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The Three Flavors of Windows 8
First time accepted submitter Kelerei writes "Windows 8 has been confirmed as the official name for the next x86/x64 version of Windows, which will be released in two editions: a home edition (simply named 'Windows 8') featuring an updated Windows Explorer, Task Manager, improved multi-monitor support and 'the ability to switch languages on the fly,' while a professional edition ('Windows 8 Pro') adds features for businesses and technical professionals such as encryption, virtualization and domain connectivity. Windows Media Center will not be included in the Pro edition and will be available separately as part of a 'media pack' add-on. A third edition, branded as 'Windows RT,' will be available for ARM-based systems."
Oh look, a shill post in the first message.
You're supposed to wait a bit so as to not be so obvious. /tip
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BMO
For some reason a lot of sites seem to miss it. There are four versions, Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, Windows 8 Enterprise and Windows RT. http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2012/04/16/announcing-the-windows-8-editions.aspx
x86_64 only means it won't run on 32bit processors, not that it won't run 32 bit software. There's no way they'd break that much software intentionally.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I'll say this: if it weren't for Metro I would unquestionably recommend Windows 8 as an upgrade to Windows 7 and especially Vista/XP. The UI's generally clean, they've updated many of the things that needed updating (like the task manager or the file transfer dialog) and boot times are improved.
However, the forced inclusion of Metro through their "start screen" idea is flawed at best, a deal-breaker at worst. No, it's not utterly unusable, as some people might say, but it is a lot less convenient than the start menu. It's a needless downgrade from something which took less space, less mouse movement, fewer clicks and especially which fit with the aesthetic of the rest of the OS better. As it is there's a fairly jarring jump between the appearance of the desktop and the Metro tiles, making it feel like you're running two different OS. If the start screen let me use Windows programs more efficiently, it would've been good (and it's entirely possible to make it do so, Microsoft just didn't do it). As it is, programs take way too much space for no reason, getting access to things takes too many clicks, many traditional features are locked behind a "pretty" UI and it generally feels a bit schizophrenic.
However, my biggest gripe isn't actually the start screen, it's the "Charms". Whereas the bottom-left corner opens up the start screen, the right border opens up the charms panel, which has things like wifi strength and such; that much is good. However, in order to do the extremely unusual action of shutting down or hibernating the computer, you have to go into Settings, then Shutdown, all of which AFTER having opened the Charms menu. How's that for intuitive?
Make the start screen more efficient and put a prominent power button in there and I'll be a lot warmer to the OS. As it is Windows 7 still does the job well enough to stop me from moving on. Oh and, the fact they've shoved Metro in Windows Server 8 (even with the "desktop experience" pack disabled) is utterly insane.
... Speaking of hoops, you have to jump through a few of those just to get to what in previous versions of Windows were basic system resources, like the Control Panel, My Computer, etc.. Seriously, it's like it's designed for idiot children...
you can access control panel in windows 8 faster than you ever could in any version of windows. Move mouse curson to bottom left corner, and instead of left clicking, RIGHT CLICK. You will be treated to a nice context menu, of witch one of the many option is "control panel". Also the my computer icon has been replaced with the new windows explorer icon. If you click the windows explore icon you get the EXACT same window as if you had opened "my computer". You just have to learn to not be a giant man baby about windows changing things around to notice.