Articles about Windows 8

Pokki -- the alternative Start menu and app framework -- has undergone a minor redesign in its latest update, with a new look, more customization options and a host of important bug fixes.

Increased font sizes, panel spacing and sidebar width in this release are all about improving readability, for instance, while the new light color theme helps Pokki blend in seamlessly with your desktop. (Although if you preferred the dark theme, that’s still available: click Settings and choose Dark to bring it back.)

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Stardock Corporation has released the first major update for its Windows 8 Start button and menu replacement. Start8 1.1 adds full drag-and-drop support, plus allows users to pin folders to the Start menu that can be viewed as a Jump List.

Version 1.1 also adds rename support, an option to access the Quick Access menu via the Start button and a Custom places location along with numerous other tweaks and improvements.

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I suspect Microsoft may keep track of the number of people who use a Start button/menu replacement app in Windows 8, but it is not in the company's interest to say so -- both because a large number would reflect badly on the decision to remove the feature and because the company did a lot of, ah, "research" to determine the feature was not necessary. Oh, and the whole privacy thing as well.

Pokki, which is perhaps the market leader in this new genre of Start-menu-adding apps released a bit of information today: "1.5 million Pokki downloads on the new OS itself and users opening the Pokki Menu an average of 10 times a day".

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I really should heed my own advice. Yesterday I warned you that all preview versions of Windows 8 would expire. You had two choices -- upgrade to gold code or deal with a computer that reboots every two hours. Hopefully you went with the former, but I chose the latter with a desktop PC that I rarely use. I had the nerve to say to myself that "I will get it tomorrow".

Well, I did get around to it today. I had purchased the license -- two months ago in fact, but I just did not get around to doing anything with it. Well, guess what? Microsoft punished he who procrastinates.

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In late November, Tami Reller, Windows and Windows Live Division chief marketing officer, revealed that Microsoft was planning to launch the Surface Pro tablet "in January" 2013. However, seeing as the second half of the month is already underway, that doesn't give the tech giant long to get its product out there.

Fortunately prospective purchasers will be pleased to know they won't have long to wait now. Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft Surface, tweeted yesterday that he was on his "way to the factory to check out Surface Pro", and that the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation will release the Windows 8 Pro tablet "in the coming weeks". Presumably that could mean either a late January or early February launch.

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I jumped into Windows 8 way back at the first opportunity -- the Developer Preview. Then moved to the Consumer Preview and finally the Release Preview. But, because I’m something of a procrastinator, I haven’t yet got around to updating my computer to the full version, despite purchasing a copy of the new operating system as soon as it was released.

If you’re anything like me, and are still running the Release Preview, I’ve got some bad news. Today is the end of the line. All preview versions of Windows 8 expire on January 15, 2013. Worse, you will have to do a clean-installation because Microsoft has no upgrade path from the Release Preview to RTM. Note also that the final version of Windows 8 will not support upgrading from any prior Windows 8 Preview releases, though the migrate option will still be supported, according to Microsoft MVP Andre de Costa.

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Even though the perennial platform has passed its peak and is slowly replaced by more modern standards, Microsoft actively supports Flash in Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 8/RT. The browser can display Flash content, albeit on a limited number of websites. For those people who wish to enable it in non-supported locations, the Windows RT Flash Player Tool comes to the rescue without having to manually edit the whitelist.

Windows RT Flash Player Tool is designed for the Modern UI version of Internet Explorer 10 found in Windows 8 and Windows RT as well as the desktop variant for the tablet operating system. The tool, a BAT file with the necessary commands to automate the process on behalf of the user, goes about its business of enabling Flash support on non-supported websites by modifying the included whitelist that comprises of only Microsoft-approved entries by default.

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So much for that Windows 8 pick-me-up. The PC market got no 5-Hour Energy lift during fourth quarter. If anything, the personal computer is out of shape and out of breath, and no Microsoft personal trainer can change that. Gartner calls the current crisis -- and it is for the WinTel and MacTel folks -- a "structural shift". The tablet is the slimmer and shapelier alternative, and it kicks the PC's ass all over the work-out floor.

"Tablets have dramatically changed the device landscape for PCs, not so much by 'cannibalizing' PC sales, but by causing PC users to shift consumption to tablets rather than replacing older PCs", Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner principal analyst, says. "Whereas as once we imagined a world in which individual users would have both a PC and a tablet as personal devices, we increasingly suspect that most individuals will shift consumption activity to a personal tablet, and perform creative and administrative tasks on a shared PC. There will be some individuals who retain both, but we believe they will be exception and not the norm. Therefore, we hypothesize that buyers will not replace secondary PCs in the household, instead allowing them to age out and shifting consumption to a tablet".

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The U.S. government, which usually is very slow to adopt new technologies, signed an agreement to move much of the Department of Defense to Windows 8. The three-year, $617 million deal for up to two million seats is a good proxy for where American business users are headed. Or is it? Microsoft of course hopes it is, but I think that’s far from a sure thing.

This isn’t just trading Windows XP for Windows 8. The U.S. Navy, which isn’t (yet) included in this deal, only recently signed its own agreement with Microsoft to take the fleet to Windows 7. But Windows 8, being touch-enabled and running all the way from smartphones to super-clusters, is something more. It represents the U.S. government’s best guess as to how it will embrace mobile.

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After its "non-appearance" at last weeks Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the company Microsoft is front-and-center at this week's National Retail Federation (NRF) Annual Convention & EXPO in New York to show off Windows Embedded 8 Handheld. The operating system a version designed with the retailers in mind.

According to Barb Edson, Microsoft's General Manager of Marketing and Business Development, the company is "introducing our device hardware partners, and showcasing the next generation of mobile line-of-business application experiences with one of our launch customers, showing how Windows Embedded 8 Handheld devices help them deliver on the promise of intelligent systems".

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Microsoft pulled out of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas for 2013 and beyond. Maybe. Maybe not so much. The company was not entirely absent and some of the presence was not even stealthy. It started with CEO Steve Ballmer's surprise appearance on stage during the pre-show keynote address -- an event that Microsoft once owned, but this year belonged to Qualcomm.

In the middle of the presentation Ballmer walked on stage and proceeded to, not only endorse the Snapdragon chips, but to also show off some Windows Phone 8 devices and Windows 8 tablets. It may have seemed like a passing of the torch from the old guard to the new, but the Redmond, Wash.-based company did not stop there. Oh no.

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Eleventh in a series. Microsoft has updated two of the native apps that Windows 8 ships with this week. The News and Finance apps have received updates that enhance performance, improve network connectivity and add support for additional regional sources.

A total of 24,749 apps are listed in the US Windows 8 store this Friday. Of those, 20,019 are free to download and install, while 4,730 are paid applications. That's an increase of 961 apps this week.

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The problem with making apps -- whether for smartphones, tablets or the Windows Store -- is getting enough people to sit up and take notice. Sure, if it’s good enough, word of mouth might propel it upwards, but the sad truth is a lot of great apps never get the traction they need to succeed.

If you have an idea for a Windows Store app, Microsoft’s Windows Startup Challenge could be just the boost your concept needs. The winner of the app design contest will get the chance to launch their creation at DEMO Mobile in San Francisco on 17 April.

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I can name more than a few tech executives who would kill to have this kind of failure. Despite weak PC sales, Microsoft manages to sell 60 million licenses of Windows 8, which nickname around the InterWebs is increasingly "disaster" and "flop". Oh, yeah. Such a tragedy. Has anyone got a hanky, because I'm gonna cry. Assuming 30 bucks a license (a number randomly chosen) that's what? One point eight billion dollars? Yes, such a failure.

But that has got to be much less dough than Windows 7 generated for about the same number of licenses. Microsoft slashed retail upgrade prices. Windows 8 Pro upgrade is $39.99 compared with $199.99 for its comparable predecessor. Yes, Microsoft did offer a Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade for $119.99 and limited-time three-license package for $149.99. You do the math. Windows 8 Pro upgrade still generates less revenue per retail copy and, presumably, OEM license, too. All things being equal, Windows 8 sales aren't anywhere as good as its predecessor, if Microsoft needs fire-sale pricing to generate similar license sales. So where's the handkerchief? My eyes are teary.

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I rarely quote press releases, but analyst missives are a rare exception because sometimes they make the point so much better than any paraphrasing. "Despite the hype, and hope, around the launch of Windows 8, the new operating system did little to boost holiday sales or improve the year-long Windows notebook sales decline", according to NPD. That's the dismal news for US holiday retail sales between Nov. 18 and Dec. 22, 2012. Windows 8 is a disaster, as I expressed when NPD released early sales data in late November. Matters are worse. This is no longer the Titanic sinking but a fleet of ships.

Gartner and IDC are about to drop global fourth-quarter PC shipment data, but in context of today's separate report from NPD DisplaySearch, expect blood in the water and post-PC sharks circling the victims. According to DisplaySearch, tablet shipments surpassed laptops in the United States last year. Stated bluntly: "increasing tablet PC adoption is stymieing notebook PC growth". Yikes!

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