Infoworld reports that with Microsoft scheduled to provide a technical preview of its new Windows 9 operating system at an event on September 30, screenshots and videos of the Windows Technical Preview have been leaking that show the addition of a new Start menu, a virtual desktops feature, and a Notification Center. Here's a recap of what's been revealed so far:
The desktop's Start Menu returns, with Windows 7-like cascading menus on the left and Metro tiles on the right. Menus and tiles can be dragged, dropped, pinned, unpinned, resized, and sliced and diced. We haven't seen any fully functional "interactive" tiles as yet — Metro apps that respond to interaction with their tiles without popping up on the screen — but I expect that will be coming soon.
Metro apps running in resizable windows on the desktop. There appears to be some debate about whether the Charms bar will get the axe in the process, but all of the Charms you're likely to want will be in the right-click menu in the upper-left corner of the title bar.
Virtual desktops, which will undoubtedly get some sort of whiz-bang marketing name, because "virtual" is supposedly too spooky for consumers. Windows has had virtual desktops since Windows XP, but you had to install a third-party app (or something like Sysinternals Desktop, from Microsoft) to get them to work.
A Notification Center, which displays and lets you get at both bubble and toast notifications. It's long overdue.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Monday September 22 2014, @04:39PM
Windows 9 will be for those businesses which have been late to switch to Windows 7 before it vanishes from general purchase availability, which is scheduled for end of next month. Any upgrades needing to be done will then use 9 instead of 7, and if there's any gap in the release, an intermediate stop at Windows 8.1 only so long as it's necessary.
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