Paul Thurrott: Windows 8 Secrets

Now that you are armed with the information in the previous tables, choosing between Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro should be relatively straightforward. You just need to consider whether you need any of the following Pro-only features. If you do, then you should get Windows 8 Pro.

• Upgrades from Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate:If you intend to perform an in-place upgrade with an existing PC and are currently running Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, you will need to purchase Windows 8 Pro.

• BitLocker and BitLocker To Go:These features provide full-disk encryption for fixed and removable disks, respectively, providing protection for your data even when the drive is removed and accessed from elsewhere.

• Client Hyper-V:Microsoft’s server-based virtualization solution makes its way to the Windows client for the first time, providing a powerful, hypervisor-based platform for creating and managing virtual machines.

• Boot from VHD:This new capability allows you to create a virtual hard disk, or VHD, in Client Hyper-V and then boot your physical PC from this disk file rather than from a physical disk.

• Domain join:If you need to sign in to an Active Directory-based domain with Windows 8, you will need Windows 8 Pro (or Enterprise).

• Encrypting File System:EFS is somewhat de-emphasized in Windows 8 thanks to BitLocker and BitLocker To Go, but it provides a way to encrypt individual drives, folders, or even files, protecting them from being accessed externally should the drive be removed from your PC.

• Group Policy:Microsoft’s policy-based management technology requires an Active Directory domain and thus Windows 8 Pro.

Remote Desktop (host):While any Windows 8 PC or device can use a Remote Desktop client to remotely access other PCs or servers, only Windows 8 Pro can host such a session, allowing you or others to remotely access your own PC.

All of the aforementioned features are discussed in Chapter 14 Summary There’s no doubt that Windows 8 is a huge upgrade for consumers, a revolutionary new version of Windows that will allow Microsoft’s most successful product line to enter new markets for touch-based portable devices. But Windows 8 isn’t just about fun and games. Like previous Windows versions, it comes well-stocked with an abundance of business-oriented features, including updated versions of many preexisting features like domain join and Group Policy support, EFS, BitLocker and BitLocker To Go, and more. Windows 8 includes new business features, too. It picks up the powerful Hyper-V virtualization platform from Windows Server 2012, providing users with an astonishing new tool for managing virtual environments and resources. And Hyper-V is further bolstered by new VHD shell integration and a new Virtual Machine Connection client. Remote desktop users will find both Metro-style and desktop clients as well as a secure version of Remote Desktop Host that will allow you to access your own desktop PC remotely. Those corporations that opt for Windows 8 Enterprise will see several other additional features. And even consumer-oriented Windows RT tablets can make their way into businesses thanks to Exchange ActiveSync compatibility and a unique management client. .

• Windows Media Center:For a small fee, Windows 8 Pro users can purchase Windows Media Center, a feature that used to be included in higher-end versions of Windows. This feature is not available to Windows 8 (or Windows RT for that matter). And it hasn’t been upgraded since Windows 7 shipped.

And that’s it. It really hasn’t been this easy to choose between Windows product editions in over a decade.

Windows 8 Enterprise is a superset of Windows 8 Pro. That is, it includes all of the features and capabilities in Windows 8 Pro plus provides some unique new features of its own. These include:

• Windows To Go: This very interesting feature lets you install Windows 8 on certain high-performance USB memory sticks, providing a highly portable Windows environment that can include all of your personal data, settings, and installed Metro-style apps and desktop applications.

• Metro-style app deployment:Corporations can bypass the normal requirement that all Metro-style apps must be stored, downloaded, and installed from the Windows Store. This capability, called side-loading, lets these businesses deploy Metro-style apps within their own environments securely.

• DirectAccess: A modern alternative to a VPN (virtual private network), DirectAccess lets remote users seamlessly access corporate network resources without dealing with the hassles common to VPN solutions.

• BranchCache: Aimed at distributed corporations, BranchCache lets servers and users’ PCs in branch offices cache files, websites, and other content, so that it is not repeatedly and expensively downloaded across the WAN (wide area network) by different users in the same location.

• AppLocker: This feature provides white list and black list capabilities to control which files and applications that users or groups are allowed to run.

VDI improvements:Windows 8 Enterprise also includes improvements to VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), a way of virtualizing Windows client installs in a high-end data center and delivering them to thin client machines in a highly-managed environment.

While the available selection of Windows 8-compatible PCs and devices is ever-changing, there are two primary issues to consider when it comes to hardware. First, you’re going to need to choose between machines based on the new ARM platform and the more traditional, Intel-compatible platform. And second, since Windows 8 adds so many new hardware-based capabilities, you’ll want to understand what those are and whether the availability of any in a given PC or device will color your decision-making process.

As with any purchasing decision, you may find yourself making trade-offs. For example, if you’ve determined that you simply must have the backward compatibility of an Intel-compatible PC, but then find that ARM-based devices deliver dramatically better battery life, you’ve got a decision to make. These features aren’t point-by-point comparable, and no generalization we can make will help all readers. This means that, in the end, you’ll need to decide which features or capabilities are more important to you . But we can at least start the discussion.

If you’re one of the 1.3 billion active Windows users at the time of this writing, then you’re using an Intel- or Intel-compatible PC running on what’s arcanely described as an x86/x64 chipset.

Without getting too deep into the history of this nomenclature, it dates back to the original IBM PC, which featured an Intel processor, an early entry in the so-called x86 family of microprocessors. (More recent versions include the 80386, or 386, the 486, and the Pentium, which was originally called the 586.) Put simply, the x86 moniker describes two things: Intel compatibility (since both Intel and various copycats make the chips) and a 32-bit instruction set, which means, among other things, that these chips typically address up to 4 GB of RAM.

The x64 chipset, meanwhile, is a 64-bit variant of the x86 family of chipsets. Put simply, x64 is x86 on steroids: It is 100 percent compatible with x86 software, including Windows and its applications, but provides support for an astonishing amount of RAM: up to 256 TB (yes, terabytes).