Microsoft Shows Off Windows 8: A Sleek New Tablet Interface, Coexisting With Regular Windows

Forgive my skepticism. Didn't we just get Windows 7 a little more than a year and a half ago? I'm sorry but that's much too soon to be expecting anyone to want to buy another $200 ripoff. That's before I even touch on the idea that they can successfully make an OS that will run on tablets and won't be a piece of junk on desktops.

It doesn't matter how long it was since 7 came out. I'm pretty sure most people will get it when they buy a new computer with it already installed, so it will naturally spread as people upgrade their hardware. Just like every other version of Windows.

Didn't Mac just come out with the iPad 2? and that was almost EXACTLY 13 months after the iPad? (iPad launch April 3 2010, iPad 2 launch March 2, 2011) And already there is talk about the iPad 3 Launching early 2012... so your logic on the time aspect is a little askew.

As far as HOW it will function being a split function catch all OS... Without MAJOR overhauls to the baseline OS (time to get away from DOS Microsoft!) I don't see this doing too well when faced with the Unix based OS's. Unix and all it's spinoffs just run faster than DOS does... Now, if Microsoft can come up with it's own Unix version, the way Apple, Google, Ubuntu, SuSE, Linux have.. then they might have a contender. If they stick with DOS... I can see an Atari or Sega moment on the horizon, seemingly well intergrated into the market.. then poof gone.

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

In the video he said that they would be launching many videos showcasing this over the next year. I would then estimate that this will not be available until sometime next year.

Like I really care what Apple does. But thanks for the useless analogy.

yeah i think they are moving to fast. i currently use windows xp and it run fantastically. no need for 7 or 8. i bet by the end of next year they will have windows 9.5

@"Ultra-Humanite" seriously? Are you 8? If you just don't care, which really hurts us, then don't share your comments on this page. You SHOULD expect to have criticism here and if not then you get lucky! yay, go troll off somewhere else.

Still not sold on a touch screen interface. I'm sorry if this offends, but to me it's still nothing but a toy. Clunky to use, difficult to type on, and worst of all gets your screen all full of finger prints. Guess it's time to buy stock in Windex.

Uhhh it was directed at someone else's comment that seemed to indicate that I should care about Apple's production cycle. Reading comprehension is a helpful tool. I love when an obvious troll attempts to accuse someone else of trolling.

@Turbo Two Tone: Rest assured someone around here will be offended and will most likely let you know it. As you can tell I attempted to give my personal opinion only to be accused of using skewed logic in an analogy that had absolutely zero relevance to my original point and then further attacked when I informed the commenter of such.

ultra-humanite:
you do know that microsoft releases a new OS three years after their last one. Windows 8 is probably going to come out late next year (that's three years from when windows 7 came out!) and the merging of mobile and desktop interfaces isn't very complicated. Basically all they're doing is putting a different UI and linking it to already made files and commands. Also they already have the windows phone 7 running the UI and my guess is that they plan on merging the two with a windows phone 8. This will have many advantages like being able to run the same programs on all of your devices and having ultimate connect-ability between all of your computing devices. This is especially important for microsofts cloud system and their Bing search engine.

@Ultra-Humanite
A little more fact and a little less irrelevant opinion would make these posts much more interesting. I have to agree you regarding windows 8 being a rip off, and also with turbo-two-tone that touch interfaces aren't all that great. Apple has the best interface to date, but it is a pain to have to lug an iPad around.

Now a Windows 8 tablet is automatically a fail. The interface is too much of a dramatic change. MS should work with a non-affiliated company and drop any indication of Windows or MS to restore buyer confidence. I don't think MS is willing to completely re-write their OS though. There's still code from 1993 floating around in Win 7.

MS needs to do a lot of things, and they are really behind in the game. I don't think they will be a major player in the industry in the next 10 years if they don't figure out how to do things right.

Let's not confuse realism with negativity...

For people that love science and technology, one would think there would be more positive thinkers that thrive on change and improvements. To say that you run windows xp and it runs fine is like saying your dune buggy is just as nice to travel in as an AMG Mercedes. I use windows 7 on my hot rodded work computer as well as a couple macs, and windows 7 is much better than xp for what i do (computer graphics). Sure, Vista wasn't great, but sometimes a company has to make mistakes to learn from them (c'est la vie). and Mainly, nobody has even used this OS yet to truly be able to tell where it lacks, if at all. To me, this looks like an outstanding and truly revolutionary design for Microsoft. I keep reading here that MS is behind in the times and dos sucks and this and that...WELL THEN HOW ABOUT THIS AS A MAJOR UPGRADE?! The integration of tablet and current desktop technology is NECESSARY to be ahead in the game. Its going to happen as our devices, our cars, our home computers, our tvs, our appliances...etc all become interlinked one day.

I wonder if they plan on eventually using the ARM system on a chip for windows 8, wouldn't that change a lot of coding?

I'm on an ipad right now and it runs a lot differently than osx...point being; it doesn't matter how dramatic the change is, as long as its easy (easier) to use.

As far as production cycle, why does that really matter? How does that make it a rip off?

@CodeZero -- As a person who actually worked on and supported computers that used MS-DOS (read; I didn't play on daddy's old MS-DOS computer, but supported them in a business environment), I can tell you Microsoft hasn't used DOS since Windows ME. Windows NT, 2000 and onward to Windows 7 all use the NT Kernel, and while the command line interface may now look DOS-like, it isn't DOS.

@Kehvan, as a MCP I know that the NT Kernel isn't "DOS" it was written with C++. What I meant by "getting away from DOS" was that even though the new kernel has a new coding language, the architecture is still simply reworkings of original DOS usage reformated for the new coding. From POST to User access is still dominated by legacy operations. They need to scrap and start from total scratch and build into a blueprint rather than keeping parts of the foundation. Please excuse my oversimplication, I was trying to keep it short for the sake of the post, but alas my quick response was flawed. My first "dos" comment was on point, my second was not used correctly as I wanted it.

@Ultra... I guess analogies are wasted on you, looking back at some of your other posts, it's clear you are simply against Apple, and thus cannot look past the logos. I rarely mean disrespect and only look to provide a counterpoint to think upon. I enjoy a good debate, I guess not everyone can appreciate counterpoints and other lines of thought. That said...Computing is a unversal idea, thus comparing release strategy for one computing entity to another is more than relevant. Besides, it's less about the actual technology, coding language and advances and more about product marketing and profit. Your inital comment was that you were skeptical of a new release due to the time between releases. Knowing how other companies handle software releases can shed light on the timeframe you are having issues with. "Certain other manufactures of computing OS's" update their software quite often, and provide major overhaul releases almost yearly. MS is actually very slow at updates and overhauls when looking at the market as a whole.

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

On the topic of tablets and touch control, To me it's a double edged sword. On the one hand it's quick, easy, intuitive and 100% customizable. On the other hand it mars far too easily and it far too delicate, and a major drawback, is there is zero tactile spacial orientation, keyboards have tactile locational waypoints at the F and J keys to orient yourself on the board, to date, we do not have a way to do this with touch panels, being forced to look at my fingers to ensure I'm typing the correct letters is a major drawback to total touch panel integration. Once they can perfect postivie tactile feedback and spacial orientation, THAN it can move forward to take over for the keyboard and mouse/trackpad/trackball combination. Adding it, as the article says as an extra peripheral, at this point just seems a daft move. Just my 2 cents on the topic.

Playing Devil's Advocate since 1978

"The only constant in the universe is change"
-Heraclitus of Ephesus 535 BC - 475 BC

To me, it seems that Microsoft is way too eager to throw out the "traditional" computer OS. The keyboard and mouse is relatively efficient, and has been used for too long to cast them by the wayside. Tablets are great for light computing, but they won't be replacing keyboard and mouse for a long time.

@CodeZero -- Using your argument, one could make the argument that Linux is practically DOS, but as we all know, it's not. The NT Kernel doesn't use the same file system, it doesn't manage memory the same way at all, and the ONLY similarities with DOS is the use of the BIOS instead of EFI. And in fact, the NT Kernel, thus modern Windows, has more in common with OS/2 than MS-DOS.

Your Kung Fu is weak.

Ok. Let's for second forget who made this OS.

It works as a "pad". It runs the old software too.
This is bad?

When the world went to clicking pictures instead of typing text to get at files, the world for most(most) computer users changed.
"Look dad, if I click this litte picture it shows me the files and if I click this other picture it makes a bigger picture open"
What have you been looking at son?!!!
Scoot over son. I want to click some of those.
>There was much rejoicing.

Years later a different company made it even easier to click little pictures. "Look dad, if I click this picture it tells me where I can buy beer cheapest."
Nice .... program.
App dad. It's now called an app.
You are very smart now shut up and get me a beer.
>There was much rejoicing.

Now we are told the a company made a new OS. It runs programs and apps. It runs on big clunky computers and wittle bitty ones too.
>Once again there was much rejoicing and drinking of beer.

I LIKES IT!! This is definitely a tablet app, but I like the idea that the desktop will work the same way as well. Just need to get my grubby hands on a beta test now... YUMMY!

It's a very daring move and a fundamental rethinking of desktop metaphors with all the right bits of Linux tablet OSs worked in. I like the new not-Alt+Tab, and I'm really impressed with the extent to which it puts content first and removes all the frames and interference, particularly with the tiles, assuming that they make some real use of them (like, say, having New and Recent Documents links on the MS Word tile.) If someone had told me a week ago that Microsoft was going to make a tiling window manager intuitive, I don't think I would have believed either part of that. = )

It's not going to convince me to switch to Windows, but it's very pretty. = D

I see Android as the death knell for Microsoft. Android will dominate the tablet market, and then tablets will become more and more powerful, and then someone will think to make a keyboard attachment (which they probably already have, I haven't looked) so that your tablet becomes a laptop on demand. And then Android will own smartphones, tablets, and laptops, and Windows will be limited to desk tops, and people will ask why they have to learn this klunky, geeky system in order to use a desktop. And they won't mean Linux, they'll mean Windows.

I figure that in five years, Windows will be a legacy system. Maybe its demise is not carved in stone, but it will be an uphill battle for Microsoft to survive the coming decade.

@engineerzero -- Android can no more replace Windows as Windows could replace AIX. The more likely scenario is that in five years Android and Windows will work in symbiosis more so than in opposition. Windows is on the vast majority of laptops and desktops, so if the goal of Google is to overtake the laptop segment, they have a LONG WAY to go, and aren't likely to take that market share for about a decade at least for the sheer fact that businesses aren't going to give up all the documents, spreadsheets, databases, presentations, and other items created by Microsoft Office just to switch to Android. This is a point that Apple has had to contend with for years with its Mac platform. But on top of that, a great number of businesses use the Outlook/Exchange Server, and while an Android device can use the ActiveSync app to sync email and some other features of Exchange, it's not the same as working natively with Outlook and Exchange.

When it comes time to compare the Android, webOS, Blackberry, Meego, and iOS (Apple) operating systems to Windows 8, the superiority of Windows 8 will become evident. Just try to run Adobe Photoshop on an iPad, Android, or any other tablet, for that matter. The tablets running Windows 8 will be a true enterprise solution with their ability to run true business software.

So then are our government infrastructure interfaces going to work for more than one day in a row now? Will the World of Microsoft still be so porous that my 10 year old can accidentally hack a computer, without even knowing how? Will we be keeping imprisoned child molesters off the internet now? No. So what's the point? Every Microsoft release just makes it harder for any data transfer or sitting file to ever be secured. I'll be sticking with my secure, reliable freeware that JUST PLAIN WORKS EVERY TIME.

Cant wait for Google to take out all of these other computer corporations [especially Apple].

It has new cool interfaces. But I doubt about its energy efficiency. The tile interface needs to be updated constantly. That means network circuitry and display interfacing are constantly working. They consume a lot of the processor power and battery energy.

wow
i love it
it feels like this what apples osx lion wanted to b
and more

Question: In the world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?
Answer: Intellectually challenged, which are unable to learn to use what is better and free... like Ubuntu Linux for example.

My grand father used to say: "Only idiots have to pay to learn".

Hmmmmm, the start up screen looks a lot like Windows Media Center.