Windows 8 Client - Memory Usage

- One of the Windows 8 client fundamental improvement announced during Build Windows keynote #1 is the reduced of Windows processes and memory usage, below is a snapshot of the presentation about processes & memory usage reduction.  This should be a good news for all since more spare memory meaning more room for other applications running on Windows.

A snapshot of Build Windows Keynote #1 presentation

To do comparison, both plain Vanilla Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8 Developer Preview Edition were installed on two identical computer hardware.  And I have captured the Processes and Physical Memory usage for both Operating System during system idle and it is quite closed to what has been announced.

Processes & Physical Memory Usage on Windows with 7 SP1

Processes & Physical Memory Usage on Windows 8 Developer Preview

Windows XP End Of Support Countdown Gadget

While most of us are busy planning and exploring new features of new product, I think it is to good continue to remind ourself on End of Support dates of existing products.

You may now use this gadget on your Windows 7 to count down the number of days until Windows XP End of Support (EOS) in 2014.  It is a small and handy gadget and you may download the gadget at Microsoft Download center, Windows XP End Of Support Countdown Gadget.  And the following is screenshot of the simple gadget, let's countdown together :)

Microsoft Officially Welcomes Skype

Just to share the news of Microsoft officially acquired Skype and Skype is now a business division of Microsoft.  For detail about the acquisition, you may visit Microsoft Officially Welcomes Skype

The following is some of these interesting facts and stats published by Skype, showing the scope and impact of how Skype video calling is helping people around the world stay connected:

Windows 8 Client - Metro User Interface

On my opinion, the Windows 8 Metro UI is similar and based on Windows Phone 7 Metro UI.  It should be work best on touchscreen devices and it is a bit strange for a typical notebook or desktop computer using mouse or touchscreen because mouse simply can't 'slide' and 'tab' tiles on the Windows :)

The Windows 8 welcome screen can be quite confusing for the first timer.  For the first time, I have waited for 30 seconds and was expecting message to prompt up or some special effect however, it will just be ideal and there is no buttons at this stage, a bit strange.  Anyway, you may press any key or simply double to bring up the login page and subsequently logon to Windows.

The Start screen after you log on to Windows shows 'tiles' based menu and no longer the familiar Desktop interface on the main screen (I will share more on Desktop interface in my next post).  Familiar names like Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, Control Panel and Desktop could be easily found on the main screen in titles mode together with some default widgets.

The Start screen is expandable by scrolling with mouse to the next screen.  You will find application icons from the second screen, in this case I have Microsoft Office 2010 installed and it works fine for now.

You will be able to rearrange the tiles by Step 1: click-and-hold the tile

Step 2: drag the tile and move your mouse to your preferred location

Step 3: drop and pin the tile to the target location

You may wonder how do I shutdown or restart my Windows since there is not Start button on the main screen.   To do so, move the mouse to right bottom corner and the Start button will pop up from the corner.  Click on Settings to bring up a 'Green side bar' from the right hand pane.

Click on Power icon to Shutdown or Restart the Windows.

To Change user tile, Lock, Log off and Add user, click the user icon on the top right. 

The Internet Explore on the Windows 8 Metro UI with with menu bar at the bottom of the screen, slight different from conventional IE on Deskop.  (You may find the conventional IE in the Desktop mode)

I like the download status bar, quite cool!

The Control Panel comes with a clean, fresh look and easy to work with interface.

Tested one the Widgets, the Weather forecast widget and it works!

Right click on the screen in order to bring up the settings menu.

Next, I will share more on Desktop mode interface, stay tuned :)

Windows 8 Developer Preview, 32 bit (x86) Installation Walk-through

The installation takes about 30 minutes to complete for both Hyper-V and physical environment.  Overall, it is running smooth with 1GB RAM in both environment with and there were no issues so far.

The Windows 8 Developer Preview ISO is available for download at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516

Installation Walk-through

Boot from Windows 8 installation disc on a physical computer or boot from ISO image from VM

 

 Select Install now to proceed

Select preferred Language to install, Time and currency format and Keyboard or input method and click Next

"Setup is starting ..."

Check "I accept the license term" and click Next

Select Custom (advanced)

Select the available space and click Next to proceed

Installation begin ...

Click on Restart now to restart Windows

After Windows restart, Setup will update registry settings

 Enter a PC name

You may select Customize settings or in this case, I selected Use express settings

Enter username and password

Windows Finalizing your settings

Logon successful with credential created earlier

Metro look and feel on Windows 8!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Consumerization of IT (Unisys Benchmark Study)

I was looking for data and survey around Consumerization of IT and found a research from Unisys, conducted by IDC shows.  The report shows definite gap between the rapid adoption of consumer technologies in the workplace and organizations’ readiness to handle this trend – and capitalize on it.

Capitalize on the trend means:
• Boosting productivity with new ways of connecting and sharing
• Staying competitive as an innovative company and workplace
• Delivering IT flexibility while managing security

There are numbers of interesting data from the survey shown the current IT landscape and below are the few interesting ones.  You may download the Summary Survey Results from following URL, http://blog.unisys.com/files/2010/08/10-0190-CIT-SUMMARY_web.pdf