Quick overview:
Despite Redmond's best efforts and security precautions, the first screenshots of Windows 8 and Office 15 found their way onto the Internet at the weekend. Windows-Tweaks summarizes:
Office 15 (Build 15.0.2703.100)
The Russian Windows portal "winreview.ru" got its hands on the upcoming version of the well-known office package and subjected it to an initial test report.
However, the office package is still in an early alpha phase ("Milestone 2") and has numerous bugs. For example, Office 15 could only be installed on a Windows 7 32-bit machine (without a service pack). Installation was refused on other PCs and Windows versions.
As you can see in the screenshot above, there are no new products for the time being - until the final release, According to rumorsa brand new product that is still unknown.
Unusual for such early versions: The entire interface of Office 15 gets a new look reminiscent of the "Metro" interface of Windows Phone 7. You can see this clearly in the screenshot above: The Outlook categories "Mail", "Calendar" and "Contacts" already have the design familiar from WP7. Graphical gimmicks, such as a pulsating text cursor or a zoom function when selecting graphs in Word, are also already implemented. These visual refinements are usually only added in later development phases.
In Outlook 15, the display of contacts and the calendar has also been made a little clearer:
Nothing earth-shattering, but nice: Outlook folders can now finally be sorted freely. Previously, they were displayed rigidly in alphabetical order!
PowerPoint 15 comes - as usual - with new effects, transitions and templates:
In addition, the "Save as" dialog has been linked to the "Share" dialog. When clicking on "Save as", the user now has the option of transferring their presentation to the web (entry comes first!), saving it locally, sending it by email, storing it on a SharePoint, sending it remotely or publishing individual slides.
The new version is also said to crash frequently and produce errors. Further information and screenshots can be found at the source: WinReview.ru translation.
Windows 8 M2 (Build 7910) and M3
In addition to the Office leak, the first photos of Windows 8 Milestone 2 (M2) and M3 are already circulating online. The most interesting new feature at the moment is the Windows "reset" function: with a click of the mouse, the PC can be reset to the factory settings. According to information from Win7China, this should be completed in 2 minutes. It is not yet clear whether all the data, programs and settings saved by the user - as presented in the product presentations leaked in mid-2010 - will be backed up and restored.
In addition, the installation of the third Milestone, whose development started on March 1, should be completed in no time at all: instead of the 25-30 minute installation, setup is finished after 8 minutes. The operating system's working speed has also increased: Starting up and the standby function should now work even faster than with the predecessor.
In addition to normal user accounts, Windows 8 should allow you to log in with your Live ID. This confirms the assumption that parts of the new operating system will be networked with the "cloud" (Windows Live Skydrive?) and that you will have permanent access to your user account - a good Internet connection is of course a must here. Nice: In addition to simple photos, videos can now also be used as user pictures - these then appear in the start menu or in the taskbar, among other things.
First According to speculation Windows 8 is scheduled for release in mid-2012.
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