Microsoft will be introducing a new file system with Windows 8 Server, called ReFS, which is built on top of the existing NTFS, but will deliver new features for scale and prevent data corruption.

ReFS, short for Resilient File System, will initially debut with Windows 8 Server, but is expected to make its way through to Windows 8 client system to support the full feature set of Storage Spaces, which will allow users to create storage pools from multiple physical and virtual storage devices.

The HTC Radar combines an elegant design with the engaging and intuitive Windows Phone 7.5 OS.

Don’t look now, but Windows Phones could become the top value-priced option for lots and lots of smartphone shoppers. Consider the HTC Radar 4G for T-Mobile, which offers Microsoft’s easy-to-use and fun 7.5 OS along with an attractive aluminum design for $99. The device features a 1-GHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera, and a bright 3.8-inch display–plus Netflix.

Design

The HTC Radar 4G is right up there with the iPhone 4 as one of the most elegant looking smartphones in its price range. The device has a sturdy aluminum unibody design, broken up by bands of white plastic on the back and a strip of white along the bottom front edge. The mostly glass front covers the display and a white bezel. This handset felt very solid in our hand.

The right side of the Radar 4G houses a long volume control and a dedicated camera button, and a power button and headphone jack line the top. There’s a microUSB cable on the left side and a 5-MP camera, flash, and speaker on the back.

Weighing 4.8 ounces and measuring 4.7 x 2.4 x 0.4 inches, the Radar 4G is larger and heavier than the Samsung Focus Flash (4.1 ounces, 4.6 x 2.3 x 0.4 inches). However, the Radar has a larger display–3.8 inches vs 3.7 inches–and an aluminum unibody design, as opposed to the mostly plastic Flash. The iPhone 4 weighs the same as the Radar but has a slimmer 0.37-inch profile.

There has been a lot of back and forth on the Asus Transformer 2, which is supposed to be the first tablet to both use the stunning new Kal-El 5 core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and Google’s latest version of Android code called Ice Cream Sandwich.

Windows 8’s two break-out signature features are the Metro interface that favors Touch and the new support of ARM processors like this new Tegra. I’ve been using the first Asus Transformer and it was slow, but otherwise stood out (because of the extra battery in the keyboard dock) as one of the best blends of laptop and tablet on the market. The coming product is faster and lighter and, thanks to the Tegra 3 part, should be powerful enough to run Windows 8 nicely.

Windows 8’s Goals

Windows 8 is designed to embrace the iPad revolution with a product that can be both tablet and next generation laptop. While it will clearly work on desktop machines and may shine on all-in-one computers with Touch, these are not categories that appear to be its primary target. In short, the goal for Windows 8 appears to be to take the momentum away from the iPad and put it back to where Microsoft thinks it belongs – on Windows mobile PCs.

Designing Windows 8 for virtually any device from smartphone to PC, Microsoft says it’s had a key goal in mind for all hardware platforms–energy efficiency.

With laptops and mobile devices slurping up battery power and desktops and servers chewing up electricity, Microsoft has wanted to ensure that any device running Windows 8 can tap into better power management.

“Very small changes done well in Windows can result in very large positive environmental impact because of our scale,” Pat Stemen, a program manager on Microsoft’s Kernel team, said in the latest Building Windows 8 blog. “In many markets around the world, increasing electricity consumption is putting more demand on every aspect of the workplace to reduce power consumption. PCs are a significant source of potential savings.”

The Windows 8 task manager is another revamped aspect of Microsoft‘s latest desktop operating system. Once you open the application, you will be surprised how much developers strapped away from it, at the first sight. It gives users the simplicity needed to close everyday processes and applications in just one click and lets diehard tuning fans to optimize the CPU for better performance; all details being hidden under one button. It still holds the same good features and adds some that should have been implemented since XP.

Classic View

First of all, when you open the task manager, you will see a redesigned window, displaying just opened applications and two buttons: ‘More details’ and ‘End Task’. Each of the application can be closed by selecting it and then pressing the ‘End Task’ button. The visual style is stripped of the chaotic options given in Windows 7, options that could only help advanced users. Now, a user with even the minimal amount of technical expertise can use the task manager in Windows 8 without having to wander through a multitude of buttons.

You often hear in the software industry that performance optimization is one of the last steps in the software development process. That bodes well for Windows 8, considering at the early stage of Developer Preview—even before we’ve seen an actual beta—the nascent operating system is getting widespread praise for its performance, particularly in startup times.

Windows 8 is, without a doubt, the most controversial Windows version the company has ever designed. Microsoft released its first preliminary version of Windows 8 roughly a month ago. It’s somewhat raw, definitely incomplete, and absolutely the most controversial Windows version the company has ever considered releasing. Windows, being one of the most used OS, brings great challenges for Microsoft to keep its users impressed in the next version of Windows.

Although Windows 7 has done exceptionally well since its release, Microsoft has been constantly working to make the next version of Windows a better one by further improving upon the existing features, and have added new impressive Windows 8 features along with a stunning UI.

Microsoft stuck its neck out when it released a very early build of Windows 8 to the world, likely knowing beforehand the level of complaint that it was going to receive from users who did not appreciate the changes implemented. But the company wanted to solicit early feedback to ensure that at launch, the product would not flop.

Microsoft has revealed more Windows 8 changes that it is planning for the beta stage of development. Microsoft has tweaked the use of memory in Windows 8 to help people juggle more applications and files with less physical RAM. Memory combining searches system RAM for duplicate content and then frees up the duplicates to hold just a single copy. If an app needs that freed-up memory in the future, Windows provides what’s called a “private copy.” Such a process can make anywhere from 10s to 100s of megabytes available.

 Windows 8 will be smarter about which allocated memory to keep and which to free up. For example, antivirus programs need memory when they check on files opened by other applications. Since this is typically a one-time allocation, that specific chunk of memory probably wouldn’t be needed again by the AV software. As such,Windows 7 might free up that RAM for something else if memory became scare. But such an action could drag down performance.