Download Windows8 Free

Available today will be the next phase in the development cycle of Microsoft’s replacement for Windows 7, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview (Windows 8 Beta).  Update:  download links for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview are in our Windows 8 Download Center.

At an event at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft have this afternoon released the Consumer Preview (beta) for Windows 8 to the public.  You can download it from http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/download

It was interesting to hear what Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky was saying about the new operating system though, as it gives an interesting insight into why Microsoft have done what they have.

He began his keynote by saying. ”We knew of course when we did the developer preview that the UI wasn’t done — lots of it wasn’t done. The goal was to get it out there and get people to understand what we were after.”  This is a tacit reminder that the negative feedback the Developer Preview received wasn’t something he felt was justified (though he did release it publicly!).  He went on to say “But today every element of the OS has been touched and improved as we prepared for the consumer preview of Windows 8.  Since the developer preview in September, we have made over 100,000 changes in Windows 8. We think of it as complete all the way through.”  Needless to say Microsoft now consider Windows 8 to be finished (bug hunt not withstanding).

Big Changes Comming in Windows8

Big Changes between Windows XP, Windows 20007 and Windows 8

Please share this graphic and page with your friends, colleagues and coworkers who want to know more about Windows 8.

Microsoft’s New ReFS Format

As early back as 2003, Microsoft has been promising a new file system to replace NTFS, originally known as WinFS. Now, in 2012 a new file system finally is coming. So what is ReFS all about and does it have anything to do with the original WinFS announcement?
First off, WinFS was a technology designed as a relational file system for the storage of structured and unstructured data. After several years of hype, it was essentially quietly killed in 2006.
The main factors for its death laid around the fact that it didn't offer a significantly better experience than what we already had with NTFS.
So fast forwarding to today, with NTFS as the dominate file system (though many legacy devices still use FAT-32), what makes ReFS worth the change?
First off, Windows 8 is all about change with its touch-centric design, its use of the hibernate kernel for speeding up start-ups and shut-downs, and the introduction of ARM processor support. So now seems like the perfect time to make yet a big change on the file system front as well.
Microsoft is working hard to overcome past perceptions that its Oses are easily corrupted and overly unstable when compared to options like Linux and Mac OS. Despite that fact this has been somewhat true, the folks at Redmond still find it important to lay these security and stability concerns to rest.
So ReFS standards for “resilient” file system, and resilient it is. The main purpose that designers kept in mind with this format is that it is capable of keeping data safe and, hopefully, free of potential corruptibility.
There are several ways it attempts to accomplish this goal, such as keeping metadata integrity with checksums, verifying and auto-correcting data to limit data corruption, isolating data corruption, keeping user data integrity with integrity streams, and keeping an entire volume intact, online, and accessible.