Microsoft reveals more details about the new Windows 8

Microsoft has unveiled further details about the next version of its Windows operating system, dubbed Windows 8, at the BUILD developer conference held last week.

Windows 8 will include a new interface, Metro, which has the appearance of a tablet or smartphone operating system. The appearance of Metro was inspired in part by the design of the bus timetables on the Seattle Metro, and is described by Microsoft as a change from the icon-based appearances of iOS and Android.

Windows 8 is designed to run on tablet computers as well as desktop and laptop PCs. The Metro interface features touchscreen gestures to arrange apps on screen side by side. But the traditional desktop environment, with recycle bin, taskbar and start button will still be there, and users can switch between the Metro view and desktop view.

The difference is that the new start button opens the metro styled start screen again and the old start menu is now gone. The new Office and Outlook suites, Office 15 and Outlook 15 appear to be designed with the same 'Metro' interface.

Another program embracing this Metro look is the new Internet Explorer 10, which is currently in development. There will be two versions, one that can be launched from the desktop, and the Immerse Version, which is the one that runs from Metro. The latter version will not support any plugins. 

Microsoft also mentioned at BUILD that Windows 8 will have faster startup times due to the way the operating system stores information. It will also have a slightly improved battery life on x86 laptops compared to Windows 7. There is a new file system called Protogon, which appears to be a radical departure from the previous hard disk formats that Windows uses, and of which little is known.

Many pre-release test versions of Windows 8 have been leaked onto file sharing websites, with the first one becoming publicly available in September 2010, so earlier versions of the operating system have been available for scrutiny for quite some time now. The latest legal Microsoft release is the developer build, and so provides developer tools specifically designed to work with the new Metro layouts.

There are several other features shown in the developer build. These include the Windows Store, not yet online, which is assumed to be an application marketplace much like the Apple store. There's also an option that helps users repair an installation of Windows, which has become unstable by quickly reinstalling the operating system. There are two options: the first is called a Refresh, which reinstalls windows and retains user information such as favourites and applications. The second is called Reset and results a reformat of the drive that deletes all the user's files.

Windows Explorer has been redesigned to use a ribbon interface, similar to the appearance of Office 2007 and later. This supposedly gives easier access to applications and the commands relevant to these applications. So, for example, if you were to select a folder of photos, then it'd also highlight tools that allow you to start a slideshow with them or rotate the images. 

There have also been some hardware updates, which include USB 3 support – USB 3.0 has the potential to run 10 times faster than USB 2.0 and provides a longer battery life by better power consumption.

There is also Windows To Go, a feature that will allow users to create a bootable USB Flash drive with Windows 8 on it. This means that users will be able to run Windows 8 from a portable drive if they need to. Microsoft is also bringing cloud-based features into Windows 8. For example, with a Windows Live account applications and user information can be synced among all of your PCs. It will also sync your passwords, browser history, and favourites.

We don't yet know anything about pricing, or what the different versions available will be. Although Microsoft corporate VP Dan'l Lewin hinted at a release sometime around next Autumn, Microsoft has not given an official release date. We do know that Windows 7 PCs will be able to upgrade to Windows 8.

The minimum specification to run Windows 8 on your computer is a 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM (2GB for 64-bit PCs), 16GB of disk space (32GB for 64-bit) and DirectX 9 graphics.

With the Metro interface Windows 8 seems to be taking a large departure from the previous operating systems. However, since it retains the desktop, users new to Metro but used to older operating systems hopefully won't find themselves in too unfamiliar territory.