Today I saw some new screenshots from Windows 8 that all come from the Metro part of Windows. Now I don’t know if these images are real screenshots or just a very good concept shot being passed off as screenshots, I do know though that there isn’t really anything in any of these images that makes me doubt their authenticity.

First up are the screenshots of the OS itself which will then be followed by screenshots of the Windows Live app.

The above image is similar to the file explorer on the Windows 8 Developer Preview however I think that the inclusion of SkyDrive as a Library is very important. I imagine that it won’t just be the Metro side of Windows 8 that features this Library but also the traditional desktop too. If SkyDrive is going to be integrated into Windows 8 then this will be extremely significant news. However, without knowing how this computer is set up it might be that a user needs to install the SkyDrive app, that we have briefly been shown off before, to allow the SkyDrive Library to appear.

The next image shows basically the same view but in a different colour, it looks just as good, but here we can see some of the control options that are available to users. It appears that the user has clicked on “home” to be shown these options. Now what interests me is that in this image the small arrow on the right of the “home share view” suggesting that the view of additional options can be collapsed. Also interesting to note is that there are more elements that just “home”. I think what we are seeing here is the Metro version of the Ribbon UI. This is another significant development and might just show how the Ribbon UI can actually look good.

The options available seem fairly simple ones, although I am interested to know what “history” offers and how that will look.

The next image is another very interesting one that I believe shows the Documents Library. It is good to see that the documents have a preview thumbnail of what is in them and I wonder if these animate. For example Word documents might scroll through the text and PowerPoint files could cycle through the slides. What i really like though is the coloured bar at the bottom of the preview image that shows what format each item is. I had wondered how people will be able to figure out what kind a file an item in the Metro file explorer would be but this shows it very easily. I do wonder how limited this feature might be though is only colours are used to distinguish between the different files.

I am not sure that there is anything new in the above image but it’s always good to see more Metro.

The first thing that struck me when I saw this was the the logo that is sitting in the top left of the of the app. That was first used by Windows Phone but now appears that it will be used by Windows too. I’m not sure what to make of it, not sure if it will help Windows Phone or hide it.

Anyway, on to the app itself. I believe this is the Windows Live app which will offer all functionality of Hotmail, Messenger and SkyDrive in one place. This because of the icons in the app bar at the bottom. The app looks good to me and seems to readily offer many of the features that users are going to want all within a lovely Metro design.

You’ll notice that on this image a different icon in the app bar has been selected so now we see the Messenger part of the app. Again this looks good and it appears that this section of the app features pivots that we have come to know and love on Windows Phone with “threads people what’s new”.

I can guess what the Calendar section of this app looks like but I am very interested to know what the SkyDrive section looks like and also what the Office icon indicates. I can’t image that the Metro Office apps for Windows 8 are going to be part of the Windows Live app so it seems a bit confusing to have the Office icon in the app bar. There are of course several explanations for the Office icon but none seem to make complete sense to me. If it’s to show the Office documents stored in SkyDrive then why not have a special pivot in the SkyDrive section. Maybe then the icon offers up basic Office features, just like the Office Web Apps, but I would have thought having free Office apps for Windows 8 would make more sense.

Just a collection of images of Hotmail.

Apparently when users to navigate to Bing using Windows 8 they will see a homepage design that is not all that new but what is new is the fact that the rectangles at the bottom are now true Metro inspired boxes. Before, whenever this design was shown off it was very cluttered with lots of text and whilst being a Metro inspired design it didn’t conform to the Metro principles.

With the launch of Windows 8 it makes sense that Microsoft will update it’s website to fit in with the same Metro look. What we are seeing here is potentially that very design. I have to say that both are great and are far better than the current design on the homepage that is meant to be Metro. I am not sure whether these are just fan made designs or if Microsoft is trialling both of these.

What do you think about these new screenshots? I know I am getting more and more excited for Windows 8. I am looking forward to hopefully hearing more about Windows 8 from CES and I’m looking forward to getting the beta version at the end of February.