General News | Windows8downloads.com - Windows 8 blog - Part 4

2012,Feb
W8

Windows 8 – Using the language you want

in General News , by lucka

With Windows 8, developers changed how Microsoft think about languages from a “local-market feature” to a “feature for everyone everywhere,” and have made it a priority for you to be able to work in any language you want, from any Windows 8 PC. If you can’t read the text that Windows presents to you, you can’t use Windows to its fullest potential. That’s why Microsoft is so excited to bring powerful, easy-to-use language features to more users than ever in Windows 8. (more…)

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2012,Feb
W8

Engineering Windows 8 for mobile networks

in General News , by lucka

People want similar mobility on their PCs as they get on their smartphones.

It is unlikely that your end goal is just to get connected to the Internet. Instead, connecting to the Internet is a step (or a hurdle) towards what you really want to do, like surf, socialize, or explore, and you would prefer that your PC is connected and ready for you to use whenever you want and wherever you are. (more…)

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2012,Feb
W8

Windows 8 PC hardware requirements

in General News , by lucka

There’s been much discussion about a Microsoft mandate for its new Windows 8 operating system, which requires that devices with ARM processors carry a controversial feature known as Secure Boot. This feature will limit the range of operating systems that can be used on the device. The information was discovered in an update to the ‘Windows 8 Hardware Certification Requirements’ documentation, published back in December. (more…)

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2012,Feb
W8

Refresh and reset your PC

in General News , by lucka

Many consumer electronic devices these days provide a way for customers to get back to some predefined “good” state. This ranges from the hardware reset button on the back of a wireless network router, to the software reset option on a smartphone.

We’ve built two new features in Windows 8 that can help you get your PCs back to a “good state” when they’re not working their best, or back to the “factory state” when you’re about to give them to someone else or decommission them. (more…)

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2011,Dec
W8

Improving the setup experience

in General News , by lucka

Setup is something that gets a lot of attention from us in any Windows release. It needs to just work reliably across a huge number of variations of hardware and software. This is true whether you are upgrading your own laptop, or you’re an IT pro who is migrating 10,000 desktops in an enterprise using broad deployment tools. For Windows 7 our main focus was on improving successful install rates, and we did a lot of work to improve reliability and deal with many tough (but relatively rare) cases that had caused problems in setting up earlier versions of Windows. This work gave Windows 7 a more reliable setup experience than in any previous Windows release, as measured by lab testing, customer support incidents, and setup telemetry. (more…)

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2011,Dec
W8

Designing search for the Start screen

in General News , by lucka

Evolution of searching from Start

The search box in the Start menu as we know it today first made its appearance in Windows Vista. It became easy for users to search for programs or apps, settings, and files on the desktop and in personal folders like Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos. The search experience aggregated different types of results in one view with programs and settings combined in a single group. The results of a query displayed a small set of items in heuristically sized groups. You needed to click “See all results” to see the rest in Windows Explorer, which aggregated everything into one ungrouped and unsorted view. (more…)

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2011,Nov
W8

Minimizing restarts after automatic updating in Windows Update

in General News , by lucka

When it comes to Windows Update, one of the most discussed topics is the disruptiveness of restarts in the course of automatic updating. And for good reason—restarts can interrupt you right in the middle of something important.

The obvious question to ask first is why does the installation of updates even require a restart at all? Ideally, we would like all update installations to happen seamlessly in the background without a restart. But, in reality, there are situations where the installer is not able to update files because they are in use. In these cases, we need to restart your machine to complete the installation. The automatic updating experience thus needs to be able to handle cases where restarts are required. (more…)

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2011,Sep
W8

Windows 8 Abandons Old BIOS Boot For New GUI

in General News , by lucka

Info about Windows 8 has been trickling in piece by piece and we’ve been learning about all kinds of drastic design changes, like the lack of plug-in support for Metro, the new blue screen of death and now, the unthinkable; Windows 8 is replacing their decades-old BIOS boot sequence. You know, that good old grey-text-on-black-background, press-f12-for-boot-menu screen. It’s gone. Forever. Replaced by some new-agey “Graphical User Interface” thing that all the kids are used to. It’s a crying shame.

(more…)

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2011,Sep
W8

Windows Developer Preview Downloads

in General News , by lucka

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. (more…)

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2011,Sep
W8

Comparing Boot Times: Windows 7 vs. Windows 8

in General News , by lucka

Over at Lifehacker they decided to put Microsoft’s claims to the test and ran a few speed tests to compare the Windows8 developer preview with Windows 7. (more…)

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