Under The Hood of Windows Eight

Windows eight brings the biggest change to the Windows ecosystem yet, and sets the stage for the future of the Windows operating system. Unlike previously, these changes aren't just on the level of a few new APIs here and there. The very way applications are developed for Windows has now changed, and will likely never be the same again.

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Windows 8 brings the biggest change to the Windows ecosystem yet, and sets the stage for the future of the Windows operating system. Unlike previously, these changes aren't just on the level of a few new APIs here and there. The very way applications are developed for Windows has now changed, and will likely never be the same again. Some of the biggest changes to come with Windows 8 would have to be: • An entirely new application runtime (WinRT)

mization:

• A new interface 

• A new Microsoft app store

• Support for ARM-based tablet devices

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We will take a look at each of these in turn, starting, of course, with the most divisive of them all, the new UI. The Modern UI This is undoubtedly the most controversial addition to Window8, and one of the major reasons that the Windows ecosystem will never be the same again. Originally called Metro, it has now been renamed to Modern UI (or Windows 8-style UI) due to a legal battle. With this approach to its interface, Microsoft now supports a whole new range of applications under Windows. These applications are designed to run in one of three states, full screen, snapped, or fill. 

The first state is obvious; in the second case, the application is snapped to the left or the right of the screen at a width of 320 pixels, and in the last state is of an application filling the remaining area after an application is snapped next to it. Additionally applications can be running in portrait or landscape view. Applications can also feed data to the users even when they are inactive via live tiles. Essentially, an application can be programmed to give some information about its state even when it is not running.

 This information can be presented on the applications "icon" on the start screen. So an email application can show the unread message count on the start screen and can even give pop-up notifications in case there is a new message. For this purpose, a small part of the application will always be running. The new style for applications is expected to follow Microsoft's UI guidelines, which put a focus on content over chrome. What this means is that applications should avoid skeuomorphic design patterns such as bevelled buttons and frames and instead use the content itself to distinguish different parts of the UI. 

For example, instead of unnecessary borders and bevels, the placement and typography of content should be used to express it purpose. 

This is the new direction of Windows, and though it is unlikely that traditional applications with menus and title bars is going to go away soon, Microsoft seems to have a lot of confidence in this new vision. To support it, they have an entirely new API for Windows applications, which we come to next. Windows runtime WinRT, or Windows Runtime is an API developed for, and available to the new style of applications discussed above. These new APIs allow a much simplified path for those developing Windows applications. However, they are also mostly only available to the new style of applications. RT-based applications can be written in the usual C#, Visual Basic, and C++, but now there is also the option of web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Microsoft also provides the Windows Library for JavaScript, which provide JavaScript API for building applications.

However, this new API does not provide all the features that Win32 did before it, and as a result certain kinds of applications are just not possible with the new API. All such applications actually run in a sandbox and have very limited system access. In fact, because browsers need more system-level access than is available to Windows 8 style applications, browser on Windows 8 are given a special exception from the sandbox and can.The many layers of Windows 8 mix normal Windows API and WinRT APIs. 

 As we mentioned above applications can have live tiles on the start screen that display changing data, and for this there is a new API for creating background tasks. There is also a new API for notifications, which are now natively supported by Windows—even by desktop applications. Another interesting feature in Windows 8, is contracts. If you application manages some kind of data, you can provide a search contract, so that users can search for data handled by application with ease. For example a photo management application might allow users to search for images by tags, file names and other data directly through Windows Search.

 A share contract will allow other applications to share data with your app. A twitter client for example, if it supports a search contract for sharing it will show up when a user tries to share data from another application—which also requires a search contract. Windows also has the concept of extensions, which add features to Windows, for example by registering as handlers for AutoPlay, or as a provider of contact data, or as a handler of a particular file type. Also there is support for the plethora of sensors out there. There are a number of other options available to developers. For example, they can take advantage of the fact that all Windows users running their WinRT-based application will have a Microsoft account. So if you don’t have your own account system you can use that.

 You can also take advantage of features such as synchronization across computers using SkyDrive. You may wonder, why would every Windows users running a WinRT application have a Microsoft account; well it’s because of Microsoft’s new Store, which is what we come to next. Windows Store The store is an integral part of Windows 8, as it the only way to discover, install, update or remove the new class of Windows applications that we have described before. This also means that it cannot itself be removed, at most it can be hidden. The new Windows 8 applications running on WinRT cannot be installed without the store.

 The store in turn needs a Microsoft account in order to work, even if you only wish to install free applications. So essentially, you need a Microsoft account for even something as basic as installing a free app from the internet. This is actually quite common on mobile and tablet platforms, but now desktop users get a taste as well. Standard desktop applications are not available in the store. While the store can list such applications—for this privilege the application needs Microsoft’s certification—they cannot be installed from there. Actually, there is a way to side-load applications without the store, but it is mostly only applicable to enterprises running Windows 8.

 For the new Windows tablets that run Windows RT, the only applications that can be run are WinRT-based applications. In fact the exception browsers enjoy on Windows 8 is not available to such apps and as such the only proper browser for Windows RT tablets is Internet Explorer. Which brings us neatly to Windows on ARM and tablets. Windows on ARM The availability of Windows on an entirely new architecture could have been a cause of celebration. Firstly Windows for ARM is not something you can buy in a store, it is only available to manufacturers to be delivered preinstalled on tablets. Even then what is available on ARM isn’t really the traditional Windows. 

Windows for ARM, or RT, includes only the new APIs and the new style of applications that are introduced with Windows 8, and cannot run traditional desktop applications even if they are compiled for ARM. So porting an existing application to Windows for ARM requires severe adaption of the UI to make it fit with the new style of applications.

 Microsoft of course is exempt from this rule, and as such its own Office 2013 will be available for Windows RT, and will in fact come preinstalled. Also, its Internet Explorer for Windows RT has system access that enables it to perform much better than a traditional Metro application ever can. This is important because if you were thinking of making a nice document editing app or an alternate browser for Windows tablets, Microsoft has you beat and they have more access than you will ever have. However, Windows Phone 8 now uses the same Windows NT kernel as standard Windows 8. In fact it shares a lot of the WinRT APIs, making it easier to share and port code between Windows Phone 8 and Windows RT / 8. 

Wrapping Up Windows 8 is a significant release for developers, and offers new opportunities to developers in the form of a fresh, simple and new API for Windows, support for the increasingly popular web apps platform (HTML, CS, JS) and a new store for selling applications. However, there are many thorny issues, and only time will tell how popular Windows 8 will be.