[dayglored]

Interesting UN-OFFICIAL information about the next release of Windows from Microsoft. Sounds pretty much like they've decided that portable devices are going to be where Windows runs.

I dunno... seems to me the business office is still going to be their main market for quite a while.

And let's see, Vista was Win-NT6.0. Windows 7 was supposed to be NT7.0, but the name got co-opted for the re-work of Vista that became Windows 7 (it's NT6.1). So, will Windows 8 be NT7? Or will they skip over 7 and go back in sync with NT8?

Read the whole Register article -- there's much more about the presumed feature set.

[dayglored]

Tech pings, please. The Apple ping is because the article claims similarity to some Apple product designs... but this is really a Windows thread.

And to the rest -- No trolls, of any flavor, please. We've had quite enough of that stuff the past week. How about a nice sane discussion of technical merits, product positioning, and marketing strategy?

Thanks.

[ken21]

as usual, it will be vulnerable to cyber attacks.

[driftdiver]

ping

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I’d settle for the damn things being able to install 30 programs, run 5 simultaneously, and not crash all the time. That should have been accomplished 10 or 15 years ago. All the fancy bells and whistles are totally useless when compared to reliability.

Any how about the simple feat of being able to copy a directory listing to the clipboard?

[luckybogey]

All of the leaked slides are discussed at the link below per your linked source. Very detailed discussions...

http://msftkitchen.com/2010/06/windows-8-plans-leaked-numerous-details-revealed.html

[Zakeet]

How about a nice sane discussion of technical merits ... facial recognition being the biggest [new aspect].

I know you want us to be serious, but somehow my feeble mind got a picture of Helen Thomas trying to logon using facial recognition ... and then I got an image of a computer puking its chips up until it eventually brought up the blue screen of death.

It will take some powerful good programming to accommodate that old hag.

[Gondring]

[...] just don't let your cat or anything else with a face near the screen when you're trying to log on.

Unless you have a black cat!

[Vince Ferrer]

Consider me. I have resisted buying a cell phone for a long time. I finally bought one for a while, but I let the contract expire and haven't replaced it. My main computer, however, is a laptop, and it has been this way since 2003.

But my attitude towards my next computer has profoundly shifted lately. My next computer will be a large, pimped out desktop machine. But my laptop will become a smartphone, like a Dell Streak. Smartphones are much more portable than the laptop, portable enough that I will actually take it places. The smartphones are not as powerful as the laptops, but most won't care. It will do most jobs well enough. And on the desktop side, since I won't be taking it anywhere, I might as well make it a server, not just putting my laptop on a desk. So my computing power will be split between the big and the very small.

That I think is the coming market space in a nutshell, very big, and very small, with a growing gap in between. The race is on to develop that small mobile computer market space. Apple, Google via android, and Microsoft will be the players. And don't scoff at Microsoft being in last place, they tend to be last in every new thing, but they will end up getting things right eventually.

[dr_who]

Among the other goals for Windows 8 are a "reset button" for use if - or more likely when - your PC begins to mysteriously slow down and performance begins to drag like a dog. Windows 8 will let you reset and retain your data...

Finally, some real innovation from Microsoft!

[Revel]

Another racket to force people to upgrade in a year or two and pay big bucks again.

[grey_whiskers]

Among the other goals for Windows 8 are a "reset button" for use if - or more likely when - your PC begins to mysteriously slow down and performance begins to drag like a dog. Windows 8 will let you reset and retain your data...

Let me guess; it reboots the computer under Ubuntu.

Cheers!

[BigSkyFreeper]

It will be user friendly, bright, colorful and as secure as a slice of Swiss cheese.

[Yardstick]

...just don't let your cat or anything else with a face near the screen when you're trying to log on...

My cat won't let me log on.

[saundby]

Something I want to see from a Win slate is a move away from the computer-as-parasite model that Apple’s pushing. I love my Macs (and run four different OSes on pretty much a daily basis on my various machines—I’m no zealot.) But, I hate the closed-box model of the iPad and iPhone. A full-up filesystem-based commercial OS on popular, competitive slate would be a good thing for everyone.

[TXnMA]

"Among the other goals for Windows 8 are a "reset button" for use if - or more likely when - your PC begins to mysteriously slow down and performance begins to drag like a dog. "

Kudos to Microsoft for finding a way to address the lack of discipline by Windows app developers!

I know for a fact that much of my Mac code is devoted to immediately disposing of all used local memory before I move on to the next operation. Some MS "developers" seem to feel that that same discipline infringes on their individual "freedoms" -- or something.

If MS has figured out how to handle that accumulation of laziness at the OS level -- good move!