Windows 8 Consumer Preview

February 29th 2012

Microsoft today kicked off the launch of its Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Windows head kicked off the event and he revealed that Microsoft has made over 100,000 major code changes to Windows 8 since the Developer Preview was released in September 2011.

Learn more about Windows 8 Consumer Preview here.

Download and test drive Windows 7 Consumer Preview at this link.

See what’s new

Swipe, slide, and zoom

Touch a full-powered PC. It’s fast and it’s fluid. Take natural, direct, hands-on control.

• More

Apps, front and center

Apps in Windows 8 work together to get things done faster. Get them from the Windows Store.

• More

Your Windows, everywhere

Windows 8 can connect you to your files, photos, people, and settings, wherever you sign in.

• More

Wall-to-wall web

Internet Explorer 10 Consumer Preview brings you immersive web browsing on screens big and small.

• More

The familiar, made better

Still devoted to your mouse and keyboard? Windows 8 makes the tried-and-true feel brand new.

• More

The Windows Experience Blog

Read this Windows Experience Blog entry for some tips on getting started with Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

• Visit the blog

Behind the scenes

Meet the engineering team

Check out a short video for an informal look at Windows 8 from one of the teams that built it.

• Watch the video

Building Windows 8

Get the latest news and the inside scoop on the development process from the Windows 8 engineering team blog.

• Visit the blog

The product guide

Download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview Product Guide for more in-depth, detailed info on this release.

• Download the product guide (.pdf)

 

ciao

mags

Watch Live Streaming of BUILD keynotes

Watch Windows Division President Steven Sinofsky’s keynote live or on demand anytime.

Coming soon, we’ll also have Channel 9 coverage of the conference and interviews with Windows engineers. Recordings and slides from the big picture and technical sessions will be available here a day or two after the presentation.

Follow BUILD on Twitter and Facebook to get the latest updates.

 

ciao

jsmags

Evolution of Windows Explorer

The “Windows 8” team made an awesome blog post that gives us an early glimpse at the new Explorer in “Windows 8”; what was also great to see was a look back at Windows Explorer over the years, all the way back from Windows 1.0, when it was called “MS-DOS Executive” :)

Excerpts from the blog:

It’s exciting to have this opportunity to share the improvements we’re making to the file management capabilities of Windows Explorer. Explorer is one of the most venerable parts of Windows with a heritage you can trace back to the “MS-DOS Executive” in Windows 1.0!

MS-DOS Executive in Windows 1.0

Over the years, Explorer and its forerunners have gone through several major iterations:

File Manager in Windows 3.1

Explorer in Windows XP

Explorer in Windows 7

 

And now- a glimpse at the new Explorer (with the familiar “ribbon” interface):

Explorer in "Windows 8"

 

And a video preview of the new Explorer:

 

ciao

mags

USB 3.0 coming to a PC near you

From Windows 8 team’s “Building robust USB 3.0 support” blog:

With throughput up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0 and improved power management that results in longer battery life, USB 3.0 introduces compelling reasons to improve the world’s most popular PC interface. By 2015, all new PCs are expected to offer USB 3.0 ports, and over 2 billion new "SuperSpeed" USB devices will be sold in that year alone.

One of the important roles Windows plays as part of a broad ecosystem is developing support for new hardware. This is a pretty involved process and so for this post we wanted to take a look at supporting USB 3.0, something we know everyone is anxious to be using because of the improvements it brings. This is also our first video post – we aimed for "engineering" videos and not high production values but I think we make our point (note videos are embedded in HTML5 and available for download). If you’re like me when looking at the video, you might think that those file copy progress indicators are looking a bit dated…stay tuned. This post was authored by Dennis Flanagan, the Director of Program Management for the Devices and Networking group.

–Steven Sinofsky

Video demonstration of USB 3.0 in action within Windows 8:

 

ciao

mags