Terabyte Computer Solutions

The print spooler service is not running

2011-10-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

Some users may get a “print spooler service” error when you trying to install a printer in Windows that says:

Operation could not be completed. The print spooler service is not running.

To solve this error, try the following steps.

Press Window key + R to open the Run dialog Start and type services.msc and click OK.
Double-click the Printer Spooler service, and then change the startup type to Automatic. This sets the Spooler service to start automatically when you restart the computer. Click OK.
Restart the computer and try to install the printer again.

If that doesn’t work, the problem could be related to corrupted printer drivers that are installed on the computer. Try uninstalling all printer software from the computer and start from scratch. This may include PDF writer or faxing software as well. Anything listed in the Control Panel under Printers & Faxes I would do away with. If there is any software installed for other printers in Add/Remove Programs I would uninstall it all. Clean out everything possible that might be hanging the Printer Spooler service. Obtain updated software from your printer manufacturers and reinstall only the items you need.

Nvidia: Console Software Sales Flat, PC on the Rise

2011-10-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

PC gaming is dead? Not so fast...

ZoomI'm not quite sure how it happened, but PC gaming seems to have gotten a bad rap over the last several years. It isn't from journalists like me, and it's certainly not coming from sites like Tom's Hardware; but at some point "they" decided that the PC should play second fiddle to the Xbox and PlayStation, instead of the other way around...or at the very least, seeing every player in the gaming space as equal.

Nvidia certainly has something to say about that, and the company's response isn't a sleek new near-$3,000 gaming laptop, nor is it some hot new PC title...despite Battlefield 3, Skyrim and Rage being right around the corner. Instead, Big Green is bringing cold, hard facts to the table. In short, it's all about the almighty dollar and how that cash is wielded by you, John Q. Consumer. I met with Nvidia recently to talk about gaming in general, as well as look at some exciting new hardware coming out in the near future. The latter is hush-hush until next month, but when it comes to the state of PC gaming, it's open season.

While Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo continue to sell consoles, game software sales for their respective platforms are stagnant, and Nvidia's research says that trend won't be changing anytime soon. Despite a 41 percent buffer in 2008, console software revenue will be eclipsed by PC games revenue in 2014. Console software revenue is flat, floating between roughly $21 and $24 billion, yearly, while revenue generated by the PC gaming market balloons from $13 billion in 2008 to a projected $23-ish billion in 2015. Nvidia breaks it down even further, showing that the bulk of PC games revenue is coming from digital downloads (Steam, Direct2Drive, etc.), meaning we're all spending less and less money on PC games when we go to Best Buy or GameStop. And rightfully so, since the latter's "PC Games Section" is one wire shelf amidst a sea of console paraphernalia and preorder-crazed salespersons.

Nvidia doesn't break down its data according to genre or service, but much of this newly-discovered cash is coming from the social gaming crowd, as well as from new business models. There's no denying that Facebook games like The Sims Social and micro-transactions in more "hardcore" titles like World of Tanks and League of Legends are pushing revenue streams and profit margins up for many developers and publishers. If that means publishers are either going to pump more money into PC games development, or come back to the platform that they've abandoned (Epic Games, anyone?), then I'm all for it.

Of course, the PC crowd should take these figures with a grain of salt since this information is coming from a company that eats, sleeps and breathes PC gaming hardware. That said, there's only so much you can do with numbers to make a given side look good, and these figures are painting a pretty picture for the PC gaming sector. If a mouse and keyboard are your weapons of choice (and I've been wielding mine since the days of Space Quest III and Catacomb 3-D), then believe me when I say PC gaming isn't dead. In fact, it's very much alive.

In other Nvidia news, the graphics hardware maker is tickled pink about the impending release of Battlefield 3, as it should be. the game is going into beta early next week (and by beta, EA really means "demo"), and quite frankly...the game looks incredible. Nvidia is throwing a huge LAN party next month to commemorate the launch of this latest BF title (rest assured, Tom's will be in attendance), and it should be one for the ages, especially since it's being held on a decommissioned aircraft carrier.

If you doubt how sweet Battlefield 3 is going to be, or how stunning the graphics and visuals are, here's a side-by-side comparison with an old favorite: 2005's Battlefield 2. A lot can change over the course of six years!

Microsoft Office 2010 review

2011-10-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

There are a lot more SmartArt diagrams in Word, Excel and PowerPoint - and all three apps get powerful new image editing and style tools.

This includes standard correction options but the most dramatic are the Artistic Effects - Photoshop-style filters that turn images into pencil sketches, pastel or oil paintings, mosaics or rippled glass - and the amazing Remove Background tool.

This does what it says on the tin, removing the background from images; the automatic removal isn't perfect but it often gets the object you want first time and you can easily add and remove areas.

The new word processing features in Word are mostly about the look of text. Text effects replace the tired old WordArt with the same image effects that Word 2007 had for objects like shapes.

BACKGROUND REMOVAL: To do this you need an object with sharp edges and a little patience but you can cut out complex objects very quicklyline
There's a drop-down gallery of presets on the ribbon, but you can set the reflection, glow, soft edges, bevels, gradient fill, custom shadow and other options to get the look you want.
OpenType support means if your font has ligatures for combining two letters more smoothly (like ff or if), kerning values for letter spacing, stylistic sets (like the fancy, curlicue-embellished alternate letter forms in Word's new Gabriola font) or different spacing and shapes for numbers when you use them in the middle of text or on their own, you can choose different options.

PICTURE EDIT: Turn photos into graphics with the Artistic Effects in Office 2010line
Word also gets a new navigation pane that pops up when you use Find; this gives you snippets of text around all the places the word you want is found or you can use it to browse by thumbnails and headings.
This works very well, but find and replace is still a separate command, in the old dialogue box; plus as soon as you make any edits to the document you lose the results in the navigation pane. We'd also prefer to see Word repeat the find automatically rather than making you do it by hand.

SECURITY: Word opens downloaded documents as read only and it blocks macros by defaultlineIn Word (and PowerPoint and OneNote but not Excel) you can edit a document at the same time as someone else as long as it's stored on SkyDrive - and it's easy to save documents straight there from the desktop menu, so collaboration isn't limited to businesses with SharePoint.

Word locks the paragraph that one person is typing in and if you hover over it you'll see an Outlook-style mini contact card for them that lets you mail them or start an IM or voice through Windows Messenger so you can have a chat.

SMART ART: There are more diagram types making Smart Art more usefulline
When you open a file in Word or any of the Office apps that you received in email or downloaded from the internet, or if it has active content like macros or a connection to a web service (like an embedded web video in PowerPoint, not just a URL in a document), it opens in a new Protected View, with a warning info bar at the top of the window.
You can't save or print a protected file, still less edit it, but you can read it and search it.

That means you can safely open any Office file that you find online without anything malicious being able to run. If you believe the document is safe, you can choose Enable Editing from the info bar once; you don't have to do this every time you open the document.
The very first version of this in the beta had problems; we're happy to say that all of those are solved and the protection is reassuring without being intrusive.

TEXT ART: WordArt used to be very cheesy; now it has powerful and flexible effects for text headings. Cheese optional

Downloads Marketplace

Download a Free resume template, power by monste.com

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010 with Product Key Card

Product Summary
For
Faster performance
Outlook search improved
Customisable ribbon
Picture tools are great
Easy cloud access
Skydrive integration

Against
Ink still an image
Excel anchored in one window
No trimming web video in PowerPoint

Microsoft Windows 7 (Ultimate)

2011-10-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

The good: Strong design and Microsoft don't always go together, but they do in Windows 7. Users might take a while to get used to the new taskbar and Aero Peek, but they're a pleasure to use.

The bad: Performance is still hit-or-miss in Windows 7. At the ripe age of seven, Windows XP still performs better in some categories.

The bottom line: Windows 7 is more than what Vista should have been, it's where Microsoft needed to go. How much damage Vista did and whether Windows 7 is enough for people to finally abandon Windows XP are questions that nobody has the answers to right now.

Deserved or not, Microsoft had dug itself a cool, deep, dark hole with Windows Vista. Users demanding that Redmond extend the life of Windows XP wasn't exactly something they could be proud of, either. Bombarded by complaints and negative press even after the first service pack was released, the bar had been set high for Vista's successor: Windows 7.

Luckily for Microsoft, Windows 7 is more than just spin. It's stable, smooth, and highly polished, introducing new graphical features, a new taskbar that can compete handily with the Mac OS X dock, and device management and security enhancements that make it both easier to use and safer. Importantly, it won't require the hardware upgrades that Vista demanded, partially because the hardware has caught up, and partially because Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make Windows 7 accessible to as many people as possible.

It's important to note that the public testing process for Windows 7 involved one limited-availability beta and one release candidate, and constituted what some have called the largest shareware trial period ever. As buggy and irritating as Vista was, Windows 7 isn't. Instead, it's the successor to Windows XP that Microsoft wishes Vista had been, and finally places it on competitive footing with other major operating systems like OS X and Linux.

Microsoft is offering six versions of Windows 7: Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, OEM, and Enterprise. The three versions that Redmond will be promoting most heavily are Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate, although Starter will also be available to consumers.

Windows 7 will support both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. The bare minimum requirements for the 32-bit include a 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB available hard-disk space, and a DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver. 64-bit systems will require at least a 1 GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 20GB of free space on your hard drive, and a DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver. A touch-screen monitor is required to take advantage of the native touch features. Do note that some users have claimed to have limited success running the Windows 7 beta with less than 1GB of RAM, but that's not recommended.

Installation
Microsoft is offering several paths to install Windows 7. People can buy a new computer with the operating system already installed, upgrade from Windows XP or Vista, or do a clean install on a computer the user already owns. The clean installation took us about 30 minutes, but that will vary depending on your computer.

The upgrade procedure is different depending on whether you're running Windows XP or Windows Vista. Vista users merely need to back up their data before choosing the Upgrade option from the install disc. Both XP Home and XP Pro users will have to back up their data, then choose Custom from the install disc. Custom will have the same effect as a clean install, although it'll save your old data in a folder called Windows.old. Once you choose Custom, you'll need to select the partition of your hard drive that contains Windows XP, and then follow the instructions to enter your product key and allow the computer to reboot as needed.

If you're not sure if your current computer can run Windows 7, you can download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor from Microsoft.

Features: Taskbar and Aero Peek
Although the look of Windows 7 may seem to be nothing more than some polish applied liberally to the Vista Aero theme, make no mistake: This is a full replacement operating system, and more than just "Vista done right." From driver support to multitouch groundwork for the future, from better battery management to the most easy-to-use interface Microsoft has ever had, Windows 7 is hardly half-baked.

The first thing that should stand out is the new taskbar. This is one of the best improvements Microsoft has made--third-party program dock makers are going to have to do some serious innovation when Windows 7 goes public. Besides incorporating the translucent style of Aero, the new taskbar is arguably even better than the Mac OS X dock. It features pinned programs using large, easy-to-see icons. Mouse over one and all windows associated with that program appear in preview. Mouse over one of those preview panes to reveal an X to close the window. Hover over the preview to show a full-size preview of the program, or click on the window to bring it to the front. Because of the button size, people with touch screens should find it especially easy to use.

Jump lists are another new taskbar improvement that make recently opened documents easier to get to. Right-click or left-click and drag on any program icon pinned to the taskbar to see a list of files that you've recently used in that program. In Internet Explorer, this will show recently visited Web sites, although it doesn't yet seem to work in Firefox.

If you've noticed the missing Show Desktop icon, that's because it's been baked into the taskbar itself. Mouse over to the right corner. Hovering over the Show Desktop box reveals the desktop, and then hides it when you mouse away. Click on the box to minimize all your programs.

Aero Peek shows the desktop when you hover over the right edge of the toolbar, and is also an option in the program-switching hot key Alt+Tab. (This image was taken from the Windows 7 Release Candidate, but looks and functions the same in the official version of Windows 7.

Resizing programs has been simplified and improved by the capability to drag a window's title bar. Drag a program window to the top of your monitor to expand it to full screen. If you want to work in two windows simultaneously, drag one to the left edge and one to the right edge of your screen, and they'll automatically resize to half the width of your monitor. Dragging a program away from the top or sides will return it to its original size. This is an entirely new feature in Windows 7, but it should prove easy to adopt because it mimics and expands on the maximize/restore button that people have been resizing windows with since Windows 95.

Theme packages also make it much faster to change the look of Windows 7. From the Control Panel, you can change the theme under Appearance and Personalization. Microsoft has created several theme packages to give people a taste for what the feature can do. Click on one to download it, and it instantly changes the color scheme and background--no need to reboot. Users can create their own themes, as well.

Windows Media Player and Device Stage
One of the biggest new features makes Windows Media Player useful again: you can now stream media files from one Windows 7 computer to another, across the Internet and out of network. Even better, the setup procedure is dead simple.

When you open Windows Media Player, there's a new Stream option on the toolbar. Click it, and you're presented with two choices. Both require you to associate your computer with your free Windows Live ID. When you've associated a second Windows 7's WMP with that same ID, you can remotely access the media on the host computer. Windows Media Player's mini mode looks much slicker, emphasizing the album art--sometimes at the expense of clearly seeing the controls, but it's a definite improvement.
Microsoft reinvigorates the Windows Media Player by allowing users to stream their media files to themselves. All it takes is two Windows 7 computers, an Internet connection, and a free Windows Live ID. (This image was taken from the Windows 7 Release Candidate, but looks and functions the same in the official version of Windows

Microsoft looks to 'Mojave' to revive Vista's image

2011-10-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

REDMOND, Wash.--After months of searching for ways to defend its oft-maligned Windows operating system, Microsoft may just have found its best weapon: Vista's skeptics.

Spurred by an e-mail from someone deep in the marketing ranks, Microsoft last week traveled to San Francisco, rounding up Windows XP users who had negative impressions of Vista. The subjects were put on video, asked about their Vista impressions, and then shown a "new" operating system, code-named Mojave. More than 90 percent gave positive feedback on what they saw. Then they were told that "Mojave" was actually Windows Vista.

0digg "Oh wow," said one user, eliciting exactly the exclamation that Microsoft had hoped to garner when it first released the operating system more than 18 months ago. Instead, the operating system got mixed reviews and criticisms for its lack of compatibility and other headaches.

To be sure, the focus groups didn't have to install Vista or hook it up to their existing home network. Still, the emotional appeal of the "everyman" trying Vista and liking it clearly packs an emotional punch, something the company has desperately needed. Microsoft is still trying to figure out just how it will use the Mojave footage in its marketing, though it will clearly have a place.

The Mojave project is likely to be just one of many efforts designed to resuscitate Vista's image as well as lend strength to the Windows platform among stepped-up competition from Apple and Google. In an interview Wednesday, Windows unit business chief Bill Veghte told CNET News that he wants to see his unit try new things to get the message across.
"We have a huge perception opportunity," he said, offering a glass half-full assessment of things. "We are going to try a bunch of stuff."

The image improvement effort, known internally as FTP, has many components. Well-publicized are the hundreds of millions that Microsoft plans to spend on a broad campaign buttressed by edgy ads from Crispin Porter and Bogusky. But Veghte wants the company pushing on multiple marketing fronts.
With small businesses, for example, Microsoft earlier this month launched the "Assurance" campaign. In that effort, Microsoft is offering free Vista-related technical support, a move that will add millions of dollars to Microsoft's telephone support costs. The point, Veghte said, is that businesses want to see Microsoft standing behind its product.
Veghte is convinced, like others at Microsoft, that despite early technical challenges, Vista's problems are primarily ones of perception.

Much of that perception, Microsoft belatedly acknowledges, stems from Apple's successful and unchallenged anti-Vista campaign. But, after stewing over the ads on many of his morning runs, Veghte decided that it was time to strike back, even without a new version of Windows to tout. Apple, he said, has "crossed a line" from fact into fiction.
Others at Microsoft have been sounding a similar note. Marketing vice president Brad Brooks told partners earlier this month that Microsoft was "drawing a line in the sand," while Steve Ballmer promised in a memo to employees Wednesday that after doing some hard technical work on Vista that it was now time for Microsoft to "tell our story."

"In the weeks ahead, we'll launch a campaign to address any lingering doubts our customers may have about Windows Vista," Ballmer wrote. "And later this year, you'll see a more comprehensive effort to redefine the meaning and value of Windows for our customers."
What gives the Mojave project its power, though, is the fact that it isn't Ballmer or someone else at Microsoft saying that Vista has gotten a bad rap. It's everyday people.

With scenes reminiscent of both Apple's "real people" campaign of a few years back as well as classic commercials from Folgers and others, the Mojave project could prove a formidable weapon.
The Mojave project is remarkable both for its humble origin as well as the speed with which it was pulled off. The idea started barely two weeks ago in an e-mail from Microsoft's David Webster to several superiors, including Veghte. Given the green light, Microsoft started videotaping responses just last week, in San Francisco. The preview Veghte gave to CNET News on Wednesday was the first time the footage had been shown outside the company and its contractors.

The footage could get a public airing as soon as next week or even at Thursday's financial analyst meeting, although plans were still in flux as of late Wednesday night. Veghte will come under increased scrutiny now that his boss, division president Kevin Johnson, is leaving the company. For the time being, Veghte and Windows engineering chief Steven Sinofsky will both report to Ballmer, who has called the work on Windows the company's top priority.

The need for the campaign is clear. Apple has been making inroads, as well as headlines with its anti-Vista push. Although Microsoft dominates in corporations and in overseas markets, Apple has been grabbing a significant share of the consumer market in the U.S., pushing its overall domestic share as high as 8.5 percent last quarter, a significant rise from even a year ago.

Microsoft is already at work on Windows 7, the next version of the operating system. But Veghte said the company can't wait for a new product to start firing back.
"I've got to start having that discussion in the marketplace," Veghte said. "I've got to start driving that now. People feel guilty (about Vista). It's wrong."

Microsoft hasn't said a ton about Windows 7, but it has talked about both a new multitouch interface as well as reassuring customers, particularly businesses, that it won't be making the kinds of dramatic changes under the hood that were made with Vista.

Designing the Start screen

2011-10-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

Designing the Start screen

Thank you for the comments and feedback on the previous post. We definitely get the message that there's a lot of feedback and passion around the design. We're going to continue talking about the design and answering your questions and comments through these blog posts. We designed Start to be a modern, fast and fluid replacement for the combination of launching, switching, notifying, and at-a-glance viewing of information. That's a tall order. And of course, we set out to do this for the vast majority of customers, who are more familiar with the Start menu, mouse and keyboard, as well as for new customers using touch-capable devices. This post is authored by Alice Steinglass, the group program manager for the Core Experience Evolved team. –Steven

As we wrote about in our post on evolving the Start menu, after studying real world usage of the Start menu through a variety of techniques, we realized that it was serving mainly as the launcher for programs you rarely use. As more and more launching takes place from the task bar, the Start menu looks like a lot of user interface for programs you don't use very frequently. And the Start menu is not well-optimized for this purpose. It affords limited customization, provides virtually no useful information, and offers only a small space for search results. We found that people “in the know” who valued efficiency were moving away from the Start menu, and pinning their frequently used programs to the taskbar so that they could access them instantly in one click. We see this quite a bit on professional workstations where there are set of tools that all fit on the taskbar and are all used regularly—machines used by engineers, designers, developers, information workers, etc.

So, as evidence mounts that the menu hasn’t kept up with the modern way in which we use our PCs today, we've seen a growing interest in replacements for the Start menu (whether for touch, or mouse and keyboard). At the same time, we’ve seen an ever-increasing use of cumbersome notification tray icons (with ever-increasing menus and actions), and a continued interest in desktop gadgets that have yet to realize their potential.

In light of these realizations, we stepped back and reimagined the role of Start in Windows 8. We knew that we already had a powerful launcher for desktop programs in the taskbar. The Start screen is not just a replacement for the Start menu—it is designed to be a great launcher and switcher of apps, a place that is alive with notifications, customizable, powerful, and efficient. It brings together a set of solutions that today are disparate and poorly integrated. As we have said, some of these features, as well as the full scope of mouse and keyboard support, are not included in the Windows 8 Developer Preview, which was focused on building Metro style apps and the WinRT APIs.

Alive with activity

As we analyzed Windows systems, we found that the average PC is cluttered with a large array of system tray notifications, a long list of folders and shortcuts for installed software, and applets in numerous places in the system, all begging for your attention. In addition to the programs, people access a large number of websites with updated data from the Internet or a company intranet. These programs and websites consume and present a constant stream of fresh data: new email, business data, communications, articles, pictures, feeds, etc.

We designed the Windows 8 Start screen so you can create a connected dashboard that keeps you in touch with all the apps, activities, places, and people you care about. The news app shows the latest headlines, the weather app shows the forecast, an RSS app tells you what’s new, a social networking app displays your status, or a game can tell you when it is your turn—and when it isn’t. While these are just examples, it is not hard to imagine the apps you use today (whether in the browser, on the desktop, gadgets, or notifications) being reimagined as Metro style apps that connect to the same exact data sources, but instead provide a rich, customizable, interactive "heads-up display." We expect corporate applications to be developed that display Live tiles for important internal systems and processes too. You can envision even the most mundane uses being improved by this ability to track live data. For example, our development team has been using a Metro style bug tracker (an example of a corporate application) that connects up to our existing bug database. It was a small amount of work to create, and replaced several varied notification tray icons and gadgets in use around the team.

Apps can still represent themselves with just an icon and a name. And, for certain tools, that will continue to make sense: Command Prompt, Task Manager, etc. But, for most of today’s more relevant and connected apps, a simple icon and name is limiting, when they have so much more information they can share. And that information can be shared at a glance without any window management or any context change on your part.

We knew we needed to be able to load live tiles instantly and efficiently. Long battery life and instant performance is fundamental to the experience of any mobile device. If every app launched and loaded a process when you entered Start (the traditional “gadget” model), it would slow down the performance of navigating to it, scrolling, etc. It would also increase the background memory and CPU footprint, which would decrease battery life. Today, when people want to check to see if they have new email, they run their mail app, see an app-specific notification competing with other notifications, or open up another browser tab. If they want to see what’s going on with their social networks, they leave open a bunch of different web sites or apps. If they are waiting for their turn in a game, that app is open. This means they are forced into a situation where they are either impacting their performance and battery life by running each of these programs simultaneously, or they are disconnected and have to constantly open and close programs. Why should your mobile device be so much better at these routine tasks than your PC (of any form factor) which has a vastly larger screen, more storage, and more connectivity and processing power?

To address this, the Start screen uses a single process to pull down notifications from the Windows Notification Service and keep the tiles up to date. The tiles are cached, so they can load instantly when you go to Start. The result is that the tiles aren’t apps—they are a system-provided surface that can quickly tell you what’s new with your app. They are an extension of the apps you use (or the apps you develop), providing instant access to relevant content without costing battery life or slowing down performance.

Customization

A critical part of creating a meaningful dashboard and launcher is enabling you to customize it to be yours. The old Start menu offered some limited customizability—you could pin a few apps to a short list, and use the customization dialog to choose which of the limited built-in quick links you wanted to show. But, the choices were severely limited. You could not add your own links. You could not link to anything other than an app. You couldn’t change the order of the apps, group apps, or pin more than a few apps. In fact, we’ve heard a lot of complaints about the challenges of ordering the Start menu items manually and maintaining that ordering. The taskbar helps with some of these issues, but it has a limited surface area to work with relative to the screen.

As we started to design the new Start screen, we considered options where we would automatically sort apps or pin a set of quick links (similar to the right side of the Start menu today). But, in our user research, we found that people didn’t want us to guess what they would use. People who are proficient using their PCs want the flexibility to design their own Start experience. We know in the current Developer Preview, the automatic layout is a particular concern and of course as we said, we're not done yet and this is something we will make sure is under your control. The organizational tools we'll describe below (naming, grouping, zooming) were shown in Jensen Harris’s talk at //build/, but were not in the Developer Preview.

Good customization options start with organization. The Windows 7 Start menu is just a simple flat list. But, as people collect more and more apps, the ability to organize and group apps together becomes more important. We brought a variety of people of different skill-levels into our test labs and asked them to organize the apps and websites they use frequently. The variability was surprisingly large. People did not fit all their apps into the same predefined groups, or even the same group sizes. Some people had 5 games they thought belonged together. Others had 40. Sometimes a group of tiles had a clear name, like Games or News. Other times, people couldn’t come up with a good name for the groupings they created, and chose to refer to them only as “things I go to frequently,” for instance. Because of this, we designed the Start screen to give you flexibility over the number of groups, the size of any group, the layout of tiles within the group, and whether or not you want to name a group.

But creating a custom dashboard is about more than just organizing apps. Organized or proficient users might want custom shortcuts to information or a location within an app. For example, instead of just having the headlines for an entire news site on your Start screen, you might also want a tile that shows the headlines for the Sports or Tech section. With Windows 8, apps can provide these deep links too, so that people can create their own powerful and customized Start experiences. This means that tiles for apps can live alongside tiles that represent links to web pages, albums, playlists, specific people, a level within a game, a particular stock, etc. Any of these secondary tiles can be small or large, and can be put anywhere on the Start screen. They are “live,” just like app tiles, meaning that they are constantly updated with fresh and relevant content. This is a great way for app developers to provide differentiated functionality.

Start launches with instant access to everything on the first screen, bounded only by the size of the display. And, while Start supports standard scrolling, people told us they also wanted a way to quickly jump to a particular group. We enabled zoom as a way to step back, survey the landscape of the Start menu, and go directly to any group. We considered starting zoomed out and letting you dive into a group, but early usage data indicated that the vast majority of the time, people activate a tile that is on the first page. The standard zoomed-in view allows you to instantly glance at your dashboard just by hitting the Windows key on the keyboard, and then pressing it again to return to what you were doing. This means that checking anything on the Start screen is always just a single click or key press away. When you compare zoom to meticulously navigating a populated Start menu hierarchy, or uncovering pinned items on the taskbar, the experience is much faster and more fluid, and scales to many more programs and pinned items.

We of course considered folders, but our experience with folders broadly and in the Start menu tells us that folders are a way of burying things, not organizing them. Folders also make it impossible to see the up-to-date information an app might present. Once the apps are organized into groups, zooming out provides an at-a-glance view of the groups (similar to looking at a folder list). From the zoomed out view, you can jump directly into any group just as you would open a folder. For those wishing to stash certain programs out of sight, you can always remove the pinned icon from Start and use search to access it, or just put the program at the far end of the Start page. This is by far the most efficient way to manage a large library of apps.

Powerful and efficient
As we covered in our last post, the number of apps and websites that people use has been increasing dramatically over the last 10 years. When people had to go to a physical store and buy every program that existed on their PCs, it made sense to have a Start menu that was optimized for showing around 10 apps. Today, people use so many more apps and websites (which is another way to deliver app-like functionality), that the experience needed to be rethought for how people were using PCs today.

As we looked at layout options for the Start screen, we considered whether it should be full screen or appear on top of your apps as a small temporary window in the corner. Small popup windows are great for scenarios where you need to see the context of what is on the screen while you’re using it (although modern user interfaces are using popups less and less). For example, it’s a good design for doing advanced font settings in your Word doc. Its small size allows you to look at the text you’re changing on the screen while setting the new font style.

But, when you’re launching a new app, you’re leaving the thing you’re currently doing. So we wanted to take advantage of the whole screen to make launching and switching apps as efficient as possible. The full-screen Start gives you the power and flexibility to launch more apps with a single click. You can still put your most frequently used desktop apps on the taskbar in desktop. But the new Start screen has space to duplicate the 10-12 app links that you had pinned to the old Start menu, and still fit an additional 12 to 14 items on the first screen of a 1366 x 768 display. With a higher density display, obviously there’s room to add even more apps that you can get to with a single click. As a reminder, Windows 8 requires a 1024 x 768 minimum resolution for Metro style apps, and as long as your screen is at least 1366px wide, you can use snap to show two apps at once. We're aware of the feedback about lack of diagnostic information other than the published system requirements on the download page—rest assured we are working on making this clearer.

People also want the efficiency of being able to instantly launch apps, documents, and settings without moving their fingers off the keyboard. We needed to retain this ability from Windows 7 while working to make it even better. If you have only one app with the word Excel in the name, launching it works exactly the same as it always has. Hit Start. Start typing “Ex…” and watch it autocomplete. Hit Enter, and Excel launches. Four keystrokes. Given the significantly increasing number of apps that people are using, search is clearly a more efficient way to access them, whether using a physical or on-screen keyboard. By combining the new Start screen with Search you get an ever-narrowing scope and easy hit targets whether for keyboard, mouse, or touch.

By comparison, as soon as the user searches for something with many hit results, the Start menu in Windows 7 can’t scale to the results. For example, if you are looking for a Control Panel option with the word “input”, the Start menu only returns the first 3 results in each category. To see the full list of results, you need to arrow down to the category (such as Control Panel), wait for Explorer to open, and then find the result you want there. If you are opening a document, you then need to manually close the Explorer window when you are done. While the new search capabilities in the Vista and Windows 7 Start menu clearly improved your ability to get to your top programs quickly, searching for anything other than a frequently used item remained inefficient and frustrating.

With Windows 8, we wanted to minimize the keystrokes to instantly search and launch your app/file/setting/email/etc. Because the search results are full-screen, we can show at least 48 items on most screens, instead of just three. And, if you want to see the rest, you simply scroll (instead of launching Explorer and redoing the search). This simple change allows you to efficiently launch any app or file on the PC with a minimum of keystrokes.

We looked at two ways of improving the efficiency of search:

Putting more on the screen
Making it easier and faster to recognize the correct search result

The Windows 7 model forced all the search results into a standard template of an icon and text. As we looked at different data types, we saw that people could more quickly recognize their search result if the view was tailored to the data. Pictures should be displayed as thumbnails, email messages should say who they are from, videos should include their length, etc. So we designed a search model for the Start screen where each app displays the data in an optimized format. Thus, instead of seeing just 3 results per category type (all as text), you now can hit Start, type a search term, see an entire page of app results, or continue down the list to look at the results for files, settings, email, web, social networks, or any other app on your system. The Search contract is one of the exciting platform APIs in WinRT that developers can take advantage of. It allows this unified search experience while also letting the unique elements of an app's data shine through. It is a win-win for both the person using the app and the app developer.

A full-screen Start experience empowers you to pick the things you care about (even if you care about way more than 12) and organize them the way you want so you can launch them instantly without scrolling. And, when you want to search, you can instantly see all search results (not just a couple). The design trades off peripheral awareness of what you’re leaving behind in favor of optimizing for where you’re going next, so that you can get there faster and more efficiently.

Keyboard and mouse

Because we have often demonstrated touch interactions with Start and its lineage in the Windows Phone Metro style, many believe that our design is all about touch rather than keyboard and mouse, or even that we’re putting the phone interface on a PC—it is neither.

For mouse people, the position of the Start button in the lower-left corner of Windows 8 makes it an easy click-target (even in a full-screen app). Once in Start, more items are directly accessible to the mouse without scrolling or opening menu flyouts. For keyboard people, pinning frequently used desktop apps on the desktop taskbar enables instant shortcuts: Win+1, Win+2, etc. And, getting to less frequently used apps through search follows the existing paradigm of hitting the Windows key and typing the search term. The larger search results improve speed (both for searching and browsing).

Of course, there are things we’re still working on, that aren’t yet finished in the Developer Preview. For example, we know there are bugs in interacting at high speed with the scroll wheel on the mouse, and we’re working on fixing these. We’re also adding the ability to instantly zoom out with the mouse and keyboard, and we’re looking at ways to make scrolling faster and easier. And, we are working on fixing a bug in the Developer Preview that causes inconsistent and slow page-down/page-up behavior. We’re also looking at making rearranging more predictable for mouse, keyboard, and touch.

One picture we often use to talk about change is the following. The y-axis is some measure of efficiency—such as time to complete a task, seconds it takes to do something, etc. The x-axis is calendar time. If someone is proficient with something and then a change takes place, there is by definition a dip in functionality. But after an adjustment period, the metrics of success improve. The net result is that over time, work becomes more efficient, even for the same task. And combined with new tasks and capabilities there is an overall net win.

Summary
The Windows 8, the Start screen is not just a replacement for the Windows 7 Start menu but a bringing together of several different ways of navigating your machine. Even in Windows 7, people who are proficient with Windows are already replacing the Start menu with the taskbar for their frequently used desktop apps.

For people using mostly desktop apps, the Start screen complements the functionality of the taskbar. Using both together, you have instant access to your most frequently used apps combined with a more powerful way to launch your less frequently used apps (through search or by grouping items on the Start screen). And, for Metro apps, Live tiles transform the Start screen into a dashboard that helps you stay up to date and connected in a high quality experience substantially improved over the notification tray. The new experience offers a way to more efficiently launch apps, stay connected to the most relevant information from apps, and find the things you care about. It also lets you launch and switch quickly between your apps and specific locations within those apps all without sacrificing performance or draining the battery of a laptop or tablet PC.

Evolving the Start menu

2011-10-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

Evolving the Start menu

This post kicks off a series of posts on the design of the Start screen and the evolution of the core activity of launching and switching programs. Some folks are calling the Start screen the "Metro shell" for Windows 8, but for us it is the evolution of the Start menu and associated functions. We've been watching the comments closely and have seen the full spectrum of reactions as one would expect when the core interface changes. We want to use these blog posts to have a dialog that reflects back on your comments, and so we’ll start by walking you through the history and decisions that led to the current design. Because the Developer Preview is focused on building apps, and the core user experience is still under development, we want to make sure our discussions start from first principles and work through the design to provide a fuller context for where we will be at the next project milestone.

This post was authored by Chaitanya Sareen, program manager lead on our Core Experience Evolved team. You might remember Chaitanya, as he also worked on the Windows 7 experience and authored posts on the Engineering 7 blog. –Steven

We’d like to share a series of blog posts on the how and why of reimagining Start. This first post talks about the history and evolution of the Start menu, and several of the problems and trends we’ve learned from you. We think it’s always important to understand where we’ve come from before we talk about where we’re headed. We’ll then have another post that dives into how we crafted the new Start screen, and then we’ll see where the discussion leads us from there.

We recognize that to some people, any change to Windows is going to be disruptive, and so we want to make sure we continue an open dialog about those changes. Since Windows is such an integral part of so many people’s lives, most any change can generate visceral reactions like "how can I turn it off," or debates over whether things are more or less efficient.

The debate around touch today is looking eerily like the debate in the 1980s over whether a mouse was a gimmick, a productivity time waster, or an innovation in the user experience. We say this knowing that many comments have been emphatic about the superiority of the mouse over touch. Unlike when the mouse was introduced—before desktop publishing programs came along there were few use cases for the mouse other than early paint programs—today we are surrounded by touch screens—at the airport, the gas station, the movie theater, every cash register, and of course, on our phones. The one place touch has not yet become mainstream is on the most capable of all the devices you use. Just like the introduction of the mouse, innovations like this do not happen without new OS support, new apps, and new hardware. We believe that, as with the mouse, we will see touch augmenting, but not replacing, most every aspect of the PC experience over time. Achieving this starts with the Windows 8 Developer Preview. So with that, let’s start the dialog about how things will evolve, not just in the Windows core user experience, but in hardware and apps as well.

With regard to the main user experience, particularly Start, we’re noticing some themes in your comments. Will there be a way to close Metro style apps without going to Task Manager? (Yes there will be, but we also want to talk about why you probably won't need to use it.) Are we going to do anything to make the mouse more efficient in scrolling through your programs in Start? (Yes, we'll improve that experience, and show you much more in the beta.) Some of you have talked about it feeling less efficient to cycle through your recent programs compared to using the taskbar (and we'll have more to say about that in future posts). There are other comments as well, and the point here is just to make sure you know we are aware of the questions. Some things will be easier to discuss if we first agree on some shared terminology. For example, Metro style is a design language we can apply to any element of Windows, and the Start screen is the evolution of the Start menu (as well as taskbar, notifications, and gadgets), and not really a "Metro shell." Another example is that we don't see "Metro" as a mode of Windows, rather it is a way to describe the attributes of applications written to WinRT (as in these //build/ talks on traits of Metro style apps or principles of Metro style). There's lots of ground to cover. We know with our initial focus on the platform and tools, we probably did not provide enough early context around the user experience changes through this blog.

The Start menu is one of the most visible parts of Windows, and so we don't take any changes we make to it lightly. The environment around Windows has changed immensely since we first introduced the Start menu, and we want to make sure we’re still delivering an experience that is both relevant and tuned to the dynamic computing world we live in today. The evolution of the Start menu is inextricably linked with the development of several other related, but disparate concepts, such as application launching, application switching, system notifications, and gadgets. The history behind these and the divergent paths they have each taken create an opportunity for us to do a much better job in providing a cleaner, more powerful, and more uniform way of working across the wide variety of apps and PCs we use today. The new Start screen embodies this effort.

So, before we tackle Windows 8, let’s first take a trip down memory lane and see what we can learn about the Start menu.

A brief history of Start

The design of the Start menu began in 1992 for its debut in Windows 95. The menu was conceived in a world where PC towers and 15" CRTs dominated cubicles. The Web was still an experiment and people had to drive to a store to buy software. It was a very different time. The fundamental goal of the menu was to provide an obvious place for people to start their computing tasks. It replaced the venerable Program Manager, that Windows 3.x concept that placed shortcuts in a floating window which happened to interfere with the desktop and other applications. Anchored to the taskbar, the Start menu was a consistent and consolidated portal to your apps and system functions. It was essentially the fastest way to start programs without hunting down an executable somewhere in the system.

Looking at the Windows 95 Start menu, you may immediately see the areas for improvement that subsequent versions of Windows addressed with incremental changes. For example, we heard feedback that putting an alphabetical list of programs under a flyout made it slow to navigate. Windows XP addressed this with the introduction of the “most frequently used” (MFU) section that surfaced the programs you used regularly. This change in turn introduced some new problems because there was no way to really customize it, and some people struggled to understand how the MFU was populated (a complex heuristic determined which apps you use the most). To address the customization aspect, Windows XP (and later, Windows Vista and Windows 7) featured a section where you could pin the apps that are most important to you, to put them at your fingertips. However, this functionality was still limited. You could put apps in the pinned section and reorder them, but you still couldn’t group or organize them if you had more than just a few items.

There were also problems with traversing All Programs on Window XP. It wasn’t uncommon to have your mouse “fall off” the menu and then you’d have to restart the task all over again (this was especially challenging for laptop customers who used track pads or for those with limited dexterity). It was also difficult to fit all this UI into lower resolution screens. Vista addressed this with the introduction of a single menu and a tree control that required fewer acrobatics with the mouse. However, All Programs still felt cramped, since the menu required a scroll bar (fig 2). The Start menu was already starting to feel full.

Another critical evolution of Start was the introduction of instant search. Vista and Windows 7 both made it really easy for you to open the menu and just type what you wanted. We know many of you enjoy this powerful method, as it reduces “time to launch.” The introduction of advanced commands also reduced the need to use the Run dialog. Nonetheless, we knew there were still areas for improvement. Search results sometimes feel overcrowded and showing lots of different types of data (email, files, control panel settings, etc.) didn’t always work best in a one-size-fits-all column. Some of you have asked whether the Windows 8 Start screen will also support search. Yes, it does—on the Start screen, just start typing to instantly see search results that you can filter by apps, files, or settings. And just like in Windows 7, the full power of search is available in Explorer.

Based on these challenges and your feedback, we’ve continued to refine the Start experience over the years. However, we find that even the Windows 7 Start menu still faces core usability challenges:

The menu feels cramped relative to available screen real estate when you try to see and navigate the full catalog of your programs.
Search doesn’t have the space it deserves to quickly show you rich results across all sources of information, especially on larger screens.
It’s hard to customize the menu to make it feel like it’s really yours.
Icons and shortcuts are static and don’t leverage more of the pixels we see in modern graphical interfaces to surface connected scenarios.

Of course, the above list isn’t a complete set of everything we are improving. We also aim to unify Start with the rest of the system and enable new scenarios. An important part of design is sometimes taking a step back to fundamentally reimagine something from the ground up in order to bring more than incremental improvements to a product. This is especially true for something like Start that was born in a very different time when we didn’t use our PCs the way we do today.

It is important not to lose sight of the breadth of the problem space. The Start menu is almost exclusively used to launch items (except for the subset of search functionality). The full program experience in Windows 7 also includes switching and pinning via the taskbar, alerts in the notification area, and gadgets on the desktop. As we continue our dialog, we'll talk about how Windows 8 brings these all together in a harmonious manner.

How is the Start menu used?
Now that we’ve briefly discussed the history of the Start menu, let’s discover how people are actually using it. We thought it would be interesting to see how the usage of the menu has changed over time. Figure 3 reveals the change in Start menu usage across the two versions of Windows.

It is striking to see how dramatically different the use of the Start menu is in Windows Vista vs. Windows 7. Some of the Special Folders (what we call those items on the right side of the menu) dropped in use by over 50%. Likewise, people accessed pinned items on the Start menu half as often in Windows 7 than they did in Vista. People also access All Programs and the MFU far less often. Finally, we see an 11% drop in how often people are opening the Start menu at all. While 11% may seem like a small number at first, across our hundreds of millions of customers it is eye opening to see such a drop for a universally recognizable element of the Windows interface. We’re not talking about some hidden setting that is tweaked by a minority of people—we’re talking about a fundamental piece of Windows that people are using less and less.

So why the change in how people are using the Start menu? Here’s a hint—it has something to do with that bar at the bottom of your screen that was introduced in Windows 7.
The “Start bar”

The evolution of the Windows taskbar directly impacted the Start menu. What once was locked behind a menu suddenly came closer to you. The most obvious advancements were the introduction of Quick Launch by Internet Explorer 4.0’s Windows Desktop Update in 1997, as well as the more recent taskbar pinning in Windows 7.

Interesting side story: did you know that Quick Launch was initially disabled by default in Windows XP because some people believed the MFU list and pinning in the Start menu would suffice? We saw a volume of evidence to the contrary, and so we reversed the decision (though back then, the data upon which we based these decisions was limited, so we don't really know what a broad variety of customers were doing). What we took away from this was that it was important for you to be able to designate what apps you care about, see them all in one place, and have them be one click away, rather than trying to guess what is important through software heuristics or having important items mixed with less important items.

To really bring this all home, let’s take a look at where people are pinning their apps. Figure 4 reveals that 85% of people have three or more items pinned to the taskbar compared to a mere 23% who have the same number pinned to the Start menu. Although the taskbar and Start menu have different pinned defaults, many people do customize both of them when they want to. The message is clear that the majority of people want most of their apps on the taskbar rather than having to dig into Start.

We also know that enthusiasts in particular use their Windows 7 taskbar even more than the Start menu. Keyboard shortcuts like Win + <n> (where n corresponds to the sequence of an application icon on the taskbar) make it even faster for the keyboard experts to instantly launch and switch with the taskbar (and those shortcuts continue to work in Windows 8). When we visit IT pros, it’s not uncommon for us to see a taskbar filled with icons for standard corporate desktops. We even see items like Control Panel pinned to the taskbar to save people a trip to Start. Pinning is also increasing in popularly because you can now also pin websites to your taskbar with IE 9. Fortunately, there’s plenty of room on the taskbar—even at 1024x768 the taskbar can hold 22 small icons. Add the power of Jump lists, and theoretically, you can also have access to 220 files, folders, and sites at that same resolution! This means that for those who wish to just use desktop apps, the taskbar provides the room to quickly access the things you need every day without going to the Start menu.

Speaking of Jump lists, we’ve seen also how pinning Explorer by default to the taskbar and populating its Jump list with common folders makes it even easier to access system folders like Documents (not surprisingly, use of Documents in Start has also dropped, as shown above).

In summary, the taskbar has evolved to replace many aspects of the Start menu. You can even say the taskbar reveals many of the weaknesses of the Start menu and that the menu is no longer as valuable as it once was long ago. Search and access to All Programs are still unique strengths of the Start menu that we know you depend upon, but when it comes to the apps you use every day, one-click access from the taskbar is hard to beat. You, and many like you, are the ones who gave us this strong feedback over the years, which pushed us to make the taskbar a powerful primary launcher and switcher for the desktop. In fact, we sometimes even referred to the taskbar in Windows 7 as the “Start bar,” since it became clear that most people now start with the bar, rather than with the menu.
A new opportunity for Start

With the Windows taskbar becoming the key launcher and switcher for the desktop, and the Start menu being revealed as a poor everyday launcher, an opportunity appeared to reimagine Start and make it into something more valuable. Since we now know most of you can (and do) just use the taskbar to access the things you commonly use on the desktop, this freed us up to make Start even better at its unique strengths and to unlock new scenarios. Improved search, more room for all your programs, tiles that are alive with activity, and richer customization all suddenly become possible when the venerable, but aging, Start menu is transformed into a modern Start screen. Stay tuned for our next post, where we’ll talk about the Start screen and how it represents the way we use our PCs today.

Reducing runtime memory in Windows 8

2011-10-10T09:05:00.000-07:00

Reducing runtime memory in Windows 8

Fundamentals such as memory usage represent a key engineering tenet of Windows 8. In building Windows 8 we set out to significantly reduce the overall runtime memory requirements of the core system. This is always good for everyone and especially in a world where people want to run more and more apps at the same time or run on systems with only 1 or 2GB of memory. The laptop we talk about in this post is the exact same one we talked about at the Windows 7 PDC in 2008 – an off-the-shelf, first-generation, ATOM-based netbook with 1GB of memory. This post details our efforts around memory footprint and was authored by Bill Karagounis, the group program manager of our Performance team. --Steven

The runtime memory usage of Windows 8 is an important factor in determining the Windows 8 system requirements, as well as the broadened spectrum of devices that will host Windows 8. As you know, we’re delivering the complete Windows 8 experience on SoC-based devices characterized by low power consumption. This makes it even more important to leave lots of memory available for multiple concurrent apps and to sustain the overall responsiveness of devices.

Something that might not be obvious is that minimizing memory usage on low-power platforms can prolong battery life. Huh? In any PC, RAM is constantly consuming power. If an OS uses a lot of memory, it can force device manufacturers to include more physical RAM. The more RAM you have on board, the more power it uses, the less battery life you get. Having additional RAM on a tablet device can, in some instances, shave days off the amount of time the tablet can sit on your coffee table looking off but staying fresh and up to date.

Memory usage goals

Our goal with Windows 8 from the beginning was to ship with the same system requirements as Windows 7. We know if we do even better that there are more resources for apps, even if we keep the published requirements the same. It is fun to think about what the "low end" hardware looked like in 2009 and how you can't even find things like 256MB memory modules anymore. We wanted to ensure that people running on Windows 7-era hardware would have the option to easily upgrade their existing machines to Windows 8 and take advantage of the functionality it has to offer. We also expect that many machines that predate the Windows 7 release will run Windows 8 based on the experiences we’ve had with older machines we intentionally keep in our performance test infrastructure.

An important task for Windows 8 was to make room for new functionality while looking for opportunities to reduce the memory consumed by existing functionality and consumed across the board. Windows 8 is tracking well towards meeting the goal we set ourselves.

Task Manager memory use comparison

The easiest way to make a ballpark comparison of Windows 8 vs. Windows 7 memory use is to install both operating systems on a 1GB RAM machine (minimum OS RAM requirement) and compare them when they’ve been rebooted multiple times, and then idled for a while.

The Windows Task Manager contains the main view of system memory through its “In Use” statistic (described in detail in this doc). The below graphics compare memory consumption on Steven’s 3+ year old netbook that he was using at the //build/ keynote recently, running Windows 7 at idle, and then with the same machine running Windows 8.

Windows 7 Task Manager. CPU usage: 5%, Memory: 404 MBFigure 1 – Memory usage in Windows 7 SP1

Windows 8 Task Manager. CPU usage: 1%, Memory: 281 MBFigure 2 – Memory usage in Windows 8

The specific hardware making up a machine, memory use of drivers, and even uptime can cause variability, so memory results will be different on different machines (or even the same machine at different times). As you can see though, Windows 8 is doing well relative to Windows 7.

For a bit of extra fun on a test machine, go to device manager and disable your display adapter (unload the graphics driver). You’d never run your machine this way but this does give you an even closer approximation of the memory use of Windows itself. With a disabled graphics driver, the machine above gets under 200MB after idling for a while.

NOTE: For Windows 8, a clean install also contains the extended Windows Defender technology, which, for the first time incorporates complete antimalware functionality – also optimized for memory and resource use per Jason’s blog about protecting you from malware. (This functionality does not exist on a clean install of Windows 7 where we would recommend that you add security software).

Making room in Windows 8

We made hundreds of specific changes to minimize OS memory use in Windows 8. I’m going to call out a few specific areas that resulted in substantial memory savings.

Memory combining

When assessing the contents of RAM in a typical running PC, many parts of memory have the same content. The redundant copies of data across system RAM present an opportunity to reduce the memory footprint even for services and OS components.

How can this happen? Applications will sometimes allocate memory for future use and will initialize it all to the same value. The application may never actually use the memory as it may be there in anticipation of functionality that is the user never invokes. If multiple running applications are doing this at the same time, redundant copies of memory are in the system.

Memory combining is a technique in which Windows efficiently assesses the content of system RAM during normal activity and locates duplicate content across all system memory. Windows will then free up duplicates and keep a single copy. If the application tries to write to the memory in future, Windows will give it a private copy. All of this happens under the covers in the memory manager, with no impact on applications. This approach can liberate 10s to 100s of MBs of memory (depending on how many applications are running concurrently).

Service changes and reductions

OS services configured to run all the time are a significant source of ambient memory use. When assessing the set of OS services during Windows 8 planning, we decided to remove a number of them (13), move a different set of services to “manual” start, and also made some of the “always running” services move to a “start on demand” model. This is where a “trigger” in the OS (like device arrival or the availability of a network address) causes the following to occur:

The service starts.
The service does its thing (whatever that happens to be).
It hangs around for a while to make sure there isn’t anything else to do, and
The service goes away.

You’ll notice that Plug and Play, Windows Update, and the the user mode driver framework service are all trigger-started in Windows 8, in contrast to Windows 7, where these services were always running.

Of course we have added a ton of new functionality (and new code) to Windows 8. Some of this new functionality is packaged in the form of new services. Of these new services, two are auto-started; all others are manual or trigger-started.

Doing the same job with less memory

As Windows executes applications and performs its own system housekeeping, program files and data are loaded off the disk into main memory. During Windows 7 and Windows 8 development to date, we’ve analyzed the pieces (pages) of memory during normal execution and how often they were referenced. The idea here is that if you’re going to pay the price for allocating a piece of memory, you’d better be using it (referencing it) often. If you’re not referencing that memory often but need it, consolidate it with something else.

Shortly after we shipped Windows 7, we applied a similar technique to several of the low level components of Windows dating back to the early days of NT (early 1990s). The work included re-architecture of code and changing data structures to completely separate “hot” parts of memory (frequently referenced) from “cold” parts. By densely consolidating the hot items, we brought down the overall runtime memory cost.

Given the nature of the changes (low-level OS), we wanted to get the work done as early as possible in the schedule to get ample runtime on the changes. To date, these changes have been in place on Windows 8 for almost 2 years with thousands of Microsoft employees using the product to get their daily jobs done. And we’ve seen consistent results showing memory usage reduced by tens of MB on an average machine.

Lazy initialization of the “desktop”

Back in June, you saw Steven and Julie introduce the Metro style UI for the first time. We expect many people using tablets to spend a lot of time in that environment, typically using Metro style apps. As part of that demonstration, we also showed that for Windows 8, you can also bring forward your existing applications and use them in the very familiar desktop environment.

From a memory perspective, we’ve taken advantage of the fact that there will be some set of devices on which users will stay in the immersive, Metro style UI almost all the time. In this instance, Windows 8 will only initialize OS components unique to the desktop environment when necessary. This is another source of memory savings, approximately 23MB right now. (Note that Task Manager runs in the desktop, so the memory numbers shown above include its cost).

More granular prioritization of memory

Windows 8 has a better scheme for the prioritization of memory allocations made by applications and system components. This means that Windows can make better decisions about what memory to keep around and what memory to remove sooner.

For example, antivirus programs (AV) do various checks on files when they are being opened by other programs. The memory that the AV program allocates to check virus signatures is usually a one-time allocation (it is unlikely that specific memory will be needed again). On Windows 7, the memory is treated as if it had the same priority in the system as other memory (say, memory allocated by a running instance of Microsoft Excel). If memory became scarce, Windows 7 could end up removing the memory that helps another running application (like Excel) stay responsive for the user, which wouldn’t be the best choice for system responsiveness in this case.

In Windows 8, any program has the ability to allocate memory as “low priority.” This is an important signal to Windows that if there is memory pressure, Windows can remove this low priority memory to make space, and it doesn’t affect other memory required to sustain the responsiveness of the system.

To wrap up, I’ve called out our philosophy and approach to reducing memory usage in Windows 8. You’ve seen some sample results and I’ve just scratched the surface on some of the engineering work done to date in this area. One thing I haven’t discussed at all is the Windows 8 application model, and process lifecycle changes made to make new Windows 8 apps more “memory friendly.” Look out for this in the //build/ content and in future blog posts, as it’s also a really important part of the story of reimagining Windows.

Windows 8 Uses Less Memory Than Windows 7

2011-10-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

Windows 8 Uses Less Memory Than Windows 7

Those of you who saw Microsoft demonstrate Windows 8 at their Build conference last month will know that Windows 8 uses less RAM than Windows 7. Microsoft used a low powered netbook which had just 1GB of RAM. They booted Windows 7 SP1 and the Windows 8 Developer Preview and after they had both been at idle for a while it was found that Windows 8 was using a lot less CPU and Memory compared to Windows 7. ( 5% vs 1% and 404 MB vs 281 MB)

Windows 7 was applauded for reducing the amount of memory that Windows uses, especially compared to Windows Vista but now Microsoft have gone even further with Windows 8. One of their goals was to make sure that all machines that are capable of running Windows 7, will be able to run Windows 8 without a problem. Microsoft have managed to surpass these expectations by making Windows 8 even less resource intensive.

So how do they do it? Well Microsoft went into great detail over on the Building Windows 8 blog but I’ll try and just give you some of the main points.

Windows 8 make use of a new feature known as memory combining. Basically Windows looks at system RAM use, then it finds duplicate code that could be running for a variety of reasons, it then removes these duplicates from the memory so that you only have one copy of the code running, thus freeing up memory.

The number of background process that Windows 8 uses has also been reduced by 13. This is quite a large amount and should make a big difference and increase performance.

Even the new Metro interface helps reduce memory usage, although it’s only really for tablets. When you’re using a tablet, Windows 8 won’t actually load up the desktop components for the OS because the chances are you’re not going to bother using the traditional desktop if you’re using a tablet. Of course if you do decide to switch to your desktop it will still load them up, but not running these components saves around 23MB or RAM in the developer preview edition of Windows 8.

Time-Walrus-Talk | to run a free scan for PC errors

2011-10-10T08:42:00.000-07:00

Tip: Click here to run a free scan for PC errors “The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk of many things. . .”

Now you may find this an odd title for this article but indeed it covers many things. It all started when I was sorely tempted to buy an Apple iPad 2. This came about as two members of my family regularly extolled the virtues of their iPhones and their iPads.

So began a period of reflection when I looked at my three Windows type computers and wondered whether it was time for a “sea change”. This led to a long period of investigation and ended up with me trying out one of their iPads. I was indeed impressed and sorely tempted. With the demise of Steve Jobs and the media’s recognition of his important contribution this nearly tipped me over the edge. One should not overlook Bill Gates and his contribution to the development of the PC, DOS and Windows operating systems. History may well judge him by his recent philanthropy in helping those less fortunate rather than his work with computers.

Then, in the cold light of day I made a decision. While I loved the touch screen and all its features I decided to stick with what I knew. I was happy and comfortable with PCs. So, no iPad for me!

Now let me tell you about my current crop of PCs. I have a desktop, a notebook and a netbook. All are no longer than three years old. The desktop and the notepad have dual –core processors, 4 Gb of Ram and work superbly with Dragon Naturally Speaking et al. The netbook, the most recent edition — it’s only two years old — has an Intel Atom N280 CPU (now superseded) and 2 Gb of Ram. Compared with the other two PCs it is a bit sluggish but never-the-less fills my requirements when I travel away from home. Its small size and portability makes up for its lesser specifications. Some could well say why not take a break and leave the computer home and this is the advice I often hear from my partner who feels I spend too much time on the computer.

I digress! Well after that momentous decision of keeping clear of Apple products I decided I’d follow up my interest in the new Second Generation Intel chips. This includes the Intel Core i7, Intel Core i5 and Intel Core i3. All reports indicated these new chips are a huge leap forward in processing.

Maybe, this was the way to go – buy a new notebook with the latest chips. So, this lead to my search for that new machine.

My specifications were relatively simple – an Intel Core i5 CPU, 4Gb Ram (upgradable to 8 Gb) (Note: Dragon works even better with plenty of grunt) and a large hard drive (min. 300 Gb). Various brands were checked – ASUS, Toshiba, Medion Mikeyo (this is sold in Australia by ALDI stores), MSI and finally HP.

I settled on the latter, given four of my computers – three notebooks and one desktop have been HP/Compaq machines. Better to stick with a product that has been reliable.

Once I made the decision I then began my search for a new notebook within my means. I settled on an HP Pavilion g series machine. The machine I chose met all my requirements – Intel Core i5 CPU, 4 Gb RAM, 640 Gb Hard Drive, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth et al.

Its large screen and well-resourced – three USB ports, a HDMI port (this was one feature I really wanted as I could hook my computer up to my big LCD TV screen) a card reader just to name a few.

You can see the specs of the chosen machine HP Pavilion g series, courtesy of Piriform’s Speccy. Speccy is a useful little tool for checking up the hardware on your computer. If you haven’t downloaded Speccy think about it. It is a valuable tool for checking your computer’s specification.

An earlier tool Belarc Advisor is also useful. This tool builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, network inventory, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, security benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser. Both Speccy and Belarc Advisor are handy information gatherers!

HP’s Support Assistant also provided me with a snapshot of the computer’s specifications.

Setting up my new notebook was a breeze. My next task was vital; it involved creating a set of Recovery Disks courtesy of HP’s Recovery Manager. With all software, including the operating system pre-installed, it is essential to make a set to safeguard your computer. After this was completed – it was a slow process – I was installed my suite of favourite programs – Office 2010, Snagit, Picasa and, of course, Dragon Naturally Speaking.

My next task was to remove Norton ignoring its kind offer for a 30 day trial. In its place I installed Microsoft Security Essentials quick smart before venturing onto the Internet. When I did I got a shock as regular updates were proposed by Windows Update. In all there were 89 updates. This took some time so I left the computer to its own devices. Thus, well and truly updated, it was time to start serious use of this new machine. To say I was impressed with its features is an understatement. I am revelling in my new fast technology.

One of my first tasks was to try out Dragon. The internal microphone built into notebooks and netbooks has never been “much chop”, but in my HP it excelled itself and enabled me to use Dragon without having to wear those uncomfortable but necessary microphone headsets. There was an unexpected bonus too as the inbuilt speakers gave out reasonable sound.