The Verge - Windows 8 Consumer Preview: features, apps, install guide, and more

Nvidia's new graphics drivers are certified for Windows 8

2012-06-02T07:56:38Z

If you had any reason to suspect that Nvidia wouldn't have fully-functional graphics drivers in time for Windows 8, you can probably dismiss them now: the company's new R302 drivers have been WHQL-certified by Microsoft specifically for the new operating system. That's the word from Nvidia's official blog, which explains that the R302 drivers are specifically for Windows 8, as earlier versions of the operating system will stick with R300 drivers. The new branch includes support for all the new WDDM 1.2 features (including things like stereoscopic 3D optimizations and flicker-free screen rotation), and Nvidia says it will support Nvidia 3D Vision for 3D games right away. Sounds like just the thing to complement your Windows 8 Release...

Microsoft to let Windows 8 web browsers play nice with Metro, Firefox version in the works

2012-03-10T21:27:50Z

We previously heard that Mozilla was planning a Metro version of Firefox, and now developer Brian R. Bondy has announced that the company has begun work on it. While that's good for Firefox fans, the real news is that the program is going to belong to a new, third type of Windows 8 apps: "Metro style enabled desktop browsers." We're still trying to figure it all out (and we think Microsoft is too), but from what we understand, this new, third type is an exception to Microsoft's rules and lets traditional Windows web browsers participate in the Metro experience. The third category would co-exist alongside Windows 8's two current categories — one for apps in the traditional, Windows 7-like environment, and another for those that belong...

Bing Maps gets a new SDK for Metro style apps in Windows 8

2012-03-07T04:49:25Z

Microsoft has released a new SDK for Bing Maps designed to help developers integrate the mapping service into their Metro style apps for Windows 8. The SDK is a beta release, and includes a new Javascript control along with support for developers using C#, C++, and Visual Basic. It'll provide features such as traffic overlays and hardware accelerated rendering, and should go some way to improving compatibility in a similar way to how Enyo works with Bing Maps on webOS. Microsoft has also updated its licensing terms, giving developers free and unlimited use of Bing Maps APIs until Windows 8 is released. The company hasn't finalized plans for how this will work once Windows 8 becomes a commercial release, but is clearly trying to shore up...

Microsoft improves Windows 8 themes with panorama wallpapers, new features

2012-03-06T22:26:42Z

If you're anything like us, you'll be making an effort to spend the majority of your time using Windows 8 within its wonderfully-modern Metro interface. Still, the occasional visit to the classic Windows experience will be pretty much unavoidable. It should come as good news then that the company has taken steps to spruce up the appearance of that traditional UI, bringing new and improved theme functionality to Windows 8. The biggest addition is the ability to create panoramic background images that automatically span across two (and only two) monitors — so long as they share the same screen resolution. For non-panoramic themes, Windows 8 will now use a different background photo for each display, whereas Windows 7 would simply mirror...

How to: bring back the Windows 8 Start menu and Start button orb

2012-03-06T09:51:02Z

Microsoft took the bold steps of removing the traditional Windows 8 Start menu and Start button orb from its Windows 8 Consumer Preview last week. Desktop PC users are currently debating the merits of the Windows 8 Start Screen replacement and Microsoft's mouse / keyboard improvements in the latest beta copy, but some want the Start menu and Start button orb back. Microsoft MVP Vishal Gupta has discovered a rather quick and easy way to re-enable both options in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview:

Download ViStart - a third-party freeware app that remakes the Windows 7 start menu
When you run ViStart setup uncheck and decline any options for toolbars that are bundled with the product. These aren't spyware or malware installations but you...

Kobo e-reader app available for Windows 8 with new UI, library search

2012-03-02T03:35:01Z

If you watched our Windows 8 Consumer Preview liveblog yesterday, you might have noticed the Kobo icon peeking out once or twice onstage at the event. Well, if you take a look at the Windows Store on a device running the new OS, you'll notice that the Kobo app is available for download, making it one of the only e-reader apps (along with Amazon's Kindle) to be available with the launch of the new store. Kobo's app features a revamped UI that's a little different from what it offers on other platforms, with a new, easier-to-search library, cloud storage for all your books, and a new Windows 8 desktop client to match its offerings for current-gen Windows and OS X. The desktop app lets you download books to read later, or transfer them over...

Windows 8 Consumer Preview downloaded a million times on day one

2012-03-01T19:25:46Z

Microsoft has just tweeted out the news that its Consumer Preview build of Windows 8 has been downloaded one million times within the first day of availability. Although still in its beta form, Windows 8 has attracted attention and sparked imaginations in a very big way, so it's little surprise to see the download counter crossing into seven figures so quickly. In total, the day one downloads tally up to over three and a half petabytes of data, or about 41GB per second. Using the international scale for measuring popularity, we'd say this qualifies as a thoroughly well received launch.

Microsoft bets on Windows 8 to succeed where Android has failed

2012-03-01T18:31:02Z

The battle for number two is about to get serious.

A quick look through the halls of Mobile World Congress reveals an endless number of iPads, quite a few Android tablets, and almost no touchscreen Windows PCs. But Microsoft is here in Barcelona promising that balance will change dramatically by next year — the company just released Windows 8 Consumer Preview, a beta version of a radically new version of Windows built with tablets specifically in mind. And while Windows 8 has a long way to go before it can challenge the iPad, it feels almost inevitable that Microsoft will quickly succeed where Android tablets have thus far failed — especially because Microsoft is aggressively courting developers to write apps for its new Metro...