The differences from Windows 7 to Windows 8 are around a new user interface called Metro. The Metro display replaces the traditional "start" menu. Many apps are then optimised for the Metro UI which brings larger buttons and more intuitive menu options to reduce clutter. This is far better for touch operated devices such as touch screen laptops and tablet devices. The classic desktop and windows explorer UI are still there for desktop users.
Is this release of Windows trying to be all things to all devices? Perhaps Android will be a better OS for tablets as it's optimised to touch screen operation from day one. To decide yourself you can download the developer preview to run on and old machine, or as a virtual machine.
The download is free and available in both 32 and 64 bit, as well as numerous languages. Microsoft are keen to point out that this is pre-release software so it is not suitable to run on your primary PC system as it may be more prone to bugs, system crashes, and defiantly have compatibility issues with other software /hardware. If you don't have a spare PC, don't worry, you can install this operating system as a virtual machine and run it inside a window on you PC/Mac/Linux machine. A guide to running Windows 8 as a virtual machine will be in a future Web Warp Blog post.
For more details see Microsoft's page for Windows 8.
No comments:
Post a Comment