Windows 8 Release Preview came into the market ahead of the schedule time. So it’s time for everyone to run the Windows 8 Release Preview on our PC’s or laptops, but before that one may think as “Is it worth trying the Windows 8 Release Preview?” as they were few drawbacks in Windows 8 Consumer Preview. The following part will give a brief overview of the Windows 8 Release Preview and its significant improvements over Windows 8 Consumer Preview.
Improvements in Windows 8 Release Preview:
We will see all the improvements made in Windows 8 Release Preview compared to Windows 8 Consumer Preview starting from the trivial things to the most promising features of Windows 8. In Windows 8 Release Preview many colors and patterns have been added in metro start screen, a new cursor was also introduced, and the beta fish has been replaced by field of tulips. Many aero effects have been controlled with less glowing buttons & flatter borders, reflections, shadows and gradients bringing completely a new look to the Windows 8 Release Preview.
There are other minor changes like expanded hot zone at the corners of the screen, minor shifts in setup, a new option stating as “Add Features to Windows 8” which signifies a new version of Windows Anytime Upgrade feature, inside the settings charm the More PC Settings has now been coined as Change PC Settings.
So far we have seen all minor changes with respect to settings, background features and so on. Now, we will look into the most promising features of Windows 8 Release Preview. One of the most significant change is found in Internet Explorer 10
There are two significant changes in Internet Explorer 10 compared to the previous versions of IE. Firstly, IE 10 comes with Adobe Flash player which runs as an integrated program in Internet Explorer 10 on both desktop as well as Metro UI phase. If you’re using IE10 on Metro UI, the site which has embedded flash will appear as a white list before the Flash Player begins to run on Internet Explorer 10. If you visit a flash site directly in a IE10 of Metro UI without going to the white list, then it’s hard to figure out whether there is a flash animation on the site or not. If you’re using IE 10 from the Desktop side, then any site which has embedded flash animations in it should work with ease.
Another feature that has been introduced in IE 10 is Do Not Track by default (DNT) . At this point of time DNT has no significant importance but it’s just a privacy notice sent to all the websites saying Please don’t track me with a simple flag at the header.
Changes in the Metro Apps of Windows 8 Release Preview:
This is another area where Microsoft has been working on it since the release of the very first version of Windows 8. There were many drawbacks and people started complaining a lot on the Metro apps of Windows 8 CP. Lot of changes have been made to metro apps of Windows 8 Release Preview, and Microsoft is still working on its improvements from time to time. In the latest version of Windows 8 lot of changes have been made to metro apps like Metro Finance App and Metro Bing News App. The Metro finance and Metro Bing news apps have more or less similar features. In the metro news app, if you slide from top of the screen the news app will show four feeds stating as Bing Daily, My News, Trends and Sources. Each of them has a specific function like Bing Daily is the newspaper that we see, in My News you can search various topics related to current affairs and many more.
The Metro Bing Sports app has undergone many changes like it not only gives access to various news stuff related to different sports leagues, but also we can have instant access to various things like scores, schedules, statistics, photos and many interesting things about all major teams across the world. The Metro Bing Travel app has the same basic layout, but has come with a better emphasis on pictures. If you slide down the navigation bar, you will get various options like reviews of a particular place, we can even use this app to book a flight or hotel and so on.
There are many other trivial changes done to other metro apps like music app and many more. Microsoft promised that they will try to rectify the errors encountered by other metro apps like the SkyDrive app before to the release of the actual Windows 8 OS.
Drawbacks in Windows 8 Release Preview
They are few drawbacks in Windows 8 RP like if you’re running it on tablets other than supplied by Microsoft; there are some problems like the metro apps gets frozen at times, unexpected blank screens and few more of similar kind.
When we log into Microsoft account the SkyDrive is supposed to sync all our files from various systems, but this is not performed so accurately and Microsoft promises to solve this issue in a short span before the release of Windows 8 OS.
There are few errors in other metro apps like inside the calendar app there is no scroll bar at the bottom, in the metro start screen there is no forward/backward arrows for navigation purpose, sometimes navigation through mouse also seems to be little problematic and so on.
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