Microsoft Says, Windows 8 boots super fast

One of the most obsessed over features of Windows is its boot time, according to Windows chief Steven Sinofsky. As such, he says in a blog post, Windows 8 will boot so fast it will make the relatively spry Windows 7 seem Vista sluggish.

According to Sinofsky's post in the Building Windows 8 blog, the way Windows 8 achieves such super-fast booting is that it doesn't quite shut down in the traditional sense. Instead, it uses a fast boot that's a hybrid of "cold" booting and hibernating. Green minds should rest assured that there's "effectively zero watt power draw when off," while those who like the clean start of a real boot up can look forward to a "fresh session after boot."

                                            
In addition to rethinking the software process itself, the Windows team was able to speed up boot time by making better use of multi-core processors found in most of today's computers.
Here's the Windows Team's visual comparison between a cold boot and a new hybrid fast start:

There's a more thorough explanation on the Sinofsky post, if you're curious about each step.
The results are vivid, as you can see in Microsoft's chart. For many machines, Windows 8 boots are under 20 seconds, while the Windows 7 equivalent machines take significantly longer:

The need for fast boot times is crucial, because so many people still regularly boot and restart their machines. According to the Building Windows 8 blog post, 57 percent of desktop PC users and 45 percent of laptop users still shut down their machines instead of putting them to sleep.

But Sinofsky is also quick to point out that in the new era, booting and restarting ought to be performed less and less frequently:

We designed Windows 8 so that you shouldn't have to boot all that often (and we are always going to work on reducing the number of required restarts due to patching running code). But when you do boot we want it to be as fast as possible.
Windows 8 features: 
Windows 8 offers a number of new Windows 8 features from its all new UI to Windows App Store and improvised security features.The windows 8 features are given below: 

Support for both x86 PCs and ARM tablets:Windows 8 is the first edition of Windows which will work on both ARM based tablets and traditional x86 (as well as x32 and x64) PCs based on ARM processors from Intel and AMD. 

Windows To Go:The “Windows To Go” seems to be an extra advantage that basically allows Windows 8 to boot from a USB device (called as Live USB), including user’s programs, settings and files. The feature is designed to work with both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0, and on both legacy NIOS and UDFI firmware. However, Microsoft says that a user will not be able to “Hibernate” with this feature.

Windows Store: To compete with Apple, Windows has confirmed the introduction of a Windows Store, similar to Mac App Store, which allows users to browse through Windows applications, while developers can publish their Metro-style apps on Windows 8 devices.

Windows 8 User Interface:Windows 8 certainly has got a mind blowing interactive UI, which has been extensively redesigned to a “Metro-style” design, which shows the most important information to you, embodies simplicity, and gives you full control over it.


Now that's what we want to hear. Stay tuned for more Windows news to roll out over the course of the next week, as Microsoft runs its BUILD developers conference.

Source :-http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com

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Samsung Presents Windows-7 based iPad 2 Rival

Samsung has been extremely active at IFA and launched a new tablet which runs on Windows 7, is Wacom-enabled and features a dual core processor (you can check the hands-on here)

The tablet, called the Series 7 Slate, comes with a 11.6-inch capacitive touchscreen with a 1366x768 pixels resolution, Windows 7 Home Premium and surprise, surprise, a dual core i5-2467M processor rather than an Intel Atom one.
There's also 4GB RAM, either a 64GB or 128GB SSD, instant power on and fast boot times with a six hours battery life likely to be the norm.

There's a full size USB port, a SIM slot (embedded 3G modem), a microHDMI and a stylus pen, not unlike the one that accompanies the Samsung Note, a three megapixel rear camera and a two megapixel model in the front.
The device hasn't been officially launched in the UK but will be available at $1099 for the base system and $1349 for the version that includes 128GB, a docking station and a keyboard.

The Series 7 slate is 13mm thick and weighs around 900g which is way higher than the rest of the competition (it does have a bigger screen and a much higher resolution though).

Whether it will be able to rival the iPad 2 remains to be seen but given that Windows 8 will launch on tablets next year, we wouldn't bet against that.

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