Windows 8 for tablet and PC detailed at Microsoft’s Build event

Microsoft's Windows operating system, which long ago won the war over desktop computers, didn't even show up in the fight to be the dominant tablet OS. Windows 8, the software behemoth hopes, will change that.

At the company's Build conference in Anaheim, Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows team, offered an in-depth look at the next version of the omnipresent software. Windows 8 is important not only because Microsoft hopes to use it to extend Windows' desktop dominance over Apple's Mac OS X, but also because Windows 8 will be the company's weapon to finally get into the tablet fight and take on Apple's iPad.