Anyone who's ever had to prepare for a reinstall of their Windows OS -- be it to prepare for an upgrade, or to try to solve technical issues -- is familiar with the pain of slow copies, dealing with at times confusing name collisions, and multiple cluttering Windows.
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is very aware of these issues (in recent years it's increasingly collected remote telemetry data from volunteers to determine what's going wrong and right in Windows). And in Windows 8, its plan a dramatically improved file transfer experience.
In a post to the Microsoft Developer Network "Building Windows" blog and a corresponding video, Windows engineering team manager Alex Simons shows off the new features.
When execute multiple simultaneous copies, gone are the multiple windows of yore. You now get a single comprehensive panel. Each transfer element offers the option of cancelling or pausing the transfer. For example, if you want to speed up a specific transfer, you can pause your other transfers so the system resources will focus on the targeted transaction.
The GUI element also has an option that provides detailed information on each transaction, including an eye-catching chart of the transfer speed. The features in the new pane closely resemble those you find in modern browsers for tracking downloads -- and that's a good thing.
Rounding out the improvements is a new option for handling conflicts. In addition to the replace all and skip all categories found in Windows 7, there's now an option "Choose the files to keep in the destination folder". This allows for users to select the copy they most want. This allows you to selectively replace only some files in the destination folder. You can even double click to open files for further examination.
Microsoft says the new tools will be a valuable addition to Windows 8 as 20 percent of file transfers in previous versions of Windows take longer than 2 minutes to complete. Further, about 1 in 18 jobs fail, either due to a network interruption or by user cancellation.
The company also acknowledges that it's estimates of the remaining time to copy haven't been the best in the past, and that it's been the bunt of some jokes in that regard. Mr. Simons writes, "We’re anticipating that many of you are going to want to know what we’ve done to improve the accuracy of the estimated time remaining for a copy to complete. (This has been the source of some pretty funny jokes over the years)."
Microsoft says that while approximate 1 out of 200 Windows users use a dedicated copying client -- like TeraCopy, FastCopy, and Copy Handler -- whose abilities may surpass the new additions, that for most this will be the first relief from the previous hassle-prone copying.
The team is also working to reduce dialogues labeled by users as "redundant" or "annoying", such as the confirmation of dropping stuff in the recycling bin, or the confirmation of merging folders.
Windows 8 is set to release in late 2012 and has been called "revolutionary" by some Microsoft team members and the company's "riskiest" product by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The OS will be Microsoft's first operating system to support ARM processors, the first OS to incorporate the stylish metro look, and the first Microsoft OS streamlined for a better tablet experience.
If for some reason you feel that some of these new features sound horrible, don't worry. We've heard that Microsoft should be conducting a public beta testing/feedback phase for Windows 8 early next year, following in the footsteps of the tremendously successful Windows 7 beta.
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