Microsoft may bring back windows 7 style start menu in "Windows 8.2"

[Savatar]

Nope.

There are 64 bit versions of XP, Vista, Windows 7, and even Windows NT (if you count the DEC Alpha).

And there is a 32 bit version of Windows 8. Which oddly enough the first couple generations of x64 processors are restricted to because of new instructions used by the 64-bit version of 8.1.

Ah, I just checked to be sure - you're right... Windows 8 does have a 32-bit version. I thought they were done with that!

 

[rgallant]

you know ms will never be up to date until they start firing program managers for putting out crap for desktops programed by either kids on their apple laptops or 14" monitors.
eg. power options [win7] when opened [3-4 mouse clicks to find]
comes up in a 4" x 5" box on my 27" monitor with all sorts of expandable drop down menus that can't be viewed given the box size.
nvida has the same crap in their controls panel also.
-not the end of the world it just seems like in 2013 and these guys are living/using tech. from 2002.

 

[mechBgon]

Don't know who made these lists but they are mostly BS.

Virtual Memory Non-Determinism was introduced in Vista (so of course Win7 has it as well). It still only applies on a per-app basis (the app must be built with a flag to allow it). There is no reason for x64 bit applications built using VS2008 or later not to, but older apps (since it wasn't available when they were built) and a lot of newer x86 apps will not have it enabled because it increases heap fragmentation.

Guard pages are there (and many debuggers use them) since Windows 2000, possibly even Windows NT, not sure. So the red checkboxes for Vista and Windows 7 are pretty blatant silly BS there.


Abitrary Free Protection (assuming they mean the C level allocator, not the VirtualAlloc/VirtualFree calls which have always blown up if you free abitrary pointers even in Windows 95), is mostly irrelevant, since performance conscious applications routinely replace the default visual C++ runtime malloc/free with SmartHeap or other 3rd party allocators, and sometimes wrap those 3rd party allocators for better control/debugging. And pretty much every debug allocator does that. Also, this is NOT an OS level feature, but basically a compiler runtime library one. VS2012 might implement it in the release allocator where VS2010 did not but that has nothing to do with Windows 7 vs. Windows 8.

Similarly, they would have to be talking about Compiler runtime allocators, not the OS when listing "LFH Non-Determinism" and "Cache Aligned Allocations", as LFH only applies to small allocations, and the OS itself doesn't deal with anything smaller than a VM page. I have in fact created my own allocators that do cache aligned allocations for performance in Windows 2003 server.

I have no idea what some of the others like "FrontEndStatusBitmap" actually are or what exactly they mean by "Exception Handler Removal" (and a quick google search didn't help), so can't comment on them.

If you are interested in Mr. Valasek's presentation, here's a copy to review. Given that he presents at Black Hat, I tend to think he is not just making stuff up as he goes along, or he'd get called on it

[myATnickname].com/BH_US_12_Valasek_Windows_8_Heap_Internals_Slides.pdf

Mr. Miller's presentation is also relevant:

[myATnickname].com\BH_US_12_Miller_Exploit_Mitigation_Slides.pdf

Anyone who wants a copy of those, get them now. I'm not going to leave them up forever.

The fact is, Win8 is a very big security upgrade from Win7 on several fronts. There were further improvements under the hood for Win8.1, such as defaulting to TLS 1.2 and mitigating some types of pass-the-hash tactics. It's unfortunate that the UI has dominated everyone's perception of Win8, and if Microsoft can relax a little and give back the option to use the traditional Windows UI, then I think it will be more readily adopted.

 

[CSMR]

Start menu makes sense as Win9 needs to target businesses.

Metro apps on the desktop is a no-brainer.

But to really enhance the desktop, what Win9 needs is a better desktop application store. Secure, clean installs and uninstalls, easy trials and purchasing, sandboxed if appropriate.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Completely with you there. I think Microsoft needs to tighten things up and innovate on the desktop space and even borrow some open source tricks to differentiate themselves and drive more adoption.

Start menu makes sense as Win9 needs to target businesses.

Metro apps on the desktop is a no-brainer.

But to really enhance the desktop, what Win9 needs is a better desktop application store. Secure, clean installs and uninstalls, easy trials and purchasing, sandboxed if appropriate.

 

[Torn Mind]

I don't care. I installed Classic Shell just to try it out. I found that it was annoying. I don't need to shut down the computer from the start menu and prefer the Charms bar for that. I prefer the power menu you get from right clicking the start button area. Much quicker to get to certain Control Panel things. And programs? I use search or make a shortcut anyway. All with a mouse and keyboard. Don't have a touchscreen monitor and don't need one. Mouse and keyboard with Win8/8.1 is just another day using Windows.

The power menu is indeed configurable. All the links are actually housed in a directory.

Control Panel? lol, Charms and the right-click power menu are superior methods to accessing it that Start->Control Panel.

I can understand the enterprise market sticking with a Win7 back-end. For the consumer market, I do like the idea of a two-experiences-in-one package.

 

[oynaz]

I can understand the enterprise market sticking with a Win7 back-end. For the consumer market, I do like the idea of a two-experiences-in-one package.

Figures, since your username is Torn Mind.