Windows 8

History and development 

In January 2011 at the Consumer Electronics Show Microsoft announced that Windows 8 would be adding support for ARM microprocessors in addition to the traditional x86 microprocessors from Intel & AMD.

A 32-bit Milestone 1 build, build 7850, with a build date of September 22, 2010, was leaked to BetaArchive, an online beta community, which was soon leaked to P2P/torrent sharing networks on April 12, 2011. Milestone 1 includes a ribbon interface for Windows Explorer, a PDF reader called Modern Reader, an updated task manager called Modern Task Manager, and native ISO image mounting.


A 32-bit Milestone 2 build, build 7927, was leaked to The Pirate Bay on August 29, 2011 right after many pictures leaked on BetaArchive the day before. Features of this build are mostly the same as build 7955.
A 32-bit Milestone 2 build, build 7955, was leaked to BetaArchive on April 25, 2011. Features of this build were a new pattern login and more.


A 64-bit Milestone 3 build, build 7959, was leaked to BetaArchive on May 1, 2011. This build is notable for being the first publicly leaked Windows Server 8 build, as well as the first leaked 64-bit build.
A Milestone 3 build, build 7971, was released to close partners of Microsoft on March 29, 2011 but was kept under heavy security. However, a few screenshots were leaked. The "Windows 7 Basic" theme now uses similar metrics to the Aero style, but maintains its non-hardware accelerated design, and also supports taskbar thumbnails. The boxes that encase the "close, maximize, and minimize" buttons have been removed, leaving just the signs.


A 64-bit Milestone 3 build, build 7989, leaked to BetaArchive on June 18, 2011 after screenshots were revealed the previous day. An SMS feature, a new virtual keyboard, a new bootscreen, transparency in the basic theme, geo-location services, Hyper-V 3.0, and Powershell 3.0 were revealed in this build.

Features

The main feature that was shown is the extensively redesigned user interface, optimized for touchscreens as well as mice and keyboards. A new "Start screen", similar to the one in Windows Phone 7, includes live application tiles. It replaces the Start menu, being triggered by the Start button or Windows key, and is also the first screen shown on startup. The user can go to the regular desktop by choosing the "Desktop" tile or a traditional desktop-based application. The Start screen also displays the user's name and avatar.
Windows 8 has a new developer platform according to Microsoft Vice President Julie Larson-Green, who called it "our new developer platform, which is...based on HTML5 and JavaScript. The new applications run in full-screen, but two of them can be displayed side-by-side using "Snap". Examples of new applications that were demoed include a Twitter client, a weather application, a stock-tracking application, an RSS news feeder, and a virtual piano.
The new interface is primarily designed for 16:9 screen resolutions, with 1366×768 and larger screens able to display two Windows 8 applications. 1024×768 screens can display one Windows 8 application in full-screen, and 1024×600 screens can only use the traditional Windows desktop.
Mike Angiulo confirmed at Computex 2011 that Windows 8 will use OEM Activation 3.0 instead of OEM Activation 2.1 (used by Windows 7), which supposedly makes it less prone to cracks.
Windows 8 features a new lock screen that shows the date and time and notifications, along with a customisable background.
Windows 8 will also include Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization tool. Previously only offered in Windows Server, Hyper-V will now be available in client versions of Windows for the first time. The system requirements for Hyper-V are a 64-bit processor, a 64-bit version of Windows 8, and a minimum of 4 GB of RAM. Hyper-V also requires a 64-bit system that has Second Level Address Translation (SLAT), a feature that helps with memory management. Many of Intel's and AMD's recent processors support this feature, including many of Intel's i-Series processors (with Extended Page Table) and AMD's 10h family processors.
On September 8, 2011, Microsoft announced that Windows 8 has short boot times, because it saving the kernel's memory to the hard disk on shutdown (similar to the existing Hibernate option) and reloading it on startup.