Windows 8 Client Pre-Beta: Five Important Implicatio
The Microsoft Windows 8 Client Editions aren’t even in beta, but the direction indicated at the BUILD Windows Conference in fall 2011 is clear: Expect many and significant changes. The BUILD Windows conference was itself a change, as a replacement for the Professional Developers Conference (PDC). The previews for Windows 8 Client version startled the audience, and with good reason: Windows 8 is different.
Many of the changes in Windows 8 Client relate to a perception that Microsoft’s efforts in the evolution from Windows XP (and CE) through mobile versions, to Windows Vista, then Windows 7, were reactions to problems faced by Windows users and administrators. There was a sense that each new operating system was designed to react, rather than to lead. Microsoft is trying to restore a sense of leadership, and many of the changes reflect that attitude.
This article is specific to the Windows client. For advice on server issues, see Windows 8 Server Pre-Beta: 5 Important Implications.
1. Windows Metro and Desktop Changes
Windows Metro, available for download on Windows 7 as a preview now, is a tiled, “mosaic” approach to separating activities into panes across the device’s viewing area. The panes are live, and can be updated independently. Think of them as a VDI-like window to applications, messaging, and communications components that are active in the current device. If you’ve seen active window icons, you have some insight into both programming for the panes, and also for how panes change to alert users by flashing, or by using visual changes to summon attention.
The Metro UI on tablets is more striking, and may or may not become the UI that’s standardized on Windows 8 Mobile versions. Microsoft has said that all ARM-based apps will be Metro applications, and so there is now a branch in the tree that mandates support for Windows-based apps, and Metro apps—with incumbent support, revisions, etc. Clearly, Microsoft wants Metro support across client applications where possible.
While Windows 7.5 has some similarity to the proposed Windows 8 tablet version of Metro, Microsoft hasn’t stated whether the Metro UI will react similarly across smartphones as it does on tablets and notebooks/desktops. It’s all pre-beta, and not quite cohesive, yet.
The implications are numerous. The Metro tiled approach is sufficiently different from prior Windows use cases that nominal retraining may be necessary to achieve full productivity from the tiled layout. Internet Explorer 10 is Metro-compatible, and web applications supported by IE10 will use its “live” features and behave—although the web applications may have to change to adapt—see below.
Organizations usually roll out Windows 8 in groups, and applications that take advantage of the UI will take time to deploy. Supporting multiple versions, current and Metro-enabled, will take a while to accomplish. Expect the usual support of help desk and documentation. Integration will become more sophisticated, as a result.
The new desktop proposed for Windows 8 appears easy enough for most individuals to familiarize themselves with quickly.
Still remaining to be evaluated are accessibility issues and updates for visually- or physically-challenged individuals and any special hardware adaptation gear they use. While changeover cycles are now familiar territory for those that must administrate adaptation and remediation gear, it’s currently unstated as to when beta product or release code will instantiate features so that testing for adaptation gear can begin.
2. Authentication Changes: Microsoft can be a proxy authenticator
User login can be achieved by a username/password combination, or additional authentication mechanisms such as bio-authentication (fingerprint readers, etc.) or additional authentication to Microsoft Active Directory or LDAP.
One new option is the ability to login through Microsoft Live. Organizations that can link to Microsoft Live will find this handy, particularly for users of devices like tablets and phones who need access to Windows or organizational online resources in the cloud. The cloud resources might include items like Microsoft’s Office365, perhaps Microsoft Exchange Mail, or other web-based resources and applications.
Proxy authentication services are available now for web apps provided by plentiful third party vendors. But Microsoft may open an avenue towards its own proxy authentication mechanism if they can successfully join Windows 8 logon to not only their own online applications and those hosted “on-premises” but to those offered by third parties in the cloud. The mechanics of this aren’t entirely clear, but the direction is. (Amusingly, user logon to Metro can be accomplished by touching a combination of points on a picture. Hacks are said to be standing by with telephoto lenses to watch users login with their finger tips, when poised on tablet touchscreens.)
3. Client Application Infrastructure May Not Be Uniform
The current spectrum of devices starts at the “bottom” with OEM devices, goes through smartphones, then tablets, to the larger resources of netbook/notebook forms to the time-honored desktop. Two families of processors supported: Intel (including x86 and x64 AMD/Via and others) and the ARM family of processors, currently manufactured by three companies.
Information regarding the Windows Phone/Mobile 8 platform support means that application support across devices from OEM and mobile platforms is unannounced at this time. It’s likely that the current Metro tablet UI (and therefore applications) will be supported.
But there is the question about two incompatible families of processor support. Larger client devices are very likely to have coherent support with x86/x64 processor support, and backwards applications compatibility. Desktops, netbooks, notebooks, and tablets currently based on Intel (and Intel-compatible) processors will likely be able to use Windows 7 and Windows Vista (the two are quite similar) and a large number of Windows XP applications without question. Browser application support should provide no administrative or user concerns; even help desks will sigh, as browser applications are in a different world.
It’s unknown, therefore, what the implications of Windows Mobile 8 will be on cross-device application support, training, help desk, software provisioning, or porting for native apps to ARM CPU support, or keeping revision synchronization for the two families of processors.
4. What’s Going Away
Strong HTML5 support in current and future Windows 8 family devices is the probable end of Adobe Flash support. Adobe Flash was first stanched in Apple’s iOS; Apple believes that Flash produces unpredictable power consumption and perhaps also opens up security control problems. Reduced Flash application support, and a change-up in supported CODECs, means that some organizations will have to change their internal support for those CODECs or applications (web apps, mostly) that have lost support. This may or may not also cause organizational help desk issues in changeover schemes, along with the usual dual-version support between Windows versions.
Microsoft has also diminished the roles of its own app platforms, .NET and Silverlight. Support for these platforms in Windows 8 appears stanched. However, Microsoft’s customers have great quantities of applications written in NET, and it’s unknown whether support may continue, whether support will continue with run-time helpers of some sort, or whether third parties will aid or augment support for both .NET and Silverlight.
On the server side, Microsoft has proposed file system changes poised towards conservation of resources, and availability for client access. These include de-duplication schemes using technically advanced, if proprietary Microsoft de-dupe algorithms, as well as changing how the file stubs (similar to Unix sym-links and other “placeholders”) work. It’s unlikely that users will “see” these changes, but Windows 8 Server Editions are markedly different in how servers are mirrored, how they backup client resources (as well as server resources), and how their accessibility will work.
5. Policies and Application Control
Microsoft’s PowerShell is now woven into Windows 8 at all levels. It’s a comprehensive set of command line applets that infer control on an individual machine, or by Active Directory dissemination, thousands of them. The controls allow an organization to inhibit users from obtaining applications for use from any source by policy—white or black listing.
Application “Stores” (think of the many application markets for smartphones) are becoming the distribution infrastructure for the dissemination of applications, and even collaborative data, and Windows 8 can be enabled (or confined, depending on perspective) using the PowerShell. This policy control method allows companies to also whitelist third-party app stores, whose applications may also be customized for organizations in advanced, vetted for security, or even easily licensed/paid-for (where applicable) for users.
There is much flexibility in Windows 8, from a management perspective, and policy controls will be mandated for many organizations for regulatory and other compliance needs. This means that for those organizations that have been able to avoid or apply policies in a minimal way for their user behavioral controls, will need to familiarize themselves with how Windows 8 policies, their implications, and how to apply them using either Windows Server 8 controls, or through what many will find is a better method: PowerShell utilities.
Fortunately, PowerShell is not DOS-as-we-knew-it. Libraries of scripts using PowerShell commands are circulating to help early adopters, developers, system architects, and the merely curious understand their application and scope. There are over 2,000 commands/applets to use. PowerShell’s programming language is a bit more consistent than that of typical Unix shells, although some find it rigid; it is at least consistent.
Overall
The usual groans that accompany a Windows version rollout aren’t going to get any quieter. Some of the feature changes for organizations represent a compelling reason to investigate now, and Microsoft has opened up the information about this version more than others I’ve seen before, going back more than a decade to Windows 2000. The changes found in Windows 8 are more radical in nature as the competition is nipping at Microsoft’s heels.
The large number of changes are somewhat compensated by a very long interval of available pre-release code, more code and apps than prior releases, and the sense that all editions (hopefully) will arrive synchronized. It’s a tall order, and rolling out Windows 8 across an organization will also be a tall order—but with a long prep cycle if you start soon.
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