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Navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ControlSession ManagerPower Locate the key HiberbootEnabled and double-click on it Set the value of the key to 0 to deactivate fast boot To restore the setting at a later time, change it back to 1. Navigate to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerPower Locate HiberbootEnabled there and double-click the entry Change the value of the key to 0 to deactivate Fast Boot. To restore the key to its original value at a later time, set it back to 1 Windows 8 from the next restart on will no longer use Fast Boot when the system is shut down. Again, I’d only recommend to turn fast boot off if you are noticing issues with check disk during startup. If you are dual booting Windows 7 and 8 for instance, and not noticing any issues, then it is not recommended to turn the feature off.

Does Microsoft really want to go in that direction? Consider that Microsoft has two forms of Windows 8 under production, one with the WinRT version and others that are not WinRT. Will this cause a problem for developers and for the public in general? Frankly, I don’t know if developers are confused, but some of the products being released lately have overlapping parts that does bring confusion. Look at office 2013 and then there is the Cloud version of Office 365. What should users get? Cloud or no cloud. Metro is Everywhere But Metro is everywhere. There may be some confusion regarding the apps, but on the other hand, a lot of users are clear on what to expect. Consider that there are different defined sequence of terms such as: Windows 8 This OS has both an x86 and x64 version of the next release of Windows that can run both desktop apps and the new Metro style apps that are written for the WinRT runtime. Windows RT Then there is the ARM version of the Windows 8 OS, which can run the new Metro style apps written for the WinRT runtime and only those desktop apps supplied by Microsoft — such as Office, Explorer, Internet Explorer. It also offers cloud-management client operations that provide remote-management features to compensate for the inability of Windows RT machines to join a domain. WinRT This is the new Windows runtime for apps that can run on x86 and x64 or ARM devices, and which can be written in various formats like C#, C++, or HTML5/CSS/JavaScript. Metro style apps This is the Microsoft term for WinRT apps. Metro Style This is the authentically digital, typography-first design language. Unlike Metro style apps, if a program uses the Metro style it could be an x86 or x64 program running on the Windows desktop, or even a web page. For example, the new Azure interface and the Windows Server 2012 Server Manager tool have the Metro style. Modern The somewhat presumptuous theme for the Windows 8 reimagining. The Metro Star screen is the modern shell, WinRT is modern programming, ARM chips are modern processors, Office 2013 is modern Office. But everywhere in the OS format, there is the underlying aspect of Metro. It is what the OS are working on. So while there may be duplicate and confusing operations with Windows 8, that is not the case with Metro. And to top it off, this announcement comes at the same time that Windows 8 is released to Manufacturing. Could the timing be worse? But what the hey, these Metro programs have an environment, even if somewhat convoluted, but the interface is understood by the public. And Microsoft, can better this? And they want to better this now? To what point? But anyway. Microsoft did an odd thing, saying that Metro is not the real name of the new interface. So what is it?

According to users who commented on the release it appears to the real deal so to speak. I’d like to point out at this moment that pirated software may include malicious code that its distributors have added to the software. That’s another reason not to go after the release, with the other one being that it is not legal to do so. It also appears that the release does not include an activation crack so that users can only use it for 30 days before it needs to be registered. While it is possible that the rearm commands work, it is still another limitation.

Posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes The Windows 8 RTM release is just a day old and we are already seeing new information about the operating system on the Internet. Darren Baker has posted screenshots of the Windows 8 installation process all the way from booting over customizations to signing in for the first time. Now, this may not sound too spectacular but Darren managed to unveil how Microsoft plans to educate new users of the operating system about the new controls that are needed to use it efficiently. The process begins after account creation, which means that users who install the operating system on the PC, and users who buy a PC with a preinstalled copy of Windows 8, will both get the instructions on how to use the system. So, here are the instructional screens that you will see on first log in: The instructions begin with information on how to use the new touch controls of the operating system. It is not clear if those instructions will be included on systems without touch screen as David used one to demonstrate the installation process. After two pages of touch screen instructions come instructions on how to use the mouse in the operating system. View the full article

For the 10 applicants selected to participate in the program, this is what they will get. An investment of $20,000, managed by All the resources of Mentorship from top entrepreneurs, investors, and Microsoft executives together with Office Space and Technical Training and Support A Demonstration Day will be given to investors, VCs, media, and industry influentials to show the results of the accelerator program on the startups and their designs. So far, the accelerator program has found implementation in China, India, and Israel. In each case the software and web and game development made an impact on startups. Trying it now in the US will add more impetus to the Cloud and it can show how to take startups to the next level. This approach can help a company get to the big time quickly instead of waiting for several years to accomplish the same attention. The three month program starts October 1st and it ends January 17th.

August 15th: Developers will be able to download the final version of Windows 8. These include MSDN Operating Systems, Visual Studio Professional with MSDN and five other Visual Studio Professional subsets. August 15th: IT professionals testing Windows 8 in organizations will be able to access the final version of Windows 8 through their August 16th: Customers with the existing August 16th: Microsoft Partner Network members will have access to Windows 8. August 20th: Microsoft Action Pack Providers (MAPS) will receive access to Windows 8. September 1st: Volume License customers can purchase Windows 8 through the Surface What about the tablet called Surface? What about that? Well the Microsoft Surface team is one of these OEMs and it will be delivering the first of two Surface designs. One is based on the Surface RT based on an ARM processor. The other based is on Windows8. These two will come out at the same time as Windows 8 comes out on October 26. This is an exciting time for Microsoft. A lot is riding on Windows 8, especially because a lot of software, and hardware now is integrated on how the operating system operates.

Posted on Wedge Mobile Keyboard Tablets will be able to use the Wedge Mobile Keyboard. It seamlessly connected to tablets using Bluetooth. It has a full size keyboard yet but with a lightweight design that makes it easy to carry around. It has a durable cover protect your keyboard from scratches. It also quickly converts into a tablet stand. When you’re done using it, you can simply snap the cover back on the keyboard to power it down before you stash it away. Sculpt Touch Mouse Designed to provide comfort and portability, the Microsoft Sculpt Touch Mouse offers a solution for navigation with a Windows 8-based PC. It has a four-way touch scroll strip so you can breeze up and down, left and right. It works through applications and documents with a simple finger swipe. It is ideal for navigating the Windows 8 Start screen. Sculpt Mobile Keyboard The Microsoft Sculpt Mobile Keyboard provides a working system of mobility and productivity. This is a full-size keyboard with Microsoft’s Comfort Curve design and Bluetooth wireless connectivity. It weighs around one pound, and the keyboard is perfect for travel computing with high-quality construction. Its Comfort Curve makes it easy to position the hands and wrists in aa easy to work position.

Posted on LadyCompassion a fractal art artist has a collection of interesting pictures [/b] What is fractal art? It is a geometric art. It is a genre of computer art and digital art which are part of new type of media art. The [url=https://www.fractalus.com/fractal-art-faq/faq04.html">Julia set and Mandlebrot sets are considered the principal icons of fractal art. A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole. Fractals are generally self-similar and independent of scale. Fractal art uses mathematical algorithms which in turn create fractal objects through calculations. Representing the calculation results as images, animations, or media. The art is only about 30 years old developed from the mid 1980s. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/29/fractal-art-wallpapers/4-pinwheel_joy/" rel="attachment wp-att-95249">http://cdn7.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/4-pinwheel_joy-400x400.jpg?9d7bd4 Fractal art is not drawn or painted by hand. It is a computer generated image. It is created with the assistance of fractal-generating software. There are three phases. One is by setting parameters of appropriate fractal software then executing the calculation and finally evaluating the product. In some cases, other graphics programs are used to further modify the images produced in a post-processing operation. One important factor is that non-fractal imagery can be integrated into the artwork making it even more appealing. [show as slideshow] [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/29/fractal-art-wallpapers/gallery/image/1-just_leap_in" title=" " > http://cdn10.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/gallery/ladycompassion/thumbs/thumbs_1-just_leap_in.png?9d7bd4 [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/29/fractal-art-wallpapers/gallery/image/2-spiderman" title=" " > http://cdn10.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/gallery/ladycompassion/thumbs/thumbs_2-spiderman.png?9d7bd4 [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/29/fractal-art-wallpapers/gallery/image/3-the_outward_beauty_of_friendship" title=" " > http://cdn5.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/gallery/ladycompassion/thumbs/thumbs_3-the_outward_beauty_of_friendship.png?9d7bd4 [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/29/fractal-art-wallpapers/gallery/image/4-pinwheel_joy" title=" " > http://cdn6.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/gallery/ladycompassion/thumbs/thumbs_4-pinwheel_joy.png?9d7bd4 [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/29/fractal-art-wallpapers/gallery/image/5-semi_evolved_shrew" title=" " > http://cdn8.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/gallery/ladycompassion/thumbs/thumbs_5-semi_evolved_shrew.png?9d7bd4 [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/29/fractal-art-wallpapers/gallery/image/6-the_view_from_rosewood_bridge" title=" " > http://cdn6.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/gallery/ladycompassion/thumbs/thumbs_6-the_view_from_rosewood_bridge.png?9d7bd4 [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/29/fractal-art-wallpapers/gallery/image/8-a_new_scope_for_julia" title=" " > http://cdn10.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/gallery/ladycompassion/thumbs/thumbs_8-a_new_scope_for_julia.png?9d7bd4 [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/29/fractal-art-wallpapers/gallery/image/7-tardis_sentient_type" title=" " > http://cdn6.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/gallery/ladycompassion/thumbs/thumbs_7-tardis_sentient_type.png?9d7bd4 123► 2-Dimensional Art As art goes, fractal Art is a subclass of two-dimensional visual art, and is in many respects similar to photography. Two-dimensional art consists of paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs. The execution of each form differs from each other primarily, so that separates one from the other . In that regard fractal images usually appear as prints. But the native environment of fractals is in a electronic image format. Digital Fractal art is created with computers and computer software. It is an extension of the traditional 2-D format. This is a format that traditional visual artists are embracing, which adds them into Fractal Art’s digital realm. To download the images check the download post below: [url=/download-center/?did=421" title="LadyCompassion">LadyCompassion /wp-content/themes/canvas/functions/thumb.php?src=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/thumbnails/2012/07/18-frater_captured_chaos.jpg&w=100&h=100 [url=/download-center/?did=421" class="woo-sc-button custom" style="background:border-color:">Download [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/29/fractal-art-wallpapers/">Fractal Art Wallpapers from LadyCompassion was posted on [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com">Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission. View the full article

Posted on What the Recommendation Engine provides[/b] The Recommendation Engine uses logic methods and algorithms that are being rendered and delivered in the cloud by SQL-BI on Windows Azure. Right now it is a beta service that will be available on Azure later this year. The Recommendation Engine will provide relevant content in the form of websites, videos, webcasts, and podcasts. Additional technical content will be available as they continue to refine the engine. How it was built Microsoft used the Windows Azure Virtual Machine running Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2012. Next, they used Integration Services to pull supplemented content from other Microsoft databases and ran BI Analysis Services to prepare a list of recommendations. These technology recommendations come from content that users tagged on the myContent list. It also takes into consideration content consumed by like-minded peers on myTechEd. Thus your peers, that is like minded tech people, can help you set up your own study tags. Accessing the Engine To access the Engine, you must create an account with Microsoft Teched. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/28/microsofts-recommended-engine/teched1/" rel="attachment wp-att-95231">http://cdn5.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Teched1-400x281.jpg?9d7bd4 You can do this with Live Id account. Next access the content catalog to select the types of technologies that you find interesting. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/28/microsofts-recommended-engine/teched2/" rel="attachment wp-att-95232">http://cdn10.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Teched2-400x263.jpg?9d7bd4 . Then you can select the technologies from the content catalog. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/28/microsofts-recommended-engine/teched5/" rel="attachment wp-att-95234">http://cdn8.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TechEd5-400x260.jpg?9d7bd4 . Hands on labs are available for users to work with and you can set them up. Here is an example of a lab on how to use Windows Azure Virtual Machines. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/28/microsofts-recommended-engine/teched6/" rel="attachment wp-att-95235">http://cdn9.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TechEd6-400x238.jpg?9d7bd4 This is just one more approach that Microsoft is using to help users stay up to date in the race for technology updates. And note, the content and labs are still available after the TechEd gathering finished. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/28/microsofts-recommended-engine/teched4/" rel="attachment wp-att-95239">http://cdn8.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TechEd4-400x175.jpg?9d7bd4 [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/28/microsofts-recommended-engine/">Microsoft’s Recommendation Engine was posted on [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com">Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission. View the full article

Posted on A Developers Dream? Apple showed how successful the Apple store was for delivering state of the art Apps to consumers. Developers were very happy. But with Windows 8 developers will have the opportunity to do some different things not currently available with Apps. For instance, developers can choose to release free apps, and support them with in-app purchases. Also, Windows 8 will allow seven-day trial periods for users to test paid apps before purchasing them. According to a Break Even Being an app developer takes talent. It also takes time to develop and time to make any money on the app. Earning money with Windows Phone app is small, just about $1,234 per month. Compare that almost $3,700 per month for what an iOS developer can expect, and it is still less than the $2,735 an average that an Android app makes. Further, it takes a Windows Phone developer more than a year, about 14 months, to break even, and that is double the time earning period for iOS developers. This is why Microsoft is even paying developers to write apps. Microsoft is App Develop Friendly Earlier this year, the The Windows 8 function Behind the change in app marketing is the concern that Windows 8 will not be cutting edge enough, so users are going to skip the program and stick to Windows 7 or worse go to the iPad or some other tablet. Because the publicity tied around Windows 8 is astronomical, meaning that almost everyone has an opinion about it, “it’s great or it s#cks.” Microsoft is taking multiple approaches to making the Windows 8 OS a success before the release occurs. Windows 8 App development is one. Source View the full article

Posted on [url=http://buff.ly/LPQt9N">The New Printer Driver Architecture: V4[/b] For Windows8, Microsoft introduced a new printer driver architecture called version 4, or v4. In essence V4 produces smaller, faster printer drivers, and it institutes the notion of a print class driver framework. This system allows people to install their printers without having to locate a driver for that device. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/26/microsofts-printer-framework-v4/v4architecture/" rel="attachment wp-att-95209">http://cdn7.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/v4Architecture-400x303.jpg?9d7bd4 Drivers using the V3 architecture from Windows 2000 to Windows 7, are still supported in Windows 8 for device compatibility reasons. The good thing is that if you only have an existing driver available for your current printer, then it should still work in Windows 8. The Print System in Windows 8[/b] The purpose of the V4 print system is to provide apps with the means to print content to any installed printer without concern about the installation of that particular device. For apps, it is straightforward to add printing support. The app specifies the format that the content needs to print. So for Metro style apps, this will often be HTML5 or XAML. On the other hand Win32 apps like Word or Photoshop, use a specific format that the content uses for each particular app. In Windows 8, all Metro style apps use [url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd370990%28v=vs.85%29.aspx">Direct2D as their basic drawing format, and Direct2D and XPS share the same XML-based graphics “language.” This allows the applications to operate with an integration of content between the software and hardware. One implication is that the amount of disk drive space required for printing operations will be less on Windows 8 than on Windows 7, or Windows Vista. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/26/microsofts-printer-framework-v4/printing/" rel="attachment wp-att-95207">http://cdn9.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Printing-400x120.jpg?9d7bd4 V4 also uses Direct2D to render the same content to the print system. Reader’s content can easily be submitted to the print system as XPS, without any costly conversion from GDI. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/26/microsofts-printer-framework-v4/printcenter/" rel="attachment wp-att-95210">http://cdn7.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/PrintCenter-400x224.jpg?9d7bd4 What this means for users Great But how does this affect users in Windows 8? Here’s how. When you plug a new printer into Windows, it just works, without your needing to go off and find drivers. By contrast Windows Vista had about 4500 drivers while Windows 7 had about 2100 drivers. With Windows 8, the new v4 printer driver architecture removes the need for having so many printer drivers. In Windows 8 Microsoft stopped shipping many printer drivers with Windows. Instead, they built a print class driver framework. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/26/microsofts-printer-framework-v4/printing-process/" rel="attachment wp-att-95208">http://cdn5.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Printing-Process.jpg?9d7bd4 [url=http://buff.ly/OppMX4">How Windows Printing Works [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/26/microsofts-printer-framework-v4/">Microsoft’s New Printer Framework V4 was posted on [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com">Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission. View the full article

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Posted on [*] Windows Azure Storage Pay-As-You-Go pricing has been reduced by 12% ($0.14 to $0.125) [*]6 Month Plans for Windows Azure Storage have been reduced across all tiers by up to 14% [*]Windows Azure Extra Small Compute has been reduced by 50% ($.04 to .$02) But that’s not all. Microsoft is hoping that the content delivery operations of the Cloud resonate well with customers. While the reduced price of $.125/GB provides cost benefits, [url=http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2011/09/15/introducing-geo-replication-for-windows-azure-storage.aspx" target="_blank">Geo-Replication differentiates Windows Azure Storage from other services in market. Imagine the difficulty of convincing managers or IT administrators of using the cloud if all they think about is the inability to access data, because if it is on the Cloud, and it has gone down, your business is in trouble. But with geo-replication, Windows Azure Storage now keeps your data sound and available in two distinct locations. In those two separate locations, Windows Azure Storage constantly maintains multiple replicas of your data. One may be down, but one will still be available. Here is a breakdown of the locations. Primary Secondary North Central US South Central US South Central US North Central US East US West US West US East US North Europe West Europe West Europe North Europe South East Asia East Asia East Asia South East Asia [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/23/price-drops-azure-cloud/azure_cloud_platform/" rel="attachment wp-att-95196">http://cdn6.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Azure_cloud_platform-400x254.png?9d7bd4 SQL Database is another example of the cost features that Microsoft is changing. SQL Database bills the cost based on the size of the database. Two editions are available: Web and Business. The Web Edition supports up to a 5 GB maximum relational database. The Business Edition supports up to a 150 GB maximum size database. Database Size Price Per Database Per Month Database Units (DU) that will appear on your Bill 0 to 100 MB Flat $4.995 0.5 DU Greater than 100 MB to 1 GB Flat $9.99 1 DU Greater than 1 GB to 10 GB $9.99 for first GB, $3.996for each additional GB 1 DU for first GB0.4 DU for each additional GB Greater than 10 GB to 50 GB $45.954 for first 10 GB, $1.998 for each additional GB 4.6 DU for first 10 GB0.2 DU for each additional GB Greater than 50 GB to 150 GB $125.874 for first 50 GB, $0.999 for each additional GB 12.6 DU for first 50 GB0.1 DU for each additional GB The competition for Cloud services is getting tougher. Microsoft and others are gearing up to make their products not only more accessible, but also more cost friendly. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/23/price-drops-azure-cloud/">Price Drops on the Azure Cloud was posted on [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com">Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission. View the full article

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Posted on The Schedule[/b] The Windows 8 version will be released to manufacturing in August. This means that for the next several weeks, the final changes will be implemented and tested. If those changes pass the test, they will be implemented, if not they will be held back and reserved for release in service packs in the future. One thing though is that their hardware / OS software implementations should not be on the last go round. I mean if they don’t have the hardware and the OS configured to run correctly by this time, then you can expect several explosions to occur either at the manufacturing level, or when they release the product to the public. On the other hand, final software changes will take place so that the Metro user interface operates as it should, taking into account suggestions either made by developers or by the public. What to expect So once the OS appears what will happen? Microsoft will announce the upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 for $39.99. In addition if you want more, you can add Windows Media Center at no cost through the “add features” option within Windows 8 Pro after your upgrade. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/20/windows-8-release-date-october-26/windows-8-upgrade-3/" rel="attachment wp-att-95166">http://cdn6.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Windows-8-Upgrade.jpg?9d7bd4 The Windows Media Center lets you watch TV and movies, and listen to your favorite music, right from your PC. When you use [url=http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/home">Windows.com to purchase an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro, the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant makes sure your PC is ready for Windows 8. It will give you a detailed compatibility report. It will let you know of any potential issues you may have to address before or after the upgrade and it will outline actions to take. Then if everything is ok it will walk you through the upgrade process step-by-step from purchase to download and then start the installation. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/20/windows-8-release-date-october-26/">Windows 8 Release Date October 26 was posted on [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com">Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission. View the full article

Posted on Win key + X[/b] combination is one of the most useful. It opens up access to Windows managerial tasks providing access to many useful tools – Control Panel and functions – Command Prompt, Run and Search and so on. If you are working on Metro, if you want to access the Desktop, press the Win key + X and choose Desktop. The Win key + X combination works no matter if you are in Desktop or the Metro mode. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/20/win-key-tool/win-x-keys/" rel="attachment wp-att-95153">http://cdn10.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Win-X-Keys.png?9d7bd4Win key + X Menu For those who don’t know about Win key + X, give it a try and I’m sure you’ll find it one of the best keystroke shortcuts available in Windows 8. Does Win key + X compensate for the loss of the Start Menu? Yes, as it makes access to Windows managerial tasks easy and No, because the Start menu is still missing. If you install Classic Shell, see my previous blog “Get the Start Menu back with Classic Shell“, you can have both worlds. Classic Shell adds the icing on the cake! Tip! Normally pressing the Win key toggles between Metro and Desktop but on installing Classic Shell, Windows 8 automatically defaults to Desktop view. So, if you hanker for the Metro screen, press Shift + left click on the Start button. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/20/win-key-tool/start-menu-3/" rel="attachment wp-att-95154">http://cdn5.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/start-menu1.png?9d7bd4Start Menu from Classic Shell This combination, Win + X and Classic Shell, will improve your productivity and maybe make Windows 8 more user friendly. Let us hope that, when the final version of Windows 8 is released, Microsoft hasn’t shut the door on the add-on, Classic Shell. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/20/win-key-tool/">A Winning Combination – Win Key + X and Classic Shell was posted on [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com">Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission. View the full article

Posted on A Quick View of Office 2013[/b]“). It is easy to download and it installs effortlessly, provided of course you have a Microsoft Hotmail account or a Live Mail account. I am using Word 2013 from the Microsoft’s Office 2013 package to write this blog. It is a very acceptable application much like its predecessor Word 2010. One aspect of it that does not grab me is its “blandness“. The toolbars and icons are pretty well colourless and with a white background (can this be changed?), it looks so undistinguished. I’ve checked out the other apps in Office 2013 and find they have the same bland look. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/19/office-2013-bland/bland-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-95136">http://cdn7.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/bland1-400x200.png?9d7bd4 Downloading and installing Office 2013 requires you to use a registered Hotmail or Live Mail account. If you have neither you need to create and register and account before completing the installation process. Accessing Office 2013? After installation Windows 8 users you will find all the program icons as individual apps in Metro. These can be added to the Taskbar for easy access when working on the Desktop. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/19/office-2013-bland/office-2013-apps/" rel="attachment wp-att-95122">http://cdn7.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/office-2013-apps-258x500.png?9d7bd4 For those users who are still persisting with Windows 7, once installed Office 2013 appears under Programs in the Start menu. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/19/office-2013-bland/office-2013-in-win-7-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-95124">http://cdn5.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/office-2013-in-win-71.png?9d7bd4 Providing Feed-back to Microsoft In the top right-hand corner is a smiley icon. Clicking it gives you the choice to “Send a Smile” or “Send a Frown“. Selecting either opens a report dialog box where you are able to give your opinion on the application. Some may find this a bit gimmicky but when Windows 8 was first released Microsoft listened to many suggestions, not all of course, as the Start men is still a “no-no”. So take the opportunity to give the Office 2013′s developers some feedback. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/19/office-2013-bland/feedback-1/" rel="attachment wp-att-95127">http://cdn7.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/feedback-1.png?9d7bd4 The two illustrations displayed below indicate how you can use this feedback method. This device is designed to help Microsoft developers gauge the public reactions. One aspect of this which some might find interesting is that you are obliged to include your e-mail address. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/19/office-2013-bland/feedback-2-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-95131">http://cdn6.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/feedback-21-400x292.png?9d7bd4 It should be remembered that Office 2013 is still only in beta mode but I’m sure your comments may bear fruit in the final wash-up. Saving Your Work Saving your work in Word 2013 has a new twist to it. You can save it directly to your SkyDrive account, to the computer (this defaults to the Documents folder) or to Add a place. With the latter you have the option of choosing another location say a portable hard drive or a folder elsewhere. Pretty flexible, eh! [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/19/office-2013-bland/save-as-options/" rel="attachment wp-att-95126">http://cdn6.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/save-as-options.png?9d7bd4 As we all know there is a push by Microsoft and others contenders, DropBox and Google, to save data on the Cloud. Saving and storing files on SkyDrive is in line with Microsoft’s push to make this the common storage location for the future. Huge numbers of users downloaded Windows 8 in all its versions taking advantage of Microsoft’s offer. Now its time to do the same with Office 2013. You will be pleasantly surprised by it. So do this but don’t forget to register your views about its usability. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/19/office-2013-bland/">Office 2013 but Oh, So Bland! was posted on [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com">Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission. View the full article

Posted on Firefox, Safari, Opera[/b] and Google Chrome, none of them really grab me as I’ve tried them all. Now I’m forced to look for a customizable alternative. On checking the web I came across ten less well-known ones – Stainless, Lunascape, Maxthon, Konqueror, Sleepnir, Sea Monkey, Swiftfox, Omniweb, Camino and Flock. Never heard of any of them before BUT now I’ve got to sort out where I’ll go when the deadline for the demise of iGoogle arrives. Of course I can continue to use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer with ninemsn.com.au or au.news.yahoo.com but these websites though working successfully with Internet Explorer do not grab me. There have little flexibility and are full of stuff I abhor – information overload as well as the incessant advertising. This leaves me little choice! Having got my beef out of my system I’m wondering what other disappointed iGoogle users are going to do? Where do we go from here! [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/18/igoogle/">What no iGoogle? was posted on [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com">Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission. View the full article

Posted on Windows Core[/b] The biggest change in Windows Phone 8 is the transition to the NT kernel and related operating system elements. What this means is that Windows Phone 8 will share many of the same features, such as the same kernel, and the same file system, and the same media foundation, device drivers, and parts of the security model from Windows 8. Why go to such lengths? Is it overkill? Apparently not because the core elements of the Windows NT architecture will allow Windows Phone 8 to support multi-core processors, device encryption, and other improvements for IT. App development Clearly, one of the most innovative ideas of the last decade was the App. These small, highly focused programs did much to make the iPhone and the iPad the central commercial IT device. Other copy cats followed suit. For Microsoft the problem was how to develop Apps for Windows 8 and Apps for the Windows phone if at the core, their OS’s were different. The solution is simple, if complex. Have the same kernel for both. This is important for developers because they will benefit from a shared Windows Core in Windows Phone 8. Microsoft will drop the .NET Compact Framework in Windows Phone 7, but instead will move to a Core CLR which will allow managed code to run in a manner identical to how it runs on desktop Windows. The great thing for developers is that their existing apps will continue to run on the current Windows Phone 7 OS even after the Windows 8 platform goes on line. If Windows 8’s Metro style applications succeed then that’s bound to benefit Windows Phone 8 also, since developers will have an easy way to share common code across each platform. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/18/windows-phone-8-era-beginning-steve-ballmer-era/winphone_3/" rel="attachment wp-att-95102">http://cdn7.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/winphone_3-400x225.png?9d7bd4 User Interface The main Windows Phone 8 user interface change is the Start Screen. It will have three sizes of live tiles: small, medium, and large. Currently the existing ones in Windows Phone 7 are medium and large versions. It is also expanding the screen environment where you will be going to be able to place live tiles on. The area along the right hand side of the Start Screen will now be filled with tiles. Skype and VoIP Integration Another feature about Windows Phone 8 is the integration with two communication elements. One is Skype and the other is VoIP. Skype will be an application that you can download one that will take advantage of the VoIP integration. The integration sets up VoIP applications to become a full integrated app on Windows Phone 8 handsets, which will allow them to integrate into the phone dialer. Next The importance of the changes Microsoft is pursuing show that it is looking far down the road for hardware and software development. This is a new style for Microsoft. Will Windows 8 succeed? Can’t tell yet. Will Windows Phone 8 succeed? Can’t tell yet. But what we can tell is that Microsoft is now engaged in an entirely new way of looking at its software and hardware services. It is pursuing a new direction, one that marks its old way’s obsolete. This sets a new mark on how Microsoft will operate. Will it be a strictly software company? Probably not. It will most likely pursue hardware as well, since it already has XBox and Kinect as successful hardware devices. If the Windows Phone 8 succeeds, and if Surface succeeds, there’s no telling what other hardware devices Microsoft will bring out. So goodbye Bill Gates. The Steve Ballmer era is now at hand because Steve is driving the change. Source: [url=http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/20/3096667/windows-phone-8-screenshots-features-nfc-start-screen-dual-core">TheVerge [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/18/windows-phone-8-era-beginning-steve-ballmer-era/">The Windows Phone 8 Era – The Beginning of the Steve Ballmer Era was posted on [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com">Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission. View the full article

…October 26th, 2012! That’s right! Just a few minutes ago, Steven Sinofsky announced at Microsoft’s annual sales meeting that customers will be able to get Windows 8 – whether http://freepchelp.forum/data/MetaMirrorCache/63e1dea26f5625f7721233c82ab4ab1e._.gif[/img] Source: Windows Team Blog

Shortly before we released the Windows 8 Consumer Preview in February, we blogged about our work to make Windows 8 more accessible to people with disabilities. This included our work on Narrator to enable customers who are blind to use Windows 8 on touch screens. This work has continued to evolve in the Release Preview, and will also improve as we move toward the final release of Windows 8. This post details some of the work we have done to improve Narrator when using a touch-enabled PC. This post was authored by Doug Kirschner on our Accessibility team. –Steven First off, we would like to thank all the people who have given us feedback there has been a lot of positive reaction—people are excited that Windows 8 touch screens will include basic screen reading support by default. We've gotten a tremendous amount of constructive feedback on things we could do to make Narrator work better on touch screens and easier to use on the web. We’ve listened. Your suggestions, combined with suggestions from usability testing on visually impaired users here at Microsoft, have resulted in some important changes that we think you'll really like. Listening to the accessibility community When the Developer Preview build was released, we took the opportunity to reach out and gather feedback on Narrator from as many people who require visual assistance tools as we could. To start with, we worked with the community of folks inside Microsoft (we are fortunate to have a significant and organized community that is engaged in the accessibility of all Microsoft products) to install Windows 8 and send us their impressions, and we held internal accessibility events where people could come and try it out in person. We also held usability studies where we invited people to Microsoft’s campus to experience Narrator on a touch screen and walk through common tasks to see where we could improve. Millions of you downloaded the Developer and Consumer Previews, and many of you tried out Narrator and sent us some great feedback. We followed up with a number of people who contacted us via @BuildWindows8. Lastly, we attended the CSUN conference for Technology and Persons with Disabilities, where we were lucky to have the chance to sit down with people one-on-one as they tried out the Windows 8 Consumer Preview for the first time on touch screens. There were a couple of key scenarios we wanted to validate. In particular, we wanted to make sure touch users could get up and running using Narrator on a new PC, right out of the box. That includes finding and installing accessible apps from the Store, and accomplishing basic everyday tasks like sending email, reading webpages, and listening to music. The excitement around the work we'd done so far was overwhelming and gratifying, but it was clear that we still had more work to do to make touch Narrator even better. Thanks to all of your constructive feedback, we identified key areas that we've improved for the Release Preview: Responsiveness: We heard that Narrator on touch screens didn’t feel responsive enough. Gestures: Some people had difficulty with Narrator gestures, particularly some of the more complicated multi-finger gestures. App exploration: Finding particular elements on the screen (e.g. finding tiles on the Start screen) could be hard for people not already familiar with the particular app or UI. Web navigation: The commands available in the Consumer Preview were not extensive enough for some webpages. We worked heavily on each of these areas for the Release Preview, and we're still working in some areas for the final release of Windows 8. We wanted to share with you some of the improvements you can already experience in the Release Preview today. Download this video to view it in your favorite media player: High quality MP4 | Lower quality MP4 Making Narrator feel more responsive to touch Some people we heard from felt that Narrator touch was not very responsive. We heard various versions of this feedback–that Narrator was slow, that Narrator sometimes didn’t respond, or that people just felt disconnected or disoriented—but the root cause of the issue was the same. When you touch the screen, you expect a timely response. We found two common scenarios where this problem occurred: Single-finger exploration: When people had to find an item on the screen by dragging a finger around, we observed that they would often skip right over the item they were searching for, as they moved their fingers too quickly, generally before Narrator had a chance to start reading the item. Gesture response: Some people were confused as to whether their gesture had succeeded, and would attempt to repeat the gesture several times, even though the first attempt was already successful. The problem was that there was a delay between the time Narrator recognized the gesture, and when it provided the speech response. Sometimes it was also unclear from the response whether Narrator had done what the user wanted, or was just reading something similar but unrelated. In each case, the blue, visual highlight rectangle that moves to whatever Narrator is currently reading was quick to jump to the appropriate item, indicating that Narrator had registered the user’s movement and was responding appropriately. However, the problem was in the actual speech process. The text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis is fast, but even at high speeds, it takes a while for the system to read the response back moreover it took additional cognitive time to process the language and to understand what they were hearing. To complicate matters, the speech response time varied widely, depending on context, which made it hard for the user to discern whether the intended gesture was the one that Narrator had recognized. Each of these minor delays added up people would skip over items altogether or repeat successful gestures, thinking that their first attempt was not successful. Audio cues For users with full vision, even if an action takes a few more milliseconds to complete, visual feedback such as highlighting a button or animating a flyout help indicate immediately that the system is responding. These cues are not only aesthetically pleasing, but also functionally important to understand how your touches are influencing the system in real-time. As we dug into some of the feedback around responsiveness, we realized that Narrator could make more effective use of audio cues. In the Release Preview, we have started to add audible cues each gesture now has an associated sound that plays when the gesture is performed. These cues were designed to be quick, short and easily distinguishable, allowing you to instantly recognize whether your gesture is successful and if your action has been taken. Here are some examples: Moving to the next item plays a “tick.” Activating plays a “click.” Scrolling plays a sliding sound. Selecting plays a “thud.” Narrator errors play a “bloop” sound that is easily distinguishable from the system error "ding." Explore the screen with a single finger, and Narrator makes a tick with each new item that you touch, so you know if you passed over an item too quickly to hear what it was. We had a lot of fun designing and implementing these sounds! Making interactions easier The next step was to tune Narrator's touch interaction model. Some people told us they found it difficult to use multi-finger gestures. In particular, we saw people struggle with the two-finger swipe for next and previous item, and even more so with the four-finger swipe to scroll. We also observed people accidentally triggering the commands lists (available item commands, search window, etc.), which consequently caused them to lose their context in an app. In response, we've made it easier to interact with touch Narrator. The system is now more forgiving, with a simpler gesture model that is easier to remember. Single-finger taps and flicks now carry out a majority of the common tasks in Narrator. The revised interaction model is easier to perform, and it groups gestures more logically, so that command lists and windows don’t pop up when you’re trying to perform an unrelated gesture. The table below outlines the new interaction model: Touch gesture Command Tap or drag Read item under finger Double-tap OR Hold with one finger and tap anywhere with a second Do primary action Triple-tap OR Hold with onefinger and double-tap with a second Do secondary action Flick left or right Move to previous/next item Flick up or down Change move increment Hold with one finger and 2-finger-tap with additional fingers Start dragging or extra key options 2-finger tap Stop speaking 2-finger swipe Scroll 3-finger tap Show/hide Narrator settings window 3-finger swipe up Read current window 3-finger swipe down Read from current location in text 3-finger swipe left or right TAB forward and backward 4-finger tap Show commands for current item 4-finger double tap Toggle search mode 4-finger triple tap Show Narrator commands list 4-finger swipe up or down Enable/disable semantic zoom (semantic zoom provides a high-level view of large blocks of content) Improving Narrator’s exploration model As we collected feedback from people who were using the Developer Preview, we reviewed the exploration model in Narrator. One of the things we heard clearly was that people wanted an easy way to find all of the controls on the screen like buttons, labels, text fields, list items, etc. without having to manually touch around the whole screen. One user who was blind gave the analogy that when he enters a hotel room, his first task is always to walk around the room and locate the door, dresser, beds, and bathroom in order to understand the layout of the room before doing anything else. Similarly, when exploring a new app, users want to know what's on the screen before deciding what to do next. One of the ways we made all elements on the screen accessible in Developer Preview was to use horizontal swipe gestures to move between items in a container, and vertical swipe gestures to move into and out of containers. This was a powerful model —you could find all accessible items on the screen—and it was a true representation of how graphical UI is constructed. However, it wasn't intuitive. Having to navigate into and out of containers made it difficult to discover all of the interesting elements on the screen. Changing our default cursor mode In response to the feedback, we made some changes to the way navigation works by default in Release Preview. The navigation gestures, which are now all single-finger flicks left and right, move you through all of the items on the screen. You no longer need to know how the UI is constructed in order to navigate it all you need to do is flick to get to the next and previous items, and Narrator presents you with a linear ordering of the important items on the screen. This allows you to learn about all of the interesting items in an app in an easy step-by-step manner, and interact with any item as you go. If you just want to hear all of the items in an app without flicking each time, you can swipe up with three fingers and Narrator will read through all of them in order, without stopping. (Note: This is the new default mode of navigation, which allows you to explore apps by flicking left and right to find all of the interesting items. If you prefer the old way of moving through the multiple layers of UI manually, you can change the Narrator cursor movement mode to “Advanced” in the Narrator settings). Improving web navigation In Windows 8, Narrator has made reading the web much easier. It has various features that are optimized for web reading, such as the “start reading” command, which reads out continuous sections of webpages without stopping, and search mode, which provides a list of various types of controls on a page. After we released the Developer and Consumer Preview builds, we heard from users that although these features were helpful, they did not enable them to accomplish some common tasks on the web, such as quickly scanning news headlines, doing a quick search, or checking stock quotes. So we revisited this feature, and as we dug further and gained a better understanding of these scenarios, we found ways to improve them in the Release Preview. For news reading in particular, we heard people saying they wanted to jump to various points in the page (e.g. headings, links), and then subsequently to be able to read line-by-line and even letter-by-letter. Many users wanted Narrator to provide these commands for them to navigate the web with more precision. In response, we added the concept of views to Narrator’s navigation commands. The new views are available in default navigation mode whenever you are on a webpage or other accessible text area, such as in the Mail app. The default Item view moves through the items on the page, and works the same way as item navigation throughout the system. But for accessible text areas such as webpages or Mail, Narrator now supports seven additional views: Headings Links Tables Paragraphs Lines Words Characters You can easily change the view by flicking up or down, and then flick left or right to move through the items in that view. These commands are also available with a keyboard by using Caps Lock + Arrow keys. With the new views, web reading is more powerful in the Release Preview. The views work with other Narrator reading commands as well. For example, if you find an interesting news headline and want to hear more, you can swipe down with three fingers and Narrator will start reading all of the page content until you tell it to stop. Finishing the job These examples represent some of the major work we’ve done in response to feedback from people who tried Narrator touch in the Developer Preview and Consumer Preview. We’ve made many more improvements based on your feedback—including reading out touch hints that teach you how to activate items, improving the Narrator settings UI to be easier to use with touch, and adding a new setting that makes it easier to type on the touch keyboard. While we believe Narrator is feature complete at this point, we’re still fixing bugs and fine-tuning it before Windows 8 is complete. It’s been fantastic and humbling to hear from so many of you who have had the chance to try out Narrator. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed working one-on-one with users through our usability studies, at the CSUN conference, and within the Microsoft community. Thanks to all of the great constructive feedback we’ve received, we’ve made these important changes to Narrator for the Release Preview to make it a much better feature. While we work towards shipping this product soon, we’d love for you to download and install the Release Preview for yourself, and try out Narrator. Note: The touch features described in this blog require touch screens supporting at least four contact points. Windows 8 certified touch hardware will universally meet this requirement, but some current Windows 7 hardware may not (see this post for more info). If you do not have a touch screen supporting four contact points, you can still run Narrator using the keyboard. Thanks! -Doug Kirschner

Posted on Availability[/b] Users will be surprised by how Office is made available. While the conventional Office distribution is available with a perpetual license tied to a PC. But Office 2013 adds Office 365 subscription services. This means that you can install the desktop [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/17/quick-view-office-2013/office365-homepremium/" rel="attachment wp-att-95087">http://cdn5.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Office365-HomePremium-400x252.jpg?9d7bd4 apps on up to five PCs and store documents using 20 GB of included SkyDrive storage. The Office 2013 user interface follows many of the Metro design guidelines of Windows 8. Removing “chrome” is one of the biggest changes to the effect that when you open an Office desktop app on Windows 7 or Windows 8, you don’t see any window borders. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/17/quick-view-office-2013/office2013/" rel="attachment wp-att-95088">http://cdn7.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Office2013.jpg?9d7bd4 The Ribbon… Still there. However, it is flattened, with a plain white background. You’ll notice vivid colors on the File menu and in the status bar along the bottom, with color-coding to help distinguish between different office programs (dark blue for Word, green for Excel, orange for PowerPoint, and so on). [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/17/quick-view-office-2013/ribbon/" rel="attachment wp-att-95089">http://cdn7.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Ribbon.jpg?9d7bd4 Running Office 2013 on Windows 7 is easy, however, it will be interesting to see how it functions on the Windows 8 environment. Because Windows 8 will be geared to the touch screen, the desktop apps now also include options that make them easier to use on touch-enabled devices such as tablets. You can use Word’s new Read mode to change a document into columns that use the full screen, then with a flick of the finger flip through the document. Office 365 Versions The Cloud is big on the Microsoft agenda. So big in fact that the Office 365 versions include cloud storage, with SkyDrive Pro to sync files between SharePoint and the desktop. The cloud-based storage also allows easy online sharing and syncing. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/17/quick-view-office-2013/office_365/" rel="attachment wp-att-95090">http://cdn9.everything-microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/office_365-400x239.jpg?9d7bd4 The preview option of Office 2013 give users a taste of what will come down the pike when Windows 8 is released. The options available now for Office 2013 will create an interesting invocation of Windows 8. If it is this good now…wait for the new OS implementation. [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/17/quick-view-office-2013/">A Quick View of Office 2013 was posted on [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com">Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission. View the full article

Windows 8 keeps users always connected. They can be connected to the internet, cloud services, and their other Windows 8 PCs. Your app can participate in this always connected ecosystem by taking advantage of roaming app data. In this post I tell you more about roaming app data, what it is, why it’s important, and best of all how easy it is to implement in your app. Why roam data Roaming personalization settings is key to feeling connected to Windows, and Windows 8 does that for many Windows settings, such as your desktop theme, backgrounds, and browser favorites. But Windows is only a small piece of a user’s personalization. Apps are the cornerstone in creating that always connected experience in Windows 8. It is your apps that bring enjoyment to Windows users, and it is your apps that they spend much of their time using. While our apps such as Bing Weather and Sports have these roaming experiences, we need your help to complete the vision of a connected Windows 8. Roaming to the cloud is also something cool and exciting that can delight your customers with convenience and help your app stand out from the rest. A great Metro style app with roaming will allow the user to configure it once and use it everywhere, so the user doesn’t have to re-configure the app each time they access it from a different PC It will also help them connect from anywhere by having a continuous experience as they transition from one PC to another. How we made it easy Our goal with roaming app data was to make it very easy to create these roaming experiences. We steered away from having you, the developer, manage the sync mechanics because it can be cumbersome and complex. We wanted to make it simple for you to roam everything the user might configure. To make this happen, Windows 8 has an integrated roaming sync for Application Data for all Metro style apps using the connected Microsoft Account associated with the user. ApplicationData is partitioned into three types of data which we call localities: local, roaming, and temporary. Simply by writing its data to the roaming locality your app can participate in the data being synced with the connected Microsoft account. This means that you don’t need to worry about managing the sync relationship, setting up an identity and login, buy or manage a service, or any of that other messy stuff. Windows takes care of it for you. All you need to focus on is what data to roam and how to design your app to take advantage of these benefits. When users connect to Windows, they also connect to your app. . User data vs. app data Before we dive in, it is important when working with roaming experiences to understand the difference between user data and app data. User data is data that a user creates and manages in the course of using the app, such as the user’s documents, music, videos, and pictures. It could also be anything that the user perceives as valuable or that may be shared among apps. This type of data should be stored in one of the KnownFolder libraries, or roamed using the SkyDrive APIs. Passwords should always be stored and roamed using the PasswordVault. This blog post is scoped to data that the app creates and manages, such as its settings, preferences, and state. These differences between user data and app data and how to roam each of them are summarized in this table. User data App data May be used by multiple apps Only meaningful to the app that created it Documents, music, pictures, exported data Settings, preferences, context, app state Stored in the cloud using SkyDrive Roams with ApplicationData Creating a configure once, use everywhere experience Let’s get started with a simple configure once, use anywhere experience. Suppose I have an app that is a simple RSS reader that allows the user to read items from a set of feeds. When viewing a particular feed the app displays a certain number of items per page. I have a user configurable setting called ItemsPerPage that controls how many feed items to display on a page. I want to make it so if the user sets this setting on one PC, it will roam to other PCs that have my app installed. Within the ApplicationData class there is a RoamingSettings property, and enabling a setting to roam is as simple as writing it as a value in RoamingSettings. JS: Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.current.roamingSettings.values[“ItemsPerPage”] = 10 C#: Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current.RoamingSettings.Values[“ItemsPerPage”] = 10 That’s it! All the sync mechanics are handled by Windows, and that setting will now sync between all of the user’s PCs that have my app installed without any further action from me. This setting is typically presented to the user in the App Settings Charm. I highly recommend that you roam any app settings by default. Some settings may be machine specific and should not be saved into roaming locations. If you wanted to write a file instead of a setting, Application Data also offers RoamingFolder, which functions the same way. If you choose to use a file for roaming data, be sure to close any open handles to the file when you are done writing to it. Files with open handles are not roamed. Planning for the roaming quota If all you use in your app are simple settings, then what we looked at so far is all you need. But what about a favorites list or a collection or larger amounts of data? How big can it be? Roaming app data is optimized for roaming settings and preferences and it does have a per-app storage quota that is suitable for these types of data. The quota exists to be considerate of system resources. Long battery life and system performance are important characteristics of Windows 8, and our limit helps ensure neither are sacrificed to deliver these roaming experiences. You can get this quota using ApplicationData’s RoamingStorageQuota property, which at the time of writing this is 100KB. The best way to work within the quota is to plan your app’s data usage at design time and ensure that it will not grow out of the quota. So what happens if you exceed the RoamingStorageQuota? Nothing! More specifically, nothing roams. Your app will not break, and it can continue to read and write the data from the roaming locations. But until the total roaming data in the roaming locations is less than the RoamingStorageQuota, that data will not be synced to the cloud. One common pitfall that we see with apps that don’t properly plan their roaming data usage is that they roam content instead of references to the content. For example, if I wanted to roam a set of favorite news articles I should roam the article identifiers or URLs, not the entire articles. Roaming raw data rather than references to available content is a fast way to burn through the quota and waste space. You can get the most out of roaming by roaming identifiers to content, not the actual content itself. When planning your app it’s best not to use unwieldy sets of data. Any open-ended sets of data such as a favorites list should be capped so your app will always stay within the roaming quota. Continuing with my RSS feed reader example, suppose I wanted to save the list of RSS feeds, which is a user-managed list. The way to do this is to turn something that would otherwise be unbounded into something that has a limit. This requires a little estimation. Suppose I wanted to allocate 20KB for RSS feed lists. For simplicity I will give a conservative estimate of 80 bytes per URL. At that size I could cram 250 URLs into 20 KB. URL shortening could make this even smaller, but 250 is likely way more feeds than my app will ever need. All I have to do is cap it at that limit and write my feed list to a file, save it in the RoamingFolder, and it’s good to go. Creating a continuous experience across PCs There’s another cool roaming experience you can add to your app – the continuous user experience across PCs! Imagine a person at home on a desktop using my reader to catch up on their feeds who then needs to catch a bus. On the way out she grabs her Windows 8 tablet and opens up my app. The experience I want is for her to be able to continue reading right where she left on her desktop PC. Enabling the continuous experience is to preserve the context of what the user is doing and roam it. Functionally this is no different than roaming any other setting, but this scenario is a bit different than most settings. The user may navigate through the feeds very rapidly, so this setting may change frequently while other settings typically don’t. Moreover, for the experience to really delight the user, the data needs to be accurate to what the user was last doing. To meet these customer needs we created a unique setting name that is specifically designed to handle this experience, HighPriority. To use it, simply name your setting HighPriority in the root container of the RoamingSettings. It is used like any other setting. The roaming engine allows this setting to roam much more quickly than other roaming data so you can deliver on that experience. To enable this for my feed reader all I have to do is roam the feed identifier. On app launch or when resuming from suspend I check the identifier and navigate to the appropriate feed. It is very similar to my previous setting only the setting name is HighPriority. JS: Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.current.roamingSettings.values[“HighPriority”] = currentFeedId C#: Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current.RoamingSettings.Values[“HighPriority”] = currentFeedId Like the other roaming experience, Windows takes care of all the hard stuff so you don’t need to worry about it. The key in using HighPriority is knowing when to read the setting and when to write it. Generally, check HighPriority on app launch or when it resumes after being suspended so the user can access whatever they were doing when last using the app, either on the current PC or another PC. We write HighPriority on user-initiated actions, like navigating to a new page or clicking on a link. The HighPriority setting is often instantaneous but may be throttled with rapid writes, so unnecessary writes will only cause performance degradation within the app and not improve the roaming experiences. As a general rule, make HighPriority represent where and what the user is doing, such as when the user navigates to pages within the app or browses content. Some apps may have rapidly changing data, such as a video player that is keeping track of the counter within the video being played. It would be overkill to write to HighPriority every time the video counter increments, so instead you could update it when the video changes states such as play/pause, the user reaches a checkpoint, or when the app is suspended. Keeping your data consistent Some data is tightly coupled and should always roam together. The classic example is the coordinates for a point. You don’t want the x and the y coordinates roaming independently when changed or it can corrupt the data and create invalid points. The units of roaming for ApplicationData are settings and files, so anything within a file will always roam together as a unit, and a setting itself is a unit. If you want to roam multiple settings together, such as the coordinates, you can use a CompositeSettingValue. This type of setting allows grouping of multiple settings into a single value that will always roam as a unit. The HighPriority setting can also be a composite, allowing you to safely roam multiple pieces of data that represent the current state of your app. For example, my feed reader groups feed items by pages for easy reading. I don’t want the feed ID and the page to ever roam independently of one another because the feeds may have different numbers of pages. What I really want to do is roam the current feed ID and the current page within that feed together as a CompositeSettingValue so they are always consistent. JS: var currentFeed = new Windows.Storage.ApplicationDataCompositeValue() currentFeed.insert(“CurrentFeedId”, currentFeedId) currentFeed.insert(“CurrentFeedPage”, currentFeedPage) Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.current.roamingSettings.values[“HighPriority”] = currentFeed C#: Windows.Storage.ApplicationDataCompositeValue currentFeed = new Windows.Storage.ApplicationDataCompositeValue() currentFeed.Insert(“CurrentFeedId”, currentFeedId) currentFeed.Insert(“CurrentFeedPage”, currentFeedPage) Windows.Storage.ApplicationData.Current.RoamingSettings.Values[“HighPriority”] = currentFeed If a composite is used as the HighPriority setting then it must be under 8KB in order to retain the HighPriority benefits. Exceeding 8KB will not cause errors, but it will be roamed as if it were a normal setting. Responding to incoming roaming changes There is one last part of the roaming experience that you should know about, and that is ApplicationData’s DataChanged event. The DataChanged event is simply an event that you can signal whenever app data changes, such as signaling to a background task that the user changed a setting. When roaming data in the cloud causes a local change to your app, Windows will automatically signal this event for you. This allows you to respond to situations where data from another PC may have been delayed and then arrived after the user had already started using your app. You could use this event to refresh your view on the data or respond to setting changes. It is important to understand that this experience is optimized for consumers who use one PC at a time and switch between them, so you should not use DataChanged events as a real-time communication mechanism across PCs. Become part of the connected experience Having apps that utilize roaming is an important part of creating a connected Windows 8, and we’ve created a platform that makes it easy to create these cool new experiences. Roaming to the cloud is a great way for your app to stand out and delight your customers with convenience and a fluid transition between PCs. For additional guidance on using Roaming, please see the Guidelines for roaming application data. Also be sure to check out the ApplicationData sample, which contains examples of all of the experiences discussed in this blog entry. Thanks for reading! -- Dave Bennett, Program Manager, Windows View the full article

Posted on Start8[/b], an application that provides access to “Run” and “Shutdown” and so on. While this is a useful addition to Windows 8 Release Preview, there is an even better option available called Classic Shell. This replicates the old Start menu totally. In addition, right clicking the Start button provides access to its Settings allowing further tweaking. Classic Shell not only provides a user-friendly version of the Start menu but it also contains three other tools – Classic Explorer Settings, Classic IE9 Settings and Classic Shell Update. The former two allow you to re-configure Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer IE9. However, my main interest in this tool getting back a usable version of the former Start menu. I leave others to tinker with the other three options. You can access Classic Shell from this link - [url=http://sourceforge.net/projects/classicshell/">http://sourceforge.net/projects/classicshell/ After you download this application and install it you will find four APPS on the Metro screen. Classic Shell works fine with Windows 8 Release Review. On installation you will find the four Apps in the Metro menu. As most users of Windows 8 Release Preview know by now you can add these Apps to your Taskbar. One user, Annet Kalipso, wrote the following review of Classic Shell . . . ” But the best thing is that Classic Shell 3.5 puts its beautiful Start Menu on Windows 8 Consumer Preview, turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse! . . .” I feel Annet’s comments sums it all up but I’ll leave it to you to decide! [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2012/07/17/start-menu-classic-shell/">Get the Start Menu back with Classic Shell was posted on [url=http://www.everything-microsoft.com">Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission. View the full article