Hello friends,

It has been a long time since I posted an online review but here we meet again in our windows reviews series, this time I’ll take you in a tour around the new windows 8 and I’ll be sure to point out the new amazing features!

..and believe me when I say “it is a Whole new world to discover”

This windows version is the latest release preview Build 8400, and the Official Windows8 Release date is announced 26 October.

Let’s start by the laptop Spec. used for this review

Acer Aspire Gemstone 5920G
Core 2 due T7300  2Ghz , 4MB cache
Nvidia Geforce 8600GT 256 MB GDDR2
4 GB DDR2 Ram
1GB Intel Turbo Memory
Toshiba 5400 RPM 500GB HDD
Primary:  Optronics ** 8ms / 60Hz / 720p / 15.4 inch laptop LCD
Secondary: Samsung 4ms / 120hz / 1080p / 32 inch LED TV

Ok may I have your attention dear tourists?

Here we are passing by the 1st Landmark

We’ll start our tour with a BIG SHOT

..The Famous Metro Style!

Frankly, I was confused where everything is?!! ..I heard many times about the so Called Metro Style, saw it in some of Microsoft ads., every time I was like “ hmm .. some fancy Interface that will never be used on a pc “ I believed it was like an Optional Launcher – Android users will relate - but believe me working with it turned to be a total new experience and more it is FUN, I LOVE IT !!

Staring some seconds at the new - Technicolor – Interface, then I yelled “Wait a Second where is the desktop?? “

Check the previous Screen I believe you missed it “At least I Did” it is on the bottom left >> The one with the roses!! , yes it isn’t the default landing screen anymore!

Desktop

Now, we have to LAUNCH the Desktop!!

..Sounds a little weird but you’ve to accept it on the way of “C’est la vie, Monsieur”, Clicking it will open the normal desktop that we all know

Ohh my saving island .. now i can go through steady steps!

..seems like we are getting old folks ^^ !

Ok now, the next question is “where is the start menu ??!”

..Starty Starty where are you ??

I moved the mouse to left bottom corner by INSTINCT

..and here it worth to mention that you’ve to believe your instinct it is the only thing that would make you know where it is ! ..There is no “Start” word, or even the Win7 glowing orb 

NO sign at all that something exist here! [Check the previous Picture]

Here is a closeup shot after moving my mouse to the extreme left bottom corner

Clicking it the expecting the normal start menu with programs list that we all know, But ...Hey !! I’m back to the Metro Style!

Simply the Metro Style is the Start Menu Itself 0_0

neither an optional launcher nor a side way to launch programs that you can avoid, It is now the metro style or nothing!

...well, let's say it is a courageous step from Microsoft !

Ok, now gathering what I reached, here I’ve found my desktop and knew where the start menu is …At this point I got down to work and wanted to take snap shots for this review.

I whispered “Ok, Dear Start Menu where is the paint program ?!!”

And that got me to the next point

The Metro Style menu is indeed clean and specific

but OK WHERE ARE MY PROGRAMS ?! 

“ ..you’re supposed to be a start menu aren’t you ? ”

Thinking for some seconds that Microsoft stripped them off :@ due to that companies suing them about forcing users to use their programs by including them by default ...all that bad thoughts passed my mind for fast seconds and accidently I right clicked as a random action

hey ..A little thing showed at the bottom! With the label “All apps”

Horaaaaay!! here it is!

Ok ok I got it, Win8 isn’t so innocent as it seems, it have a lot of hidden features to discover.

All programs 

When you click the “All apps” Icon it opens the full start menu

Looking at it, it gave me some pleasant feel,

 .. I got through the experience of feeling lost & finally fully discovered the Shore of the new Land of Windows 8 I felt quite proud like if I was Kristopher Columbus!

Well enough of fancying (A) and let's get back to work

The second basic step for experiencing any windows version is to Open "My computer” where you find all your drives and contents
For this let's agree first that Microsoft is obviously driving us to a preset way to use windows since they started putting Quick launch to programs like "file explorer" in the taskbar and made it in Large icons.

I believe that “my computer” link will be totally removed in future so I recommend you to adapt to that quick launch icon to get to the file explorer from now

But till now, don’t worry you can Still Find “Computer” link in “All Aps” list in Metro Style Menu or you can bring it to desktop by
>>Right Click on Desktop > Personalize > change Desktop Icons

File Explorer

The next Stage is the File explorer view of Win8 and here is a shot

what about the installation space ?! ..with a clean installation it took about 14.9 Gigabytes ..not far from windows 

But it worth to be mentioned that Win8 rearrange drives to make itself on Drive: C In spite of the Fact of which drive it has been installed on.

While Rebooting to Win7 Everything is back to Normal and the letters labeling is as you see in the next shot

By a deeper look to the file explorer, surprisingly it received A LOT of improvements; not a usual step in all different windows upgrades ..anyway here I leave you with a shot after expanding the top toolbar

Here is a close up to its different tabs, each one is clear enough so I think the shots will be enough for this part 

Ok What Next?!
Let’s Check together how far my lap specifications fell behind since windows 7 …It’s a mission for the Windows rating experience!,

Moving my cursor around the screen like I was searching for a hidden treasure called the “control panel” to popup! All in a sudden when reaching the bottom right corner a new feature appeared that we haven't discussed yet!

A new side bar shows up confidently on the right
Accompanied with a big fast information dialogue on the left containing [time, date, Network and Battery]
"leaving an android tablet feeling again"

Ok ...Hands down we have to give it a quick pass before we go to the expected routine experience of windows rating, shouldn't we?

New Sidebar

1) Search Icon
...Waiting for the typical boring screen of windows search, and ended up saying “WOW” seeing the following Full loaded search panel !

A powerful full featured search engine showed up with taps on the right menu to personalize your search in specific criteria

2) Share icon

...Yelling at me there is nothing to share

3) Start menu icon

.. brings up the Metro Style Menu which already was the First guest introduced in this party! [ No Need for a screen shot here ]

4) Devices:

For the available option, “Second Screen”
[Which appears because I previously connected my lap to an external HDTV before going in this section]

Clicking it will open the following options >>

Notice that Microsoft Brings everything even from deep setting to the touch of your finger when you need them, They decided to make Win 8 Full Touch compatible and they succedded, Much more information regarding this particular concept will be illustrated in another dedicated review soon.

For now just akcnowledge that almost every program have a substituting touch friendly interface beside the original one.

5) Settings icon and this time it opens very useful options, Microsoft give you a full control all over your computer gathered in one place through this tab

Do you find the Power Icon ?! ..It seems that Microsoft finally knew that there was something wrong to open START to SHUTDOWN

Windows Experience Rating 

Back again to our original way we are now heading the Windows experience rating, Running the Assessment ...And waiting for the big fall mainly because of false & generic drivers installed by windows

Well, it seems that Microsoft did a good job equipping their new windows with the basic required drivers ...ok I’m saying “Basic” because I went to device manager to check the rest and there wasn’t a pleasant surprise. 

Ok Microsoft equipped all the essential drivers and to be fair the latest full functioning ones, the above uninstalled ones are secondary extending peripherals like the remote control infrared port, built in memory reader and the Intel turbo memory controller

File Transfer

Another nice improvement is the file transfer window it shows a histogram transfer speed as you see in the following pictures

And the new Pause Feature! 

Here is the “fewer details” one

As well as Bonding different windows together in one if there is more than one transfer process

Clock is ticking,

It is nearly the time to go, so I’ll tell you about the last feature in this review which is called “hybrid boot and shutdown”

We all know the hibernation feature, aren’t we ?!

For those who never used it, it is a feature that copies all your RAM contents, kernel sessions and devices drivers to one file When you choose it to close your computer instead of Full shutdown. The next Time you open your pc it return them back to the ram directly and you are up with different windows and applications opened and everything just as before you turned off your computer.

Now, The Hybrid boot and shutdown is more of a partial hibernation, it only saves the kernel sessions and devices drivers to the hiberfile.sys instead of the whole thing, which results in a very small file compared to the full hibernation one.

A Brilliant Feature Indeed!. This cuts off up to 50% of your boot & even your shut down times as it is just a copying process, Given that it activates only when you press shutdown not restart 

You can disable it by “although don’t know why you should”
>> Control Panel > Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do “From the left pane” > Change settings that are currently unavailable > remove the tick from Fast Shutdown

Last Words,

Far before windows 8, Microsoft showed up some intention to move from the high-tech rough experience presented by the windows OS till windows 2000 by a total recall under the name of winXP and it ended up with the pretty windows 7,

Windows 7 was a certain winner by making everything simple, limiting the needed resources for running windows os (compared to winVista)

After the release of Windows 7 for computers, it was a little while till Windows phone 7 showed up. Honestly, I was a loyal windows mobile user till windows mobile 6.5 pro, but since the new GUI of windows phone 7 I moved to android,

“if it isn’t the professional os feel of Microsoft mobile anymore then sorry Microsoft for fancying I will move to Android “

A mature opensource mobile software that is developed by GOOGLE with no questions about its innovation added to the welcoming inviting environment to all the developers of APPS will be surly the way to go for me.

Now after Windows 8 showed up,
Microsoft is tweaking the rules of the os battles
Specially with the Windows 8 RT release for ARM based Devices

In other words “Windows has gone the extra mile by united devices os experience to fight as ONE in the face of other os monsters that seems to have pulled the ground a quite more in the last couple of years”

Wither you are having your desktop, laptop, slate, tablet or even your mobile. Microsoft claims you will have the same exact experience.

Eager to see how they will make Windows Phone 8 to join the team.

Just a little Advice, although Windows 8 will be the same os experience on Intel & AMD based platforms as well as the ARM based devices, There will be a quite struggle for application and your different programs I believe won’t work the same [or even may not work at all] because there is a whole big difference between the two architectures. So when you bring your wallet to buy let’s say a tablet Check wither it is
Windows 8 “Intel based”
Windows 8 RT “ARM based”

RT suffix is the difference you can easily point out to know the difference without even knowing the hardware spec.

It is time to say Goodbye,

Thanks for your time reading this review,

After our interesting tour which was giving fast highlights to the Windows 8 new features and os experience, we have to say goodbye to all of you and shut down the computer with a promise of a next review I’m working on now about the modified Microsoft programs – Specially the touch friendly interface provided to most of them - as well as compatibility issues. It was nice time with you all, and looking forward for you to join us on our next trip