Windows 8 build 7955 has been leaked onto the pirate bay website and onto many private FTP sites as well. This gives us a chance to examine the new operating system from Microsoft. Windows 8 has an inbuilt PDF reader, the aforementioned ISO mounting and a new login screen. Another feature of Windows 8 is the Windows Portable Workspace that allows you to install Windows 8 on a 16GiB live USB and take it with you, like Linux has been able to do for ages. And a dedicated webcam app like the Linux application cheese, or the photo booth for Mac OSX. The new Windows Explorer will have the ribbon toolbar like Office does and there will be a more advanced task manager.
Released build: Windows 8 Build 7955 Milestone 3 Build
Size: 2.47GB (2,657,079,296 bytes)
Filename: 6.1.7850.0.winmain_win8m1.100922-1508_x86fre_client-enterprise_en-us.iso
I do not think I will be downloading this, I have Windows 7 and Debian and I am happy with that. I have discovered a cool thing in Windows 7 though, you can implement symlinks on Windows with the mklink command. Just type mklink /D MyMovies E:\Movies and it will create the symlink MyMovies that points to the E:\Movies folder on the E drive. That way you can have proper symlinks on your Windows system instead of those stupid shortcuts that you had in Windows XP. Linux and UNIX systems have been able to use symlinks for ages, you would type ln -s file1 file2 to create a symlink. Windows is becoming more and more like Linux all the time, but it does not have the legendary security and stability of Linux. I know I should not be blogging about Windows on a Linux site, but I do have a page about Windows 7 tips and that will stay. And it is good to try different operating systems instead of just using the one all the time. I run FreeBSD 8.2 on my laptop and that works very well indeed, the sound and video works perfectly. I just installed Enlightenment E17 from source using the FreeBSD ports system and it works very well indeed with compositing enabled. FreeBSD is a good alternative to Linux as long as your hardware is supported by the operating system that is.
But if Windows 8 can be installed on a USB thumb drive as well as on your desktop or laptop, would that create licensing issues, or would they take that into account when you install the operating system. But that would make your whole operating system more portable if you could take your whole operating system and your desktop settings and all with you and run it on any computer. But as I said before, you could run Linux off a USB stick for ages before this, you used to be able to purchase Mandrake Linux on a thumb drive. I know they will not be selling Windows pre-installed on a USB stick but that installing or running Linux off a thumb drive is faster than off a CD or DVD. Not all of the changes in Windows 8 are for the best, but I am sure that Microsoft can make it a good Windows release without the embarrassing blue screens of death of ages past. They should put more incentive into the Windows operating system to dissuade users from running as an administrator, they should be running as a limited user all of the time like you do with Linux and UNIX, then you have more security.