At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft announced that it would be including support for system-on-a-chip (SoC) and mobile ARM processors in its next version of the Windows operating system, which is expected to be called Windows 8.
Windows 8 includes a new "Hybrid Boot" option that uses "advanced hibernation functionality" on shutdown to allow faster startup times. Another new feature is the ability to create a Portable Workspace, an installation of Windows 8 on a USB storage device.
Milestone 1 (build 7850, with a build date of September 22, 2010) was leaked to BetaArchive, an online beta community, which was soon leaked to P2P/torrent sharing networks on April 12, 2011. Milestone 1 includes a ribbon interface for Windows Explorer, a PDF reader called Modern Reader, an updated task manager called Modern Task Manager, and native ISO mounting.
A Milestone 3 build, build 7971, was released to close partners of Microsoft on March 29, 2011 but was kept under heavy security. However, a few screenshots were leaked. The Windows 7 Basic theme has been replaced with a new theme, where the boxes that encase the "close, maximize, and minimize" buttons have been removed, leaving just the signs.
Milestone 3 includes a new Welcome screen, a new packaged application model called AppX that is based on Silverlight, Windows Store to review and buy applications online and a setting for automatically adjusting the window color to fit the wallpaper. It also includes a stripped down "Immersive" version of Internet Explorer, similar to the mobile version of Internet Explorer, but using the desktop Trident rendering engine.
This is awesome! Great work Microsoft!
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