Windows 8 is now almost all grown up and ready for its official retail release. The new Microsoft operating system, which is scheduled to hit store shelves later this year, is now available for download as a release preview.
This is the last step in Microsoft’s process of making pre-release versions of Windows publicly available for testing. The Release Preview is meant to be an example of the complete product with all of its major features available and major bugs squashed. It’s not exactly what will be sold, but it’s close.
What’s new? A lot. Touchpad gestures have been improved for laptops, Adobe Flash is now integrated into the operating system from the moment it is installed, there are new customization options for the Start screen, multi-monitor support has been improved and new Microsoft apps that will replace the current Windows Live suite have been unveiled. All this is on top of a buffet of bug fixes and minor enhancements.
That’s not to say everything is in this release. Microsoft recently announced that it recognizes the problems caused by switching between Metro and the traditional desktop UI and is working on a new theme that will bridge the gap between them. However, that theme is not included. Also, while there are many more apps available in this build, the full suite will not be finalized and fully polished until the product hits retail stores.
You can download the Windows 8 Release Preview from Microsoft’s new release preview website. Do you think Windows 8 will succeed or fail now that you’ve had to chance to see the latest version?
Price announcement imminent
More details, along with pricing for the upgrade in the U.K. (and the other 130 countries where it applies), will be announced on June 1, but the U.S. upgrade price will be $14.99.
The “tens of thousands” of improvements made in response to feedback on the Consumer Preview are small updates and adjustments rather than major changes in direction.
There are tweaks to the interface, in Explorer and elsewhere, but the Metro Start Screen is here to stay with no option to turn it off.
Although the Start button isn’t coming back, the Start screen thumbnail in the task switcher is clearer and there are more ways to personalize the Start screen, although that’s more colours rather than being able to put your own images behind the tiles.
Upping ante on apps
Some of the improvements Microsoft is highlighting are actually either new or updated Metro apps: Bing Travel, News and Sports apps and Gaming and Music Xbox apps that work with a Zune Pass join updated versions of the Mail, Photos and People apps in Consumer Preview.
These matter not because they’re the only Metro apps you’ll get, but because they give a much more polished view of what Metro-style apps should look like.
There are more third-party apps coming for the Windows Store, from commercial software developers and through the “30 to Launch” competitions that Microsoft is running to encourage newer developers to come up with Metro apps.
As the store fills up, the new options for searching for interesting apps will get more useful.
Flipping ahead with IE 10
In Release Preview, Internet Explorer 10 picks up versions of two features you may recognize from other browsers, but made simpler for mainstream users.
Rather like Chrome, IE 10 will pre-load some pages as you visit Web sites, so when you swipe forward on the first page of a story broken into multiple pages, the next page will open right away.
Microsoft calls this Flip-Ahead and talks about it as a touch feature.
And, in addition to the Tracking Protection Lists, you can turn on in IE 9 to block specific third-party tracking cookies and services, IE 10 turns on the Do Not Track setting proposed by Mozilla (and used by a handful of sites including Twitter).
DNT is an option in IE 9 as well, but IE 10 is the first browser to have it on by default.
IE 10 also gets the rumoured built-in Flash player for a Microsoft-approved list of sites, even in Metro IE.
That means sites like YouTube that expect IE to have Flash and so don’t show it HTML5 videos will now work correctly, instead of prompting you to switch to desktop IE 10.
That’s in the Windows 8 version of Internet Explorer, but Microsoft confirmed to TechRadar that Windows RT users won’t be left out. “The Flash Player in Metro style IE for the Windows 8 Release Preview is for X86/64-based architectures.
However, Adobe and Microsoft are also committed to providing the same integrated Flash Player support on the initial delivery of Windows RT PCs (Windows running on ARM processors).”
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