MICROSOFT WINDOWS 8 Brief Review

A big change to the look and feel of the world's most widespread PC operating system

Windows 8 is the newest version of the Microsoft operating system (OS) we're all familiar with on our laptops and desktop PCs. It's no exaggeration to say that this latest edition is the biggest revamp since Windows 95.

The biggest change is the interface, which has been designed to work with a touchscreen or with a keyboard and mouse. Microsoft claims this makes it perfect for tablets and more familiar computers. It had the development name 'Metro' but is now referred to simply as 'Windows 8'.

The biggest single change is the Start menu. It has been replaced by a new Start screen, a change that is going to leave may Windows users asking where has the start button gone?'.

Users of Windows Phone 7 will find it instantly familiar, though. The large and colourful Live Tiles take the place of icons. You can pick and choose which tiles you want to have ‘pinned' to your Start screen with the rest accessible from the ‘all apps' button.

Besides opening programs, the tiles also continuously update to show new information. For example the Calendar tile will show your next upcoming appointment, while the Mail tile shows how many unread emails await your attention.

The Start screen scrolls horizontally instead of vertically. On a touchscreen PC or tablet you would swipe the screen to scroll, but it's also possible to scroll using a mouse wheel, scroll bar or the arrow keys.

Extra buttons and controls are accessed by either swiping down from the top or the bottom of the screen if you have a touchscreen or by clicking the right mouse button.

System wide options, such as getting back to the Start screen or searching, are accessed from another new tool called the Charms bar. To make this appear, swipe from the right-hand side of your touchscreen or hover the mouse at the top right-hand side of the screen.

There is no taskbar in Metro programs, so to see which programs are currently open, you have to use a fiddly touchscreen gesture on the left hand edge of the screen or hover the mouse there. Bizarrely, the clock is no longer visible in Metro apps unless you first activate the Charms bar.

It is possible to have two Metro apps running side by side, but the second app can only run in a narrow strip on either the left- or right-hand side of the screen so this works best with apps that have lists of information, such as a Twitter or email program. Annoyingly, the touchscreen gestures and mouse controls for activating this split screen mode are fiddly.

The traditional desktop and more familiar programs are still present in Windows 8 though. Click the Desktop icon and the old-style interface returns. Even if you're dedicated to the new Start screen and Metro apps, the old desktop is actually still essential for even the most basic tasks from accessing USB memory keys to installing drivers for printers and other peripherals, as well as for using existing non Metro programs.

This constant switching back and forth feels disjointed and inconsistent for experienced users and can be confusing for novices. This is especially true when accessing files from within programs. Metro apps have a completely different interface for opening and saving files compared to traditional programs.

There's still no Start menu in the traditional interface though - pressing the Start key on your keyboard activates the Start screen. Hover the mouse where the Start button would be and a small thumbnail of the Start screen appears - click it to use the Start screen.

Tweaks to the traditional desktop interface include the addition of tabbed Microsoft Office-style Ribbon toolbars to Windows Explorer. Although this can look intimidating, it does ultimately make all the various commands and options easier to find.

Users of multiple monitors will be pleased to find a couple of new features. It's possible to have the Start screen on one display and the traditional desktop on another. Different monitors can also have their own taskbars, so a monitor's taskbar can show only icons for programs open on that particular screen.

The standard version of the new operating system, simply called Windows 8, will suit most home users and is available as a download for the low price of xxxxxxxxxxxxx.

There's also a special version called Windows RT that's only available preinstalled on tablets that use power-efficient ARM processors rather than traditional Intel or AMD chips. It's identical to Windows 8, but can't run existing Windows 8 interface programs.

Windows 8 is a big gamble for Microsoft. In changing an interface that millions of people have become familiar with over the course of almost 20 years, it risks alienating many of its customers. The increasing shift from sales of laptops to those of tablets means that Microsoft has to find a way to make Windows work with touchscreens - something Windows 7 completey failed to do.

Whether it can do better than Apple or Android on that type of device will be down to two things: the quality of the apps that developers produce and the speed with which customers become familiar with the Windows 8 interface.

But on the desktop and laptop, with touch or without, the Windows 8 interface is confusing at first and the access controls for some of the important tools are fiddly. That's a shame, as there are some interesting new features behind it.

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