Windows 8

After a seeming naming dispute with a European partner (cough... Metro Group... cough), Microsoft has decided to switch rather than fight over the name of its Metro design language.

The new substitute terminology upon which the Softies have decided is -- drumroll -- "Windows 8," according to my sources.

Here's the official guidance, my sources say: Anything currently/formerly known as a "Metro-Style application" (with or without a hyphen) will now be known officially as a "Windows 8 application." References to the "Metro user interface" will now be replaced by "… Read more

If you were one of those business users counting on being able to circument the new tiled Windows 8 start menu, you may be disappointed.

The final release-to-manufacturing (RTM) builds of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 have been leaking to the Web for last few days. Those with access to the final builds are discovering the final tweaks Microsoft made to the product since the last public test build, Windows 8 Release Preview, was delivered.

One of those tweaks is the decision to block users from setting up their Windows 8 machines to boot straight to the Desktop, circumventing … Read more

Is Hewlett-Packard quietly showing off a new tablet it plans to launch in the coming months?

For the second time in three weeks, a tablet has cropped up in a company ad that doesn't appear to be any of the slates it has already launched. This time around, the tablet is shown in a "Make It Matter" section of the company's site. A doctor at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Stanford is holding the mystery device. We can only see the back of it in the picture.

The tablet appears to have the same design … Read more

With Windows 8 general availability less than three months away, the race is on for Microsoft to get more applications into its the Windows Store that is part of the new Windows 8 operating system.

I haven't seen an official tally from Microsoft, but Jose Fajarado, a Silverlight and XAML developer who blogs at http://advertboy.wordpress.com, said at latest count he believes there to be about 450 or so Metro-style apps in the Store. (Metro-style apps are those developed from scratch using Microsoft's WinRT programming interfaces. Nothing but Metro-style apps will work on ARM-based Windows RT … Read more

Windows has a set of programs that it will always use by default when you're opening certain file types. Movies, for example, open with the new Videos app in Windows 8. Most of the time this is fine, but you might prefer a different program to do the job, such as VLC Media Player.

To change the default program, right-click on the file you want to open and select Open with > Choose default program.

This will open a new dialogue in Windows 8, with this Metro-style interface (curiously, it opens within the traditional desktop), where you can select … Read more

Microsoft announced today that Windows 8 has been released to manufacturing (RTM'd). (The final build number is 9200.)

At the same time, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 10, Windows Server 2012 and Visual Studio 2012 also have reached the RTM milestone, given all of these products have been developed in lockstep with Windows 8. (I am not 100 percent sure if Windows RT also RTM'd simultaneously and do not believe Microsoft officials ever promised this would be the case.)

Microsoft officials said earlier this month to expect Windows 8 to RTM in the first week of August. (I modified … Read more

You've likely been using Windows Task Manager to monitor your PC's performance or to kill errant processes since it was first introduced in Windows 95. Sadly, this drab, gray feature has seen no love from Microsoft in the ensuing decades. That's all changed with Windows 8.

The Task Manager has been given a refreshing visual update, the data is better organized, and lots of features have been added. This is a guide to making the most of the new Windows 8 Task Manager.

Finding the Task Manager There are various ways to launch the Task Manager. Windows … Read more

Windows 8 is due to be released to consumers on October 26. Priced at just $39.99, the upgrade is surprisingly affordable. If you're thinking about upgrading to Microsoft's latest operating system, now might be a great time to start your preparations. Having an upgrade plan can help mitigate many of the risks involved with a major OS upgrade. Here are some suggestions to help your upgrade go as smoothly as possible:

Check your system for compatibility The first thing you'll want to do is to check your PC to see if it can run Windows 8 … Read more

Update, October 18, 2012: Early versions of Start8 required the user to choose a setting to enable automatic desktop. This post has been updated to reflect the changes to the latest version of Start8, which defaults to automatic desktop.

The start screen in Windows 8 has been a polarizing change from Windows 7, to put it mildly. If you click the desktop tile immediately after logging in, a free program by Stardock can save you some time. With Start8, you can automatically load the desktop immediately after logging in to Windows 8. Start8 will even add back the Windows Start button.… Read more