Windows 8 RT is N-O-T Windows

Subtitle (in case you missed the title): Windows 8 RT is NOT Windows

Unless you watched no news whatsoever over the last few days then you would be aware that Microsoft released Windows 8 RT late this week.

I am not too sure how Microsoft are going to make people understand the new Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT along with the Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT devices.

The bottom line is that you CANNOT run Windows applications on Windows 8 RT, but you can run Windows 8 RT apps (they don’t call them applications) on Windows 8. Work that one out if you can!

So don’t go buying one of the new Windows 8 RT devices and expect to run Corel Draw or AutoCAD or Photopshop or Picasa or any other Windows applications on it. But you will be able to run those applications on the Windows 8 devices when they come out in about a month’s time.

As Windows 8 RT has the Internet Explorer 10 browser you can use any Web site apps on Windows 8 RT.

Just so you can see the difference between RT and full Windows 8 the picture at left below is Windows 8 RT and the one at right is Windows 8.

Oh. They look the same? That is because Windows 8 RT looks exactly the same as Windows 8. But remember, Windows 8 RT CANNOT run Windows applications. It only runs Windows 8 RT apps.

If you are not confused yet you soon will be.

What Microsoft have done is build new versions of many of its more popular applications, such as Word and Excel, that will work on Windows 8 RT. While these are NOT the Windows versions of these applications Microsoft have made them look very much the same as the Windows versions. So while you CANNOT run Windows applications on Windows 8 RT you can get Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote in RT versions and they work almost exactly the same as the Windows versions—except for OneNote which looks and works very differently.

I just felt I needed to post that up there.