Windows 8 May Feature Cloud Backup

Speaking as a professional software developer myself, there's no way this could be targeted for Windows 8 in the timeframes Microsoft wants for releasing successive OS versions. Windows 9 is the likelier target I expect.

Yeah cloud backup OS integration is a brilliant idea...just like Bitlocker, Movie Maker, WebHost, Outlook Express, and a whole host of other crap they bloat the OS with that takes 2 hours to clear off and turn off after a "fresh" install.

Here's a smarter idea than relying on hyper-slow online backup uploading....pop in a $30 32 GB flash drive or a $60 1 TB external hdd and have everything you want backed up locally in minutes. Congratulations MS, I just saved you the cost of someone's salary that would have been spent developing something completely useless.

What if Microsoft looses sensitive info...?

WHAT if I BSOD? GOSH!

Facebook knows who you are, Google knows what you want and Microsoft will soon know what you already have.

Resistance is futile.

I like a blue sky FREE of MS clouds....

Cool miscrosoft has access to everything I have and my settings soooo cool

Interesting reference. This distributed networking "thing" looks great in paper. When something unplanned happens, then what? Who is held responsible.

In the words of Locutus of Borg from the "Best of both Worlds: Part 2"...

"... sleep, ....Data...."

Windows 7 almost NEVER BSOD's. Personally, I've only had it BSOD ONCE, and that was coming from a application that WARNED ME it would BSOD Windows 7, and that there was an update I should install after my next log-on and reboot.

Why spend any extra money when I can tell W8, if cloud backup is included, what files I want to back up and those files would be available anywhere I get an internet connection? Just looking at your ID says it all.

I won't use the function. =/

Sounds very exciting. My only concern is how much the engineers had to re-engineer the Windows platform for this to function with any decency. Windows wasn't made for this, after all.

Then there's the ISP connection speed/transfer caps to take into account. Users in Japan/Korea/etc. have 1Gbps fiber-optic internet nearly standard; many users in Australia still live on 1.5Mbps.

I'm sure they will exploit the cloud computing.

Well, I was really going to voice my opinions on the matter but iamtheking123 and randomizer pretty much hit the nail on the head for me. +1 to you both.

For businesses it's very good, specially for the small companies. This way they have a backup stored in a safe location. I had a client that stored all the backups of their server on an external disk right beside the servers. One they they had a fire and lost every data on the server and backups. If they used online backups at least their data would have been safeguarded. A backups in a cloud will always be in a much safer place than in an external HDD.

Also nowadays Windows 7 only come with bitlocker (if it's the ultimate or enterprise version). All other programs you mentioned are not included in Windows 7. Unless you install them. Also having other programs installed besides the OS is a very common practice for OS developers.

All i have to say is simply .. LOOKOUT PIRACY AND CP! You're going DOWN and hard!

Well I have to agree with the iamtheking123. It would make much more sence to force user select the back up source (or ignore it willingly) when installing os, than making one method automatic (even when it is not sensible: you don't trust the source, you have very slow connections etc...)

On a second thought.. About EFFING TIME! Just maybe.. by controlling the thieves the world will just become"Sail the ship,
Boom, bam, boom
Chop the tree
Boom, bam, boom
Skip the rope,
Boom, bam, boom
Look at me

Well, I´m not joinnig this trend for cloud, I like privacy and staying offline.

1 question (this is the case of begginers):
if "a possible scenario could require customers to set up a Live account (or use an existing one), purchase an access key (or register if Windows 8 came pre-installed on a new PC), and download the OS when needed later, similar to purchasing games from Steam. There would be no need for discs or permanently storing installation files on the HDD." What if I don´t have an SO installed, how will I download the OS when needed if I have no SO to start from.

Oopps forgot to remove the "(or register if Windows 8 came pre-installed on a new PC),"

Alot of this is very perspective, nearly everything is, but there is gotta be a place where the perspective is narrow and dim and within purpose of the product in question. Cause after that, everything gets bigger, and what interests are involved with what kind of size of issues should post accordingly, as done so far. Everyone problem has a fire issue to some point rather to worry about it or already had the problem. In terms of lose in a fire where is going to be the biggest lose and which probably first? Outside lets say basic worries of expanding software and further use of OS applications and purpose, How will anyone one person of use of cloud software benefit? Its a hard question to answer without seeing a bigger picture of use and only allowing a perspective of greater gravity to hold its weight when in all things if 8 comes out "cloud" services or software will be included. Again even with cloud computing still addresses many basics issues with some application no matter what rather cloud computing is now a standard within releases and applied for intended purposes of use of feature highlight. They sell at a pitch point but you cant use a point of the pitch on your own regards. Also in terms of OS intergration of software, how much of an increase of OS prices should this aquire? Or will the Os maintain is standard say release prices as had been over the last for yrs? Is probably the one thing in computing offhand people might not complain about in terms of prices and OS. So how think alot of people have gotten their moneies worth in Windows and more. So there isnt much room to complain, until you actually get to using something you had bought it for. It seems more of an addition to wireless without the wireless really, and in terms of wireless there isnt much room to work with in there, so why would cloud services be any different?

Hard, yes...down...well, that'll happen in prison. LOL

I think they should be worry on make a much faster and secure and a better interface instead of put a lot of stuff, at least i hope they replace the crappy NTFS file system with a really fast FS like EXT4

A fresh install of WIn7 is fantastic if you ask me. Plus, maybe get Pro instead of Ultimate as I'm sure that you're aware of Bitlocker only being in Ultimate/Ent versions. Moviemaker and Outlook (Mail) are no longer included in windows.

Maybe you haven't used Windows 7 and are forming your opinions on Windows XP or what you've 'heard'. Shame.

P.s. OEMS are the one's that fill Windows with bloat, not MS.

Windows 8 will be a poor OS anyways, wait for Windows 9, where all the touted features of windows 8 actually work.
Don't buy Windows 8 (millenium edition).
MS is really behind the times, we should have PC's that talk to us like the Star Trek ship's computer by now.

How do you know? MS won't make the same mistake again




Have you used the speech facilities within Win7?

Well the MS has made the same mistake many times, but in reality it is hard to know untill the win8 is out :-)
It allmost like Moores law - Good os, bad os, good os, bad os...
But ofcourse the reality is not so simple... Bad driver support from hardware manufactures etc... Big change is allways hard.

If one of the goals is to reduce piracy then that mean your data wont be secure as they will have access to what is being backed up.

Most companies that focus on the "cloud" generally do it to have more control in order to get more money. If you can make your product cloud reliant then when you make a new product, you can force customers to upgrade by simply dropping or degrading the cloud for the old product.

And if they cant access the backup data, they may be planning on creating a authentication system kinda like the DRM with many PC games where if you don't sign online within a certain period, your game expires and you cant play it until you go on line even if it is a single player game.

Also most cloud based things are not reliable.

Hey pay us a monthly fee and we will keep your data safe on our servers but don't you dare miss a payment or we will lose your data.

Which is more likely to happen, you to miss a due date for a payment for a service, or your house burning down, while you are not home thus you cant grab your 1 or 2 TB drive and run out the house with it.

For the cost of cloud storage, you can buy a new 1-2TB hard drive 1-5 times a year

Microsoft cant give a large amount of cloud storage for windows 8 users for free for as long as you use the OS.

Cloud is unreliable. The only time that is is ever more reliable than local storage is if a disaster happens that causes your local to be wiped off the map. If you fail to pay the cloud, your data is lost, with local storage, you buy once and have a set amount of storage that you can use as much as you want for the next 100+ years depending on how much wear and tear you put on the drive.

ME and Vista - That makes 2 so far.

The biggest problem with ME was that Microsoft deprecated VXD support for hardware made by crappy companies that didn't want to make WDM drivers for consumer hardware, which use more 32-bit instructions over VXD's which include codeing practices that date back to Windows 3. Hardware manufacturers pushed back, but thankfully, Microsoft pushed back again even harder with XP. Hardware compatibility was equally brutal with XP when it first came out, but many good hardware manufacturers already saw the cards and were actively developing WDM's for Windows 2000 for their business hardware, so developing WDM drivers for consumer hardware used the same skills, and since XP was unifying the consumer and business codebase, it made it easier for hardware manufacturers to move forward.

Since you didn't include Windows 7 in your list, I would bet that you feel that it is a "good" version. The thing is, if Windows Vista wasn't made, you'd be complaining about 7. Windows 7 isn't anything more than Vista-refined. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Windows Vista, and what WAS wrong was hardware manufacturers and software developers that got complacent with XP and didn't update. After a year or so of having Windows Vista on the market, most developers had already cleaned up their act and resolved issues, and Vista today is just fine. Performance on Windows 7 isn't incredibly faster than Vista, as benchmarks will show, but it has had a few optimizations. Tweaks to the UI were made. Nothing dramatically different, but still different nonetheless. UAC is tuned down by default, which I, and anyone else in security and IT, think is a mistake. Both OS X and Linux are more "annoying" in that they ask for passwords for privilege escalation, even if the logged in user is an admin, whereas Windows doesn't, even at the highest UAC setting. However, *nix allows software to be installed in the user context without admin rights, whereas Microsoft doesn't consider this an acceptable practice due to security issues that can affect the user account, which is a common tactic of recent malware even if it doesn't affect the overall system context, such as viruses that insert themselves in the users Application Data folder and load at login (disclosure: Microsoft doesn't outright block software that only installs in the user context).

I equate Windows 7 to Windows 98. People thought both were "major" revisions, but in reality, they aren't really that different from their predecessors codebase. The biggest problem with bringing out new codebases, like how ME tried to improve the consumer base by using a driver format that was introduced by Windows 2000 (and drivers were and still are one of, if not the most common cause of system stability issues), and how Vista was to have a new security and vastly improved deployment model (you have to admit that the max 15-minute install time for Vista had to be a pleasant surprise over installing XP), remains to be the potential lack of readiness of the partner ecosystem.

If Windows 8 tries to do too much over 7, we may see another release that isn't widely accepted. I do like the idea of a client-side hypervisor to take care of legacy compatibility though (rumored new feature). That means no more virtualized OS environments ala Virtual PC just to run that old Win 95 program that you can't give up. We'll see though.

Many companies do this, beta testing is not profitable, but releasing a product, then have paying customers buy it and complain about the problems then fix the problems in the second generation is a profitable way to beta test. many companies do this.

For example, look at the multitude of new media set top boxes that have come out for a high cost then have a constant stream of complaints and patches, it is basically paying to beta test, while traditionally companies would pay you to beta test their products.

ME was the only mistake. The Vista mistake arrived from oems sgipping machines with only 512mb memory and the complaints. Of course, MS got shot, hence, you'll be hard pressed to find many machines shipping with under 1Gb memory these days.

P.s. Vista was far more secure than XP and had it's many strengths as well as faults.