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Hey guys as you may have already heard Windows Blue Build 9364 has been leaked. Many new features have been revealed including

Start screen

  • Many more accent and screen colours available (even black now)
  • Mini tiles
  • New rearranging tiles interface
  • Multiple selection commands like larger, live tile off etc

Metro apps

  • More inbuilt apps including:
    • Clock app- Timer, Countdown and Alarm
    • Sound recorder
    • What seems to be some sort of movie editing/sharing app
    • Calculator

    [*]New split options, the main one being able to do 50/50 screen split with metro apps

Charms

  • Charms now include options to "project, print and play" in the devices charm whilst at the start menu
  • Ability to go into charms at start menu then click an app to see that apps charm in respective category (devices etc)
  • Screenshot from charms menu

Windows Store

  • Not much here but we can tell there is an updated version which probably indicates UI, performance and feature updates

IE

  • IE has been updated to IE11
  • Modern IE now has more options like:
    • Updating saved passwords
    • Downloads viewer

PC Settings

  • MANY of the control panel items have been migrated to PC Settings

SkyDrive

  • Deep OS level SkyDrive support seen in PC settings

General OS enhancements

  • Looks like the overall memory foot print has gone down

There is much much more but I haven't been able to explore. Stay tuned for more info and torrent magnets!

Incoming screenshots posted by a Polish guy from a forum:

Here are some screenshots:

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WOW! Didn't notice you could get a monster tile for desktop!!! More screenshots tomorrow!! I'm going to bed! Stay tuned! Also! All core apps seem to be ready for an update but the store is blocked, will see if I can get in...

I wasn't expecting the extra large tile but that's cool specially if they add the ability to have controls inside the tile itself which makes it even more like a widget as well.

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I wasn't expecting the extra large tile but that's cool specially if they add the ability to have controls inside the tile itself which makes it even more like a widget as well.

Yeah the extra large tile is great for desktop especially! Who knows what will happen in terms of tile functionality, we will likely be seeing a new SDK with more APIs!

Can you test IE11 more like HTML5 and CSS3 support and some more functionality.. Really looking forward to it after Microsoft managed to pull off IE10 so well.

I sure can man, I'll check and see if they added any more support for all HTML5 standards soon!

It's a step in the right direction, but there's nothing substantial enough to win over the critics.

I really wish Microsoft would do more to improve the attractiveness of the Start Screen and other Metro elements (user logon, Ctrl-Alt-Del, etc), as currently they're quite unappealing. The desktop wallpaper provides a great way for people to customise and define their computer yet that level of personalisation doesn't carry on over to Metro. Obviously there are usability concerns?as backgrounds could easily be very distracting?but there is a real dearth of customisation options and the minor tweaks here don't bring much to the table. It would also be nice to see Microsoft release new backgrounds and styles through Windows Update, as that's an easy way to keep people excited and keep the experience fresh. As it stands most of the included themes?like the green one pictured?are rather ugly.

So while there's no reason to complain about new features and functionality being added in what is going to be a free update, based upon what we currently know it seems like a missed opportunity.

Thanks for all the pics and post ingram, really tempted to slap this on my Win8 tablet, lot of nice improvements there. Some obvious, some overdue but eh, nice to see them in there at last. Side by Side metro apps, an obvious and overdue one but im really looking forward to that!

  • Like 2

I'm quite sure it's a really early build and pretty incomplete, but I share the same worries, it's simply not enough. Loving the advanced settings and expanded personalization, but it was clear that was coming. Then again they could issue big updates to all the core apps (and include new default apps) any day now and drastically improve the whole experience even on existing Windows 8 PCs.

Really hope they have an updated Store UI ready, improved App Switcher, improved APIs and more UI controls for developers (some special cool UI stuff is really a lot of work for a hobbyist app developer).

Also, I can't help wondering that the Metro side of Windows Phone 8 looks way better, but at the same time I can't point out what's wrong with Metro on Windows 8 either. Some things just look... off.

  • Like 2

Is this Next Windows or for surface or or ?

AFAIK, Blue is a Service Pack-like thing that's meant for not just Windows 8 Client, but also Server, Phone and I think several others. vNext is Windows 9, but there's no real info on that as of yet.

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