Product: Windows 8 Company: Microsoft Website: http://www.microsoft.com MSRP: See Pricing Review By: Andre Da Costa with Byron Hinson, Robert Stein contributing

USB 3.0 SUPPORT

Microsoft has indicated built in support for USB 3.0 through class drivers. Unfortunately, my attempts to get this working out of the box in Windows 8 were unsuccessful. I had the same issue with Windows 7 64 bit and I ended up having to find the driver on HP’s website. I am not sure if this is an issue relating to the USB adapter being a generic third party add on and not something built into the architecture (IVY Bridge). I connected a USB 3.0 super speed supported IOMEGA external hard disk, Windows 8 detects the device, but nothing shows up in Computer Explorer. I went ahead and installed the NEC USB 3 driver, but still encountered issues with the drive not being detected. So that’s about it for USB 3.0 support in Windows 8 for me.

Security

Windows 8 includes some advanced security features that will help in the fight against current and future attacks that are becoming more sophisticated. Windows 8 includes support for a feature called Secure Boot; this is a new architecture requiring new hardware. What it does is capture a signature of the operating system so if a malicious piece of code tries to infiltrate the system at boot time, Windows will check against the signature the last time it booted up, if they don't match up, the bad code is stopped from executing and system rolls back to a known state where there exist no modifications. This will require that systems support the next generation firmware standard called Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) which will be a requirement for getting systems certified for the Windows 8 Logo Program. If you are planning to buy a PC, this is something you should think about before making your next PC purchase over the next few months. Windows 8 will continue to support legacy BIOS which has been around since the 80’s. One issue that has come up about Secure Boot is support for older versions of Windows and alternative operating systems such as Linux. The status is, if you turn off Secure Boot in the firmware interface, yes, you will be able dual boot with older versions of Windows and other types of operating systems. Personally, I think this is a non-issue since the persons it affects are technically advanced and want to run multiple operating systems. Some Linux developers such as Cononical (Ubuntu) and Fedora are developing workarounds such as obtaining a certificate from Microsoft that will allow them to load their respective operating systems.

Windows 8 includes an enhanced new version of Windows Defender which looks like it’s a rebadged copy of its popular Antivirus utility Security Essentials. Windows Defender uses the MSE engine and provides built in Antivirus support (finally).

 Windows 8 also include Smart Screen Filter which scans your applications and downloads for malicious code ensuring the integrity of your files.

 

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