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Aero Glass UI No More On Windows 8
New submitter closer2it writes with news of interface changes in Windows 8. From the article: "Microsoft has revealed that it has made some big changes to its desktop UI for Windows 8, which includes moving away from Aero Glass — the UI first introduced with Vista. According to the company, this means visual changes that include 'flattening surfaces, removing reflections, and scaling back distracting gradients.' Despite all of these changes with the interface, the company doesn't appear to be worried about the issue of 'learnability.' Instead, Microsoft believes that with a little help it won't take long for users to adapt to the new operating system."
The windows OS was largely similar from Windows 3.1 to Vista. Stop toying with it. I think it's find to have these as optional or even the default GUI if people really want it. But some of us have been using the windows GUI for ages and it's frankly not appreciated when things are moved around.
We know where all the buttons and features are supposed to be guys. There is no other place you can put them that will be better.
Every new version of windows is like some guy randomly coming into your kitchen and reorganizing everything only to leave a little message behind saying "I fixed your kitchen, you're welcome.".... Well great... I can't find the maynanese... my spice rack is completely out of order... and there are about a hundred things that i have to patiently remove from whatever stupid location they were put and put them back where I want them.
What? I can't move it there because you outright removed cabinets and installed totally different appliances? I had that experience in Windows 7 where they took away the ability to sort folders manually. Happily I found a registry hack that added the feature back into the system.
This is obnoxious Microsoft. And beyond that, we've lost compatibilty with most of the old dos apps in the 64 bit version of windows. There's no good reason for that since dos was already being emulated. You can't tell me that you can't emulate a 16 bit environment in a 64 bit environment when there are a dozen dos emulators on the market that will do just that. Of course, most of them are designed for games and so don't work with networked printers or any of the other fun stuff that we've been counting on for YEARS.
Seriously Microsoft. You're killing it. Your selling point forever has been standards and backward compatibility.
I can over look a lot of nonsense if you just give me an updated version of the same thing. I don't use windows to be wowed by the GUI graphics. I use windows because that's how I launch the programs and manage the files that I ACTUALLY care about. Changing everything around randomly is not helpful. Stop doing it. At the very least, at least provide some buried Classic mode somewhere in the system.
I'm tired of New Coke Windows. No one stick with you because you're innovative. We stick with you because you're consistent.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
is complete.
The purpose of the GUI is to keep UX designers employed. The year 24-bit color becomes standard, XP's Fisher-price look is "needed" to make that boring and stodgy NT/2K look go away. The year 3d graphics appears on commodity hardware, Aero is "needed" to make that "childish" XP look go away. The year touchscreens come out, Metro is "needed" to make that "distracting" 3D glossy look go away.
Same sorta deal with Firefox - a few years ago, a browser with lots of options and user control was a good thing. Now it's "distracting" and even the status bar and the name of the communications protocol in the title bar needs to go away to make it "clean".
It's not UX design, it's fashion design. Bunch of artistes wanking away on Photoshop trying to out-trendify each other. It's an utter waste of computing resources, and I'm sick of it.
sudo-like interface for running things that require elevated permissions
The reason for UAC was not to recreate sudo. UAC is, and was, exceptionally intrusive for one purpose only: to create negative feedback to developers who insisted on using Admin permission for everything. Even some games required Admin access under XP, for example.
Microsoft had finally given consumers a multi-user OS in XP and developers were insisting on defeating the benefits of multi-user, making limited user accounts especially painful.
Thus UAC. If your program was bringing up UAC for every stupid thing, then you were doing it wrong.
Now, most programs need to bring up Admin privs for installation and that's the last you see of UAC if you are not doing admin-specific tasks.
It annoyed the piss out of end users when UAC first showed up and everyone in the press misunderstood its purpose. UAC was considered a black mark against Vista. But you have to ask, how else was Microsoft going to force developers into obeying the practices everyone else did on other multi-user OSes?
I am a Unix and Linux guy, but I have to give credit to Microsoft for doing it right for once.
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BMO