brand new blog post on their Windows blog, they have revealed some pretty coool new file management features in Windows 8. Some of the basics: They acknowledge that copying a whole bunch of files at once was not an ideal experience in Windows 7 and below, apart from taking a long time, it’s often hard to figure out how long it will take. They are trying to make some improvements. They state that there are 3 main goals for improving the copy experience in Windows 8.
- One place to manage all copy jobs: Create one unified experience for managing and monitoring ongoing copy operations.
- Clear and concise: Remove distractions and give people the key information they need.
- User in control: Put people in control of their copy operations.
Our focus is on improving the experience of the person who is doing high-volume copying with Explorer today, who would like more control, more insight into what’s going on while copying, and a cleaner, more streamlined experience. First, we’ve consolidated the copy experience. You can now review and control all the Explorer copy jobs currently executing in one combined UI. Windows 8 presents all pending copy jobs in this single dialog, saving you from having to navigate through multiple floating dialogs looking for the one you need. [caption id="attachment_5859" align="alignnone" width="465"]They have also added the ability to pause, resume, and stop each copy operation currently underway- giving the user control over which copy jobs will complete first. [caption id="attachment_5860" align="alignnone" width="463"]Consolidated copy jobs – Windows 8[/caption]
Ability to pause copy job in Windows 8[/caption]
They have also added a new detailed view with a real-time throughput graph.
Now each copy job shows the speed of data transfer, the transfer rate trend, and how much data in left to transfer.
[caption id="attachment_5861" align="alignnone" width="400"]
Windows 8 copy – detailed view[/caption]
Also, they have cleaned up the experience of resolving file name collisions.
The new design is much more clear, concise, and efficient, providing a much more visible and actionable approach to conflict resolution.
All the files from the source are on the left. All the files in the target location with file name collisions are on the right.
The screen layout is easy to understand and shows you the critical information for all the collisions, front and center in one dialog.
You can see the old and new dialog box below (click for larger image)
[caption id="attachment_5862" align="alignnone" width="590"]
Windows8 conflict resolution dialog box old and new[/caption]
Finally, they have tried to make the overall interaction a lot smoother and have removed redundant messages.
They also posted a video that you can see below. Cool stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-GS-IP2Icg]]>
Very frikkin cool… I am liking very much…
About time they fixed that stuff. Copying 500 files would take FOREVER in previous versions of Windows.
Cool info. Seen such a feature in KDE, but still nice that MSFT is catching up 🙂
Thanks.
This is really remarkable. Windows 8 is tending to be the ultimate.
Well it certainly looks nice. But the primary problem has never really been one of appearance but rather one of speed / performance. My question would be…. is it actually faster??
I’m sure they’ll tweak some performance things here and there but I think the emphasis is more on control and clarity.
They want you to have choices going forward…
in general the current preview does seem faster once you get past the start page and add a start menu. Although a lot of the start menu fuss is more to do with familiarity more than anything else. The copy functions as described in this article also seem to be faster than the old windows 7 set up although actually being able to see the transfer speed may also give a greater sense of speed.
It is about time, if you pause I understand u can resume however, if u have to stop it, can u resume where u left off? Why don’t they make this a fix for 7? Their are many of us on a fixed income as well as those hit by the enconmy that I’m sure will not be able to afford 8 with these long needed fixes (this is what 8 amount’s to is fixes to 7). I would be willing to Beta 8 for a free version of production of 7.
Correction free version of 8
Nice video from Alex Simons at Microsoft. He emphasized that Windows 8 wants to “…PUT YOU, THE USER, IN CONTROL…”. That’s great. Does this mean Microsoft will restore the manual “Drag and Drop” ability to arrange our photo files within our folders in the order that want or need ? After “being in control” with XP and VISTA, I hope they put me back in control after the horribly frustrating experience of Windows 7.
The fastest way to bulk-copy files or syynchronise changes to folder contents or folder hierarchy structures from one disk to another or PC to another is Microsoft’s SyncToy
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=15155