The Windows Start button has been an iconic and (eventually) highly intuitive UI feature in Windows since good old Windows 95 confused and confounded Windows 3.1 users back in the day. That was nearly 20 years ago…Yikes!
Its disappearance was just one of the criticisms levelled at Microsoft when the Windows 8 betas emerged, and everyone got in a bit of a flap about the Metro Modern interface.
According to The Verge, Microsoft have listened to the online *ahem* discussions…and is reportedly bringing back the Start button in the next major update for Windows 8. There is …
The Windows Start button has been an iconic and (eventually) highly intuitive UI feature in Windows since good old Windows 95 confused and confounded Windows 3.1 users back in the day. That was nearly 20 years ago…Yikes!
Its disappearance was just one of the criticisms levelled at Microsoft when the Windows 8 betas emerged, and everyone got in a bit of a flap about the Metro Modern interface.
According to The Verge, Microsoft have listened to the online *ahem* discussions…and is reportedly bringing back the Start button in the next major update for Windows 8. There is also talk of having a “Boot to deskptop” option too.
The actual functionality of the resuscitated button is also still a little moot, but either way, this is good news and should go a long way to appeasing the nay-sayers.
It’s taken a bit of getting used to, but here at Framework Towers, we likes us a bit of Windows 8, it’s a solid OS.
[SOLVED] Can’t upgrade to Windows 8 because you can’t uninstall Intel PRO/Set Wireless Bluetooth?
Yeah, we had that too!
Add/Remove programs didn’t work, and not even the Swiss Army Knife that is CCleaner! Windows 8 Upgrade just couldn’t get past uninstalling the Intel PRO/Set Bluetooth adapter.
Thanks to this post on the Intel forums by AtlanticBirD, the solution turned out to be quite painless.
Presumably you’ll have selected the option to keep all your apps, documents and settings in place for the upgrade.
If you’re stuck on the screen asking you to uninstall the Intel PRO/Set …
Yeah, we had that too!
Add/Remove programs didn’t work, and not even the Swiss Army Knife that is CCleaner! Windows 8 Upgrade just couldn’t get past uninstalling the Intel PRO/Set Bluetooth adapter.
Thanks to this post on the Intel forums by AtlanticBirD, the solution turned out to be quite painless.
Presumably you’ll have selected the option to keep all your apps, documents and settings in place for the upgrade.
If you’re stuck on the screen asking you to uninstall the Intel PRO/Set Wireless Bluetooth adapter (for the umpteenth time), click “Back”, and select the option to only keep your personal files.
Click next once.
Before you go ahead and upgrade on the next screen, click “Back” again, and choose to keep your apps and settings this time.
Cross your fingers, hold your breath, and click Next…
Low and behold, you’re good to go!
Hats off to you, AtlanticBirD, you’ve saved the day.
Plus points for Intel’s Clover Trail mobile Atom SoC
Silicon chip giant Intel have announced the specs on their latest crop of portable powerhouses.
Codenamed Clover Trail+, the latest generation of their Atom-branded System on a Chip (SoC), brings the fight to manufacturers like Qualcomm and Nvidia who largely focus on ARM-based chip architecture. But Intel’s chips have the benefit of providing x86 support so full-blown Windows apps can be run – the previous generation of Clover Trail / Atom chips can be found in many Microsoft Surface devices.
These new Atom chips, dubbed Z2580, Z2560, and Z2520, will clock in at up to 2Ghz, and are fabbed at 32nm (that’s …
Silicon chip giant Intel have announced the specs on their latest crop of portable powerhouses.
Codenamed Clover Trail+, the latest generation of their Atom-branded System on a Chip (SoC), brings the fight to manufacturers like Qualcomm and Nvidia who largely focus on ARM-based chip architecture. But Intel’s chips have the benefit of providing x86 support so full-blown Windows apps can be run – the previous generation of Clover Trail / Atom chips can be found in many Microsoft Surface devices.
These new Atom chips, dubbed Z2580, Z2560, and Z2520, will clock in at up to 2Ghz, and are fabbed at 32nm (that’s really very small, which is good for power consumption and heat production).
Because it’s a SoC, it fulfils more than just the role of the CPU – it delivers the grunt in the graphics department too, both 3D hardware rendering and HD video playback, and also handles radio functions with support for the latest 4G / LTE networks, so you can expect to see this underpinning the next tranche of Windows 8 devices – phones, tablets and dare I say, netbooks (are you even allowed to say netbook these days?)
Windows 8 Surface Tablet Surfaces
Two new tablets released by Microsoft – one running on ARM, the other on Intel Ivy Bridge.
Windows 8 on Microsoft Surface – is beauty skin-deep?
By choosing to step back into hardware we can assume Microsoft are hoping these products will follow in the footsteps of the hugely-successful Xbox consoles…
Their latest foray into the hardware market was announced this week trumpeting the arrival of two tablet lines running Windows 8 RT and Windows 8 Pro respectively. The level of technical detail is hardly of a forensic level, but there’s enough there to tweak our interest.
Both of these tablet product lines are constructed around an all-magnesium case, have 10.6 Gorilla glass displays and a magnetically attached cover that doubles as a full multi-touch keyboard and trackpad.
The Windows 8 RT tablet has an ARM-based architecture, connectivity comes via Wireless Networking, micro HDMI, microSD and USB 2.0 and a choice of 32 or 64GB of solid-state storage. This kit is packed into a case 9.3mm thick and weighs in at 600g – almost identical to the third gen iPad (9.4mm and 652g).
The Windows 8 tablet is Intel-based with an Ivy Bridge Core I5 with either 64 or 128 GB of storage, USB 3.0, Mini Display Port, pen input support and a higher resolution display (1080p). It’s a little more chunky that its stable mate – 13.5mm thick and 900g
The release dates are tied to the Windows 8 launch, so we expect sometime around mid-autumn 2012 for the RT and the end of the year for the Pro.
If you are considering developing for these devices we provide scheduled and on-site courses in Windows 8 Development and Windows 8 Metro style App Development
Scribbled by Ian
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Get GitHub for Windows now!
Native Windows client for GitHub now available – Microsoft OS-based developers can get their hands on proper Powershell integration, drag and drop repositories using Explorer, and a sexy Metro-esque GUI with which to control their source.
GitHub is kind of synonymous with open-source software development and code collaboration – it’s not the only web-based Version Control solution around, but it is arguably one of the most popular, and has been for some time.
To date Git(Hub) has been a weapon of choice for command-line coders – although with some plugin jiggery-pokery, platforms such as Eclipse have enjoyed GitHub integration of sorts.
But now, with an official native Windows client, developers living in Microsoftland can get their hands on proper Powershell integration, drag and drop repositories using Explorer, and a sexy Metro-esque GUI with which to control their source.
The Windows GitHub client aims to do away with SSH keys as all its traffic goes over HTTPS and your credentials are cached (and you can even assign a Gravatar avatar to your commits). Both the free and Enterprise GitHub options are supported, and the client has been designed to run on Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Scribbled by Tom
Windows 8 Editions revealed
Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc has lifted the lid on the official naming scheme for the Windows 8 versions which should be hitting the streets in the near future. And they shall be known as Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, and Windows RT.
Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc has lifted the lid on the official naming scheme for the Windows 8 versions which should be hitting the streets in the near future.
Compared to the somewhat overwhelming options available for Vista and Windows 7, good ol’ x86 architecture boxes (desktops, tablets etc) will get a refreshingly simple choice of Windows 8, and Windows 8 Pro.
Regular Windows 8 should suffice for most home users, although if you want features like Hyper-V, booting from VHD, and Remote Desktop cooked in, you’ll need to go Pro.
ARMed to the teeth
Evidently aimed at going toe-to-toe with Android (and perhaps to a lesser extent iOS), Microsoft will also be releasing Windows RT, which is essentially the Windows 8 runtime for ARM based chipsets (or WOA as it is referred to internally). ARM have a pretty strong hold on mobile computing as it currently stands, and their licensed small-footprint chip technology to pretty much all the major tablet and smartphone manufacturers.
In his blog post, Brandon says it will only be supplied pre-installed on new systems, presumably to ensure proper hardware support and compatibility, and perhaps as a more controlled approach than the olden days of the proliferation of Windows CE / Windows Mobile 6.X.
It will be interesting to see if Windows Phone and Windows RT converge at some point in the future, as at least from a superficial point of view, they both seem to be aimed at performing pretty similar roles.
Edit: Just noticed a small footnote on Brandon’s blog mentioning Windows 8 Enterprise edition as well, which will essentially be Windows 8 Pro with Group Policy and other remote administration tools . So it’s all just a tiny bit less simple than originally meets the eye.
Scribbled by Tom
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