Windows 8 Machines Will Be Able To Boot Linux

Ed Bott of ZDNet recently talked to two of the largest PC makers in the industry about the secure boot issue with Windows 8 and was assured that the final choice would be up to the user.

Users Will Have The Final Say About Booting Other OS: Windows 8 PC Makers

Recently there has been a lot of unrest in the Linux community about the secure boot feature in Windows 8. The feature, as we have reported earlier, makes sure that the OS cannot be corrupted by malware at the boot level. This feature uses a kind of digital signature to verify that the OS is still authentic and has not been tampered with.

Now the problem is that Linux distributions are very open and collaborative in nature. Assigning signatures would be a huge problem because it is an open system, not a closed one. This has scared the Linux user and developer community that Microsoft intends to lock users in to its own OS and effectively ban Linux.

However, these fears are mostly unfounded because the secure boot option will always be that — an option. The BIOS/UEFI area will always be accessible to the user where this option can be turned off to allow other OS’ like Linux to boot.

ZDNet’s Ed Bott talked to two of the largest PC makers in the world — Dell and HP. Both of them had similar things to say — there are no plans of locking the user in to using only Windows 8 . It is true that Microsoft wants the feature to be turned on by default but both Dell and HP machines will have the option for turning off secure boot.

So at the end of the day if a user wants to boot Linux in to his system by installing GRUB, all he has to do is turn off secure boot. Windows 8 will probably not boot in that case but there’s no way the hardware will be locked in to one single OS. Also, third-party coders will definitely come up with a way to dual-boot Windows 8 with other un-signed OS’ once the actual release happens.

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Windows 8 Memory Improvements

When Windows 7 was released, Microsoft had set out to erase the bad rap Windows had gotten because of Windows Vista, which was notorious for being a memory hog. And now, with Windows 8, Microsoft is aiming to do the same thing – on devices with even lower system specs than Windows 7 required, especially because of the rise of tablet devices and SoC based devices that are distinguished by low power consumption. Using up RAM (random access memory) also saps power from the device. Therefore, if an operating system uses a lot of memory, then more physical RAM will have to be built into a device, and bam! – less battery life.

Windows 7 Memory Consumption

                           Windows 8 Memory Consumption                                    

The above graphs perfectly illustrate the new improvements in Windows 8, which include:

Memory Combination: When a program is called, it may allocate memory for future use – but if the user never invokes the function that requires that memory, then it pretty much goes to waste. If multiple applications are doing this, then there will be redundant copies of memory around the system, which is not good for memory efficiency. So what Windows 8 will do is scout for redundant copies, free them up, and keep a single copy. This process can save tens to hundreds of megabytes of memory.

Service Changes and Reductions: Windows has always had a lot of services running in the background that no one has ever really cared for – and so Microsoft has removed some of those, moved some to “manual start” and another group to “start on demand,” which a triggered by some action in the OS, say, perhaps, device arrival, and they execute these steps.
1.) Start.
2.) Do whatever it needs to do.
3.) Hang around, make sure its existence is completely useless before
4.) Going away.

Lazy initiation of the “desktop”: We all know that Microsoft is intending to bake the familiar appearance of the Windows “desktop” into Windows 8 via system application. So the OS components that you’ll find unique to the desktop application will not be initiated at startup because some people will stay completely inside the Metro UI, which saves memory.

Giving priorities efficiently: Let’s say you’re in Windows 7, opening Excel while you have a bunch of different apps open as well. Let’s also say that you also have antivirus software that checks the files you’re opening for your safety. Well, the specific memory that the antivirus software is allocating to check that one file will probably never be used again. If Windows 7 is low on memory, it may delete memory that helps Excel – even though the antivirus software is finished and doesn’t still need the memory. Windows 8 solves this issue by allowing any program to allocate memory as “low priority,” so you won’t lose important work even if the system is low on memory.

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Switch Back to Windows 8 Start Menu from Start Screen

Do you hate Windows 8 Start Screen? Or is it not the best way to start programs and application when you use the keyboard and mouse? Don’t worry you can simply switch back to usual Start Menu using a simple Windows 8 registry hack.

This Windows 8 tutorial will be answering the following questions? 

• How to switch back to Windows 8 Start Menu instead of touch friendly Metro Start Screen?
• How to get ride of Start Screen?
• Optimize Windows 8 to use with mouse and keyboard?
• How to get the traditional Windows look in Window 8?

Warning 

• Registry hacks may cause serious damages to the operating system and may cause problems booting up the computer.
• This tutorial is tested on Windows Developer Preview and may change on the final Windows 8 version.

Enjoy the the traditional look in two steps

• Press Windows Key + R (Windows 8 Shortcuts)
• Type regedit
• Browse toHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer.
• Double-click RPEnabled
• Change its value from 1 to 0

This simple registry hack will remove Metro and get back to the desktop Windows you are used to.

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Windows 8 Minimum System Requirements

We all know that Windows 8 has some amazing enhancements. But all this amazing stuff comes at the cost of your system resources for eg. CPU power, RAM etc. So let us take a close look at the basic minimum system requirements for Windows 8:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

• RAM (Random Access Memory) requirements are again very high, but these have become a standard for most modern computing. 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM  for the 32-bit edition of Windows 8 or 2 GB RAM if you are running the 64-bit edition.

• Windows 8 takes up around 16 GB hard disk space if it's the 32-bit edition and if you are using the 64-bit edition, you need to have 20 GB of free space in order to install Windows 8.

• A DirectX 9 compatible graphics device preferably with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

• If you plan to use it on a touch device like a Tablet, then you need to have a supported touch Input, for instance a multi-touch enabled touch screen.

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Windows 8 Features

This new OS is in pre-beta stage at the moment and we can expect many new features added later but lets see what we know so far.

• Windows 8 is optimized to run on both Intel and  ARM architecture. Which means it can run smoothly giving top-notch performance even on tablet devices and net-books with 1GB memory.
• The new system boots really quick in about 7 seconds.
• Features a home screen filled with colorful tiles taking the user directly into applications such as Facebook, messaging or news feeds.
• Colorful tile-based Metro style interface similar to Windows Mobile 7
• It uses less memory to run than Windows 7 allowing more free space for apps. Windows 7 SP1 runs with 400 MB memory & 32 processes while Windows 8 will run on about 280MB memory & 29 processes.
• The whole new IE 10 browser (Sorry, I don’t use IE at all)
• Windows Online App Store: For the first time Microsoft has introduced a dedicated App Store for Windows devices similar to what we already have since ages for Linux, iOS, Android & BlackBerry.
• Though it is primarily designed for touch devices, it will be usable on PCs with Mouse and Keyboards as well.
• Split keyboard feature for tablet devices similar to what iOS 5 will have for iPads
• Split screens to use multiple applications at the same time & stretch windows on multiple screens
• Re-constructed task manager and control panel
• NFC (Near Field Communications) support
• Built-in Hyper-V virtualization simialr to VMware’s popular Hypervisor
• Improved security with built-in Windows Defender
• Syncing photos, email, calendar and contacts with other devices through the Cloud storage
• System-wide spell check and auto-completion
• Integrated full featured Search module to find pictures, videos, files, notifications from storage, emails and social networking profiles , similar to spotlight search on iOS devices.
• Metro style apps built for Windows 8 will be the focus point which fills the entire screen so there are no distractions.
• Everything that works on Windows 7 will work on Windows 8 and Hardware that could run Windows 7 can run Windows 8 too. (This was very different when Windows 7 was launched demanding many changes in hardware and software)

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