The latest leaked screenshots from an early development milestone of Windows 8 appear to reveal the fact that Microsoft is working to connect the next major iteration of the Windows client to the Cloud like never before.

Windows Live and Windows have always been marketed as somewhat of a package deal by the software giant, but no amount of marketing made the two feel like functioning in unison instead of a sum of disparate solutions.

In some of my past articles, I asked for a deeper integration of Microsoft’s services and Cloud applications into Windows 8, and it appears that the Redmond company will, at least in part, make my wishes come true.

Windows vNext will ship with an overhauled Windows Explorer, sporting the Ribbon / Fluent UI instead of the traditional File menu and toolbar.

The screenshots offered by Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott allow users not only to feast their eyes on the upcoming Windows Explorer UI, but also to get a sneak peek at some next generation capabilities in Windows 8.

Source: Windows 8 Cloud Sharing and Synchronization - Softpedia