Windows 8 Plans Leaked: Numerous Details Revealed

A big thanks to @floo1989 for the heads-up! Over the weekend, the Italian Windows site “Windowsette” got a hold of some super secret squirrel Microsoft presentations apparently laying around on the internet somewhere. I took a look through every single one of these, slide-by-slide, so I’m quite confident these are the real deal. I just feel bad for the poor sap who either leaked these or inadvertently shared these with the world. Long story short, these slide decks are chock full of internal thinking on Windows 8 — everything from customer target audiences to the Windows 8 developer market to the Windows 8 product cycle and much, much more. As a preface, I’ve taken many screen shots of relevant slides for inclusion with this article, so click on them to see their full-sized versions. I’ll elaborate on some and allow the others to explain themselves. Lastly, I’ll be updating this post as I find more contained within the slide decks. Now, without further adieu, let’s get started!

Microsoft Looks to Apple

Included in these presentations is a rather telling (but obvious) slide which shows that Microsoft is clearly paying attention to Apple while planning Windows 8. Titled, “How Apple does it: A virtuous cycle,” Microsoft has broken down Apple’s UX/Brand Loyalty cycle and cited its value. Though it’s fairly obvious, the takeaway here is that Microsoft is aiming to give Windows the very same “it just works” status that Apple’s products are known for:

Windows 8 Prototype Machine

Speaking of Apple, I think the following prototype looks like some rejected Mac prototype (i.e. I don’t like it very much — at least from this angle). The wallpaper is the old Windows 7 beta wallpaper (as you can see by the beta fish in the center of it) and there is clearly some build information on the bottom right-hand corner of the desktop. This may well be something left over from Windows 7 planning, but being included in Windows 8 planning documentation, I figured it was worth tossing in. Here’s the machine and below it, its specifications:

Windows 8 Product Cycle

The following slide isn’t too telling in and of itself, but it serves to show how Microsoft has chosen to divide its Windows 8 product cycle into 3 main phases:

• Planning (from Framing to Vision): Big picture thinking, themes then scenarios, and feature identification list.
• Development (from Vision to Beta): Design and build features, refine SKUs (shelf-keeping units) and value propositions, and begin sharing code.
• Readiness (from Beta to GA+90): Feature complete and bug-fixing, establish and track readiness metrics, and focus on creating great Dell + Windows experiences.

Of note, these slides were apparently leaked or inadvertently released after being given to one Derek Goode at HP. Likewise, many of the discussions throughout the slides address HP, so the 3rd phase above making reference to Dell interests me. Anyway, here is the slide of note:

Windows 8: Identity Evolved

There appears to be considerable planning taking place as to how a user will access Windows. Right off the bat, one of my favorites is the following prototype which shows a user logging in via facial recognition! Basically, you enroll your face, then all you should have to do from that point forward is sit down, have your webcam get a look at you and then log you in based on facial recognition:

The following slide details other considerations for Windows 8 where identity is concerned. Namely, user accounts will still be the primary method of accessing Windows for individuals, fast user switching is a continued focus, and most notably, Windows accounts could be connected to the cloud which would allow for roaming settings/preferences between PCs and devices and PCs to log on to websites on the user’s behalf — all marking an evolution of Windows identity from being machine-centric to user-centric.

Trends Shaping the Planning of Windows 8

Shaping the planning of Windows 8 are explosion of form factors (laptops, netbooks, slates, etc.), assumed connectivity (focus on software + services for end-user scenarios), collision of enterprise and personal worlds (aiming to help customers have a seamless experience across their personal and professional lies), personal content experience, and more. The following slide elaborates:

Windows 8 Consumer Target Audiences

As we see detailed in the slide below, enthusiasts and mainstream consumers are the two main consumer target audiences for Windows 8:

Windows 8 Default Business Assumptions

Windows 8 Developer Market

No surprise here that Microsoft’s addressable developer market for Windows 8 spans from hobbyist/non-professional developers to professional developers to science, technology, engineering, and math developers:

Windows 8 Differentiation Goals

As for form factors, Microsoft’s 3 main focuses for Windows 8 appear to be Slate, Laptop, and All-in-One (all detailed in slides below). Additionally, customization areas include Applications, Devices, Multimedia, Help and Support, and UI and Theming (all also detailed in slides below). One of the key takeaways here is Microsoft detailing “Slate” as a major form factor focus. This means the Windows-based Slate devices are still likely to make an appearance at some point:

Windows 8: Energy Efficiency Areas of Focus

All of the following slides are highly-detailed and quite self-explanatory, but my favorite takeaway is a newly-planned feature that combines Logoff + Hibernate to result in a new off state. It will apparently give the look and feel of boot/shutdown but will be much faster. This feature is detailed in the next set of slides, titled “Windows 8: Fast Startup:”

Windows 8: Fast Startup

These slides give great detail on the Logoff + Hibernate feature mentioned above. There isn’t a name for the feature yet as it will be exposed to the user:

Windows 8 Help and Support

Help and Support was going to be a major focus in Windows 7, but it was dropped. Now, it looks like that focus is back for Windows 8 and the aim is to help users “know with confidence how to respond and what actions to take” when an issue arises.

Windows 8 Push Button Reset

This is an interesting one. Microsoft appears to be planning functionality for a reset button that will essentially reinstall Windows while maintaining all of your personal files, applications, settings, etc. without the need for the user to back all of that stuff up. A scenario is presented in one of these slides to demonstrate how it would work.

1 – Jon notices that his Windows 8 PC is starting to perform poorly and he can’t figure out what to do. He presses the reset button and chooses to reset his Windows 8 PC.

2 – Wanting a fresh start, he chooses to reset his PC knowing that all his stuff is safe.

3 – Windows 8 automatically retains files and personalization settings, and migrates the user accounts.

4 – Windows is restored to the factor image and restarts.

5 – After restarting, Jon can launch the App Store to reinstall applications he purchased there and see a list of other applications that he had installed outside of the App Store.

Internet Explorer 9

There’s an entire slide deck dedicated to Internet Explorer 9 discussion. There isn’t much contained within that we don’t already know, but there is an announcement for the beta to take place in August 2010:

Windows 8 Introduces “Windows Store,” Microsoft’s App Store for Windows

Though Microsoft has already attempted some semblance of this with Windows Marketplace, Windows 8 will introduce “Windows Store.” Yes, it will be an application store which will allow you to purchase applications for Windows (and perhaps Microsoft mobile devices as well, such as Windows Phone, Zune HD, etc.). Microsoft has a solid foundation on this and as the slides below note, they’re anxious to bring this to fruition A.S.A.P. Detailed below are the customer experience, developer experience, and channel experience (for partners). For customers, it looks like Microsoft is interested in integrating Windows Store results into Bing’s Web and Local SERPs as well as Windows Search. For developers, there appears to be a great panel for tracking just about every metric you could want to track as a developer.

In conclusion, Microsoft defines Windows Store’s success for consumers as, “getting applications they want, that they can feel confident in, that they can use on any Windows 8 device.” Have a look as there is much more information in these slides that I did not elaborate on. Oh, and be sure to keep your eyes onhttp://www.windowsstore.com/ as it is mentioned in one of the slides below and is indeed currently registered (as are the .net and .org URLs).

I will continue updating this post with elaborations, clarifications, and screen shots as I continue digging through all the information, so stay tuned!

uTorrent for Mac Graduates from Beta with a Stable 1.0 Release

Mac only: We've been following uTorrent's path to a Mac release pretty closely recently, and today they released the first stable Mac version of the popular BitTorrent client.

The now-stable, native Mac version of the beloved Windows client sports a Mac-like UI, designed for downloading many torrents at once, while also being pretty light on system resources. It doesn't look like there are a huge amount of changes between the last few builds and this one, though a few pretty annoying bugs have been fixed, and anyone holding out for a stable version of the client should now be pretty pleased with how it handles. We haven't done any formal tests yet to compare it to now-Mac-favorite Transmission, but if you're a heavy torrenter and try out the new build, let us know how it works for you in the comments.

uTorrent is a free download for Mac only. Note that while the site still says it's beta, uTorrent has announced it as the stable build on their blog (and the build numbers match). It seems like they just haven't updated the images on their web site.

uTorrent for Mac  [via Download Squad ]

How to hack almost any hotmail, easily without keylogging, in 24 hours.

This method is called Reverting, and you will be sending a form in to microsoft customer support to reset the password for your (or somebody elses) hotmail account.

NOTE: If you are interested in protecting yourself against this hacking method, please refer to this thread.

For this method, it helps to know the person, even a little, but i'll still give you a step-by-step tut on how to find the information and fill out each part of the form.

NOTE: THIS TUTORIAL IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IN ANY WAY FOR HOW THIS INFORMATION IS USED, YOU USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. YOU MAY LEARN ALSO HOW TO GET YOUR OWN ACCOUNT BACK FROM THIS.

Step 1: go here:

https://support.live.com/eform.aspx?prod...mcs&scrx=1

Step 2: Give them your victims full name.

Now, if you do not know their first name, try the following things to find it.

First, try using these two sites, simply enter their email and hit return.

http://www.pipl.com/email
http://com.lullar.com

if you want more, google their hotmail account(s), for example, type into google:

"victimshotmail@hotmail.com"
Include the quotes, cause this searches for only the hotmail account.
If you gain any results, it will most likely be forums or if you're lucky, social networking sites, that they have filled out their info on.
Go through these searches, and look at every one, even make a .txt file in notepad pasting down all the info you can on them.
Once you're done, if you havnt got their last name, keep reading..if you have, goto step 3.

Presuming you dont yet have their last name, try going to social networking sites, like:
http://www.myspace.com
http://www.facebook.com
http://www.bebo.com
http://www.friendster.com

Or any others you can think of, and search for their hotmail account using the websites search feature.
if you get any results, you're in luck, most of the time people include alot of information on themselves in there. Follow any leads you can find on the info, and even ask them or their friends (look up a tutorial on social engineering info out of people first, it will help).

Now another thing you can do is use http://www.whois.com IF your victim has their own website.

If you dont have it by now, maybe you should find an easier target, or if you're desperate, use this technique to hack one of their rl best friends, and alot of the time they have their full name assigned to your victims hotmail address, in their addressbook.

Or, I sometimes just say "I'm pretty sure I only put in my first name at registration, I'm paranoid like that" or something along those lines... It's worked for me.

BTW: This is called d0xing, or "documenting", basically harvesting info on people, it's completely legal as long as you get all your info from the public domain (forums, social networking sites etc).

Step 3: The e-mail address for us to send a response:
Simple, give them your email address... could use a fake one if you're paranoid (one you got access too), but I don't see any risk.

Step 4: Primary e-mail address/member ID associated with the account you are inquiring about:
Here you put in your victims email address (the one you're trying to hack). Then click Continue.

Step 5: Date of birth.
You can simply give them the year, if you dont know any further then that..but if you want to be on the safe side, read step 2, and use those techniques to find their date of birth.

Step 6: Country
If you dont know their country, which you probably should, use their IP address which you will have in one of the next steps to find it, by using
http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/

Step 7: State
same deal, use their IP addy if you dont know it already

Step 8: ZIP or postal code
Same deal again, it's usually correct if you use the IP addy...just use http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/
and find their town/suburb or whatever, and google the ZIP code for it.

Step 9: The secret answer to your question
simply put "i dont remember"

Step 10: Your alternate email address
for this, you just put in the email address you're trying to hack, you dont need their alternate email address.

Step 11: Your IP Address
Okay so here's probably the toughest one, but it's still easy. (NOTE: It's very hard to revert an account unless you successfully complete this step)
There's alot of ways to get their IP, i'll give you the easy ones.

Email: Get them to send you an email somehow, it doesnt matter how, you can just send an email saying:
"hey, how are you?" and they'll probably reply. Once you have their email (dont use old emails, please, everybody uses dynamic IP's these days)
right click on it, and click "view source", you will see something like this:

...now you want to find "X-Originating-IP: [XX.XXX.XX.XX]" That is their IP address.

Website: Go here http://www.syntaxmaster.info and register an account for free, it's real easy.

Now once you're registered, go to Software/Tools > IP Stealer; and then you can type in the URL you want your IP stealer to redirect to.. so just google or myspace or something will do. Now you'll see above that they give you your URL, you just send them there and it'll grab their IP, redirect them to google (or whatever site you choose), and then show their IP down at the bottom of the page.

I suggest using spam or http://www.doiop.com/ to shorten your URL and make it custom, you could make it something like:

http://www.doiop.com/profile-329479

And viola it'll look like a social networking site "Hey, I'm katie. :) I'm looking to meet new people and was wondering if you wanted to be friends? ^_^ This is my profile btw: "

Something like thaat. :P

MSN: if you can talk to them on msn, then you can get their IP that way too..there's two ways, either download a easy-to-use script, or do it manually with cmd,
i'll show you how to do it manually first.

Manually: Send them a file, or get them to send you a file.
"hey, i love that song, can you send me it?" or "omg, this is the funniest picture ever".
Before you start the transfer though, goto start > run (if you're using vista, just press the windows key) and type in cmd, and hit enter.

type in the following: netstat -n

and hit enter, it will show you a list of active connections to different IP's.

Remember or take a screenshot of those IP's, because once you start the transfer, type in netstat again while it's transferring and check for any new IP's, that is your victims IP.

With a script:
IF you have windows live messenger plus (probably the best WLM IMO), download this script:
http://rapidshare.com/files/133356881/IPGet_1.50.rar
It's called IP-Get, and will show you your current msn contacts IP addresses IF you're currently connected to them with a fileshare. It will also allow you to save the IP addresses, and look up their locations.

Here is a screenie of IP-get:

There are other ways, but surely, you should have been able to get their IP by now...if not, look up a tut on it, using the search feature.

Step 12: Your internet service provider
very easy to find, use their IP, either using the IP get script if you have it, or http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/

Step 13: The last date and time that you successfully signed in
Unless you know this as a fact, either take your best guess, say you dont remember, or yesterday.

Step 14: The names of any folders that you created in addition to the default folders
leave this blank, or say you dont know (unless you know this for a fact).

Step 15: Names of contacts in your hotmail address book
give them all the contacts you know are definately or most likely in there, including yourself, and even their other accounts (they might add themselves, everybody seems to). Also give them wilma@live.com and smarterchild@hotmail.com, as most people have them added.

Step 16: Subjects of any old mail that is in your inbox
okay just use common sense for this one, things to include are:
hey, how are you, RE:, FW:, admin, windows live, hotmail staff, recovery, registration, support, lol, password, comfirmation, noreply, delivery status notification (failure).

Also, if they are subscribed to any forums (like hackforums(but please dont hack other HF members :P)), social networking sites (like myspace, bebo) or online games (like RuneScape, WoW), then be sure to include them too.

Step 17: Names of contacts on your messenger contact list
If you happen to know any of their friends, this is where you put their display name...if you dont have them added, put their first names, and if you dont know them at all, just leave it blank, or say you dont remember.

Step 18: Your Messenger nickname
If you know it, put it in..if you dont, say "i cant remember it exactly" or leave it blank.

Step 19:
The rest you dont really need to worry about, except for in additional info, can put anything else that might make you sound more convincing..like:

"please do your best to recover my account, i dont want to go and have to add all my friends again, it'd be a great help if you got it back for me, thank you in advance."

obviously dont put exactly that, but you get the gist of it :)

Okay, i believe that is it, within 24 hours you will recieve an email from customer support, they will either give you a link to reset your (victims) password, or ask for you to send it again with more info, as an email reply..and in that case, you dont have much luck, cause they can just get your IP address from the email and know you're lying :) so try again, and hope you get a more gullible staff member. If you have firefox, click the spoiler.

This add on for firefox will be very useful if you need to do it again (and a lot of other things!), it saves all typed/submitted text, so you just need to go back to that page, right click then click "recover form", click the most recent one, and recover it then resend.