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By Andy Thomas
Windows has improved dramatically since Windows 95. Let's look
forward to Windows 8 with some speculation of what's to come.
I'm not a fan of everything to come out of Redmond — I thought that
Windows 98 and ME were, to be honest, dreadful. And I ponder, sometimes,
just how bad Windows would be today if there had been no meaningful competition
in the form of MacOS and Linux.
However, that's not how things turned out and Windows has been getting better
since the days of 98 and ME. Competition in the PC operating system arena has
been, in my view, a great thing for users.
With regard to Windows Vista, I actually thought it was a marked improvement
over XP. Although many of the complaints against it seem to originate prior to SP1, and
I must admit that I only used it after this, I wonder whether there was a kind of
herd mentality behind its unpopularity, i.e. that it became somehow fashionable
to diss Vista.
I've never really been one for following fashion, but with Windows 7 however,
I'm happy to say that my experience is in-line with popular opinion — I'm
suitably impressed. While I don't feel that the change between Vista and 7 is as
big, perhaps, as that between XP and Vista, Windows 7 certainly feels more
polished, well thought out and, most importantly, snappier.
How things have changed since the days of Windows 9x.
So let's take a moment to speculate on what's to come in Window 8...
Looking Forward to Windows 8
First of all, current indications are that Microsoft plans to release
Windows 8
as early July 2011. That would mean an interval of just two years between
versions 7 and 8, as opposed to a little under five and a half years between XP and Vista.
Microsoft is clearly trying to speed things up, perhaps due, in part, to the competition
that Google's Chrome OS
may shortly pose.
It's possible that Windows 7 will be the last Microsoft OS to be offered in 32-bit
editions. Indeed, 32-bit support has already been dropped entirely from Windows 7 Server.
However, given the prevalence of 32-bit applications today, I would hazard a guess that it
is unlikely that legacy support for 32-bit applications will be absent from the desktop editions
of Windows 8.
There is also a rumour circulating the web that Windows 8 will support
128-bit processors. However, I would suspect that this will not be seen in the desktop
editions until Windows 9 rather than Windows 8.
A 64-bit operating system facilitates a theoretical maximum of 16 exabytes, which is massive
by today's standards. Although Windows 7 currently imposes a maximum of 16GB for the
64-bit Home Premium Edition, this is an artificial limit and would be trivial
for Microsoft to raise without necessitating a switch to 128-bit architecture.
In short, I think it will be sometime before there is any impetus for desktop users to
switch from 64 to 128-bits. It is possible, however, that 128-bit support may be offered
in the Windows 8 Server edition which is not expected to ship until 2012, or even 2013.
As to what new features to expect in Windows 8? We are, for the moment, reduced to mere guess work based on little more
than the online résumés of Microsoft employees and details of job vacancies posted
by Microsoft. But let's take a look anyway...
Some possibilities gleaned from around the webosphere include:
- A "Next Generation Graphical User Interface Framework", although exactly what this could mean
is sketchy. Speculation arises from nothing more than a few snippets from the LinkedIn profiles of
Microsoft engineers. But it's fun to wonder about what they are working on. (Let's hope that Microsoft
has seen the light and is working to replace its
ribbon user interface with something
user friendly — menus perhaps! But perhaps not; I only half-jest with this.)
- Improvements to PatchGuard,
which will hopefully make Windows more secure against hackers.
- Enhancements to the Remote Desktop Services.
- A new hibernate/resume integration API and a new TLZ compression algorithm.
- Improvements to Windows DirectAccess, which allows mobile users to access corporate networks
without a VPN.
- Major improvements to BranchCache — a new feature developed in Windows 7 which allows data
from an intranet website or file server to be cached locally so that they can be accessed more quickly.
- A Distributed File System Replication (DFSR) service — a multi-master replication engine set
up for folder synchronization across multiple servers. This may be something we will see in Windows 8 Server.
- Cluster support and support for one way replication. Again, something for the Server edition.
Finally, for anyone who remembers the excitement of using Windows 95 for the first time, here's a little nostalgia
in the form of Edie Brickell in the Good Times music video
which came on the installation CD.
Copyright © Andy Thomas
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