Microsoft Windows 8 Features and Review

Microsoft is going to launch its latest operating system Windows 8 very soon, they already launched Windows 8 Developer Preview for developers to build applications for it. It is touch friendly operating system, well suited for tablets too. It is combined desktop, laptop and tablet operating system, which is designed for 10 inch touch friendly tablets to big screens. According to sources it will have very less boot time with high power hardware.

Your old Windows Start Menu has been replaced by Metro style touch interface with live tiles, we have already seen in Windows Phone 7.  You can put apps on screen side by side and can still be able to switch to the traditional Windows desktop for when you need richer apps. It also enables you to pin people, RSS feeds and web pages with apps. You can arrange and explore large numbers of apps with Windows 8 Start Menu.

You will feel Windows Phone 7 gestures when look at Windows 8 Lock screen and Start Menu or Start Screen. You can find unread emails and missed instant messages details on the Lock screen. You can also use Aero Shake, Aero Snap and Aero Peek features in Desktop mode in Windows 8 as seen in Windows 7 which is good for multitaskers. Your traditional task manager alaso comes with added features. It will come in two modes.

Although the traditional start menu is not here but you can still search for applications in Windows 8, just press Start button ( or Windows Icon button) and start typing the thing you are searching for and you will get those Applications infont of you.

Control Panel has totally new refreshing look, You will get all options in touch friendly manner as well as desktop friendly manner.

You can easily adjust settings of any applications just by clicking on start button or clicking on bottom left corner of the screen(touch bottom left corner in case of touch friendly device).Windows 8 comes along Internet Explorer 10 supported by HTML 5, CSS 3, Flash, Silverlight and all the other plug-ins support that other tablet browsers lack. It will run in Windows 8’s Metro Interface as well as classy Desktop view.


As a touch friendly OS Windows 8 brings touchpad, which you can enable just by right click on taskbar and selecting touch input.
The Windows Explorer where you can navigate drives and discs etc. has come with ribbon interface as seen in Microsoft Office 2010. Which helps it to make touch friendly.

 
Windows 8 will come with many applications like Socialite for Facebook connection, Tweet@Rama for Twitter, Paintplay for Paint with touch input and many more applications, Windows 8 also support handwriting input.

As a Final verdict on Windows 8 I want to say that it will be a good OS for tablets but still many people uses Desktop and Laptops for richer applications, so it should also have some better features for them, like it lack traditional start menu buttons, you can not find direct link to Log Off or shut down your computer. Although it is still in development phase so we might seen many new and better features for both tablets and desktops till its final release, we have to wait till then, but it is nice offering from Microsoft.