So, the windows 8 consumer preview is out to the public. And it definitely changes the look and feel of typical windows. There are some radical changes given to it from the previous version. It is all different from the windows that we have seen for last 25 years more designed to make it work on both PC's and touch screens.
Here are some of the new features of windows 8 :
Start button missing - The first thing that you'll notice when you log in to new windows is that there is no start button on the desktop which has been the key feature of windows since windows 95. You get the start button when you scroll to the bottom left corner of the screen, a menu pops up and start button is there. Click start, and what you see is start menu has been changed to full screen start bar with big rectangular application blocks.
Ribbon user interface in explorer - When we go to the windows explorer what we get is the ribbon user interface just like the one in latest MS office. All the different tools are on the top of the interface under the ribbons which takes up a bit of the screen space.
Dual control panel - Windows 8 basically gives the control panel of two types . One is the typical control panel that we have been using since the release of windows and the other is the more user friendly control panel which we access from the start bar.
New control panel(accessed via start)
Typical cotrol panel (Accessed via desktop)
Different task manager - Task manager has also been quite simplified in this new version of windows. When task manager is started a window opens up showing just the active programs. The other functions of the task manager come up when we click the more details button towards the bottom left. Windows has quite simplified this task manager too in processes tab it shows all the background processes in the first tab. There are other new tabs like performance, app history, etc which are quite simplified and have some major utility too.
Windows task manager (simplified)
Windows task manager(expanded)
Built in PDF - Microsoft has included their own PDF reader to load and display PDF pages instead of using adobe reader. This new Microsoft PDF reader is called modern reader. The user interface and look of modern reader is full on metro.
Aero auto colorization - Aero can be set to automatically change colors of your windows theme based on the primary colors of a desktop image you choose.
ISO Mounting - Now we will be able to mount an ISO file to windows 8 as if it is some data CD or DVD drive. Earlier, this functionality of windows was seen only in third party programs like daemon tools.
File download verification - It is an expansion of smart screen filter feature in window explorer throughout the windows 8 ecosystem. In this feature when you try to download a file smart-screen will kick in and evaluate weather the source URL is known to distribute malware.
Cloud integration - This version of windows will will access Microsoft's cloud services, most possibly skydrive and windows live mesh. Skydrive is an online storage space that you can put your files in, and mesh lets you sync with other windows computers and mobile devices remotely.
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