Technology News And Reviews

This weekend was quite fruitful in my quest to find relevant Windows 8-related content! I’m soon going to have a Windows 8 section over in my sidebar to keep track of all the Windows 8 content I post. As I’ve stated previously, my aim is to remain on the bleeding edge of Windows 8 (and Office 15/2013) news, rumors, speculation et al. With that said, onward to the content!

Are you a, “hibernate” kind of person? Maybe only in the winter (get it?), but if so, it appears that Windows 8 is going to contain a new Hibernate/Resume Integration API and a new TLZ file compression engine (I don’t think TLZ is an acronym for the name of the engine, but rather an acronym related to TLA, or, “Temporal Logic of Actions” which you can read about here) that will replace Windows Vistas Xpress compression engine. One would assume the benefits of such a change will spell better performance via quicker hibernate/resume times due to the improved compression engine and however the new Integration API interfaces with it.

More specifically, the former Microsoft SDE intern whose online resume I acquired this information from, says the following:

“Researched new algorithms and programming methods to build Hibernate/Resume Integration API that can integrate and utilize the new TLZ file compression engine for the Hibernate/Resume component of new Windows 8 Operating System.”

“Using C and C++ programming languages in SourceInsight, developed a 100% functional C wrapper for C++ functions and the Hibernate/Resume Integration API, which will be used in Windows 8 replacing Windows Vista’s Xpress compression engine.”

Personally, I always disable hibernation and I don’t think I’ve ever intentionally used it in all my years as a computer user. I’m not sure how large of a demographic I represent where that’s concerned, but I will be interested to see if anyone sings the praises of improved hibernation/resume if such an enhancement does indeed make its way into Windows 8.

If you’re one of those hacker-types who enjoys making Windows’ innards your playground, then you’re probably familiar with PatchGuard (aka Kernel Patch Protection). If not, PatchGuard is a feature on x64 versions of Windows that prevents you from patching the kernel. Though not impenetrable, PatchGuard has enjoyed its fair share of scolding from anti-virus companies. They have had to rewrite their software for x64 so that it does not leverage the kernel patching techniques they typically used for 32-bit.

Well, guess what?

PatchGuard is apparently going to make life even a little more difficult for hackers (and anti-virus companies as well, perhaps). Contained in the resume of a Senior Program Manager of the Windows Hyper-V Service and Platform Management division is the following:

“Led working group to make a recommendation on a PatchGuard follow-on. Wrote a summary white paper and presented the results of the working group to the executive team. Recommendation of tabling the function until Windows 8 was accepted and it is now a Windows 8 feature candidate.”

So, whatever this PatchGuard follow-on is, it must be pretty awesome to have been tabled until Windows 8. And speaking of awesome, it looks like Windows 8 is shaping up to become quite the major release. Follow my nose!

Before I speculate, this one speaks for itself:

“Mapped 120 top software vendor partners into business taxonomy for Windows 8 planning. Developed and refined taxonomy guidelines through several iterative mappings.”

Perhaps that’s a typical number of software vendor partners Microsoft takes into consideration while planning for future revisions of Windows, but that seems like a rather high (but good) number to me. That said, there’s no telling when Microsoft plans to reach out to said partners, so that number stretched out over a period of time seems quite reasonable. I’m curious to see which partners made the top of the list and which are on the bottom, though. Regardless, it’s interesting to see a number put on the heads of the companies Microsoft plans on reaching out to for the planning stages of Windows 8.

In his LinkedIn summary, former Senior SAN Engineer, Chris Lionetti, states the following:

“Hold multiple patents related to SAN infrastructure, hard drive technology, and security aspects within the datacenter space one which one of which is already generating royalties and another is slated for inclusion in Windows8. Integrate well into standards organizations such as the FCIA, T10, T10, SNIA, and T13.”

That’s not much to go off of, but seeing it as security is typically on the forefront of Microsoft’s focuses, it’s really no suprise to see this mention. The question is, of course, what this particular security feature – slated for inclusion in Windows 8 – will be.

Or so it appears, as one might glean from the following experience of a particular Microsoft Software Test Engineer:

“Authored DA setup guide, a complete guide for setting up DA that was used by several customers and other teams internal to Microsoft for configuring their DA environments. This guide was also the foundation for the DA test automation that will be created for Windows 8, and provided the foundation for the publicly available DA setup guide.”

If you’re unfamiliar with exactly what DA is, as defined by Microsoft’s website, it, “[g]ive(s) mobile users seamless access to corporate networks without a need to VPN.”

In conjunction with my post exposing Windows 8 containing a new, “next-generation graphical user interface framework,” here is another employee working on the Windows 8 UI:

Naturally, UI development is equally as perpetual as the other key components of the OS, but seeing direct references to it by employees themselves always serves as a reminder and gets my noodle churning on wondering exactly what they could be cooking up.

Here is an interesting reference to Windows 8’s download experience research:

“Working Group – For Win 8 download experience, researched security user mental models to inform design.”

I’m not quite sure what that entails, exactly, but I thought it was worth throwing in as it sure does sound cool! =)

On this Microsoft employee’s LinkedIn profile, we see a short-but-sweet mention in his, “specialties” section:

“Win8 Server (Windows Application Server)”

If you’re interested, I’ll cut to the chase and just link you to a video that sums up Windows Application Server (code name, “Dublin”) quite well: Channel 9

Windows 7 saw some great RDP enhancements – and if Windows 8 is going to be as big of a release as it appears it is going to be so far, one can’t help but wonder what Microsoft will try to do next. Here is the mention I found for it on an employee’s online resume:

“Dev. work for Win7 & Win8 as part of the RDP (Remote Desktop Client and Protocol) team in Terminal Services group.”

And a rewording on his resume found here:

“Working on feature development, enhancements and bug fixing activities for Win7 and Win8’s Remote Desktop client. Involved in bug fixes and improvements for Remote Application and Server Tools as well.”

Well, that about wraps it up for the latest Windows 8 excursion of mine! It looks like Windows 8 is shaping up to be a pretty ambitious release thus far. Hopefully, Windows 7 will be the standard for past indicators from here on out in regards to the development of Windows. I think Windows 7 is a very solid release and quite simply, Microsoft just got it done and out of the door, delay-free.

A bit of revelation and speculation all wrapped up in a neat ‘n tidy blog post. Thanks for reading!

-Stephen
http://uxevangelist.blogspot.com