Microsoft unveils first look at Windows 10

del.icio.us Tags: operating systems,technology,Windows 10

Nancy Blair, USA TODAY 2:35 p.m. EDT September 30, 2014

The Windows 10 logo. (Photo: Nancy Blair, USA TODAY)

SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft on Tuesday lifted the veil on the next version of Windows: Windows 10.

At an event in San Francisco focused on corporate users, Microsoft previewed early elements of the next generation of its iconic computer operating system.

It represents the first step in a whole new generation of Windows, said Microsoft executive Terry Myerson.

The company said it will focus on one Windows product family across devices. Its corporate users will find Windows 10 "familiar, compatible and productive," Myerson said.

Microsoft's Joe Belfiore gave a demo, focused on the core experience in how the PC "is evolving."

There are live tiles, familiar to Windows 8 users, but also elements familiar to Windows 7 users, which is far more widely deployed. The Start menu and taskbar are front and center.

The Start menu in Windows 10. (Photo: Microsoft)

Yes, the company is skipping the "Windows 9" moniker. Why skip "9"?

"When you see the product in its fullness I think you will agree with us that it is a more appropriate name," Myerson said.

Among other things, Belfiore said the company wants to focus on personalization, to make the Windows experience particular to individual users' tastes and preferences.

"We are trying to hit this balance in just the right way," Belfiore said.

Starting Wednesday, Microsoft is launching a Windows Insider program and will release a technical preview of Windows 10 for laptops and desktops, with other devices to follow.

Microsoft will start talking more about the consumer experience next year at the company's developer conference in the spring, Myerson said. It expects to launch Windows 10 "later in 2015."

Myerson emphasized that the insider program is for people who are comfortable "running pre-release software that will be of variable quality."

"We want to set expectations right," he said. "We are planning to share more than we ever have before...Windows 10 will be our most collaborative, open OS project ever."

Microsoft has been talking broadly about its Windows strategy for months. At its developer conference in April, CEO Satya Nadella and other Microsoft executives outlined ways in which it would make it easier for software developers to create applications that will work across all Microsoft devices – PCs, phones and tablets.

Ahead of the event, researcher Forrester said the pressure is on for Microsoft to address the needs of its business customers given the sluggish adoption of Windows 8.

"Only about 1 in 5 organizations is offering Windows 8 PCs to employees right now," Forrester analyst David Johnson said in a note.

Microsoft's last big Windows overhaul – 2012's tablet and touch-friendlyWindows 8 – was a dramatic departure from the familiar and well-received Windows 7 that preceded it. It left many consumers frustrated over the disappearance of the familiar Start button and desktop.

Windows 8 has since been updated to add features that make it more comfortable for people who prefer more traditional mouse-and-keyboard interactions.

Wall Street so far has embraced Nadella's big moves since being named CEO in February. The stock is up about 25 percent this year. It was at around $46 in mid-day trading Tuesday.

After the announcement, analyst Daniel Ives with research firm FBR said a unified Microsoft platform "is music to ears of CIOs worldwide." It could also open "massive opportunities" on the consumer front in coming years, he said.

In July, the company announced a massive layoff that would trim some 18,000 jobs, many aimed at its $7.2 billion Nokia acquisition. Earlier this year, it announced Office for iPad, a long overdue version of its bread-and-butter productivity software for Apple's popular tablet.

And just this month, Microsoft said it will acquire the studio that created the hit "sandbox" game Minecraft for $2.5 billion, a move that could help bolster both Xbox and the company's mobile ambitions.

Windows 9 leak shows multiple desktops, notifications, new Start menu, and more

del.icio.us Tags: Operating Systems,Technology,Windows 9

 

Jared Newman@onejarednewman

Jared Newman , PCWorld

Jared writes for PCWorld and TechHive from his remote outpost in Cincinnati.
More by Jared Newman

A batch of leaked screenshots from the next version of Windows show just how far Microsoft will go to win back desktop users.

The update, codenamed Threshold and possibly called Windows 9 or just plain Windows, takes some features from Windows 8 and grafts them onto the classic desktop. While we've known for some time that Windows 9 will have a pop-up Start menu and the ability to run modern apps in windowed mode, the new screenshots from Computer Base and WinFuture.de give even greater detail on how things will work.

When running in windowed mode, Windows Store apps will get a button in the top-left corner. Clicking the button brings up a list of functions that previously appeared in the Charms bar, including Search, Share, Play, Project and Settings. This menu lets users switch the app to full screen mode as well.

WinFuture.de

Microsoft is also adding a few new buttons to the desktop taskbar. A search button sits immediately to the right of the Start button, followed by a button for switching between multiple desktops. The latter feature, possibly called “virtual desktops,” will let users switch between several sets of desktop apps and layouts in nod to Ubuntu Linux's longstanding “Workspaces.”

WinFuture.de

Near the right side of the taskbar, users will find a new notifications button, with a pop-up menu that will presumably show messages from Windows Store apps.

The screenshots don't reveal any other major features, but they do give away a few more minor details. Despite rumors that the Charms bar is dead, the screenshots show that users can still bring up Charms by pointing to the upper-right corner, or bring up a recent apps list by pointing to the upper-left corner. Those options and others will be available through Taskbar and Start Menu Properties.

Of course, all of these details are subject to change as Microsoft hasn't even released a public beta yet. The leaks likely come from Microsoft partners, who according to Neowin started receiving Windows builds a few weeks ago. A public “Technical Preview” is expected to arrive later this month or early next month.

Via The Verge

Oops! Microsoft accidentally teases Windows 9 'coming soon' on social media

del.icio.us Tags: Windows 9,Operating Systems,technology

Brad Chacos@BradChacos

• Sep 2, 2014 6:12 AM

Brad Chacos Senior Writer, PCWorld

Brad Chacos spends the days jamming to Spotify, digging through desktop PCs and covering everything from BYOD tablets to DIY tesla coils.
More by Brad Chacos

Microsoft's internal censors seem to be sleeping on the job this year. In June, the Surface Pro 3 manual included several references to a small-screen Surface Mini despite the fact that a small-screen Surface Mini was never actually released. And now, as rumors of Windows 9 swirl, Microsoft China appears to have confirmed the impending reveal.

Posting to Weibo—a Chinese social media site—Microsoft China posed its followers a question: "Microsoft’s latest OS Windows 9 is coming soon, do you think the start menu at the left bottom will make a comeback?" (Translation courtesy of The Verge.)

Oops. And not just because Microsoft has already announced the return of the Start menu.

The post was accompanied by a screenshot of a Windows 9 logo mock-up by Shy Designs, seen above. Microsoft China appears to have quickly realized the error of its ways, as the Weibo message has since been removed, though not before Cnbeta noticed and first reported it.

Several reports from oft-reliable sources say Microsoft is prepared to announce Windows 9 in "technical preview" form at the end of September or early in October, just before Windows 7 PCs disappear from store shelves, though Microsoft itself has yet to confirm it. Leaks suggest Windows 9 will better let a PC be a PC and a tablet be a tablet, bringing several mouse-friendly changes to the desktop and possibly killing the desktop completely in tablets and phones powered by mobile ARM processors.

If Windows 9 is indeed incoming—and Microsoft China's slip-up suggests it is—we have some suggestions for features we'd want to see. But one of the most crucial improvements Microsoft needs to make ASAP has nothing to do with the core operating system itself: The company needs to clean up the Windows Store pronto if it ever hopes to make Metro apps viable on the desktop. Fortunately, Microsoft's already taking its first tentative steps towards fixing the mess.

Create a Smart Home

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“The best software of the lot, by far, was SmartThings. With it, you build commands around specific needs and moments.” -Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Wall Street Journal

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How to restore your SSD to peak performance

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• Jan 16, 2014 3:30 AM

Jon L. JacobiFreelance Writer, PCWorld

Back in the days when mechanical hard drives with spinning platters were the norm, you could simply hand your old hard drive to a deserving relative or friend as an upgrade, get a thank you, and call it a day. It’s not so simple with today’s solid-state drives.

In many cases, used SSDs simply aren’t as fast as newer ones. The biggest issue in retasking, reselling, or even maintaining an SSD for a prolonged period stems from an inconvenient characteristic of NAND flash memory: Previously written cells must be erased before they can be rewritten with new data. If the SSD is forced to reuse cells rather than use new ones while storing data, performance will plummet.

To avoid this problem with NAND flash memory, modern SSD controllers use a number of tricks, including building in extra capacity that users can’t touch—a technique known as over-provisioning. There’s also a command called TRIM that tells an SSD when blocks of memory are no longer needed and can be consolidated and erased.

Sounds good, right? But there’s a catch.

Better in theory than in practice

Intel

NAND memory inside an Intel enterprise-class X-25E Extreme SATA SSD.

Not all garbage collection (as the cleaning up of an SSD’s NAND is known) is created equal. It doesn’t run constantly, and some older operating systems don’t even support the TRIM command. As such, more “used” NAND cells are left hanging around on your SSD than you’d suspect, according to nearly every vendor and data-recovery specialist I consulted

After prolonged use, these idle cells can add up to a big hit on your SSD’s performance. That’s not good.

Simply deleting files and repartitioning and formatting your drive won’t do the trick, however, as those operations take place at levels above where true garbage collection occurs. In fact, due to the total absence of utilities that force complete garbage collection, there’s only one way to return an SSD to pristine, like-new condition—the ATA secure-erase command.

Secure erase to the rescue

Secure erase, a function built into every ATA-based drive since 2001, erases everything on a drive and marks the cells as empty, restoring the drive to factory-fresh default performance.

Once upon a time, you could invoke secure erase only via command-line utilities such as Linux’s HDparam or the DOS-based HDDerase, developed by the University of California San Diego (with funding from the NSA, incidentally). But now, many SSD and hard-drive vendors provide a free utility—such as OCZ’s ToolBox, Samsung’s Magician, or Seagate’s SeaTools—that provides a secure erase capability.

Note that while the command is standard, many vendor utilities work only with their company’s products. If your vendor doesn’t provide a secure-erase command, you can use the DriveErase utility found in the stellar Parted Magic software.

Got all that? Good. Here’s how to restore your SSD to top performance, step by step.

How to restore your SSD to peak performance

First things first: If you have data on the SSD you’d like to retain, back it up. If you’re worried only about backing up files, simply drag and drop them onto a flash drive or external hard drive, or use your favorite backup program.

If you have a working operating system that you’d like to keep, however, use an imaging program such as Acronis True Image or R-Drive Image that copies everything. Do not use Windows System Recovery unless you’re restoring the data to the same drive. It won’t restore to a smaller drive and it sometimes hiccups even with a similar-size drive that has plenty of room.

Next, download the drive utility provided by your SSD vendor, or snag Parted Magic.

Before you get down to brass tacks, disconnect all other drives and boot from a flash drive to perform the erase procedure, to avoid accidentally overwriting the wrong drive. Parted Magic is a great option for this, since it works as a bootable flash drive. If disconnecting your other hard drives is too much hassle, make darn sure you’ve selected the correct drive to erase throughout this procedure. Secure erase is irrevocable.

Now run the secure-erase function. The exact method varies by program. PCWorld’s guide to securely erasing your hard drive explains how to activate secure erase in Parted Magic, which runs on a bootable flash drive. Some SSDs implement the enhanced version of secure erase by default—which also deletes the drive’s housekeeping data—but if an enhanced erase option is available, you might want to use it. Definitely use it if you’ve been doing work for the CIA.

Parted Magic contains all the tools you need to restore an SSD to top performance. 

The secure-erase process should take just a few minutes on a modern SSD. (Traditional hard drives can take hours, by comparison.)

Once the process is done, repartition and format the drive if you intend to copy data back to it. Parted Magic handily provides a full partition editor for this purpose, but you can use Windows’ own Drive Management utility (Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools > Create and format hard disk partitions) to do the same task. Most commonly, you’ll want to use the full capacity of the SSD in a single partition and format it as NTFS.

Once that’s done, you’re good to go. Dump any data you may have saved back onto the drive and bask in the super-speeds of your good-as-new SSD. Check out PCWorld’s guide to prolonging the life of your SSD to keep your drive humming along for years to come