Michael Hurley Daniel Avis WINDOWS 8

INTRODUCTION Windows 8 is the latest operating system released by Microsoft, it has new features and a different ui format than windows 7. It runs on a tablet ui and works a lot with apps as oppose to the old start menu and programs.

PICTURE

ANALYSE AND EXPLAIN FEATURES Snap multi-tasking is a new way of doing two things at once. You can resize all your programs and keep them up in the foreground while working, multi-tasking becomes a simple job with windows 8. Touch keyboards are incorporated into windows 8 for the more futuristic tablet feel of the operating system. There is a new Ui with windows 8, the same Ui used for the ipad and tablets with more apps involved and touch screen brought in for the new system.

WINDOWS 8 ADVANTAGES 1. Quick Boot: This is a feature I love. Instead of turning on the computer and waiting for it to boot for long, I now get to the Start screen within 10 seconds. That is on a Celeron powered notebook!!! 2. Shutdown: It seems as quick as pressing the POWER button in old 8086 machines running MS-DOS (Remember them?) 3. Boot to Internet ready Interface: Unlike Windows 7 that shows desktop while still loading drivers for Internet, I can fire Internet as soon as I get to the start screen. No waiting here as well. 4. Navigation: Strange enough, I am not missing the Start menu nor the Start screen. Scrolling using the mouse wheel is fun. It is a different matter that I removed all unnecessary apps to make it a smaller scroll.shows desktopStart menu

WINDOWS 8 DISADVANTAGES 1. It was tough to decide whether to use the default antimalware in Windows 8 or to install 3rd party antivirus. I do trust the abilities of Windows Firewall from Vista itself so there is no problem there. But then, is the default antivirus good enough? I have not yet installed any anti- virus on Windows 8 as I am still looking for a detailed literature that explains how it works. If you know of any resource, please let me know. 2. Media Player: What is this thing? What happened to the default codecs? Where are all the options present in the good old WMP? Are they hidden or completely done away with? No DVD support is understandable. I can use VLC player in case I need to play a DVD but then, what if I wish to rip a DVD into WMV format? One option is to install a video converter and convert from DVD. On Win7, I use AnyVideo Convertor. For some reason, it won't install on Windows 8. Did anyone else face similar problem? 3. Privacy: If you were not alert during installing Windows 8, you end up granting location access to many of the Windows 8 apps. So even if IE is really not allowing websites to track you down, other apps are giving away your location information freely. It took a good deal of exercise to figure out how to turn off location access to Windows 8 apps. Go to Change PC Settings and from there, move the slider to turn off location access completely.

SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS Minimum hardware requirements for Windows 8 Architecture IA-32IA-32 (32-bit)x86-64x86-64 (64-bit) Processor 1 GHz (with PAE, NX and SSE2 support) [81]PAENXSSE2 [81] Memory (RAM) 1 GB2 GB Graphics Card DirectX 9DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driverWDDM Storage 16 GB20 GB

SUMMARY OF BUSINESS EXPECTATIONS The business expectations for Windows 8 were definitely set high but it has been let down due to extremely lower sales than they had predicted. Business’s are struggling to find the incentive to switch to window’s 8 when they are perfectly capable using the windows 7 operating system or other types. With a new type of operating systems come learning how to use it, with the new tablet ui they have put forward for windows 8 some people are going to be hesitant to use it because they wont know if they will be able to use it as easy as they could on the old operating system.

ISSUES AND PROBLEMS On the release when you tried to download it digitally you were refused at the end of the download after no hick ups throughout it. I think it's really confusing.“"Some of it feels intuitive once you've already done it, but it doesn't feel automatically intuitive.“"It should be easier. I shouldn't have to think about it.“ Those are just some quotes from the reviews of Windows 8 by everyday people.

SUMMARY Windows 8 is an average operating system that has taken a leap into the future with tablet setup and ui however the problem it may face in the future is other people have to keep up with it if they want to make sales. Even with this small jump, lots of people are very confused about how the operating system works and are not sure if they will be able to work out how to use the operating system or not. I believe in time this will get better but for now the operating system has to be more simplistic and make smaller jumps, by doing this all the non-tech savy people will be able to keep up and will be happy.

RECOMMENDATIONS I would recommend windows 8 to anyone who has at least some knowledge of how to use a computer and how tablet systems work, people who do not have enough previous knowledge before using this OS will be easily confused and quickly frustrated by it.