14 DAY TRIAL // With the advent of Windows 8, Microsoft will blend the line between local user accounts and online personas. Details from the recently leaked Windows 8 Milestone 1 (M1) Build 7850 indicate that in the upcoming iteration of the operating system customers will be able to use their email address for their Windows accounts.
Personally, I’m expecting the software giant to tie together Windows 8 with the next version of Windows Live, Hotmail included, but to be less friendly toward third-party email providers, although the Redmond company could prove me wrong.
I’ve included a screenshot from Windows 8 M1 in this article, courtesy of our friends at Windows8Italia, and there are two pieces of information that I’d like to highlight.
“An email account is not required to use Windows but it makes it easy to access your personalization, favorites and content on any computer.”
“Windows 8 can use an online email account as your Windows account for enhanced personalization experiences. Using your email account makes Windows come alive with activities you care about.”
Essentially, Windows 8 will feature Connected Accounts, which means that the Cloud will get a great deal of importance when it comes down to user accounts in the next generation of the Windows client.
With Connected Accounts, users will be able to take their settings, customizations, favorites, as well as synchronized content anywhere, to any machine running Windows 8, as long as they leverage their online identities to sign into the platform.
Windows8Italia also discovered new Cloud-related features in the successor of Windows 7, including: Mobile Broadband Account Experience, File Server Resource Manager, and Setting Synchronization.
The items mentioned above have yet to be detailed by Microsoft, but it appears they will deal with Cloud login, Cloud synchronization of files, and the synching of personalization options and settings.
I expect the software giant to take integration between Windows Live vNext and Windows 8 to the next level, especially around services such as Mesh and SkyDrive.
But I cannot stress this enough. If Microsoft does integrate Windows Live Mesh and SkyDrive into Windows 8, it needs to do it right.
The desktop and the Cloud should blend seamlessly and not feel like disparate solutions. And Windows Explorer should have Cloud folders but should allow synchronization and sharing of individual files, not just folders.
It’s also obvious that the existent 5GB limit for synching in Windows Live Mesh needs to be bumped at least to the maximum Windows Live SkyDrive storage limit, isn’t it?
