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The Three Flavors of Windows 8
First time accepted submitter Kelerei writes "Windows 8 has been confirmed as the official name for the next x86/x64 version of Windows, which will be released in two editions: a home edition (simply named 'Windows 8') featuring an updated Windows Explorer, Task Manager, improved multi-monitor support and 'the ability to switch languages on the fly,' while a professional edition ('Windows 8 Pro') adds features for businesses and technical professionals such as encryption, virtualization and domain connectivity. Windows Media Center will not be included in the Pro edition and will be available separately as part of a 'media pack' add-on. A third edition, branded as 'Windows RT,' will be available for ARM-based systems."
Oh look, a shill post in the first message.
You're supposed to wait a bit so as to not be so obvious. /tip
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BMO
Growing up "RT" was code for "Rock Tit" A.K.A. Stiff Nipples. Although I can't say that the RT name choice gives me any...
You've been running Windows 8 on the Desktop? I'm not ranting, I'm interested. What's your setup? What do you do "normally"?
I'm asking because I'm more of the "tiled window manager" and "I want my windows where I want them" type, and I can hardly imagine working with something like Gnome 3, Unity or Metro (hell, I have trouble working with Explorer)...but that doesn't mean that I'm resistant to learning the benefits of those system.
Does the fourth flavor, torrent, have pro + the media addon "slipstreamed" in or what?
I'm not about to actually use anything other than XP at home or work anytime soon, but its interesting to know about.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I've been working with Win8 at Intel where I test graphics card drivers. Of all the Windows versions I've ever used (all the way back to v3.1) Windows 8 is the most retarded version I've ever seen! Not only does it hide even more from the user, treating you like you're some mentally-challenged child that has to be kept from hurting yourself, but flat-out stupid things like Safe Mode access being disabled by default! "System Restore" or "System Repair" should NOT be the only option you have when something goes wrong! Yes, you can enable it, but you have to jump through some hoops to do it! Speaking of hoops, you have to jump through a few of those just to get to what in previous versions of Windows were basic system resources, like the Control Panel, My Computer, etc.. Seriously, it's like it's designed for idiot children. At least with Windows 7, I can turn off all the bullshit and make it a functional operating system, but Windows 8, by design, won't let you do enough of that to satisfy me. Is this what computing is coming down to? I may switch everything over to Linux yet.
I was going to accuse you of giving a knee-jerk reaction against anyone saying something good about Windows 8, but then I checked OP's post history.
This is literally his only post, so yea, shill.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Product differentiation = tiered profit structure. Makes perfect sense, and those who don't like that can get their Windows from the usual sources.
Windows BTW IS "free" if your time and effort to pirate it, install it then fend off viri and malware is worthless.
Screw that. I'd rather run Linux than Windows, so I do. If an employer chooses to inflict Windows on me, they can pay for it.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
While I will admit that the technical underpinnings of Windows 8 and Server 8 are a pretty reasonable improvement over 7/2008 R2, the Metro UI is a big step backwards in terms of desktop usability for all but the most basic users and the way they've included some bits of it - seemingly at random - in the server platform is mystifying to me.
If the whole Metro tiles thing was just a front-end to make it easier for average users to find, organise and launch their applications then I'd be fine with it, but it's not, it's a whole new suite of "apps" in addition to all the existing desktop versions, only without silly things like multitasking included.
Put it this way, as someone who has been using Windows in one form or another for close to 20 years, I really shouldn't have to spend 5 minutes trying to work out where the hell they've moved "Shut Down" to because it's behind a totally un-signposted hotspot at the bottom right of the taskbar and then a non-obvious icon labelled "Settings" and finally the "Power" option under that (Yes, Alt-F4 still works, but that's hardly the point, or useful over a windowed RDP session).
Really wish MS would stop with all of the micromanaged 'versions' of Windows. It adds complexity where none is needed. A home user doesn't need those features but it doesn't hurt to include them. A business user probably doesn't need media center features but again it doesn't hurt to include them. I don't know what their 'game' is here as I don't see a profit motive for splitting up all of these offerings. Are they seriously hoping someone will buy two different versions to get everything they need?
Also, what's with the X86/X64 offerings? Any decent OS should allow you to just boot into the proper kernel. Requiring a dedicated install to switch between x86/x64 is just stupid not to put too fine a point on it.
The customers I support will continue to buy whatever the cheapest version is and then get pissed at me when I can't join it to their domain.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Microsoft is trying to "appropriate" another established term to create an air of legitimacy of their products and imply capabilities that they do not have.
RTOS is a common name for a "Real-Time Operating System", systems that are commonly used on ARM, and, as their name implies, have real-time capabilities that Windows, of any flavor, never had and likely never will. Please note that "RT" was used for this purpose since at least 1973 (RT-11 operating system by DEC).
Let's look back to Microsoft previous efforts on this path. Many years ago they pulled out of nowhere the "Digital Nervous System" advertising slogan, apparently for no purpose other than to create confusion with DNS, Domain Name System. More recently, again, out of nowhere they called one of the descendants of their unholy marriage of OLE and DDE, ".NET", what would be a really stupid name if it wasn't a standard top-leven domain, and sounded somehow related to ".com", a typical term for an Internet-based business. On top of this, Microsoft was extremely persistent in inventing trademarked terms that sound generic -- "Windows", "Word" are actual trademarks, and "MS SQL Server" is constantly mentioned as "SQL Server", even though the former is a Microsoft trademark and the latter is a generic name for a database server using SQL language that covers dozens of Microsoft competitors.
How about a lawsuit from all RTOS developers (including at least two flavors of Linux-based ones)?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I just cannot fathom why at this point that Microsoft still does not grasp how important security is.
Nothing makes this more clear than withholding advanced encryption features or even virtualization from the general consumer version.
They're in the business of making money, not providing important services.
This continued split of versions at this point is just absurd, and confusing to the market. You'd think by now Microsoft would learn to simplify - I guess not. Must be nice being a monopoly that scores of companies have no choice but to ship whatever you put out.
Back in the day, "only one version" was one of their arguments against using Linux.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
For some reason a lot of sites seem to miss it. There are four versions, Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, Windows 8 Enterprise and Windows RT. http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2012/04/16/announcing-the-windows-8-editions.aspx
Especially in light of the fact that MS considers such basics as "network backup" as Pro features.
And how many of those apps will really not run on a 64-bit OS? I've not come across anything in the last couple of years that won't work under 64-bit Windows 7 unless it has a moronic installer check that it doesn't need or is something ancient that needs the 16-bit subsystem to function.
x86_64 only means it won't run on 32bit processors, not that it won't run 32 bit software. There's no way they'd break that much software intentionally.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
The Metro UI is a heap of shit on the desktop. It wastes too much space, requires far too much mouse travel, is wholly unsuited to the 100+ program icons that most users would have in a typical start menu. It isn't even discoverable either, being hidden in the corner with no clue its there. It can be fixed but as it stands in the consumer preview it is horrible. It needs a launcher icon (e.g. reinstate the windows logo), multiple selection, sort functionality, zoom in / zoom out, program grouping and more besides. With all that it might stand a chance as a replacement for the Start menu.
I've tried it out on the desktop, and the metro on desktop thing leaves much to be desired, but they at least left the desktop like it was in windows 7. If you never use the metro apps, the goofy start screen just acts like a giant start menu, even with incremental search. Once you've launched a desktop app, it works like always with the taskbar on the bottom (that they've finally stretched over all the monitors). My biggest complaint is that it's basically like working with two computers - one running metro, and one running windows, and switching back and forth is far from seamless.
After installation, a glowing hologram of Clippy appears and gives the user three choices.
Red flavor - Destruction. Win8 destroys itself to revert back to the previously installed OS. Network port is permanently disabled.
Blue flavor - Control. Keeps Win8 installed, but presents only a command line interface. Network port is permanently disabled.
Green flavor - Synthesis. Keeps Metro UI as a fancy DOS shell. Network port is permanently disabled.
Must be nice being a monopoly that scores of companies have no choice but to ship whatever you put out.
It's no coincidence that most businesses are still on XP/Server2003. I do not look forward to the day our firm "upgrades". Microsoft's only competitor is their past selves, and they often still can't compete; the only way they know to upgrade you is to eliminate support contracts for older versions of Windows, not provide any additional value. Paying money without getting value is a big suck for the economy...
E pluribus unum
I know, it's crazy. What you really want is some sort of Open Source operating system that's modular, whereby you can put together the parts you want.
Or if that's a little too complicated, you could have people who build pre-made packages and distribute them to users based on their needs.
Pity nothing like that exists.
Yeah, what sort of software developer would ever need to look up documentation or consult an email while they were coding?
Did you install Ubuntu?
but you'll focus better without them.
Glad that MS knows exactly how I'll focus, and what will make me focus better. Looking forward to coding on my giant monitor with no distractions from documentation, other code snippets, test windows and the other tools that I use on a day to day basis.
In fact, I'm shocked. Shocked! That I've ever been able to get any work done during my entire career, what with all those other windows cluttering up my workspace.
Check your premises.
Metro is about MS making a homogenous look and feel across all possible platforms, and thus, having to go to the least common denominator (cell phone interfaces) for all of them.
It's about attempting to leverage their PC market share to make a push into the tablet and cell markets.
Once you realize this, the rest follows naturally.
Check your premises.
You are so behind the curve in Windows. In Linux, we have been pissing off power users trying to turn their desktop into a phone for a long time now! Catch up, Micro$oft!
You mean you don't have all the APIs tattooed on your arm? I call that a lack of commitment. ;P
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I'll say this: if it weren't for Metro I would unquestionably recommend Windows 8 as an upgrade to Windows 7 and especially Vista/XP. The UI's generally clean, they've updated many of the things that needed updating (like the task manager or the file transfer dialog) and boot times are improved.
However, the forced inclusion of Metro through their "start screen" idea is flawed at best, a deal-breaker at worst. No, it's not utterly unusable, as some people might say, but it is a lot less convenient than the start menu. It's a needless downgrade from something which took less space, less mouse movement, fewer clicks and especially which fit with the aesthetic of the rest of the OS better. As it is there's a fairly jarring jump between the appearance of the desktop and the Metro tiles, making it feel like you're running two different OS. If the start screen let me use Windows programs more efficiently, it would've been good (and it's entirely possible to make it do so, Microsoft just didn't do it). As it is, programs take way too much space for no reason, getting access to things takes too many clicks, many traditional features are locked behind a "pretty" UI and it generally feels a bit schizophrenic.
However, my biggest gripe isn't actually the start screen, it's the "Charms". Whereas the bottom-left corner opens up the start screen, the right border opens up the charms panel, which has things like wifi strength and such; that much is good. However, in order to do the extremely unusual action of shutting down or hibernating the computer, you have to go into Settings, then Shutdown, all of which AFTER having opened the Charms menu. How's that for intuitive?
Make the start screen more efficient and put a prominent power button in there and I'll be a lot warmer to the OS. As it is Windows 7 still does the job well enough to stop me from moving on. Oh and, the fact they've shoved Metro in Windows Server 8 (even with the "desktop experience" pack disabled) is utterly insane.
When have you ever heard a linux proponent say they want it to become popular? I think the most I'd ever hope for would be that those who want to use it find it useful. That sort of goes against the whole 'computing appliance' idea; that trend is actively harmful to general purpose computing. Also, 'freedom to choose; includes the choice to use a buggy, virus-laden OS, and good riddance to that entire category of user, in my opinion. Increased corporate sponsorship is one thing, but the only thing that Joe Average does is complain about how things should work.
Linux users: post if you actually want linux to see widespread adoption in the home market. Also note whether you think that this could happen without linux becoming a walled garden.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
"All editions of Windows 8 offer a no-compromise experience."
No, we won't compromise about the start button. Nor the greasy finger interface on a desktop. Nor the AOL look and feel. Nor the inability to have multiple windows open at once.
Sheesh - this stuff almost writes itself.
Check your premises.
Make the start screen more efficient
You might be interested in this blog post, which tries to address concerns that the new start screen is less efficient. For example, you complain about things being further away and larger, but according to Fitts law, this exact combination maintains the efficiency of the menu, and if fact the math works out so that it's more efficient for a higher number of items. Further, the shape and grouping capability of the new start screen, which is only possible because it's a screen instead of a menu, make it possible to take advantage of different types of memory recall like spatial memory. After using the new start screen for a while, I find it much more useful than the start menu.
You're only running Windows 11? I'm running Windows 98!! ;)
The idea is basically that if you want to use something like your browser, email, an IDE, etc., there's no reason to have multiple windows up, since they'll just distract you from what you're doing.
Multiple windows aren't a distraction for me, they are a requirement. My normal working environment is a large terminal window to develop my code in, another terminal for actually running the code, a third terminal is usually open to examine logs related to testing the code. If I'm working on something web-based I'll also have a browser for testing the code. I need documentation open, which is usually in the form of several browser tabs and maybe an email or 2 open in Thunderbird tabs.
These windows are all related to a single project - the only alternative to having them all on screen at once would be to keep switching between them, whcih would be very distracting and counterproductive (I do have to do this when working on small-screen devices such as my 15.4" laptop, and I find it hard work).
Windows 7 and GNOME 3 (and possible others) have quick gestures for putting two windows on half of the screen each, but the idea is that generally you don't need more than that (although it would be nice if they had a way to handle it), and most things can just be left in a random place in the background (IMs, email, whatever you're not doing at this moment).
I use and like Gnome 3. But I place windows manually and wouldn't want it any other way. My browser is left maximised on my secondary (only 15") monitor, but nothing else ever gets maximised. The only time I've used the "half screen" maximisation feature is when comparing 2 network dumps in 2 separate Wireshark instances - it's handy for this, but I use it so rarely that I really wouldn't miss it.
I've come to the conclusion that having a desktop environment that supports a multitude of devices (from tiny-screen phones all the way up to massive-screen desktops, etc) is a Good Thing, but we have to stop forcing the paradigms of one type of device on another. On my phone, I want my browser maximised pretty much all the time because the screen is small, but on a desktop with a 24" screen I almost never want this. But I don't think there is a hard rule about whether to maximise or window applications: small screen sizes will tend to want most things maximised, big screen sizes will tend to want most things windows, but in all cases there are exceptions. In the middle, there are things like 10" tablets where you're often going to want things maximised, but there are considerable numbers of cases where you don't. For example, I often wouldn't want my instant messager maximised on a tablet (but sometimes I would), whilst I would usually want my browser maximised (but sometimes I wouldn't).
Since it seems to be very fuzzy whether to maximise or window things, I'm not sure what the best approach is for picking defaults. On the one hand, it sounds nice to try and heuristically figure out the probability that the user will want a certain application maximised on a certain sized screen, and therefore either maximise it or window it by default depending on what the calculated probabilities suggest (and give the user the ability to override this, possibly feeding back the user's override decision into the heuristic so it learns). However, on the other hand, this seems to violate the principle of least surprise - I usually like my computer to do predictable things in response to my mouse clicks, which such a system inherently prevents.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Microsoft is finally warming up to the the Linux Kernel release version branch split system in terms of purpose and usability.
Windows XP = Stable
Windows Vista = Development/Experimental
Windows 7 = Stable
Windows 8 = Development/Experimental
So - given that for certain games and software development (yes, I do develop under Windows as well as Linux), what desktop choices, exactly, do I have with Windows 8? Where is the option for the Windows 7 look and feel?
Oh, wait. It doesn't exist.
So, no, I don't have a choice. And given how tightly the desktop is bound to the OS in Windows, I won't. There might be some mods and add ons that I can use, but not from MS, and probably not with the complete blessing of MS.
Check your premises.