While I was fast asleep, Microsoft unveiled the SKUs for Windows 8 – and we’re in for a surprise. Yes, after years and years of fully deserved mockery for releasing 343 versions of each Windows release, the company has seen the light and reduced everything to just four – of which only two, Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro, will be freely available in stores.
For Windows 8 on x86 32bit and 64bit, Microsoft brought back the Windows XP days: there’s Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro. Windows 8 Pro includes, on top of Windows 8’s base features, “features for encryption, virtualization, PC management and domain connectivity”. On top of that, Windows 8 Pro users can install the separate Windows Media Center pack. And praise be Fiona: on-the-fly language switching comes to all versions of Windows.
The ARM version of Windows 8 will be called Windows 8 RT, and will not be sold separately, but only pre-installed on ARM devices. This gives Microsoft quite a bit of control over the ARM experience, including mandating that no other operating systems be installable on the system. Windows RT will focus on Metro mostly, but will also include the traditional desktop – albeit without the option of installing additional classic applications. Microsoft Office comes standard on Windows RT.
Lastly, there’s a version you’ll only see at work: Windows 8 Enterprise. “Windows 8 Enterprise includes all the features of Windows 8 Pro plus features for IT organization that enable PC management and deployment, advanced security, virtualization, new mobility scenarios, and much more,” Microsoft details.
All in all, this looks like a sensible set of options, although I’m not too keen on making Windows RT as special as it is. I had hoped – against my better judgement, of course, I’m nothing if not completely jaded and cynical – that with Windows coming to ARM, we’d see an x86-like freedom and openness coming to ARM, so we could build our own ARM systems like we can with x86 machines today.
Not that any of this matters in the end. People will get Windows 8 when they buy a new PC, forced into an interface that just hasn’t been designed for a mouse and keyboard. It’s going to be a bloodbath.
Windows 8 ARM probably will be freely available, just not in a way Microsoft wants. All it will take is for some enterprising individual to borrow recovery partition from a fairly standard device, put it in a disk image of some sort, and people will be able to make their own installation media.
Edit: And thus, Microsoft loses business in the future to pirates. People who may well have bought copies of Windows 8 for their ARM machines will be forced into a life of crime.
Edited 2012-04-17 08:20 UTC
How exactly are they going to be forced to steal software? I agree with you that Microsoft would be much wiser to sell Windows 8 for ARM to anyone who has a machine that meets a certain set of guidelines, but they’re not forcing anyone to do anything. If someone doesn’t want to invest in a new ARM device in order to use Win 8, there many versions of Linux or Android that they can use.
I’m being melodramatic about it. If Microsoft won’t meet the paying customers who have their wallets in their hands, and these people really want Windows, they’re going to pirate it. I agree, Linux really is good enough, if not preferable for some, though.
What cases are you really considering here? By being metro only I don’t think I would want Windows RT on a desktop or dual boot Linux device. There is just not going to be any applications for it, so oddly enough Linux will have better support and more apps in that corner case, and for everybody-else I guess they would be happy with just the default Windows RT on their toy.
This is an OS for ARM devices, it can’t run legacy x86 “desktop” mode windows x86 binaries anyway.
Don’t forget SecureBoot; we do not yet have any idea how easy it would be to disable or emulate. As such what you are proclaiming is a tad bit premature.
We do, it’s specified in the latest UEFI spec.
Essentially a variable that state “yup, everything is secure”.
What ARM machines? ARM devices aren’t freely available. The ones that are available are the iOS & Android devices, and although they may have also use ARM, the hardware will probably be very different from what Windows RT supports (which I expect will be only selected SOCs like Windows Phone).
Piracy is not gonna be easy, since the only devices that will run Windows RT properly will already come with Windows RT preinstalled!
Niche market right now, I realize, but what about stuff like the Raspberry Pi or Pandaboard? I’m pretty sure (assuming the hardware is powerful enough) there are some people out there that would want to run Windows on these things.
Edited 2012-04-17 10:44 UTC
Biggest issue, drivers. Second, secure boot. Third: performance.
All these years, whether you bought or pirated software, you were running the software on the same hardware. Now, with Windows on ARM, it will be a lot different, since freely available hardware is very different. So, sure piracy might continue, but I feel that it will be a lot less mainstream now, atleast for the OS.
Most pirates will still want all the features, so they will buy a ARM system with the included Android or Windows RT OS. And then, they will jail break it to allow them to pirate the apps.
As far as I can tell, Microsoft have decided to take ARM a big step forward and to force Windows 8 ARM OEMs to follow some SoC-agnostic standards (UEFI and ACPI noticeably).
Too bad that they will also force locked bootloaders on these things, they would have been the first ARM devices which I would have enjoyed low-level development on.
Edited 2012-04-17 17:47 UTC
I would say Microsoft should be grateful for every extra copy that expands the win8 user-base. It will be hard to get people to use such a different GUI, and if people don’t use it developers will be less willing to develop software for it, and with less software, less users… It’s little like the same problem Linux faces, and have faced on the desktop.
Comment makes no sense. When was the last time you bought a copy of iOS or Android and installed it on to an ARM-based device? Windows on ARM will be no different.
First of all…who is gonna steal WOA? it’d be like stealing Vista or even Bob, its behind the curve in EVERY way, its got less apps, less polish, frankly I’m not a fan of either company but Google and Apple have been curb stomping WinPhone and just because you change the name to Win 8 ain’t gonna sell it any better, after all they tried that with WinPhone 7 and it went nowhere.
Second of all this story makes NO sense because there are ALREADY less versions of Windows, in fact at retail there are only three, one of which you can’t even buy! as far as the public is concerned there is only three…Win 7 Starter, Win 7 HP, and Win 7 Pro. No one that isn’t in a third world country will ever come across Basic, the ONLY place I’ve seen Starter is on bottom of the barrel Atom netbooks (most of the AMD or ION ones I’ve seen come with HP) and unless you are an admin at a large corp then for all intents and purposes Enterprise is just Pro.
If anything this (along with the 2012 server story, did you LOOK at the start screen for server? what are they thinking?) just shows how lost MSFT is with Ballmer at the helm. How many here think the average consumer is gonna know what an ARM chip is, or that RT equals ARM? people will buy it, find out its a Windows that doesn’t actually run Windows programs and then they’ll be brought back in masse.
So frankly MSFT should drop down on their knees and thank any Deity they believe in if pirates take the turkey because i have a feeling the best they’ll get IRL is a theme for Android as just like Vista this is gonna be a version nobody pirates.
I thought that Windows RT would stand for Windows Real Thing, that is, Windows 8 without Metro, but alas, that was not to be.
Maybe this time, ironically, there’ll be actually too few editions.
Perhaps the RT stands for “Restricted Technology”?
This is probably the first windows release since I started using a PC that I will not upgrade to, at least not until they give me back my destkop in SP1 or something. And this is coming from a guy who LIKED vista when it came out…
I agree. Remember the high return rate on Linux Netbooks and the downgrading of Vista to XP. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
Anyway I have till 2020 with Windows 7 to work out a new path.
I’m in much the same boat. I also quite liked Vista.
For all that has been said about Vista, imho, it’s biggest problem was that the third party applications were not ready for it. Too many expected to run as an administrator, and having more access to the system that they really needed.
This was never a good thing, and it’s just as well that Vista did sort it out. And it took an OS to come out and start to address the issues. Windows 7 would not have been well appreciated if Vista had not come before it to get the software makers to play ball.
Trouble with Windows 8, no-one is going to play ball and make systems that are ‘optimized’ for Metro. It is, frankly, a ridiculous way to interact with desktops. I don’t want to reach across my desk to swipe the monitor, then return to a physical keyboard to type. Nor do I want to dance around like a lunatic in front of a Kinect camera.
how is it ridiculous?
It is a start screen rather than a start menu. If you are still desktop focused, then you will interact with Metro apps just like you interact with desktop apps, but they will be full screen only.
When you are working with a tablet/touchscreen the size of everything in Metro makes it easier because fingers are not a precision pointing device. I get that. The mouse however IS a precision pointing device and it makes working with Metro start screen and apps a huge waste of movement and time. That they are trying to force-feed everyone this in a desktop oriented OS is in fact ridiculous.
The complete removal of the old start panel was the last straw for me – i think i could somehow live with it if they left that alone so I could work with the desktop without switching to the tiles every few minutes.
With fullscreen apps/metro you are either writing an email or reading a document or watching a video or starting another application. Every time you choose to switch to another task you loose the sight of everything else. You can sort of do a 1-3 split of your screen but it is no way as quick and comfortable as just moving the window around with a mouse or opening another program from the start menu.
I can move my mouse across my 22inch screen in less than an inch and still remain accurate.
It is the same functionality just laid out differently, honestly, I find using the current start menu very slow compared to the start screen. I have to focus on a tiny area of the screen and navigate through hierarchy of menus.
Even using keyboard Shortcuts it is hard, while Win7 has the search, it searches everything. I only want to search for programs.
What people don’t get about the start screen it actually works better with a keyboard.
Metro apps aren’t for tiling. That is what the classic desktop is for.
That’s an interesting concept that I hadn’t considered before: When a developer decides to create an application for Windows 8, they will have to choose whether it’s a Metro application or a desktop application.
I suppose it makes sense. To all the people that say they won’t use Metro because they need to do “real work”, well, that’s what the desktop mode and desktop applications are for.
The more I think about it, the more it feels like Microsoft is releasing two operating systems on one disc. :/
No Engineering organization will touch Windows 8, most of our applications will run in multiple windows, sometimes as many as 6 need to be open at one time, Metro can’t handle that.
I can use Windows 8 fine with a mouse and keyboard.
I prefer the start screen because I don’t have to concentrate on a tiny portion of the screen to choose a program I don’t regularly use (everything else is now on the task bar thanks to the new 7 taskbar).
You know the desktop is still there, right? and that it works pretty much the same as in Windows 7, except for the missing start menu. If you don’t, please do some research, maybe try out the Consumer Preview.
Yeah, I know.
I tried both previews and that “except for the missing start menu” thing is a huge dealbreaker for me. They could’ve left some kind of setting to turn it on or off but they removed the thing completely which suggests they are treating the “legacy” desktop as a 2nd class citizen.
hit the windows key and then type the name of the program…Crazy…a fast and efficient way to get access to your programs with out any crazy keyboard shortcuts.
StarDock is re-introducing the Start Menu in Win8.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Windows-8-Start-Menu-App-Stardock-…
I always assumed that some freeware app would pop up to fill the void as has occurred in the past when Micro$haft decided to remove some feature or other that many people use and rely on. It’s going to be a bit unrealistic to expect hundreds of thousands of Windows users who’ve been using Windows since Windows 95 debuted to just suddenly start doing things differently. Old habits die hard.
The issue as I see it is that eventually more and more applications will be ported over to the Metro-interface and will scrap the regular desktop-interface. Similarly, I fully expect some companies to be stupid enough to sport a desktop-interface for legacy Windows and force Metro-interface on when being run on Windows 8. The more of the applications you need to run use Metro-interface the more jarring the constant switching between Metro and no-Metro will become, severely reducing producitivity.
As for me, personally, I *could* use Windows 8 as it isn’t missing any actual feature I need. But I don’t want to use it I squarely use desktop-style applications, I have absolutely no use whatsoever for the new Start-menu, and I really hate the idea of everything being fullscreen on a 24″ display.
I love the thought of having 2 monitors, metro on one, legacy on the other, with the best of both types of apps running on each one. Kind of a clean break between work (win 7 desktop) and play (metro)
To me, this means there will still be three desktop versions of Windows 8, not two. We’ll have ‘normal’, “Pro” and “Enterprise”.
Most of the ‘enterprise’ features listed can be very interesting to a user currently interested in the “Pro” version. Who doesn’t want “advanced security”? (Would the ‘normal’ and “Pro” versions then have “basic security”? :-)) Deployment I can go without, but PC management is something even the most basic home user comes into contact with (installing updates, service packs, …). As a developer, I regularly use virtualization to test other platforms and sometimes Windows is the platform being virtualized on top of Linux instead of the other way around. And even ‘new mobility scenarios’ (which can really mean anything from domain roaming to better stand by policies) are always welcome for my laptop.
I’m very interested in a more detailed breakdown of the differences. Remember that remote desktop is something Windows 7 only allows to “Pro” versions and higher, while this is something a home user could definitely benefit from by allowing their PC-savvy friends to fix their computer.
Who doesn’t want “advanced security”
end users don’t want advanced security. They want simple security. However Enterprise want to finetune security like “this person can only use this computer between these office hours to start these programs”.
“PC management and deployment” is also something that is only useful in an enterprise. It doesn’t mean that you can’t manage a “home” version of Windows. It just means that there is no easy way to make all 5 computers in your home have the same browser default homepage.
“virtualization, new mobility scenarios, and much more”. Pro will support running Hyper-V and will support native boot from VHD. I don’t know what Enterprise will add to this.
I see it like this:
Arm (Windows 8 RT): Appliance
Home: “your girlfriend, father and grandparents” that just want to use a computer for all their personal things
Pro: “you”, with a machine that you might install yourself or get installed by an IT-person. All the functionality is there and you will most likely be joined to a domain
Enterprise: “people at work”. All machines joined to a domain and everything centrally managed, secured and deployed as part of 100’s or more of similar machines
This all makes perfect sense to me, although I would have liked Enterprise to be unneeded because I think Pro and Enterprise will be almost identical except for the license. All that “Enterprise-stuff” will most likely be just some tooling on Server 8 anyway (and a different license “of course”)
And I would have loved for the ARM version to be available in a version that could be used for a desktop as well, but I can understand that there isn’t a use/business-case for that (yet).
My ideal would have been this:
Windows 8 appliance (phone/tablet, the OS is just there in the background)
Windows 8 home (you can customize the look-and-feel of the OS that gets installed by your OEM)
Windows 8 workstation (the IT department does everything for you and you are on a domain)
Windows 8 server (with a GUI-feature that is disabled by default)
My ideal set of versions:
– Windows 8.
The end.
And therefore with the option to enable/disable features at install? Default/advanced install model like many linux?
Are you trolling your own site Thom?
Do you really think the same OS should run on a phone as on a server?
I have never seen IOS run on a server
I have never seen Android run on a server
I have seen dozens of distributions of Linux, all aiming at a different target audience.
But the needs of all Windows 8 users would be served by 1 edition alone? Yeah right
Edited 2012-04-17 17:26 UTC
Servers now have their own versions (by now I mean since XP). Windows 8 will not have any server versions. I probably agree with Thom, most “Pro” features are extra options, and not something that would get in way of a normal user, so they could have been in the standard release to simply things.
uhm no. Servers are actually the same as clients and they are even lined up in release schedule since Vista SP1. Windows Phone 8, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 (called Server ‘8’ until earlier today) will all have the exact same kernel and internal version number. It is just the bundling of additional tools/programs/features and the hardcoded limitations on mem/cpu/disk and the licences that are different but the actual operating system is identical.
Does it still really makes sense for you to have 1 version for phone/tablet/client/server?
You just admitted the next server version of Windows will be called Windows 2012, we are still discussing Windows 8.
I completely agree in different server and desktop versions, but that hasn’t nothing to do with the topic at hand.
“we are still discussing Windows 8.”
No, WE are not actually, but you are. We all know that there will be 1 kernel (6.2) that will be put in 3 different products (Windows 8 Phone, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012) that will all have different subversions. My initial writing however was about an ideal set of versions
Me:
My ideal would have been this:
Windows 8 appliance (phone/tablet, the OS is just there in the background)
Windows 8 home (you can customize the look-and-feel of the OS that gets installed by your OEM)
Windows 8 workstation (the IT department does everything for you and you are on a domain)
Windows 8 server (with a GUI-feature that is disabled by default)
Thom responded:
My ideal set of versions:
– Windows 8.
The end.
Since Thom clearly responded to me it was clear that he was claiming that 1 version of this OS would fit everyone.
In all my posts I have mentioned phone/tablet/client/server and I think it is clear that 1 version of 1 OS wouldn’t be a good fit for all those targets.
Also, you shouldn’t think of Windows Pro as “Everything of Windows Home + some more”. Windows Home actually has some extra’s that make sense for home, but not for pro. Remote Assistence, workgroups and Simple file sharing are much better options for at home then Remote Desktop, domain and “advanced sharing”. And thank god pinball has been removed from the server versions!
They have always have server and Desktop versions, the desktop versions of Win NT were called Workstation. The desktop versions of Windows 9x were called Windows, there were no server versions.
“Advanced Security” Probably refers to BitLocker, as Group Policy stuff come as part of domain login capabilities of Pro. (and, IIRC, GP settings are even accessible on Home versions). That is something that has traditionally come as part of “Ultimate” versions, which Microsoft is apparently doing away with (Finally!).
Also, that is something that should be available in all versions.
Edit: Oops. should read the whole chart first. BitLocker comes with Pro (Finally!)
Edited 2012-04-17 18:33 UTC
> forced into an interface that just hasn’t been designed for a mouse and keyboard. It’s going to be a bloodbath.
Took me less than 15mins to get used to the new UI. Let it go Thom.
If you want something to rant on, talk about the collection of useless apps that came with the Consumer Preview. Or the no sideloading of Metro apps.
It is possible to sideload Metro apps. However, it is currently an enterprise-focused feature. You sign the apps with your own certificate, and then deploy them either to images or running instances of Windows. The systems must be domain-joined to run the apps.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/uk_faculty_connection/archive/2012/04/03/in…
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852635.aspx
Yep and that is not very useful for the average joe.
I guess it must not bother power users much. I’d imagine people making noise about this useful feature.
I wonder how long it will take before the videos/blogs on rooting your Windows 8 Arm device come out.
If it’s ctrl+alt+delete at the logon screen I’m going to piss myself.
Windows CE was locked to OEM’s so that you had to hope they provided updates. And they never did.
WinCE was usually custom built by the OEMs for the devices. So yeah – Microsoft would update it (e.g. WinCE 5 vs WinCE 6) and the OEMs would get the updates; but they rarely updated existing hardware for a new version of WinCE. That was the problem.
Android manufacturers are doing a bit better – they get a copy of Android, and release it on the devices. Some devices they may never upgrade, others they do.
The big difference is probably the licensing. For WinCE, they had to pay royalties on all devices that received a copy of WinCE. If they upgraded a device, they’d have to pay another royalty for the same device. Conversely, for Android they might pay a royalty (to Microsoft) for the device when it originally ships; but that’s it. They can upgrade the same device to the next major version without paying another royalty – if they paid one at all.
P.S. I honestly don’t expect those that are paying them to renew the license after B&N gets done with Nokia/Microsoft/Mosaid in court and before the ITC.
“This gives Microsoft quite a bit of control over the ARM experience, including mandating that no other operating systems be installable on the system.”
You’ve heard of jailbreaking. You’ve heard of rooting. So what will the Windows equivalent be called? Armwrestling?
DeRTization
Who cares if they release one version or 1000? Still a “POS” but some good news, my company passed a new IT policy and in it is a “No Upgrade to Windows 8” section and we have found companies to sell PC’s directly to us without an OS pre-installed.
Cool story.
I’ve heard someone will install Windows 8 though.
Have fun with security after 2020.
Windows 9 (and maybe 10) will be out by then. Hopefully without the Metro nonsense.
Edited 2012-04-18 22:45 UTC
Nerds hating metro, just a normal day on OSAlert
Ners trying to tell us that we’re just afraid of change. Business as usual.
GREAT! ;D
From TFA: Windows 8 will include “the ability to switch languages on the fly (more details on this feature can be found in this blog post),which was previously only available in Enterprise/Ultimate editions of Windows.”
Could it be, something I repeatedly ranted about on here actually got fixed? Good job MS! Seriously!
Now bring back the Start menu and I’ll actually feel comfortable recommending W8.
Btw, did anyone else notice the strangeness of MS’s decision to include the desktop in Windows RT, yet explicitly not allow installation of desktop apps?? It seems the only purpose for the desktop being there is so you can use Microsoft Office on it! Now that’s not hypocritical!