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Just read an awesome article that Paul Thurrott at Windows Supersite just published over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  You can read the article here: Windows 7: Past, Present, and Future.

I agree with everything he has to say in the article.  Something I do know that Microsoft will have to account for in Windows 8 is the existence of Google Chrome OS, which I’ve written a little bit about myself: Google Chrome OS previewed to public.  The biggest functionality that consumers will demand of Windows 8 is the ability for it to boot fast.  They will also want to be able to run it off of a thumb drive or similar device instead of being bound to a hard drive.  And this needs to be implemented within the installer and not as a consumer level “fix”.

It’s possible to install from a thumb drive but users will want to be able to run their OS from a thumb drive as well.  This may very well require a move away from the Registry as Windows has used for years, just like they did with moving away from DOS to the NT platform.  In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if they emulated or virtualized the Registry in much the same way they emulated DOS in XP, or virtualized Windows XP in Windows 7(i.e. XP Mode in Windows 7).