Windows 8 - A few things I didn't mention

There are a few things I skipped in my Windows 8 review so I thought I'd post comment show and comment on them now.



File History

I haven't used Time Machine for OS X so I don't know how close this is to that. Anyway, this is the File History. You start by picking a device you want your backup to be saved to. It can be a second hard drive in your computer, an external hard drive, a network device or some other device.

You can add folders to this list in order to skip them when making backups.

You don't have that many options, but I don't see anything missing either.
You can set how often backups should be made. Every hour sounds a bit too often for me, but I did not notice any performance loss when it was backing up which is good.
The "Keep saved versions" option allows you to change for low long files should be kept, or if you want to delete the oldest version when you run out of space. I am not sure what it will do if you run out of space and  have it set to "keep saved versions forever" but I assume it will ask you what you want to do.

This is how it looks once the setup is complete and you want to restore something.
The arrows switches between date and time, the oldest being to the far left, and the newest being to the far right.
The button in the middle is used to restore all files you got backed up.

You can also choose to restore specific files.














Built in PDF reader

This is a very very nice addition if you ask me. The options on the bottom can be shown/hidden by right clicking, and the arrows on the left/right disappear if you don't use them for a while.
It feels fast and fluent and works just fine. I will most likely never use Foxit, Sumatra or Adobe reader on Windows 8.








Mount virtual hard drives

I mentioned this in my review when I was talking about mounting ISOs. Anyway, mountning virtual hard drives works just as you'd expect it to.
Simply double click on a virtual hard drive and it will show up and act just like a regular drive.
The one I used when I tested this was a .vhd file but I don't know if it support other formats.




Some new shortcuts
Windows key + W = Search in settings.
Windows key + Q = Search for applications.
Windows key + F = Search for files.
Windows key + I = bring up settings (the menu with the power button in it).
Windows key + H = bring up the "share" option".
Windows key + K = bring up the "devices" menu.
Windows key + X = bring up the "start menu" or whatever you want to call it. Can also be accessed by right clicking in the lower left corner.
Windows key + C = bring up the charms.
Windows key + Print screen = Print screen with some animation. Not sure if there is any other difference.