Microsoft Windows 8 Developer Preview shows off Windows 'reimagined'

Microsoft kicked off its Build developer conference Sept. 13 in Anaheim with the introduction of its Windows 8 Developer Preview, a "reimagined" version of Windows that the company promised is as at home on a PC as on a tablet.

"Reimagined," said Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows and Windows Live divisions, was a word attendees would hear a lot throughout the event, and certainly they did through Sinofsky's keynote.

"Windows 7 reimagines what Windows can be," Sinofsky told the full house, explaining that, nonetheless, everything that runs on Windows 7 will work on Windows 8.

He continued:

What we really want to talk about today is how from the chipset — and we mean the work that we've done on Windows for ARM — all the way up through a brand new user experience that's touch first but equally at home with a mouse and keyboard —we have a new range of capabilities, scenarios and form factors, all enabled by this bold reimagining of Windows.

Highlights of the OS include a touch-centric interface, a Windows Store where developers can sell apps, a user experience that's driven by applications, a strong memory for user favorites and preferences, and new hardware features such as support for ARM-based chipsets and system on a chip (SoC) support.

Build attendees were given a prototype Samsung laptop (not available for sale) on which to try out the OS, and Sinofsky promised their displays would be covered in fingerprints by the event's end — such is the touch-inclined nature of Windows 8.

But first, attendees were presented with four overviews: of the Windows 8 experience, and how Microsoft has "reimagined the way you can interact with a PC," said Sinofsky; of Windows 8's Metro style applications (MDP: Windows 8 Features and Terminology), which it describes as "full screen, immersive and touch-centric"; of the hardware platform it all runs on the tools available to developers; and how everything connects up in the cloud, via Windows Live.

In an interesting re-appropriation of the word, Microsoft refers to the ability to access user data and their designed desktop experience via the cloud as "roaming."

In a blog post on the event, Sinofsky reiterated that while everything demonstrated at the event runs on ARM-based Windows PCs, Metro style applications will also run on x86 (both 32 and 64 bit) architectures.

Adding that what Microsoft launched yesterday was not a product, and certainly not a new device (the Samsung tablet that had folks buzzing), but rather "the launch of the developer opportunity for Windows," Sinofsky pointed the curious to a preview of the release that can be downloaded from the Windows Dev Center. Note that it doesn't work as an update to Windows 7 but must be installed fresh, and there's also a new forum for discussion here.