
Hands-on with Windows 8: A PC operating system for the tablet age - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/09/hands-on-with-windows-8-a-pc-operating-system-for-the-tablet-age.ars
======
Rusky
Contracts are a very interesting idea security-wise.

Traditionally you go through a file system or the Internet where apps can
access anything, and so you get Android-style permissions that everyone
ignores.

With contracts, you go through the user's already-necessary actions, and (I
don't know about Windows 8's implementation, but it's definitely possible) you
get exactly what you need, no more and no less.

Capability-based security is finally going mainstream.

~~~
varunsrin
Yeah, its an interesting way of ensuring security (apps only share out
information they want to share) and cross-app compatibility (any platform can
now support sharing of simple data from any other platform, without needing to
use custom app API's)

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angusgr
This looks like a really neat interface. I know it's just a developer preview,
but the article left me with a few big questions:

\- Is this going to be the interface on all Windows 8 variants (desktop,
tablet, professional & home - or whatever those last two are called now)?

\- If this interface _is_ being marketed to enterprise customers as well, has
Microsoft demonstrated any clever ways it will work for them? It all looks
fairly home-centric at the moment.

\- How do legacy Windows apps run in this environment? I run a tiling WM on my
Debian laptop and I spend a lot of my time tweaking regular apps so they'll
look OK in a non-traditional layout. Is there going to be some equivalent of
7's Windows XP Mode that switches you to a different desktop?

~~~
smiler
To answer your questions

\- Microsoft have not yet revealed what SKUs they will ship for Win8, but they
have said the home screen on all versions will be this Metro interface

\- Clearly it will be marketed to them.

\- In the home screen, there is a desktop tile. Select this and you get the
Windows desktop as you'd expect where everything will run normally. It does
not switch you to a VM or anything like that.

~~~
angusgr
Thanks. :)

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nfm
I'm really excited by the new things that are being tried for desktop OSes.
They really haven't changed much since I _started_ using computers.

I wonder how long it will take for touch become mainstream in the laptop
market.

~~~
sciurus
Why do you think it ever will?

~~~
tvon
I imagine touch interfaces will become prolific enough and touch screens cheap
enough that all laptops will eventually have touch screens, even if it is only
a tertiary form of input.

