Thanks to everyone for an interesting discussion in the comments below. I apologize that many comments were held for moderation. I allow comments, but I trashed a half-dozen or so that consisted of name-calling or that were otherwise unenlightening. Pro tip: if you include the word “fanboy” in anything except an ironic, self-deprecating sense, you won’t get approved.
“As an in-depth engineering dialog, we tend to favor the long form for Building Windows 8 posts.”
– Steven Sinofsky, President, Windows and Windows Live Division, Microsoft
This week’s epic, 8,617-word post, “Building Windows for the ARM processor architecture,” should have answered nearly every question you might have had about how the next edition of Windows will work on special-purpose devices powered by low-power CPUs built using the ARM architecture.
The ARM version will be available only on new hardware specifically designed for it. Initially, these will probably be in the same tablet form factor popularized by the iPad, although there’s no reason they can’t also be available in designs that look like a desktop or notebook PC. You won’t be able to buy Windows on ARM (WOA) and install it yourself, even if you have an ARM-based device that appears to be identical, spec-wise, to a WOA tablet.
The WOA interface is nearly identical to Windows 8 on traditional PCs built using Intel x86/x64 CPUs, with the same Start and search screens. It will run the same Metro style apps as the x86/x64 edition, available through the same store. It will also allow you to access the Windows desktop, with full access to Windows Explorer (for file management), the desktop Internet Explorer, and other “intrinsic Windows features.”
Apple expert John Gruber is puzzled after reading about Windows on ARM:
So maybe I was right that Windows on ARM would go Metro-only — it’s just that they’ve made an exception for a few built-in apps from Microsoft itself. Why include desktop versions of Explorer and IE, though? Why include two different versions of IE if even the desktop version doesn’t allow plugins?
I’ve heard the same question from several colleagues who know Windows well.
The answer is actually pretty simple, if you think about it.
Why Windows Explorer? Because the new Metro style environment doesn’t have a full-strength file manager. As Sinofsky’s post notes:
You can use Windows Explorer, for example, to connect to external storage devices, transfer and manage files from a network share, or use multiple displays, and do all of this with or without an attached keyboard and mouse—your choice. This is all familiar, fast, efficient, and useful.
That capability isn’t available in the Metro environment, as shipped in the Developer Preview, and there’s nothing to suggest that it’s coming in the Consumer Preview. You can search for files and folders from the Metro-style interface, but that environment really isn’t suitable for management tasks like moving and copying large numbers of files.
Windows Explorer is also the host for the full Control Panel. The Metro style Control Panel has a decent subset of options, but it’s not comprehensive. You need the desktop Control Panel to set up parental controls, for example, or to adjust settings for a printer or network adapter.
Why desktop Internet Explorer? This one is more baffling at first. On x86/x64 systems, the most obvious advantage of the desktop browser is that it will run plugins like Flash, whereas the Metro style browser won’t. On WOA, however, Microsoft says third-party plugins won’t be supported. So why include it at all?
Again, the answer boils down to some management tools that aren’t available in the Metro style browser. For example, the only way to adjust security settings or add a Tracking Protection list is using the desktop version of IE. The desktop is also where you’ll find the full set of Internet Options as well as tools for managing Favorites, history, cookies, and so on.
And, of course, if you want to hook up an ARM-based tablet to a keyboard, mouse, and full-screen monitor, you might prefer to view two web pages side by side—something you can only do with the desktop view of Internet Explorer.
The real surprise in this week’s announcement is that WOA-based devices will include four apps from the forthcoming release of Microsoft Office, which is scheduled to ship at the same time as Windows 8:
WOA includes desktop versions of the new Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. These new Office applications, codenamed “Office 15″, have been significantly architected for both touch and minimized power/resource consumption, while also being fully-featured for consumers and providing complete document compatibility.
These WOA-compatible Office apps are the only desktop apps that will be allowed on WOA-based devices—third-party developers won’t have any way to build desktop apps for this edition of Windows.
Update: Mr. Gruber graciously links to this post and responds: “But why not write a file manager using Metro? I still don’t get it.”
I could just as easily ask, “Why doesn’t the iPad have a file manager?” I mean, OS X has Finder, so why isn’t there an equivalent in iOS? Answer: Because file managers are complex beasties. Most of the operations you would want to perform require multiple windows so you can drag and drop stuff. They also require direct access to the full file system, which Metro apps don’t have, by design.
Building a Metro style Explorer equivalent would be a major undertaking, and it would require a huge amount of development and testing resources. It would be redundant in the x86 version of Windows 8, where the Windows desktop has full functionality. Why spend those resources when you have a perfectly good tool available for porting, one that users won’t need to be trained to use?
There are some file-management functions in Metro apps: pickers for photos, search tools, and the like. But the Metro environment, at least in this first iteration, does not lend itself to the richness Windows users expect from a file manager. That’s the same approach Microsoft has taken to Internet Explorer in Windows 8 and WOA. The Metro style browser is simple, fast, and good for the majority of common tasks. The desktop version is required for some tasks, and power users won’t need to be trained in its use.
Gruber’s question also misses the fact that Explorer is a host for other “intrinsic Windows features,” including the full Control Panel and the common dialog boxes that will be used by the Office 15 desktop apps included in WOA. You need Explorer to host those functions.
There is no reason that Microsoft can’t offer a Metro File Explorer in addition to the desktop one. They may or may not do so. We’ll find out soon enough. But, until we do, this blog post is based on speculation.
There will not be a Metro File Explorer in Windows 8. If Microsoft had plans for such a thing, they would have discussed it in the many, many posts they have written about file management and Explorer over the past five months:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/tags/explorer/
You may be right. You may be wrong.
But, for the last three to four years, Microsoft has not announced anything until it is fully developed and tested.
Mind you, I’m not predicting they will do this. I’m just saying that if they do, it will be consistent with their approach to announcing things only when they are completely ready and in the bag. (It would also, in my opinion, be one of the smartest things they could do to promote Metro in the long term!)
Ian, that is not true. Follow the links I posted. There are many, many examples of features Microsoft is showing that will be in the beta as a result of feedback from users.
They are not keeping secrets here. Honest.
Anyone want to take bets on Windows 9 dumping the ARM version? MS just seems to greedy to inhabit the portable market to me. I hope I’m wrong, but it appears Windows 8 may put a real kink in Microsoft’s market share. There’s just too many reasons they needed to leave Windows as a whole to move into tables/phones. Not re-invent it, which it really didn’t need. I’m not bashing Metro, not at all. But this mix of old and new is really starting to become way too confusing and out of focus.
Ed, I’m just trying to keep you honest here. Your conclusions may well be correct, but they just don’t follow from the publically known facts. (You may have access to the beta under NDA; I don’t.)
Your comment that “There are many, many examples of features Microsoft is showing that will be in the beta as a result of feedback from users” is quite true. But it doesn’t logically follow from that that there is no metro File Explorer!
I’m a stickler for logic.
I understand your point, Ian. But what you are missing is the way the Windows division now works under Sinofsky. They do not do surprises. Period. Full stop. End of case. Everything you see in the beta will be something they have already shown or discussed. The idea that a major foundational feature would be sprung as a surprise with no previous mention is a complete nonstarter. That’s not logic, that’s how this group works.
Ian, Sinofsky explicitly said to the press (not under NDA, I’ve written about it several times) at /build/ that there were some things they wouldn’t do in Metro, including Task Manager and Explorer. Also, you appear to be approaching the point of trying to prove a negative, which is rarely successful
John C. Dvorak described Windows 8 as “schizophrenic” because he felt that the option that he wanted was always in “the other Control Panel,” or “the other browser,” or “the other interface.” That seems to be a major theme.
I don’t see how Microsoft can sell an iPad that requires you to have Windows skills and generate the kind of demand that iPad generates. Consumers didn’t want Windows even when it was the only choice. Why would they want it now when it is the harder choice and the minority choice? (iPhone by itself generates more revenue than all of Microsoft, and iPad by itself generates the same revenue as Windows.) So Microsoft is telling the consumer to do more work with less apps on an unproven WOA platform while Apple is showering them with apps and services on the most popular high-end PC’s, most popular tablet PC’s, most popular phones, and most popular media players.
The consumer is so different now from even 5 years ago. The idea that they want Windows is crazy. The favorite feature of iPad is that it does not run Windows but it does all the Windows stuff, just much faster, easier, and more reliable. Among consumers, that is common knowledge now.
I don’t disagree with Ed’s conclusion, I just find the logic, on his and Microsoft’s part, circular and not informative.
We’ve added WOA because Metro is not full-featured. So why not make Metro full-featured? Metro is not designed to be full-featured; that is what WOA is for. What is WOA for? To add the features missing from Metro. Why are they missing from Metro? Because Metro will not have those features which is why we are adding WOA… Rinse, Lather, Repeat….
I think the two versions is epic. This is Microsoft’s way of evolving in two directions at once. They will build the x86 version and the ARM version. Which is, with more or less tabletization. My bet is the tabletized one will win out. I’m thinking that Microsoft is dragging the old franchise to a place where it’s too big and clunky to be of use when you’ve got no choice: hold down battery use, and work fast every time.
Tim – I don’t think Metro could have incorporated the entire breadth of functionality necessary to counter a completely absent desktop in any modest timeframe. You go long on Metro features to remediate the death of Explorer, Control Panel, cmd.exe (the list goes on), and the timeframe to produce Metro could have stretched on years further (an evolution you can likely expect to see occur in the coming years, should Metro/WinRT/WOA take hold in the market. Additionally, it’s likely not feasible that Office could have been completely rearchitected in Metro on ARM in a reasonable timeframe.
By scaling back both Metro expectations and what the Windows desktop delivers on WOA, Microsoft is able to meet in the middle, AND have Office applications there as expected by enterprise users. If the bold stroke to constrain the desktop in WOA is any indicator, you could possibly expect a version of Windows at some point in the future that surfaces little or no desktop.
It seems like they might as well have split the two operating systems into Windows Classic/Desktop/whatever and Windows Tablet. While I am sure there are folks who wish the iPad had an OSX-mode for complex operations, there are far more who appreciate that the iPad does not need those complex operations. And there are plenty of desktop folks who would love to disable all “touch-friendly” features.
WOA is so different from Windows 8 that they really can’t be considered the same product. The “Windows advantage” Microsoft enjoys on the desktop (compatibility with all our old favorite programs and the perception that most future programs will have a Windows version) will not exist on WOA.
Plus, isn’t Microsoft setting themselves up for easy jabs with the whole WOA => DOA thing?
I don’t really think iOS lacks a file manager because it is a “complex beastie” and therefore wasn’t worth Apple’s efforts. Your look at the problem is reversed. It isn’t “Apple didn’t build a file manager because it was complex”, but rather that they said, “What would a system without a file manager look like?” Saying that the problem is “complex” as the reason not to do it is kind of a strange reason. Tim F. has already summed up my own problem with this logic very neatly.
“You need the desktop Control Panel to set up parental controls, for example, or to adjust settings for a printer or network adapter.”
I’m sure my mother will understand that just fine.
I’m sure she won’t call me, confused, asking how to set it up. You know, like she does now with her iPad.
Oh … hang on. No, sorry, I’m getting those products confused. Carry on.
Tim F., I think you are mistaking WOA (Windows On Arm) with desktop based apps. WOA was NOT added because Metro was not full featured. WOA was added because MSFT needed low power tablets that ran a variant of Windows, and that variant is Metro. Metro runs on both WOA and x86. It is a Subset of desktop Apps, and ONLY from Microsoft, that run on WOA that distinguishes itself from Windows 8 on x86 where ALL desktop apps run.
The real and obvious answer is that its a hack. They’re shipping a demo. They don’t have a tablet OS ready so we’re getting this bizarre hybrid instead. They’re not ready to commit to Metro. Windows 8 tablets are going to be a mash-up of two different styles. Eventually they’ll start telling us we need to wait for Windows 9 to get the real tablet experience. This is typical Microsoft behaviour. What’s absolutely bizarre is that the media is accepting it uncritically.
The Apple comparison show the difference in style: Apple don’t put half-finished (in purpose!) apps and don’t mix new/old at the same time.
If in metro IE is not full featured, and the regular one is, then use only the regular one. Or the metro one, and add with time the rest. But the need to handle *both* lead to the confusing aspect that have plagued windows forever in the mindset of people.
Is Windows in ARM is new enough to not be compared with old windows, people can accept the transition. But is madness the necessity to use the same program twice in different context to archive the full requirements of people. If something is not present in a program, is not present. People complain is not there, but is cristal clear what to do: wait,
But if is half-present??????
And why need to be the file manager on metro equally complex to the desktop version???? Why, in fact, people WANT THE SAME COMPLEXITY than in regular desktops???? Why chose a new thing that try to be as complex as the old thing????
Regarding your follow-up asking why the iPad doesn’t have a Finder — applications and their data files on iOS are normally sandboxed, and writing outside a particular application sandbox container is forbidden, so a Finder on iOS wouldn’t really be a very useful tool in most scenarios.
That said, yes, writing file managers is indeed a complex task.
I could just as easily ask, “Why doesn’t the iPad have a file manager?” I mean, OS X has Finder, so why isn’t there an equivalent in iOS? Answer: Because file managers are complex beasties.
That’s not the reason iOS lacks a file manager. iOS lacks a file manager because of a philosophy that a “post-pc” era, users shouldn’t have to worry about where their files are. They believe that file management is a maintenance task that burdens the user and should be eliminated.
Whether you agree with that philosophy or not, Apple’s action (or lack thereof) regarding a file manager for iOS is consistent with that philosophy. In the early days of the jailbreak community there were plenty of “Mobile Finder” type applications. If persistent developers working with an undocumented API can make a file manager for iOS, I am certain Apple could have made one if they wanted. Not having a file manager was a deliberate choice.
So the question stands, why doesn’t Metro have its own file management utility? If you believe its for the same reason that the iPad doesn’t have one, then it shouldn’t have on in WOA either.
Its because Windows 8 will be a 1.0 version of their Windows / Metro hybrid, and maybe in Windows 9, you will have a file manager and full control panel in Metro, AND a full control panel. Probably by then there will be a full Metro version of Office as well, and they will be able to stand toe-to-toe with Apple. Windows 8 is a stop gap, just in case “this post-pc thing” actually happens.