’t notice it this could be forgiven, but it’s not, instead it’s right on top of the handset.

It’s in the software though where this phone really shines.  Some Nokia apps simply duplicate the music and mapping software already in Windows Phone, though they fortunately don’t replace it.  The Nokia Drive Satnav app though is simply superb.  You can download maps for a great many countries free of charge so you can use the app while either driving or walking without needing to worry about maintaining an open data connection.  This app makes the Lumia 800 worth having on its own.  The inclusion of a silicon-rubber case is welcome too, as is the low profile charger.  You’ll need to charge the Lumia 800 daily but this is standard fare for modern smartphones.

All in all I’m delighted with the Lumia 800 as it doesn’t disappoint.  It is every bit as desirable as an iPhone 4 physically and perhaps even a little more so.  If this is what Nokia are able to produce in under a year for their first Windows Phone, the handsets the company will produce in the coming years will be very exciting indeed.

Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone Review was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.