With the unveiling of Windows 8, there have been many new features that were not initially shown off when introduced. One small, but unannounced feature, was a new boot manager.
The image above shows off Microsoft’s new Boot Manager which, unsurprisingly, is designed to use the Metro design language. The new interface, while simple and clean in its design, offers the basic functionality that you would expect from a Boot manager.
Microsoft unveiled that they will finally be launching a Windows Store with applications and games developed in HTML5/CSS with JavaScript, C, C#, C++, VB or XAML. The Windows Store will only be accessible through the new Metro interface and feature free and paid applications.
Link – http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-8-the-windows-store
Windows 8 will come with Internet Explorer 10, the next version of Microsoft’s web browser. As we have reported before, IE 10 will allow users to choose from either a standard web browser interface or the touch screen-based Metro interface. But another important element of IE 10 is that its Metro interface won’t be using plug-in programs, such as Abobe’s Flash, that run on many web sites.
Link – http://www.neowin.net/news/internet-explorer-10-to-dump-plug-in-support-for-metro
The Windows Developer Preview is a pre-beta version of Windows 8 for developers. These downloads include prerelease software that may change without notice. The software is provided as is, and you bear the risk of using it. It may not be stable, operate correctly or work the way the final version of the software will. It should not be used in a production environment. The features and functionality in the prerelease software may not appear in the final version. Some product features and functionality may require advanced or additional hardware, or installation of other software.
The next release of Windows Phone 7 Connector landed in the Mac App Store today. The software, which requires OS X 10.6 or later, makes it easy to sync media files from your Mac to your Windows Phone and vice versa. It’s also how Mac users update their Windows Phone software.
Link – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/windows-phone-7-connector/id415571499?mt=12
In continuing with the improvements in core Windows functionality and also oft-requested features, we are adding native Explorer support for ISO and VHD files in Windows 8. While terabytes of storage are available to all of us, managing disk (or disc) image formats remains important for a number of mission-critical operations in many organizations and among power users. We know even more support for VHD is a big request, so stay tuned.
Link – http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/30/accessing-data-in-iso-and-vhd-files.aspx
Welcome to the public Beta for new Data Protection Manager 2012. Please download the beta and try it for yourself.
Link – http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27216
Copying, moving, renaming, and deleting are far and away the most heavily used features within Windows Explorer, representing 50% of total command usage (based on Windows 7 telemetry data). For Windows 8, we want to make sure that using these core file management commands, which we collectively refer to as “copy jobs,†is a great experience.
Update Rollup 5 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 resolves issues that were found in Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 since the software was released. This update rollup is highly recommended for all Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 customers.
Link – http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27193
Link – http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27122
Building the next release of Microsoft Windows is an industry-wide effort that Microsoft approaches with a strong sense of responsibility and humility. Windows 8 reimagines Windows for a new generation of computing devices, and will be the very best operating system for hundreds of millions of PCs, new and old, used by well over a billion people globally.
Link – http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/15/welcome-to-building-windows-8.aspx
One of the wonderful and difficult things about building software for hundreds of millions of customers is that any change you make is an opportunity to either delight or annoy your customers. Sometimes you do both.
Over the past several years, we’ve received a lot of negative feedback on the old user tile login experience, from bugs to design flaws to the fact that it only worked only in IE.
On July 26, Microsoft made it official: The “Mango†operating system update for Windows Phones has RTM’d (released to manfucturing).
From a note on the Windows Phone blog:
“This marks the point in the development process where we hand code to our handset and mobile operator partners to optimize Mango for their specific phone and network configurations. Here on the Windows Phone team, we now turn to preparing for the update process.â€
I’m prepared to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt and am counting on Windows Phone team members to have put the squeeze on their mobile operator partners. Hopefully, Microsoft has “convinced†them to sign off on the testing process quicker than they did with “NoDo,†the first Windows Phone operating system update that took months to get into users’ hands.
The Microsoft Camera Codec Pack enables the viewing of a variety of device-specific file formats in Window Live Photo Gallery as well as other software that is based in Windows Imaging Codecs (WIC).
Installing this package will allow supported RAW camera files to be viewable in Windows Explorer.
Link – http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26829
