We all know that
Windows 8 can start up faster than any version of Windows before it. Now Microsoft has
released information about the improved installation experience and said that Windows 8 will install with just 11 clicks of the mouse, an 82% improvement over Windows 7.
Obviously this 11 clicks experience won’t be for everyone. Depending on how you want to install Windows 8 it could be many more, but anything that can improve installation, particularly the speed of it, has to be welcomed.
There is a huge amount of information that has been released by Microsoft today, but one of the most important things to note is that Windows 8 will allow you to install the operating system if you still have XP on your computer. Before you really needed to either format the hard disk and lose all of your files, or have Windows move them to a Windows.old folder where many people would never find them.
Now, Windows 8 is able to preserve your files if you are moving to the OS from XP. This will make the upgrade path much simpler and will be broadly welcomed.
Windows 8 is al the first version of Windows that will be available for download. It’s still a 5Gb installer but this could finally be a good way to get a copy of your installation disc if you buy a PC where the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) disc isn’t included. We will need to wait and see what Microsoft and OEMs do here.
Microsoft has been quite open about the fact that OEMs not shipping installation DVDs is an effective anti-piracy measure. Before people were taking their DVD and installing Windows on other computers in the home. Microsoft obviously want to discourage this behaviour.
It is welcome to see however that this downloadable installer can be either saved as an ISO file and burned to DVD later or copied directly to a USB Flash Drive. The former’s choice of not burning it straight away will presumably be for compatibility reasons with XP, which doesn’t support native ISO burning. The latter option I can see being extremely popular.
The whole installation process this time around is designed to just be “simpler”.
During planning for Windows 8, we wanted to hear from customers who chose not to upgrade to Windows 7 even though their PCs would run it. In 2010 we commissioned a study of how people make PC purchase decisions, and talked to customers in three global markets to find out more. While the list of reasons as to why a customer chose not to upgrade varied by market, we have received notable feedback that upgrading the PC was perceived as difficult. So even though many customers wanted to upgrade, the current setup experience might be something that just wasn’t easy enough to make them feel confident in doing so.
Other improvements we have already seen in the Developer Preview such as touch support for the WIndows 8 installer, making it considerably simpler to install the OS on a tablet.
The company also go on to talk about improvements they have made to the Windows Upgrade Advisor. They say that 20 million people downloaded and used this during the first six months of Windows 7, though this number really still is very small in the grand scheme of Windows 7 installations.
When it comes to moving from one edition of Windows, be that XP, Vista or Windows 7 to Windows 8, Microsoft are clear what you can and can’t move. They specify Windows Settings, Applications and User Account and Files. The table below shows just what you can and can’t move to Windows 8.
It may annoy many Vista users that they will have to reinstall all their applications after upgrading to Windows 8. On the surface it might seem easy to transfer apps to the new OS. Microsoft will have technical reasons for this however annoying it may be for people.
There’s much more in this blog post as these Microsoft Windows 8 posts tend to be huge and complex. For the most part this is the most important content, though we will continue to pick at all the details and bring you more information in the next few days.
