Microsoft Windows 8 - A Paul Thurrott Review

Microsoft Windows 8 is pretty frickin’ cool! Here's some of what's new when it first starts up:

Start experience. Windows 8 boots in under 10 seconds on virtually any kind of modern PC, and it's a wonder to behold. When you do reach the Lock screen (quickly), you're presented by a gorgeous, full-screen view that will be instantly recognizable to anyone using Windows Phone, complete with nice time, date, and notification elements. Logon can occur via a number of methods, including via the tried and true password, but you can also use simpler methods that will make more sense on a highly mobile device like a slate tablet. These include a PIN style password (four characters) or the fun new Picture Password, which lets you utilize multi-touch gestures over a photo to logon. (For example, you could tap the photo subject's eyes and then swipe a smiley face. Cool. You can also protect your Windows 8 PC with a new security scheme called Secure Boot that works with new UEFI-based BIOSes and prevents unprotected devices--like a USB key stocked with malware--from compromising the PC at bootup. Also, the system performs an early-load of anti-malware after the Secure Boot process validates, to protect things during boot.

Start screen. Microsoft debuted the Start screen earlier this year, so I won't waste much time re-describing it here. It works as expected, and as previously demonstrated, though there are some new bits. Unlike with Windows Phone, each tile on the Start screen is independently customizable, with two size choices (rectangular and square). Also unlike Windows Phone, the Start screen scrolls only horizontally (not vertically), and it works in either portrait or landscape mode. (Also Metro-style UIs do, another new find.) The performance of this UI is astonishing, and it works really well even in this early version. Some of the interaction bits are interesting, since any superfluous UI is hidden until you need it. Unlike in Windows Phone, you don't typically tap and hold. Instead, you swipe down slightly on a tile to get its actions to appear on the bottom edge of the screen. Swipe in from the right edge of the screen and the Charm bar comes up. (Yes, the Charm bar.) It has five icons--Search, Share, Start, Devices, and Settings--and is available from the Start Screen or any full-screen app. (An overlay with the time, date, network, and power also appears when this view is open.) The Start Screen also supports "semantic zoom" where you can pinch and "reverse pinch" two fingers on screen to zoom in (and out) of a tiny version of the full multi-screen Start Screen tile set so you can group tiles and optionally name the groups. It makes the folder management stuff on the iPad look as silly as it is.