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Kyla: Hi, Everybody, and welcome to Your Windows 8 Questions Answered.
A little bit about Ready Talk which is the webinar platform we are going to be using today.
You are all being muted so you want to go ahead and ask any questions that you may have
in the chat box that you see on your screen. If you do lose your Internet connection,
you can reconnect using the link that was emailed to you. And you should be able to hear me
via your computer, like on speakers, but if you want to call in, just let us know
and we can send you an alternate phone number that you can dial into.
And if you do either lose the connection and cannot rejoin, or you just need to leave early,
or you just want to review the content later, we are going to be recording today's session
and we will be sending out the recording along with additional resources out to you
all later this afternoon. If you do want to go ahead and talk about us on Twitter
you can use the Twitter hashtag #techsoup.
So again, this is Your Windows 8 Questions Answered, and I want to begin our presentation
by thanking Microsoft for their wonderful participation, both with this webinar
and through our product donation program. You can go ahead and take a look
at the Microsoft software donation program at www.techsoup.org/Microsoft.
My name is Kyla Hunt. I will be your facilitator today, and with us is Namita Das from Microsoft
and Ariel Gilbert-Knight from TechSoup. A little bit about both presenters.
Namita Das is a product marketing manager in Windows Commercial.
She frequently talks with Enterprise customers in executive briefing centers at Microsoft
and has recently won the Rising Star Award for best speaker.
Ariel is a technology analyst at TechSoup where she researches and writes about technology topics
for nonprofits and libraries.
A little bit about the agenda today. We are first going to be listening to Namita talk a little bit
about Windows 8. She's actually going to be showing us her presentations from Windows 8
so you'll be able to see a little bit of it in action. Then I'm going to take a look at
some of the questions that come into the chat so we will be able to address some questions
from this presentation. Namita is going to be talking a little bit about Windows 8
in relation to questions that came about from our previous webinar, Talking About Windows 8.
And we will be sending out the Windows 8 demo that is associated with that webinar
in the resources after the webinar. After that first section, we will also be hearing, of course,
from Ariel who is going to be taking Windows 8 and kind of siphoning it down and talking about it
in relation to nonprofits and libraries. Then we will finish out our webinar with additional questions
from the audience. We will make every attempt to get to all of your questions,
and if we do not get to your specific question I will make every effort to follow up with you afterward.
With that I want to go ahead and let Namita take the reins and share her desktop.
Namita: Thank you. This is Namita Das, and I'm going to be sharing my screen.
Let me know when you all can see it.
Kyla: It looks good.
Namita: Okay, great. What I want to cover today is talk about Windows 8
and try to answer the questions that were raised in the last webinar,
and I saw there were some questions related to apps and security
and how to think about hardware, why Windows 8 for Enterprise customers.
I'm going to try to answer some of these questions. Before I begin my presentation,
I want to tell you that I am presenting from a Lenovo laptop. It's a T400 laptop.
It's a three-year-old laptop, and it actually came with Windows 7 and last year I upgraded it
to Windows 8. It's not a touch laptop. It's a mouse and keyboard lapto
and I think you can see my cursor. What I'm doing is I'm just going to my Start screen.
You all must be familiar with that Windows 8 has this new bold image to it.
I go to SkyDrive where I have my Windows 8 webinar presentation,
and that is what I'm presenting. I'm just trying to give you a sense of how I am presenting,
and that I am using Windows 8.
Let's take a step back and see what is happening in the marketplace for our customers
who are using technology on a day-to-day basis. What's happening there?
Every day when I wake up, the first thing I do is look for my cell phone.
That's where my alarm is ringing, and I squint my eyes and I look at my first calendar meeting
that I have, or the emails that I got over the night. The reason I'm giving you this example is
because we've become so dependent on technology and devices that we choose
how we want to interact with them. For me, having a phone functioning as my alarm clock,
and the first thing I want to do is get connected is important. In the same matter,
when you meet with your employees or when you're meeting with your customers
or people who are coming to your organization, they're very similar.
They're using multiple devices. They are interacting with data.
They're interacting with people on the move. They're more tech-savvy.
There's a younger crowd. They're more digital savvy. They're fast paced. They want to be mobile.
They want to be connected all the time.
I understand that this can be challenging for you and how you want to address it then.
So we feel that Window for Business, when we start thinking for businesses or for nonprofits
or for bigger organizations, Windows is at this unique place. There are a lot of companies
that are really good with devices and giving you their experiences,
but they don't understand what bigger organizations need. They need to be secure.
They need to have control over resources. They need to protect access to information.
There are some companies that are really good with Enterprise resolutions or solutions catered
to a bigger organization, but what they lack is the easiness, the flexibility, the mobility,
the oomph happening factor. That's what they're missing.
We feel that Windows is that this unique position where you get the devices and experiences
that people love coupled with the Enterprise-grade or bigger organization grade solutions
that we have and that we provide and Windows 8 fits well in this.
So I want you to take a step back. I feel like when you go out in the market
you see there are a lot of editions of Windows 8 and you ask yourself,
"Which Windows 8 is right for me?"
We know that there is one Windows 8 and it comes with all the new great things.
There's a Start screen, and you have your desktop there. You can run your desktop apps
or your built-in apps. Windows 8 works with mouse and keyboard, like I'm using it,
or it works with new devices that come with touch. You get storage. You get Cloud storage.
You have browser. You have securities like Windows Defender and Trusted Boot,
and new features like Reset and Refresh that allow you to just come back to the manufacturer setting
or go back to a state where your computer was most healthy. And this is all on Windows 8.
But then you have another edition of Windows 8 called Windows 8 Pro,
which we feel is best suited for businesses. The reason it is best suited for businesses
is because of features like BitLocker and BitLocker To Go that provide you with data encryption.
If your device gets lost or stolen, you can rest assured that no one can access your data
because it's encrypted. There are features like Domain Join and Group Policy
which allow you to join a domain and manage your users, restrict access through Group Policy.
Remote Desktop, if you are at home and you want to log in to your machine at work,
then you can do that, too. So Windows 8 Pro is the best edition for businesses or for organizations.
For bigger organizations, you have Windows 8 Enterprise which has all the benefits
of Windows 8 Pro plus additional features like Windows To Go,
which means you can carry your entire managed PC on a USB stick; or Direct Access
which is whenever you come online or you open a browser, you are basically connected
to your corporate network. You don't need a third-party client. You don't need to VPN.
You don't need to remember the password. You don't need to punch in anything.
As soon as you're on the Internet, you're basically connected to corporate.
Then you have more features like AppLocker, BranchCache and VDI enhancements.
So think of this when you're thinking about which Windows is right for you.
Windows 8 Pro has everything of Windows 8 plus new features,
and Windows 8 Enterprise has everything of Windows 8 Pro plus new features,
but the main basic thing of this new bold and reimagination of Windows is there.
And you start asking this question: what is this new Start screen?
Some people say, "We love it because it has everything I need in one place."
And some people feel like there's too much happening,
so let's think about what is the Start screen.
If you remember Windows 7, there used to be a Start button at the lower left-hand corner.
When you clicked on that, you would get a static image of all your programs,
and you would have to search through it. The Start screen gives you this dashboard of information,
what you care about. If you care about a particular app, you pin it on the Start screen.
If you care about a particular person, you pin it on the Start screen. This is your dashboard
and it has live tiles which gives you live information. If I go to my Start screen,
and I'm going to just press the Start button on my keyboard, which takes me back to my Start screen,
it shows everything that is important to me. It has my mail; it has my calendar; it has my messaging,
so when someone is messaging me I get that; it has my apps. This is a particular app that I use
for my fitness. It counts the number of steps that I take, so it's showing me my steps,
and I don't' even need to enter the app to know how I'm doing. Then it has my other apps, too.
Think about your Start screen as your one go-to place. From there you can open any a
that you want, whether you want to open Word, whether you want to open Excel,
or whether you want to open SkyDrive or NetFlix, any app that you want to open.
Talking about apps, from the previous webinar that took place, I saw that there were many questions
about Windows Store and apps. The first thing is that Windows 8 and any additional Windows 8
that you take comes with built-in apps. That means you get mail, you get calendar, you get SkyDrive,
you get photos. There are a lot of built-in apps that you don't have to invest for,
and then there are new modern apps, and these new modern apps
are those you can go to the Windows Store and you can download them.
Some of them are free; some of them you have to pay for, but you can also try before you buy.
When you go to the Windows Store, they are categorized into games, business, productivity,
security. You can choose your pick, but when you go to the Windows Store,
you can also see desktop apps. If you are looking for an Intuit app, or you are looking for AutoCad
or you are looking for other desktop apps, you can still find them on the Windows Store.
This is your one place to go and search for apps that are there,
and they are compatible with Windows.
If you have a Windows 7 app, you're running Windows 7 right now
and you have a particular app that is compatible with Windows 7, and if that is there,
most of the time it's going to be compatible with Windows 8,
except for maybe some particular app that is only written for Windows 7
like a particular security driver app, something like that, but they're very less, less than one percent.
If you don't want your employees or the people in your organization who are using Windows 8
to go to the Windows Store and start downloading app, you can control that.
You can turn off the Windows Store via Group Policy. If you don't want that certain particular apps
should not be running in your organization, you can restrict those apps using AppLocker.
This is why we start getting into why Windows 8 is good for enterprises
because you get this capability of managing. Through Domain Join and Group Policy,
you can manage users. You can restrict the apps that they want to use.
You can turn off Windows Store. You can also look at Create and Manage User Account.
You can secure these workstations. You can support end users by creating shares,
creating share points, managing who has access to the share point, fixing problems.
If you have any driver updates, you can spread those driver updates, provide printer access,
or if you want for mass deployment, you can do Network Boot.
And this is why Windows 8 is great for enterprises because it gives you the capability
of centralizing and sharing.
The other thing that I want to talk about apps is that these apps follow you.
When you have a Microsoft account at your work, you are using a computer
and you downloaded some particular apps. Suppose you downloaded NetFlix at work
or suppose you downloaded NBCNews.com and when you go home, you're like, "You know what?
I kind of like that app." You can log in and you'll see all those apps that you downloaded
somewhere else and you can choose to download that at home also.
So the apps that you download are stored in the Cloud. That information is stored in the Cloud,
so you don't have to go searching again. That's how we are trying to make this easy.
The next topic I want to discuss is remote access. This was a big topic in the webinar
that took place last time. You want to be able to access data, apps, people from remote locations.
The first thing is that Windows 8 devices are thinner and lighter,
which makes you be more mobile. They're less clunky. They come with touch.
They come with detachable keyboard. When you are on the go, you can be more mobile,
and they're easy to use while you're being more mobile because if you want to use touch,
you can use touch. But if you want to attach your keyboard and start using mouse and keyboard,
you can do that also. Coming back to the same point of restricting control or managing access,
you can do that with Domain Join. Remote desktop allows you to, from a remote location,
you can access your PC at work. If you want to just be on the Cloud, then you have SkyDrive.
I want to take a minute to talk about the difference between SkyDrive and SkyDrive Pro.
SkyDrive is public. If you're using Gmail or you're using Dropbox, it's the same concept.
It is as secure as your Gmail and Dropbox, but you can set passwords in SkyDrive
that say that you must change your password every 72 days, which allows you to be more vigilant
with your password setting policy so that if any particular hacker is trying to get your password,
you're changing it every 72 days. What happens with SkyDrive is I was working
on my presentation yesterday night, and I stored it on the Cloud, and today I'm presenting it.
I did not have to carry it. If for some reason my computer is not working,
I could have gone to my coworker's computer, logged on to my SkyDrive,
and still have access to that data, and I would still be giving this presentation.
But remember that SkyDrive is public. SkyDrive Pro is private. It's your own network
and you cannot share it outside. You can only share it with people who have access
to your network. With Office 365 and SkyDrive Pro, you can limit who you are giving access to.
It's like a private network. You manage that Cloud. You manage that data.
You own that data. No one else owns that data.
Then there were some questions on roaming profiles. Now roaming profile is an old technology.
It's a ten-year old technology. We do not recommend it, and the reason is
that when you are using roaming profile it is creating a profile for every user,
and it ends up being slower and it takes up more network bandwidth.
It's taking up space on your hard drive. It's using a lot of network bandwidth.
So our recommendation is to use Office 365 and SkyDrive,
which is more user-based and it lives on the Cloud.
Let's talk about security. Security is very essential for us, and I want to say
when we were building Windows 8, we built on top of Windows 7. We took everything,
all the top solid foundation of Windows 7 and we improved on that, which means we're giving you
a built-in firewall, a built-in antivirus, a built-in root kit malware protection,
and all of this is built into the operating system. You don't have to get new software.
The new hardware that comes with the EUFI, that is extensible user formware.
It becomes even more secure because it checks automatically and makes sure
that the OS is first loading, so that Windows 8 is first loading and first booting
before any other third-party software or any other driver that loads,
and it also repairs. So for example if a malware did come it automatically repairs that malware
and tells you that, "Hey, there's a malware, and I'm diagnosing it, and I'm updating it,
and I'm repairing it." And so it throws it out, and that's what Trusted Boot is all about.
You also have more features like BitLocker and BitLocker To Go that allow you to encrypt
your hard drive. BitLocker To Go allows you to encrypt your USB stick
so if your USB stick gets lost or stolen, no one can access that data until they have the password to it.
IE10 is the most secure and most fastest browser in the industry right now,
and the best part if that as Enterprise customers, when you Domain Join
and you manage it by Group Policy, you can manage IE10. You can manage what sites to go.
You can push out updates. You can push out security updates for IE10.
The last thing I saw in the questions that were there for the webinar
was how to think about hardware. There are a lot of choices now, so how to think about that.
With Windows 8 we didn't just design or redesign an operating system. It's a new class of devices.
Do you need touch, or does Windows 8 only work on touch?
No. I am right now giving you this presentation with a three-year- old laptop,
currently running Windows 8, and it works great. If you require touch, you can buy new hardware
that comes with touch, but we also have a lot of choice with light devices, faster devices
that does not come with touch. But if it does come with touch, you can be rest assured
that it is very responsive. We have increased our certification for OEMs that if they want to renew
their logo, they have to meet a minimum of five points of touch which is very reliable.
The newer devices are thinner, lighter, faster. They have longer battery life
and even come with sensors and security, so when I talk about UEFI,
that was about security, and you get a wide variety of devices. If you think of devices,
you can attach a keyboard. You can twist the screen to make it a convertible,
or you can flip the screen. And then there are other devices on Windows like the Surface RT
which runs Windows RT, and you have Windows Phone 8.
So how do you think about these devices? I would say think about these devices
as your companion devices. The Windows RT and Windows Phone 8 looks a lot like Windows 8
but think about how you want to use it.
If you want long battery life and you want to do just one sort of work
and you don't have desktop applications, then Windows RT might be the right fit for you.
It is powered by ARM processors and so it runs all your apps from the Windows Store
plus you get Office 2013. That means you get Word, PowerPoint, Excel,
but you cannot download desktop apps. If that is what you want to do, then Windows 8 is the right,
but if you really want long battery life and you are only doing email
and you have certain Windows Store apps or you have certain apps that you have developed
for yourself and you want to run those, then Windows RT might be the right choice for you.
Think of Windows Phone 8. Windows Phone 8 looks a lot like Windows 8 because of the UI,
and the best thing about Windows Phone 8 is that, if you are comfortable with Windows 8
and you're comfortable with Windows RT, then it's easy for you with Windows Phone 8 also
because it just has the same look and feel. It does the same things
as you're comfortable doing on Windows 8.
I want to take a step back and talk about XP because I saw that there were a lot of questions.
I've been running XP, and I'm fine with running XP, and I want to tell you that the support
for Windows XP is ending next year, on April 8, 2014. What does this mean?
This means that it turns out that XP was a ten-year-old technology and it was a great product.
We have been supporting it for ten years, but with the support of XP coming to an end,
you will not be receiving any updates, including security updates. If you look at the implications,
what it means is that you have a security risk. That means your PC may become vulnerable
to harmful viruses or malicious software, and antivirus software will not be able to protect you
if there is a new potential threat. You might have software issues
because we know that with the support ending a lot of new hardware vendors or software vendors
are not creating updates, are not supporting XP also. You will not have anyone to call,
which means when a problem arises that hasn't been identified until now,
online or phone-based technical support will not be available to you or to your IT partner.
If there is a failure, you might incur more downtime because now you are going to your partner,
you are asking them to help you move or to help you fix that issue.
Try to understand that the support for Windows XP is ending and it's a ten-year-old technology
and you're missing out on all these technology innovations of being more mobile,
of being more secure. With Windows 8 you get security that is catered toward the current threats.
The current hackers are looking at modern browsers.
They're looking at modern threats that are Internet-based threats.
So you might ask this question. I'm on Windows XP or I'm on Windows 7.
Should I be buying new hardware or should I be upgrading? The way I think about this is
that first you need to see is your current hardware compatible with Windows 8.
Does it meet the Windows 8 system requirements? If it is meeting Windows 7 system requirements,
that means that Windows 8 will run on it. For those types of PCs and for those types of desktops,
just upgrading to Windows 8 is just fine. But if you're looking for newer mobile solutions,
if you're looking for tablet-based solutions or if your hardware is more than three years old,
then that hardware is pretty old and it is not built for modern security
and you would want to buy new hardware.
Another question you might ask is why don't I just move to Windows 7?
Why do I need to move to Windows 8? The reason is that Windows 8 is built upon Windows 7.
It has everything that you like about Windows 7, plus more. It still has your desktop.
It still runs your Windows 7 apps, but it is faster when you boot it. On my current machine,
I had a Windows 7 machine, and I upgraded it to Windows 8 and it's much faster. It boots faster,
gives me longer battery life, gives me better performance. It is just more secure
because it sees the booting process and makes sure that the operating system loads first
before any other driver loads. It has better multi-monitor improvements.
It has improved task bar. It has a powerful file explorer.
You get all the benefits plus more benefits of Windows 8 that you have the Windows Store.
I get new apps. This is what I want to convey and I'm open to more questions.
This is it on Windows 8, and I hope that I've been able to answer some of the questions
that were raised in the previous webinar.
Kyla: Thank you, Namita. That was a great presentation. We have had quite a few questions
come in. I want to take a moment to at least touch on a couple of them,
and then we'll touch on the rest of them after Ariel's presentation.
Since one of the things we were talking about was XP, I'll go ahead and start off with a question
about XP. Barbara was wondering, she says she has XP now.
Will transferring data files, etc., be a problem if she upgrades?
Namita: Talking about XP, XP is such an old technology that, yes, you will have,
you will run into some issues migrating your data and apps in the sense that our deployment tool kit,
when you download Windows 8, it has a deployment tool kit which allows you
to easily migrate your data and apps and settings, but that will only do
if you're migrating from Windows 7 to Windows 8. When you are migrating from Windows X
to Windows 8, the first thing I would say, for your data specifically, is take a back-up.
You need to back up your entire data, then it will be a like a clean install for you.
Now when we talk about apps, I would say first think about is that a
that you have been running, is that the right app that you still want?
With ten years of innovation, there might be much better apps that do that work.
If you still feel that is the app you want to work with, first talk to the app provider.
Are they still supporting that app? Are they still providing you updates for that old app,
or do they have newer version? And I'm sure if they have newer versions,
they're not supporting Windows XP. And so apps is a bit of a challenge
that you might have to consider. Do I need to go to Cloud-based apps?
Do I need the client version of apps? Apps might be a bit of a challenge.
We did see that most of the productivity apps that were running on Windows X
were running on Windows 7, and we also know that most of the apps that run on Windows 7
run on Windows 8. But I would say to talk to your apps provider
and see whether there is a better app or a later app that will run on Windows 8.
Kyla: We also have had quite a few questions about customizing the Start screen.
I don't know the best way to go about talking about that would be,
if there was a way that you could show how you would set that up.
Namita: Yes, let me show you how to customize the Start screen.
I am going to go to my Start screen. Let's say, for me, I don't want SkyDrive to be the first thing
that I want to see on my Start screen, and I'm doing with mouse and keyboard.
I'm not doing this with touch. So I pick this up, I press my HOLD button, I just pick it u
and I drag it, and I'm just going to push it all the way where all my Office apps are.
And I'm coming back. Or I'm going to press this little key over here — this is a minus sign over here.
What it does is it zooms out and I can see all the apps on my Start screen.
Let's say that, for me, my Office apps are really important. I'm going to pick it u
and I'm going to drop it to the front, and then I just clicked on it
and I'm going all the way back to the front, and now you see that as soon as I have,
I come to my Start screen. If Office is very important to me, getting to Word, Excel,
PowerPoint is very important to me, that's the first thing that I've kept.
In your organization you have, like in libraries, for example, you can have certain apps
that you have customized your Start screen and you would put those apps towards the front.
I want to take another example. Let's say I'm going to Internet Explorer and I'm going to CNN.com.
Imagine I go to this site every day and I want to pin this to my Start screen.
So I come here, and you see there's a Pin Site. I click on it, and it says "Pin to Start."
So I click on Pin to Start, and I said, yes, name it CNN, and I say pin to Start.
I'm going to press the Windows key that takes me back to my Start screen,
and I'm going to scroll with the scroll bar all the way to my right, and you'll see that I have CNN.
Now I want to take CNN to the front because that's what I want to do. Every time,
that's the first thing I want to do. And now I have CNN on my Start screen.
Imagine tomorrow I come to office and I switch on my computer, the first thing I want to do
is read the news, and I click on CNN and I see my news.
So here it is, and I'm going to go back to my desktop and I'm going to stop sharing.
Kyla: Great, thank you. I'm going to take one more question before Ariel's section.
This one's about security and is wondering if you need additional antivirus.
This person is saying that they were prompted, they're saying that their Windows 8 said
that they needed to enable Norton Antivirus. If you already have the security,
do you actually need an additional antivirus software?
Namita: Yes. You know, security is a tough one in the sense of everyone's peace of mind.
What gives you peace of mind? It will be different for me. It will be different for you.
What I can say is that Windows 8 comes with built-in antivirus.
It comes with built-in malware protection. It comes with built-in firewall.
And we also have Trusted Boot, which makes sure that any time a malware is detected,
when it's restarting, it repairs it. It throws it out. It quarantines it.
Also IE has smart filter in it, and even Windows 8 has smart filter in it,
but suppose I'm downloading an app from the web and Windows 8 is like,
hey, I haven't seen that app before. I think it's a potential threat. It will warn you
and ask you if you still want to continue and it will give its recommendation
that we don't think we should do it. I don't use any other antivirus on my machine,
or anyone in Microsoft does not use any other antivirus. We go with the built-in antivirus,
but if it gives you more peace of mind to have additional antivirus, then that is your call.
Kyla: Okay, awesome. With that, I want to go ahead and take it to Ariel's section,
but if we haven't gotten to any of your questions, w will be taking a look at the questions
at the end of the webinar and, again, if we don't get to your specific question,
I will try to follow up after the webinar.
Thank you, Namita, for that great presentation, and please just stick around for the questions
at the end. With that, let's go ahead and take it away, Ariel.
Ariel: Hi, everybody. I'm Ariel from TechSoup and I'm going to talk about how some of these features
of Windows 8 can be used by nonprofits and libraries.
First, the Start screen that you've already seen really is one of the biggest changes in Windows 8,
and it does take a little bit of getting used to, but once you do it's very useful.
We use it here at TechSoup, Windows 8, and we found that the Start screen
is a really convenient way to access all of the apps and tools you use on a regular basis.
This is Windows 8 Start screen that I have customized so you can see I have my people apps,
showing me what my social networks are up to. I've got the Skype app, showing me recent messages;
the calendar app, showing me that I'm doing a webinar right now.
I've also got an example of what Namita showed of pinning a particular website that you access a lot —
this is TechSoup for Libraries, our wonderful blog — to the Start screen.
It really is this really nice way to customize exactly the apps and content
that you want to see immediately. You can fit it to how you do your daily work
and what you want to access frequently.
Another big change in Windows 8 is that it's very app-focused, as you've heard,
and that there are a bunch of apps built in right off the bat. I'm going to talk a little bit
about some of the apps and specifically how you can use them as a nonprofit or library.
The People app brings together what your people in your email social networking contact lists
are up to in one really convenient place. You can see Twitter and Facebook
and other updates all together.
The Mail app allows you to easily view multiple email accounts.
This is really nice if you have your personal email and your work email
and maybe there's a designated email address that you check for people
who want to contact your organization. You can view all of those together in the Mail app.
The News app lets you customize your news feed to focus on topics and sources
that you really care about. You can search the web with Bing,
and I'm going to talk quite a bit more about SkyDrive, but that is also,
all of these are readily accessible through the Start screen. The Photos app is also pretty cool
'cause it gives you access to images that are stored on your device,
and from Facebook and Flickr and SkyDrive.
They're all together in one place. Say, for example, you had a fundraiser
and you want to use a picture from the event for your newsletter or put it on your website.
You don't really have to remember where you stored it. You don't have to remember
if it was on your computer or in your Flickr account. You can see all your photos together
in one place with the Photos app. It's very handy.
There's a whole lot more you can do with the built-in apps, but there are also even more apps
that you can add from the app store. On your Start screen, there's a tile that will take you
to the app store. We've compiled at TechSoup a list of apps that are particularly useful
for nonprofits and libraries. These are productivity oriented apps,
so they're apps you would use in your day-to-day work, different from the apps you might use
at home, like the more fun things like the NetFlix app and stuff like that.
These are more apps that will help you do your day-to-day work.
Those are just a couple of examples of the kind of apps that you can get in the Windows app store.
There are communication apps like Skype, social media apps like the official Twitter a
or MetroTwit. There are apps that help you share files, like YouSendIt.
And there are also note-taking news apps, and I'm going to show you an example of a couple
of those. You can see our full list of Windows 8 apps for nonprofits and libraries
on the TechSoup blog.
This is an example of one popular app in the Windows app store. This is EverNote.
I'm particularly fond of it, although I do use also OneNote and some other note-taking apps,
depending on what I'm doing. This what EverNote looks like. After you've downloaded it
from the Windows app store, it shows up as a little tile on your Start screen.
When you click it, it pops open all of the notes that you've tagged.
EverNote is really useful because you can compile links and clip articles, blog posts, whatever.
It's really useful if you're researching a particular topic or compiling a list of resources
that you want to share.
Another nice app that you can get in the Windows app store is Pulse. It's a news aggregator a
that pulls in news from all your favorite sources in a nice, visual, easy-to-read way.
So you can check out what's happening in news that affects your organization's mission.
Say you're a healthcare organization, you could check out what's going
on with healthcare regulations. You can also look for general nonprofit or library news,
technology news, really any topic that you're interested in. You can see in the top right corner
one of the other cool things. While you're working in an app, you can get little updates
from other apps so you can actually see that my colleague Becky skyped me
while I was looking at this blog post, and a little message popped u
showing that she had skyped me. We all multitask a lot, and it's little features like this
in Windows 8 that help make that multitasking easier.
We've already touched on the hardware question. Windows 8 is optimized for touch-screen devices,
and we actually have a touch-screen computer here at TechSoup.
Using it with Windows 8 is actually pretty amazing. For any geeks out there,
it's kind of like you've suddenly moved into Star Trek Land, but if your organization isn't quite
at the Starship Enterprise stage yet, you can very much continue to use Windows 8
with your regular keyboard, monitor, and mouse just fine. In fact, you can even use Windows 8
with older computers, not quite as old as the one I'm showing here.
But we actually tested it out at TechSoup by installing Windows 8
on a seven-year-old computer. It was a Dell Optiplex from 2005. It was a mid-range computer
back in its day, so it wasn't fancy or super powerful, and it worked beautifully with Windows 8.
It was very fast. All of our Microsoft Office productivity apps and multiple web browsers
open at the same time and moving back and forth, and doing the kind of multitasking
we all do worked just fine. It was very fast, even on this very old machine.
Windows 8 works well on older machines because it has a relatively small footprint
compared to other operating systems, even compared to Windows 7.
So you don't need to upgrade your existing machines to use Windows 8.
You don't need a touch-screen. It'll work with your existing hardware, even on these older computers
that many nonprofits and libraries have. So it's really great for any nonprofits and libraries
that need to squeeze as much life as they can out of their old computers.
It saves you money because you don't need to buy new computers. It's also a greener option
because you're extending the life of your old computer rather than putting it in the landfill.
Another nice thing, especially for smaller organizations, is the built-in security features
that come with Windows 8. Say you don't have dedicated IT staff in house,
as is the case for many nonprofits and libraries or you don't have the budget or the technology skills
to invest in or install or manage separate security software, your Windows 8 computers are protected
as soon as you install Windows 8. There are a bunch of great security features
which we describe in a blog post on the TechSoup blog called Windows 8 Security:
What's New, What's Different, but a couple I wanted to highlight
that you've already heard a little bit about like Windows Defender security.
You may be familiar with Microsoft security essentials,
which is free downloadable security software from Microsoft. Windows Defender
is kind of a Windows 8 version of this functionality, but it's built right in.
You don't have to download anything. You don't have to install anything.
As soon as you have Windows 8, you're good to go. So even if you don't have dedicated,
knowledgeable IT staff who can help manage and secure your computing environment
at your organization, or you just have an accidental techy who hardly has any time
to focus on technology, you will already be protected just by installing Windows 8.
Namita had also mentioned BitLocker which, if your mission focuses on something
particularly sensitive, something like immigration or another "hot button" issue
where the kind of data that you're storing on your computer is really, really sensitive
and needs to be protected, BitLocker allows you to encrypt and protect that sensitive data.
That also comes with Windows 8. As Namita mentioned,
if you want to run a different security software, you can disable Windows Defender
and run your own security program of choice.
Another nice thing about Windows 8 is that it really is built for the way a lot of us work.
We're working at home. We're working in the field, in the office, while traveling.
People are using a variety of devices. You have volunteers and consultants
that are coming and going, and so when you get a Microsoft account, your Windows 8 contacts
and files and apps and settings are stored in the Cloud, which means you can sign in
with your Microsoft account to any of your PCs running Windows 8
and you'll have access to your familiar Windows 8 apps and Start screen
and your individual experience that you have on your main computer,
including all of your SkyDrive files. You're not tied to a particular computer
when you're using Windows 8.
There is also a really cool piece of functionality that is available with the Enterprise edition
of Windows 8, called Windows To Go, which Namita had mentioned.
You store a version of your Windows 8 software on a USB drive, and you take that USB drive,
plug it into another computer, and you're up and running with your same version of Windows 8
that you use on your main computer. You can work from home or office without carrying your computer
back and forth. It also supports Bring Your Own Device scenarios,
so if contractors or volunteers are coming in with their own computers,
they can access your network and use Windows 8 using whatever device
they personally brought in. There are also disaster recovery benefits to using Windows To Go,
so heaven forbid, if a disaster damages or disables your main computer,
you have a version of Windows 8 in your pocket using Windows To Go
that you can run on another computer and still keep performing your mission-critical tasks.
SkyDrive we've already talked about a little bit. It's Microsoft Cloud storage service
where you can save documents, photos, whatever you want to SkyDrive
and access them from any computer with an Internet connection.
This comes in handy because you can also share files through SkyDrive.
Say you have a draft of your annual report that you want your board members to review,
or you want to give your volunteers access to the plans you're making for a big event,
you can share it with them using SkyDrive. All they need is Internet access to get to the files
you've shared. I also use SkyDrive to make sure I always have access to a particular file.
If I'm going to a conference, I store my presentation and materials in SkyDrive,
and that way if anything happens to my computer, I can still access my files.
There's also a lot of great sharing functionality that's embedded in the way Windows 8 works.
When you're using Windows 8, say you're reading a blog post or looking at a photo,
with just a few clicks, you can share. You can see this Share charm here.
You can share whatever it is that you're looking at —this example is a blog post —
with your social network. You can see Twitter here, with your contacts through the People app,
through email, and through a variety of other apps that you can add. For example,
if I had added Facebook, I would be able to share to Facebook, too. This is really useful
if you're managing social media for your organization and you find something
that you want to share on Twitter or Facebook, you can just do that directly
from whatever it is you're looking at, be it a blog post or a photo
or something else that you want to share.
Very quickly, I'm going to talk about some considerations if you are thinking about upgrading
to Windows 8. The big one is if your existing hardware and software are compatible
with Windows 8. Microsoft has a really good resource on the website
called the Windows 8 Compatibility Center where you can search for and find out
if your software is compatible with Windows 8. You want to be especially conscientious
about your mission-critical software, your donor database, your client database,
your financial software that you use to balance your books. You need to make sure
that they are compatible with Windows 8 before you decide to upgrade.
Microsoft also has an upgrade assistant that you can use to check if your computer meets
the basic system requirements for Windows 8. So be sure to check those
before you decide to upgrade.
Some other considerations is that Windows 8 does have a very different look and feel,
so there will be a bit of a learning curve for staff and other users,
so plan to do some additional training. If you have older, very low resolution monitors
or graphics cards on your computer that you're installing Windows 8 on,
that can sometimes reduce some of the enhancements that are available in Windows 8
and some of the new features won't work as well, so you might want to plan
to upgrade that hardware or to hold off on Windows 8
until you're using higher resolution monitors or graphics cards.
The last thing I wanted to touch on is how you get Windows 8. You've made the big decision
to switch, so TechSoup offers, through the Microsoft software donation program
for eligible organizations, a Windows 8 Professional upgrade
and a Windows 8 Enterprise upgrade. If for some reason you can't use an upgrade version
of Windows 8, let's say you have a donated computer
that has a possibly unlicensed old version of Windows on it, the Get Genuine program
is available to help you get a full licensed operational version of Windows.
There are also a number of other Microsoft products available through TechSoup donations.
You can browse the entire catalog of them with the link that will be included in the materials
we send out afterwards. We also have a number of resources available which we'll include links to,
and I know we're running short on time so I want to hand it back over to answer a last few questions.
Kyla: Okay, awesome, Ariel. Just so everybody knows, again to reiterate,
we will be sending out these resources that are listed, so don't worry about jotting down the names
of any of these links. We will be sending them out.
Let's take a look at some of these questions. We had one about SkyDrive.
Renell was wondering are the shared files in SkyDrive automatically downloaded
to the local SkyDrive folder, or do you have to access it via the Internet?
Ariel, do you want to take a stab at that one?
Ariel: I'm not sure if shared files, like if I share a file with someone else,
if that file is automatically downloaded to their SkyDrive.
Namita: If I can answer that, it will show in your SkyDrive.
It doesn't get downloaded until you ask it to.
Kyla: Okay, that makes sense. Barbara was wondering, just as a personal opinion,
and Namita, maybe you can answer this one, is the touch-screen better than using a mouse?
Namita: I give you my personal experience. I also have a laptop in which I have a touch-screen.
It's a traditional laptop. It's just that certain tasks for me are easier with the touch-screen.
Suppose if I want to click Next, I'm browsing and I just want to go Next,
it's easier for me to just swipe on the touch-screen. If I want to go back to the Start screen
or touch an app or just move a document, if I'm on Word and I want to move it up and down,
it's easier for me to do certain things faster with touch on a laptop.
But then if I am working on my Excel sheet or PowerPoint, like I was working yesterday,
then it's easier for me to do it on my keyboard. When I have a tablet,
I've gone from meetings where I just carry my tablet and I do everything on touch
because I just like that it's light for me to carry, and I'm usually showing my presentation.
I'm usually sitting with someone close by and when that someone has something to say,
I just pop up the soft keyboard and I quickly type in but that typing is like just taking notes.
It's not extensive typing. That's how I use it.
Kyla: Okay, got it. That makes a little sense. Here's another question about passwords
and gaining access to your Windows PC. Michelle was wondering if setting up a password
to gain access to the PC, is that mandatory in Windows 8?
Namita: No, it is not mandatory to set up a password, but if you are linking your Windows 8
to your Microsoft account, then a password is mandatory.
Your Microsoft account gives you access to the Windows store, to your SkyDrive, to your email.
When it starts giving you access to these things, you want to protect it.
You don't want that anyone who comes to your computer can just start downloading apps
or just start accessing your files. So at that time you do need to set up a password.
The other thing on password is there is a really cool interesting way to set up a password now.
You have something called picture password. You don't have to remember a long password.
You can just have a picture and you just make gestures on the picture to unlock your PC.
Kyla: Okay, that makes sense. I also had a question wondering can the system be set u
so that you can avoid the app screen and go straight to the desktop,
so just avoiding that Start screen altogether.
Namita: No.
Kyla: Okay, got it. All right.
Namita: But when you do go to the Start screen, your desktop is pinned to the Start screen.
It's automatically pinned.
Kyla: It's automatically pinned. Okay. Renell was wondering is there any URL management
with the built-in security software.
Namita: I'm not sure what that means. We can take that offline.
Kyla: That makes sense. I'll forward that to you later.
Cecile was wondering, and this is about SkyDrive, syncing and updating.
She said she updated a file in her SkyDrive on her Windows 8 laptop and it did not sync or update
to the SkyDrive on her Windows 7 Touch-Smart computer.
Is it possible to sync updates between Windows 7 and Windows 8 devices?
Namita: Oh, I'm sorry that you had that experience because it should be working.
I have a Windows 7 desktop at home and I was working on this presentation,
and I uploaded it and today when I came into office, I have my Windows 8 computer,
it was there. All my changes were there. It might be an Internet connectivity issue
that it did not import all the changes.
Kyla: Okay, got it, but it definitely is possible and it should work.
Namita: Yes.
Kyla: All right, so it looks like we got through most of the questions, if not all.
For the few people that still have outstanding questions, I will follow up with you after the webinar.
Again, thank you, everybody, for submitting all these questions.
They have been great. Of course, thank you to Namita and Ariel for your great presentations
in this webinar. Just kind of wrap us up, this is a reminder we are TechSoup.
We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, just like so many of you out there,
and we are striving to work towards the day when every nonprofit and library
and social benefit organization has the technology, knowledge, and resources that you need
to fulfill your mission. Again, I want to thank Microsoft. I want to thank our presenters
and everybody working on the back end to help me out today, and I want to thank you all
for joining our webinar today because I do know that your time is valuable.
If you could take just two seconds when you exit the webinar, you will see a survey pop up.
If you could fill that out, it really does help us in developing future content.
Again, for anybody that we did not get your questions answered,
we will be following up with you later. I hope everybody has a wonderful day.
We will be sending the recording later today.
Thank you.