Consumer Preview

On 29 February 2012, Microsoft released Windows 8 Consumer Preview, the beta version of Windows 8, build 8250. For the first time since Windows 95, the Start button is no longer present on the taskbar, though the Start screen is still triggered by clicking the bottom-left corner of the screen and by clicking Start in the Charm. Windows president Steven Sinofsky said more than 100,000 changes had been made since the developer version went public. In the first day of its release, Windows 8 Consumer Preview was downloaded over one million times. Like the Developer Preview, the Consumer Preview is set to expire on January 15, 2013.

New features

Metro UI

Windows 8 will employ a new user interface based on Microsoft's Metro design language. The Metro environment will feature a new tile-based Start screen similar to the Windows Phone operating system. Each tile will represent an application, and will be able to display relevant information such as the number of unread messages on the tile for an e-mail app or the current temperature on a weather application. Metro-style applications run in full-screen, and are able to share information between each other using "contracts". They will be available only throughWindows Store. Metro-style apps are developed with the new Windows Runtime platform using various programming languages (or in the case of HTML, a mark-up language) including: C++, Visual Basic, C#, and HTML/JavaScript.

The traditional desktop environment for running desktop applications is treated as a Metro app. The Start button has been removed from the taskbar in favor of a Start button on the new charm bar, as well as a hot spot in the bottom-left corner. Both open the new Start screen, which replaces the Start menu.

The boot manager, which is used at startup to select the operating system has also been optimized for touch input, but can also be used with the mouse. It also includes a graphical interface that can be expanded via the settings menu.

Other features

• Internet Explorer 10 will be included as a Metro-style app, which will not support plugins or ActiveX components, but includes a version of Adobe Flash Player which is optimized for touch and low power usage and works only on sites included on a white list. The desktop version includes the full version of Flash Player, as well as support for plugins.
• Ability to sign in using a Microsoft account. This will allow for the user's profile and settings to be synchronized over the internet and accessible from other computers running Windows 8, as well as integration with Sky Drive.
• Two new authentication methods: picture password, which allows users to log in by drawing three gestures in different places on a picture, and PIN log in, which allows users to authenticate using a four digit pin.
• Windows Explorer will include a ribbon toolbar, and have its file operation progress dialog updated to provide more detailed statistics, the ability to pause file transfers, and improvements in the ability to manage conflicts when copying files.
• Hybrid Boot will use "advanced hibernation functionality" on shutdown to allow faster start up times.
• Windows To Go will allow Windows 8 to boot and run from a bootable USB device (such as a flash drive).
• Two new recovery functions are included, Refresh and Reset. Refresh restores all Windows files to their original state while keeping settings, files, and Metro-style apps, while reset takes the computer back to factory default condition.
• Native USB 3.0 support
• A new lock screen
• New Windows Task Manager design
• Xbox Live integration (including Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Companion and Xbox Music)
• Storage Spaces will allow users to combine different sized hard disks into virtual drives and specify mirroring, parity, or no redundancy on a folder-by-folder basis.
• Family Safety will allow parents to protect their children on the internet, as well as monitor and control their PC and internet activities and usage. 
• Windows Defender now has anti-virus capabilities, similar to those of Microsoft Security Essentials. It is intended to replace the Security Essentials package and function as the default anti-virus program.

Hardware requirements

As of Windows 8 Release Preview, the minimum system requirements are the same as Windows 7; these system requirements may change in the final release.

Minimum hardware requirements for Windows 8 Release Preview

Architecture                    x86 (32-bit)                   x86-64 (64-bit)

Processor                                               1 GHz
Memory (RAM)                   1 GB                               2 GB
Graphics Card          DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Storage                                16 GB                             20 GB


To use touch input features, touch enabled hardware is required.

To run Metro applications, a screen resolution of 1024x768 or higher is required to run one app at a time, and a resolution of 1366x768 is required to run two apps side-by-side using snap.

Microsoft has said that the following virtualization products can be used to run Windows 8 Consumer Preview: Hyper-V in Windows 8 Developer Preview, Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2, VMware Workstation 8.0.2 for Windows, Virtual Box 4.1.8 for Windows, Parallels Workstation 6 for Windows, Parallels Desktop 4 for Windows, and Xen Desktop 5.5.

Microsoft requires that Windows 8 PCs support no-reboot upgrade of graphic card drivers and Windows 8 PCs should resume in two seconds or less, but the two seconds resume requirement is relaxed for ARM based PCs.