MWC 2012: Windows 8 Consumer Preview All Coverage

MWC 2012 Feb. 29, 2012: In a 75-minute press conference in Barcelona — a conference strangely absent from the MWC Live Feed — Microsoft execs today were mum about the surprise Microsoft Windows 8 Consumer Preview for Business project the company detailed in a PDF document released at 3 a.m. ET, three hours before the scheduled Microsoft rollout of Microsoft Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

We are still awaiting comment from Microsoft. According to docs on the site, a Windows 8 server product is coming out with stronger security and encryption tools for IT in enterprise and small business.

The PDF that is that quietly released product guide for the enterprise version of Windows 8 doesn’t appear to be a mistake. Our tech pros Ant Pruitt and Jeremy Lesniak are featured in one of my all-time favorite sites, TechRepublic, where there are even more details.

According to the docs, the features in version 1 of the Windows 8 for business and/or Windows 8 server include: HyperV client integration, improvements to the Windows PowerShell, better web standards compliance (HTML5, CSS3 and SVG), an Internet Explorer 10 desktop update that implies a mobile release is at the ready, the return of IE support for legacy ActiveX controls, SkyDrive integration “for small business” and a number of other features. Microsoft posted it at 3 a.m. ET Wednesday, three and a half hours before the keynote, and it is still up. A few, but not all of these are already in Windows 8 Developer Preview and the new consumer preview.

In advance of the announcement Microsoft was running videos and posting blog posts about its plans to advance its cloud service SkyDrive as an integrated service — as well as its HyperV, which excites people most, on our team, anyway. Not too much mention of that in this morning’s launch at MWC 2012 of its Windows 8 consumer preview. Check it out.

Here’s the link to download Windows 8 consumer preview . You’ll find 32-bit and 64-bit versions available for that beta software.

Here’s a link from our partner site GroovyPost to help you get started with installing and testing it. That’s the point of a beta test!

At the very end of the show, execs said to expect more detail on “enterprise features to come” at CeBIT, the big trade show in Germany coming up soon. But no one ever uttered the words Windows 8 Consumer Preview for Business. Or Windows 8 Server for Enterprise, designed to help IT better secure and manage information on personal tech devices.

Our reporter on the Linux and Windows enterprise beats, where he joins Eric Finkenbiner and others, is Ant Pruitt, an IT pro on our team.

What a scoop. Ant took a look at the planned for-business features of the product Microsoft calls Windows 8 Consumer Preview for Business — and has great commentary on what he considers to be the most significant features in it for tech pros.

Our partners site, GroovyPost.com, was among the first to report the existence of the docs. Check out its most excellent Windows 8 How To galleries. Our aNewDomain.net followed up quickly with a list of what it means to IT and ri the consumer-tech-centric geeks they serve. (Sounds like me.)

AnewDomain coverage roundup.

We live blogged the event — a fun exercise. It was telling, too, more in what Microsoft did not say than in what it did say.

Here is an infographic — and a story on another place and time in tech history when Microsoft’s flagship OS was at a turning point. It was 1989, I was sitting at the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center North Tower. Click the link above to see the view of New York City from the now-destroyed Tower — and my story about Bill Gates’ late mother telling me that Windows 3.0 — Windows 3.11 actually — was the “happiest time in Bill’s life, Gina.”

Hope that still isn’t so.

Here’s a terrific infographic on the history of Windows brought to you by Conosco. I covered that beat forever — the data is all accurate.

Photo of the view from Windows on the World, North Tower World Trade Center, Credit: FoodJobsBook