Entertainment Club IMS07

Microsoft Windows 8 professional RTM X86 English + key

Windows 8 is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablets, and home theater PCs.

Development of this operating system started before the release of its predecessor in 2009. Its existence was first announced in January 2011 at Consumer Electronics Show. During its development and test phases, Microsoft released three pre-release versions: Developer Preview (September 13, 2011), Consumer Preview (February 29, 2012), and Release Preview (May 31, 2012). On August 1, 2012, Windows 8 graduated from the development stage and was released to manufacturing. Windows 8 is slated for general availability on October 26, 2012.

Windows 8 introduces significant changes to the operating system's graphical user interface and platform; such as a new interface design incorporating a new design language used by other Microsoft products, a new Start screen to replace the Start menu used by previous versions of Windows, a new online store that can be used to obtain new applications, along with a new platform for apps that can provide what developers described as a "fast and fluid" experience with emphasis on touchscreen input. Additional security features were also added to the operating system, such as a built-in antivirus program and a secure boot feature on systems with UEFI firmware. Secure boot requires the operating system to be digitally signed to protect malware from infecting the boot process. The implementation of this feature has sparked controversy among supporters of free software. Windows 8 also introduces an edition of the operating system designed to run on devices that utilize the ARM architecture, known as Windows RT.

RAM

Microsoft says: 1GB (32-bit) or 2GB (64-bit)

Microsoft's Windows 7 RAM requirements are too low, and they continue to be too low in Windows 8. You should be using at least double the recommended amount to ensure headroom for additional programs and background services; Windows will run in the officially recommended amount of RAM, but open more than a few programs and your computer will quickly be hobbled. Memory is dirt cheap these days—treat yourself.

Hard drive

Microsoft says: 16GB (32-bit) or 20GB (64-bit)

The exact capacity of the drive you use for Windows will depend entirely on what you need to store on it, so I'll refrain from making specific recommendations about it.

I do recommend using a solid-state drive to boot Windows 8, but that recommendation stands for basically any computer running any operating system ever. Windows 8 still runs fine on the spinning hard drives still shipped in most desktops and laptops, but Windows 8's tablet-esque feel and search-heavy usage model will be much better served by solid state storage—good, reliable drives from the likes of Crucial, Samsung, and Intel can be had for prices nearing about $1 per gigabyte these days, which is pretty tempting given spinning hard drives' reluctance to drop back down to pre-flood prices.

Windows 8 and Netbooks

When Windows 7 was in its public preview phase, the netbook movement was still in full swing, and Microsoft proudly proclaimed that the new OS would run much better on netbooks than Windows Vista did.

Windows 8 still runs on netbooks, but the tiny laptops’ limitations can severely impact its functionality. The Atom processor itself, especially in its dual-core variations, can run Windows 8 well enough, but the graphics processors with which Atom is so often paired— Intel's GMA 950, 3150, and 500 integrated graphics processors, for the most part—all fall well under the minimum GPU requirements we talked about above.

Even more problematic however, is the 1024x600 screen resolution used by the majority of netbooks, which is too small to run any Metro apps (the minimum is 1024x768, or 1366x768 to use Metro’s Snap feature). This by itself limits Windows 8’s usefulness on netbooks.

CPU

Microsoft says: 1 GHz or faster

Microsoft still uses clock speed to tell you what kind of processor to use with Windows, but we already know that clock speed is essentially irrelevant for comparing processors of different architectures. There are hoary old Pentium IIIs from around the turn of the millennium that run at 1GHz, but you’ll bring yourself nothing but sadness if you try using them to run a modern operating system.

For a satisfactory experience, you'll want to be using at least a dual-core processor, preferably one of Intel's Core 2 Duos, AMD's Athlon X2s, or anything newer—these processors both became common in mainstream PCs in 2006 and 2007.