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Windows 8 Pre RTM Metro UI Leaked
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from PC Tech Talk, which features screenshots of what is said to be something very close to what users will see in Windows 8: "One of the biggest changes Microsoft announced for Windows 8 was the change from the 'Aero Glass' interface we had in Windows Vista and Windows 7 to a new Metro UI. Until today these changes had not been fully seen as the weren't included in the recent Release Preview. A number of changes have been made to the UI since the Release Preview 2 weeks ago. Microsoft have said the new Metro UI will appear crisper following the removal of shadows and transparency. Gradients have been removed from buttons. The task bar is no longer has the glass, transparent look or blur effect. The new design brings with it some heartache for those that loved the Aero Glass effect as it has now been completely removed from Windows 8." Maybe it's more exciting in motion than are these static shots.
It sucks just as hard as I thought it would!
That's horrific.
It looks the same. I the blurring/transparency that important?
I for one will not be pirating this version. The ultimate DRM!
its like seeing bill o'reilly naked
i'm going to run out and buy a Mac for twice the price of a PC just so i don't have to look at this
Can it still be set back to the 'Windows Classic' theme? If so, nothing to see here.
(I do need to touch a Microsoft PC once every few months).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Its pretty clean and I was baffled at the need for fancy glass and transparency, heck, those things were cliche by the time Win7 came out and are beyond cliche already. I like an interface made up of flat colors much better personally.
Keep those Winbots online. LOL.
These screenshots remind me of linux when the window manager crashes.
... looks like ass.
Or vagina.
The task bar is no longer has the glass, transparent look or blur effect.
Actually, look at the lower right corner. The wallpaper is indeed showing through in a blurred translucent way. Of course, I'm going to guess the trick is the wallpaper has a one-time blend done and windows will not show up behind the bar in a blurred way....
In any event, MS is throwing Desktop experience under the bus hard chasing that tablet market...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Is that all that counts today ? pretty effects and cool graphics ? I for one just want a plain old desktop with no background, just the classic theme without anything installed, no gadgets no candy just the desktop, a couple of icons there and that's about it. Hell I may be alone here but I don't even like tower cases with all those neon lights. It uses too many useless watts if you ask me. My desktop is the most boring desktop you'll ever see. But it will be performing 100% and will be very fast compared to many eye candy desktop versions that I see everyday. I like mine with power without all the excel. It may be ugly but its powerful (I'm talking about my computer and not my dick here)
That's a pretty bold design move of Microsoft--you know, putting that shitty distracting 'WinUnleaked' text all across the desktop so it's impossible to miss what site 'leaked' the photos and so it's impossible to get a good visual sense of what's going on. I mean fuck--they should have just opened up MS paint and used the spray can to hand-write it out in size 64 font.
Hopefully Nike doesn't follow suit and start including shards of glass inside their new line of shoes to remind you just how uncomfortable it might be if you weren't wearing shoes...
If these screenshots are to be believed, it feels like every fancier looking OS from the late 90s, back before most of the fancier stuff was really feasible.
Shadows have a role (helps to establish depth and layers). Gloss has a role (draws the eye to interactive elements). Translucency has a role (establishes that something is over something else and gives it a sense of impermanence). Gradients have a role (draws the eye along the gradient towards something). Windows Vista and 7 overdid it by quite a bit, but cutting them out entirely is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You sacrifice usability when you do so. You can take a minimalist approach while still having those elements.
As long as they don't tap the GPU for UI effects like they did in Vista and 7 I'm cool with it. ;)
I also can't help but feel they chose the worst way to display the new UI. The wallpaper is horrific, Window colors do not seem tuned, looks like a 12 year old realized you can change the UI colors around and started tapping away at configuration options. I doubt this is the final refined look / color scheme.
Why?
It's like a step backwards to an old 80s OS where everything consisted of solid bars with no shading or variation.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
but what do you expect when you dumpster dive...?
CAPTCHA = leathern
You don't need all that glass and effects for an OS GUI. Honestly how many of us spend 8 hours a day using Windows Explorer. Let the programs and apps be the center piece. In the same time if they can save battery life and use less memory and CPU and GPU cycles then they are doing it right. If you can go back to the Vista days you will see many people complaining about the lack of performance due to these silly effects. Now they are gone and I hope for good.
This is an effing joke, right? Early April fools? Looks like 2012 will be the year of Linux on the desktop. Not because it got better, but because Windows will be the joke OS. I know I sure will laugh at anyone I see running it...
This looks like something my 5 year old came up with in MS Paint.
*sigh*, better to get started now than to wait for MS to release this hideous 8bit color OS. Not to mention that Win 8 has far more problems than just the fact that it is butt f**king ugly. In the past I wouldn't switch to Linux for my *DESKTOP* OS because it was (is) butt ugly, no other reason, it was (is) just God awful to look at. This is worse...
If you look at my post history, I have *HAVE* been an avid supporter of Windows for my desktop OS .. even Vista (never had a chance to run ME because NT kernel OS that had DirectX (win2k) was released, I jumped on it).
Are there people out there that actually _like_ the 8bit hideousness that is Win8?
I'll hold out for windows 9.
Making everything white makes it hard to identify the different UI elements and is just bad design
It's also worrying when a feature first appears in the RTM. Isn't one of the purposes of the Developer Preview -> Consumer Preview -> Release Preview process to get feedback from users. Apparently Microsoft don't care what users think, though I suppose that isn't anything new.
It'll mean my support business will increase!
The window title is now solid color without any transparency, but the task bar still has the blurry transparent looks as one can see from the pictures.
Or do I misunderstand the names for the different bars in Windows' UI?
This design is great, but Windows for Workgroups 8.11 is going to be even better!
and they'll have a finished product.
How odd - it looks like any of a dozen Linux window managers from the late 90's. Back then I used to think how the flat/square look was just the first simple thing a developer would come up with, and how Linux would need a little more graphical refinement if they ever hoped to go mainstream. In the end it doesn't matter much for usability, but it sure looks like a toy/baby window manager to me.
This is what it looks like since I installed the DEV preview in February.
All I have to do is set the window border color to a nice light blue, drag the task bar to the top of the screen, and I'll feel like I'm back using my Amiga from 20 years ago. Which isn't a bad thing, really.
What I find funny is that everyone bashed XP's big rounded edges and colorful themes as being cartoonish. Then Vista came around, and everyone railed against Aero for being a pointless resource hog, adding eye candy without functionality. With 7, everyone complained it was just a service pack for Vista, because there wasn't a big huge interface change. Now, they decide to overhaul it to be a simpler, cleaner interface, without the frivolous flair, and everyone hates against that too.
Then you should love Linux with Fluxbox or something like the awesome window manager.
What is the point of all these changes? Removing the start button, replacing Aero, adding a ribbon the explorer. None of these changes are necessarily horrible, but not one of them is necessary or makes the GUI better.
I really think this whole thing will be a disaster of Vista proportions when this thing gets released.
If the goal is to simplify the interface they have failed. The first screenshot in the article: "Computer" is the most cluttered confusing thing I have seen in a long time. I counted 8 icons of computer screens.
I'm glad Microsoft is getting away from the faux materials UI design that Apple made trendy. Shadows, gradients, mirrors, glass... it was all getting very predictable and tired. The metro interface, for all its faults, is based on the distinct and recognizable iconography you'd find at airports and train (metro, get it?) stations. You can find your way around these places without even knowing the language, and just following the pictures. Adding bevels and gradients and embossing to these UI elements just detracts from the usability of the device.
We're now in an age where we don't need to draw physical analogs to digital representations in order to understand them. File systems make sense without talking about a filing cabinet and a physical manila folder. Erasing makes sense without having to talk about a pencil eraser. Copying makes sense without having to talk about a clip board. However, Apple still insists on a physical spiral notebook for their notes app, or a desk planner for their calendar app, or a bookshelf for the iBooks app. Maybe this is comforting to a much older generation than mine, but I find no value in it, and therefore welcome the cold digital interface that metro brings.
Casual hardware users don't care what OS is on a device, it just has to be the "in" device of the year.
Microsoft is slowly alienating the users who keep it alive, until it become irrelevant and so
similar to the competition all it will have to fall back on is features and innovation, which it is no longer
a leader in.
I've never seen a company so eager to destroy their own user base though forced , unwanted, change.
It reminds me of my xbox, at least i can speak to the kinect. Can i talk to windows now too? Windows open porn site. Windows activate fleshlight
I thought this already looking at another MS web site the other day, but I wonder if they stick to square/blockly things because rounded corners in IE are such a pain (compared to chrome/firefox). That way, they can claim the lack of rounded corner CSS support in IE is just the MS box way.
Looks like some kind of crazy Linux desktop theme, and with acres of white space!
I'm not a big fan of this UI, but it does remind me of the fairly recent UI change that I've seen in gmail. Yeah... not a big fan of that either.
Is this just some kind of "natural" progression we're going with?
"Intelligence has nothing to do with politics!"
-Londo Mollari
Still the f'ed up ui that ONLY works on on tablets, right? Pass. Its going to be an absolute nightmare for all of these poor people who order their Dell's and go "What the fuck is this shit? How do I navigate this thing?"
RIP Windows 7 the last sane MS Desktop OS
RIP Snow Leopard the lasr sane Mac OS
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Just because you can compute transparency does not mean you should use it.
IMHO this is looking infinitely better, the first time they have improved over the "Classic" appearance. Clean is much better.
The title bars and resize edges are really thick however. And they seem to be cluttering the titlebar with icons. Not sure what the colored text that seems to be attached to the "ribbon" tabs is either, it would seem better to move the ribbon tabs and menu bar up into the titlebar.
i'm going to run out and buy a Mac for twice the price of a PC just so i don't have to look at this
You don't need to. My clean PC runs Xubuntu.
Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.
and Merto is program manager full screen that goes away when you start a app.
IE 10: Better HTML 5 support - not much else - who cares?
Sign in with MS Account: Who cares? Is anyone gonna use this?
Picture Password and PIN Login: Picture pass is kinda cool, but PIN login? Really?
Ribbon in Windows Explorer: Holy cow no thank you.
Hybrid Boot: Kinda cool - depends on how well it works.
Windows To Go - Officially supported BartPE. Yawn.
Refresh and Reset Recovery - How about making it so you don't need recovery in the first place? How is this better than a decent backup system?
Native USB 3 - This shouldn't be a Windows 8 "feature," this should be in a service pack for Vista and Seven
New Windows Task Manager - Yawn
XBox Live integration - I don't think anyone will care about this - are they thinking about competing with steam? Good luck.
Storage Spaces - LVM for the masses? Kinda cool.
Family Safety - Wasn't this included with Windows Live? Yawn
Antivirus in Windows Defender - In other words, they are just including MSE.
Secure Boot Support - Holy cow no thank you
So a handful of actually useful new features (that can, mostly, be added on to Seven with 3rd party utilities) a few that should be included with Seven and Vista, and a bunch that I don't want, including, in a big way, Metro.
Doesn't sound like a winner.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
I always hated those
- 3D effected buttons and stuff
- shadow thingies
- gradients wasting space
- huge thingies with hues and glowing...
Give me a SLICK, flat interface, with good contrast and I'm as happy as I could be.
Windows 7 was a small improvement over Vista in speed and efficiency. Windows 8 is supposed to be an even bigger jump "backwards", and will run on less capable machines, including many users running Atom and ARM CPUs, who will probably benefit from removal of Aero. For desktop machines plugged into the wall it's all kind of "meh", but Microsoft isn't spending its billions of $$$'s on the desktop -- it's all about mobile. Or something.
This seems to be normal overlapping windows. I was under the impression that "Metro" was a Unity-like single app desktop.
It looks a little like Windows 3.1 to me.
Unless Valve releases most of their first party library, steam, and all the indie games that support linux there too, that could change something
Then you might call this change we can believe in.
What i wonder most is if they switched back to the old gdi accelerated environment as windows classic theme or still stick to the aero glass theme. Because alot of applications work alot faster in the old gdi. most notably office 2010 access and vb6 . However aero offers the peek preview and the preview on alt tab. Alt tab preview was available in xp with the powertoys, but I now have to miss it alot of the time in windows 7. Resizing split screens is just painfully slow in aero in access.
This is really fucking appalling. This is the best that they came up with? For fuck's sake, the XP UI is so way better. Hell, even Win 3.1 had a better UI. If I had an engineer who designed that, they would be looking for a new job.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
he now is not hoping this will finally kill of microsoft's cash cow too.
I spend more time fixing that damn glass effect bar than it takes to install Xfce...and now their changing it!
The more complex the task, the simpler the steps need to be.
This theme seems to already be present in the Consumer Preview that was released a few weeks ago. The only difference is that the RTM is going to use this theme by default. Did I miss something here?
I guess Microsoft is regressing. Next up the DOS interface.
It looks very retro. I suspect they are having serious performance problems and had to rollback the HMI improvements of Vista and Windows 7. I hope it's not so serious that you can't play a modern game with Windows 8.
The UI addon market should explode.
Those images look like they could be from Google Apps.
#DeleteChrome
After having used Windows 8 and started developing apps for it using VS 2012 (11 beta) for several months now, I have to say Metro is about the laziest UI design that has come out of any OS developer in the history of operating systems.
What they have done is removed ALL borders, all color variations and rounded corners, along with any chrome and created blobs of white/grey boxes with text on it.
Its almost like Microsoft has given up on traditional desktop applications and want to encourage more "web-like" app designs exclusively for the Metro overlay.
I could almost be claimed to be a Windows fanboy, but Windows 8 is the first time since Windows ME that I am greatly disappointed in the direction Microsoft is taking for UI/UX. It is horrid on almost every level of UI and UX and I have been a UI/UX developer for 15+ years.
Windows 8 may be the biggest disaster they have ever created.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I'm just going to switch to Desktop Mode.
Frankly, Windows 8? It's not really that different outside of Metro and ARM support but I can see a lot of opportunities to now buy the upgraded tools that are "integrated" to work with it.
MS OFFICE , you'll have to upgrade that ...
Visual Studio, yeah same there
the list goes on and on. Frankly, just keep Windows 7 around guys and just keep refining it because I don't see much benefits in 8 that would affect me.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
UGGG LEEE.
I don't get it. Why don't they just make it easier to skin it?
Why is explorer so flat and plain with pastel colours? It looks too basic especially against the standard windows desktop.
Support for user skinning of the Window's GUI would go a long way to alleviating concerns about how it looks. It's ridiculous that after over a decade not one version of Windows supports user skinning. Equally ridiculous that we have to resort to replacing the Windows shell just to do more than simple recoloring of the GUI. At least with a skinnable GUI we don't have to put up with horrendously bad design decisions in the appearance of something we'll use every day.
What users of Windows 8 will there be?
They see me shadin ...
They loggin
Patrolling they tryin to catch me gradien dirty
Tryin to catch me gradien dirty
Tryin to catch me gradien dirty
Tryin to catch me gradien dirty
Tryin to catch me gradien dirty
My aero so loud
I'm moddin
They hopin that they gon catch me gradien dirty
Tryin to catch me gradien dirty
Tryin to catch me gradien dirty
Tryin to catch me gradien dirty
Tryin to catch me gradien dirty
Aero Glass... hahahah... How long did it take me to turn Aero Glass off? About as long as it took me to find the control for it. My Win 7 install (that I had to have for school... stupid proprietary software refusing to run under Wine...) I made look as much like my last XP install, so I wouldn't have to screw with it. I ripped out the stupid libraries bullshit, turned off all the system-power wasting "enhancements" to the "UI", set the default control panel view to "small icons" instead of those stupid groups... eventually, it starts looking like the devil-I-know...
That said, if this is what Misro$oft is going to use as its next OS, looks like the curse of WinME/Vista is returning for another unnecessary, ugly, kludgey "operating" system version.
Windows. All the susceptibility, and none of the stability of real operating systems. Maybe between 8 and Windows Phone, we'll finally see the fall of Misro$oft. I think if I turned on my computer one morning, in the not too distant future, and CNN's headline is "Microsoft Files for Bankruptcy Protection" it'd be a wonderful day. That whole company needs to GO.
One can only hope.
I really never liked Aero that much and the special effects just seemed like fluff to make the CPU work harder than being anything useful.
Don't believe anything from Valve with regards to dates, even if I comes from Gabe himself.
This is STILL missing a few major releases later. Does nobody miss the up arrow to go back a directory in the file manager?!?!
I really disliked the transparent theme introduced in Vista and Win7. I personally found it distracting and ugly. The screen shots show an interface with better contrast and less distractions. I kind of like it. The lack of a Start button is a little jarring, but the rest of the theme is something I greatly prefer compared to what we've seen in the previous two releases.
Does MS think people care about speed? If they did, I wouldn't have to tell my family to defrag their PC every time I use it. KDE and Apple seem like they have good tablet counterpart (cue the flaming). iOS and Plasma Active are good. GNOME and Windows both tried to combine their desktop and tablet shells, instead of doing the work to make separate ones. Why can't they just port WP7 to tablets and keep Aero for the desktop users? Meanwhile, I'll just be running KDE.
I tried the Release Preview they put out the other week and it was a train wreck, the list of things wrong with it are below:
...
1. No easy cascading windows
2. No start menu on the desktop
3. No way to change an existing users email account to a hotmail account
4. No clear way to change all the settings
5. Bulky and very poorly designed UI
6. No intuitive use
7. No access to a terminal from Metro
8.
I can keep going and going, it was the worst Windows release ever! If they want to win back customers they have A LOT of work left to do.
After trying, unsuccessfully, for so long to reach parity, all it took was sneaking a saboteur into Microsoft's design lab.
... looks like ass.
Or vagina.
Stay away from Morse Code, if you have that much trouble determining dots from dashes.
I still prefer NT4 era window decorations (NONE) cause I just want to get shit done and pretty graphics means less space on screen for apps.
However on friends and realitives computers who don't all have eagle eyes the aero thing with the transparencies really look quite nice and cool.
It is to me a little bit hilarious Microsoft is focusing on function over pretty interfaces while at the same time pushing a totally zombie consumption based interface concept like metro which makes no sense at all on the desktop.
My conspiracy theory they want the desktop interface to look as ugly as they can get away with so people will be less confused by Microsofts 8-bit blockworld interface.
It was cool to be able to run and see the output of two DOS programs on one 640x480 vga computer display at once in desqview like 20 years ago... The reserrection of that same prospect for metro apps in 2012 on our modern high rez monitors is beyond anything I am capable of processing or understanding.
I wish MS the best of luck in its future endeavours chasing the apple zombie class of users.. As for me I don't want to be on your nonsensical sinking ship anyway MS...I'm jumping ship while there are still penguins in the water willing to rescue me.
This might be a question to the old-timers in the audience, but don't the screen shots look kinda like... Windows 3.1?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
No shadows, gradients, or transparency? So now it looks like Windows 3.1?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Wait! This is what everyone is up in arms about? It's just the Windows 7 UI with all the excess transparencies and resource hogging "glitz" that everybody railed about when Vista came out. It is not significantly different.
Though it does indeed lack the glitz that people who post pictures of their desktops, in search of approval, usually like, it is easier to read. Readability of my desktop always seemed important to me so, I was never a fan of the transparent terminal windows and fuzzy window borders.
This seems like an improvement to me. And, if it reduces resource usage, it's good with me!
So glad to see that crappy artificial glare effect gone. No more registry hacks or falling back to the Classic UI to turn it off.
A first grader could've designed a better graphical user interface; it's so flat and bland.
Microsoft will not be getting business from me for Windows 8. Yuck.
Its almost like Microsoft has given up on traditional desktop applications and want to encourage more "web-like" app designs exclusively for the Metro overlay.
I could almost be claimed to be a Windows fanboy, but Windows 8 is the first time since Windows ME that I am greatly disappointed in the direction Microsoft is taking for UI/UX. It is horrid on almost every level of UI and UX and I have been a UI/UX developer for 15+ years.
Windows 8 may be the biggest disaster they have ever created.
And then there was heard a woe-some cry from Redmond, echoing all the way down the Cascades. "DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, Developers, developers, devel......" as the tears flowed in Silicon Valley as more and more real coders left for China and the embedded Java and Busy-box device market.
Whilst I'm not going to be rushing out and getting Win8 (in fact, I'll probably skip it entirely) I applaud this move.
First thing I do with a new Win7 machine I'm setting up (for me or others) is to turn off everything except Aero Peek. Instantly makes the machine feel much more responsive and much easier to see the important stuff. I haven't had a single person complain yet (or possibly even notice), including some who had been using the default settings before they got me to prep their machine.
,,,,when single-machine people that aren't interested in Metro look for what other 'features' are in Win8 and find that there are so few that MS have to list 'app store' as something you're supposed to want to pay for.
For the corporate side - I've done three UAT's at big sites, and each one featured a near 100% rejection of the UI. The main comments included "Why can't we have both?", "Why do I need this when I don't use a tablet or MS mobile?"...and one that was the best summary I've seen so far - "Are we going to wait for Windows 9 while they figure out what they're doing?".
Server 2012 may be fine and dandy, but the real crunch will be how well it works with Win7 clients - because nobody's going to care what advantages Win8 has if Metro is the price. And that's before we get to the Metro subsystem no-one needs either.
I recently picked up some Canon XF100 video cameras that can generate 1920x1080 MXF (long-GOP mpeg2) @ 50mbps and 4:2:2 color sampling. As it turns out, my "classic" 1st-gen quad core workstations (XP 32-bit) are really struggling with all those extra bits and I plan on building at least one new machine for HD work, most likely an Ivy Bridge 4 or 8 core beast. I have always bought boxed copies of Windows so I can move the OS to a new machine whenever I feel like it. I could still theoretically slap 32-bit XP on the new workstation, but it would probably be nice to get rid of the memory limits and maybe move to one of the newer OSes. The main workload besides previewing & editing HD footage is rendering to MPEG2 and H.264. The Ivy Bridge family seems to really excel at that kind of work, so I think I'll see a big speed increase. My concern is the choice of OS.
Since the first day of Vista and all subsequent OS versions, the vast majority of reviews and discussions have centered around gamers, office products, and web-interface online applications. Very little discussion has taken place regarding the needs and preferences of the power users in the creative world (i.e. people with actual tech skills who don't care for the Mac environment). Personally, once I get past the initial setup, I have almost zero need to interact with the OS and Control Panel. Workstations do not have hundreds of applications on them and I never use the start menu. Every app I use daily or weekly (Vegas, Photoshop, Virtual Dub, Handbrake) has a desktop icon. The only thing in my QuickStart is the "Show Desktop" icon, which I use dozens of times per session, along with alt + tab. I have no need or tolerance for interface embellishments. I just want things clean, sparse, and FAST.
The main thing that kept me off Vista was the hundreds of reports that moving files around with Explorer was completely and utterly broken. There were a few claims that things had improved a little in 7, but there wasn't a lot of information or technical benchmarks that I could find. Aside from editing & rendering, moving very large files around on my local gigabit network is THE primary task I'm involved in regularly. I commonly have to move a terabyte or more at a time and I saw a lot of reports that Vista V1 would take literally weeks to complete the task due to some seriously bad back-end coding (or hidden DRM if you believed the tinfoil hat brigade).
I'd like to hear some opinions about the state of file transfers as well as the performance of graphics-heavy apps like audio and video editors and processors on 7 and 8 (vs the speed and reliability of XP). For my purposes, the OS has ONE primary function that I rely on - file IO. If that still sucks in 7 and 8, I may just stick with XP for another couple of years until MS finally decides to pull their heads out of their asses and fix the IO issues or Sony releases a Linux version of Vegas. (not likely, since it's built on .NET v4 and relies heavily on Direct-X)
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
In 2013 Microsoft will report unprecedented losses for sure.
I'm fine with the style, but the all white interface is going to be infuriatingly blinding.
I've used a dark theme (eg. light text on dark background) with every text editor I've ever used. As a developer the reduction in eye strain is well worth twiddling with a few style settings. It's to the point where I avoid Google's front page just because there's too much brightness getting blasted in my eyes.
Based on this report, I'm glad they are removing the glass. I always turn it off at first opportunity. As for the screen shots I keep thinking of the "rainbow spew" that I remember from when my old 8bit Sega master system threw a sloppy floppy.
I am not just going to agree with the popular view. In other words I have bad Karma.
I have spent a large amount of time defending the company here, not because I'm an employee or shill, but simply because I use their software and support it. Given what I have seen with Windows 8, I cannot in good faith support the company anymore. They are heading the wrong direction. They finally got the UI right with Windows 7. Sure, I am running it on an i7-960 with a good video card, but even on a Core2Duo with an AGP card it ran very well, especially when using a flash drive for the ReadyBoost cache.
They seem to be ditching all of the great UI elements that make Win7 so good simply so that they can target the lowest common computing denominator, the smartphone. Maybe the desktop really is dead. Maybe the idea of actually owning your own computer and being able to do what you want with it are on the way out. Working on the inside, I see it. Between governmental regulations that corporations have to comply with, and the various DRM schemes that media companies are coming up with, there is simply too much liability for anyone who enables data leakages or piracy. The answers are technologies like VDI and walled app gardens. Devices like the douche pad with zero external media connectivity.
All we need now is IPv6 so that every device can have a unique address, and the coffin will be nailed shut. Even a Linux box won't save you because the upstream routers are already part of the matrix. Who needs to bar code people when most everyone will voluntarily own a smartphone or some other always on, always connected device?
Pay for something that would barely qualify as a Service Pack for Windows 7 (sans crippling Start Menu, without Ribbon Explorer and a lack of Fisher Price styling, IDE gutting and the *ZOMG* dual-tasking/fullscreen weather apps)
No thanks.
not even MS is that silly. I can't believe that MS would reproduce a GUI that is similar to a high res version of windows 1.0.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
eventually they might come back to the best one: straight up NeXTSTEP.
Now I can't troll Apple fanboys with a straight face. :(
Fanboy Status: Apache Flex, C#, Eclipse, KDE, Pirate Party, Ron Paul, Slackware, Windows 7
Well Microsoft is trying to force everyone to like Metro. They probably think if they can make the desktop look more bland the metro UI might appear a little more appealing. However, it goes against their plans for Windows 8 to have a software rasterizer to allow gpu poor machines to run Aero. Ideally that is what they should have done for Vista. That way there would have been less outrage about not being able to run Aero on Vista compatible PC's.
Its almost like Microsoft has given up on traditional desktop applications and want to encourage more "web-like" app designs exclusively for the Metro overlay.
Almost, but out of date. "Web-like" was Windows 98, when some idiot decided to make the file browser be the web browser. In 2012, it's "tablet-like," where some idiot decided that a UI designed to work well with a touch-screen tablet should be the same design for a computer that comes equipped with a keyboard and mouse.
Yeah, I saw something like that in NAR. It could just be someone who lives out of the service area of fiber, cable, or DSL and is following sglewis100's advice to upgrade in "any number of places like Starbucks, McDonalds, Barnes and Noble". Otherwise, a 4 GB upgrade on a 5 GB/mo satellite or cellular plan is painful.
...Mac OS 9.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I admittedly prefer Windows over any other DESKTOP Operating System, but I have to say, this is the first one from Microsoft I have not looked forward to... And I've been using Windows since 3.1
If you are on the Release Preview, go to desktop, graphics properties and turn off transparency. Now switch color to white. It looks nearly identical to those shots.
Frankly I think Microsoft should bring back the Blackcomb and Whistler themes for Windows 8/RT desktop mode. I would be easy enough to gut the gaudy gradients from Blackcomb and pull what little 3D bordering Whistler had. Add in a selection of accent and title bar colors as defaults and they would be done while still maintaining aesthetic consistency with Metro apps.
I do have to agree with Microsoft pulling transparency and gradients. It makes a lot more sense when you realize they cost more power and battery life on ARM based CPUs and many of the accompanying GPUs. I like Aero Glass a lot, but I can definitely see the reasoning. I have to turn off transparency for a huge performance boost on my Atom based tablet though and have no gripes.
The amount of froth coming out of people's mouths makes me think that this is a blast from the past when Vista was being released. Lots of hate towards Microsoft and much of it very deserved.
I have no issue with going with a minimalist desktop interface, 15-years ago, when I was messing around with Windows colors to make a white-on-black theme for text to minimize the amount of ambient and useless light produced the monitor from black text on a overly white background... cough, Slashdot, cough. But today when my GPU is more powerful than my CPU for graphics processing that ship has sailed.
If Windows 8 is geared for Microsoft's entry into Mobile arena, will someone please tell them that today's Mobile devices come with some pretty powerful GPUs themselves that are able to handle shadows and gradients, even some flight blurring and transparency. Since they are putting in the OEM licensing fees at $85-95 per device they are going for the $500+ mobile device market where GPUs are going to be powerful enough to handle such graphics tasks. Are they asleep and not paying attention? Did they somehow hire some HP iPaq developers or did the Windows CE guys highjack the Windows 8 UI team.
There was something peaceful and comforting about the olden days of yore with a dark orange or green cursor blinking back at you and only the text on the screen producing output from the commands. Now these days computer display have turned into imitations of paper with light blaring out at you for no good reason. Eye fatigue does come into play after staring at all-white web site backgrounds or Explorer windows while your eyes are searching for that key piece of text you need to move on and do something.
Like many folks I skipped Vista, went from XP to 7. I'm about to hop-scotch Windows 8 the same way. Wake me up when Windows 9 comes around and some saner heads prevail in the computer display User Interface arena.
PS: If it wasn't for crappy apps that don't honor Windows colors and use their own, I could have had my white-on-black theme. Perhaps it will never happen judging from how developers refuse to re-use system defaults and standards.
Microsoft adds a bunch of blingy shit to their UI. Users: "What the fuck Microsoft, you've given us a bunch of dazzle and flash but no substance!"
Microsoft takes all the blingy shit out. User: "What the fuck Microsoft, this is ugly as hell, it looks like GEOS!"
what? what? Winwho?
I ran windows 8 and nothing to brag about. It's basically 2 interfaces wrapped around the kernel. I think MetroUI(HTML5) for Microsoft was nothing more than an afterthought. They should of just released service pack 2 with usb3 support and better optimizations for AMD's newest FX processors(better hyper-threading than intel), and release the MetroUI only for the tablet. The problem with MetroUI is that it's really secondary component to the taskbar interface on the desktop, I don't want to see the taskbar desktop only MetroUI. I thought all apps would look and be based on html5/javascript and also that they would find away to wrap the MetroUI interface onto the old applications like office 2007/2010, adobe creative suits, or visual studio .net, etc....
I think, Microsoft as usual, does an half-ass job and releases whatever the hell they want without regards to customers feedback or complaints. Why do I have to go to and buy Ultramon to have a second F&*king taskbar on my second screen when Microsoft could of had easily implemented this themselves. Or be able to change the taskbar themes more easily than using a third-party program or replacing Microsoft DLL's. Almost all businesses are in too deep with Microsoft products and really need to quit cold turkey and move on to bsd or linux so that way adobe, autodesk, corel will be forced to port or develop from scratch applications for those OS's once they see Microsoft losing customers.
There's a very easy way for Microsoft to avoid complaints about this: allow users to create their own Windows themes. Currently you can only change colors and text size/font on a standard Windows install. The actual Windows Explorer engine allows full customization via theme files, but the theme files are signed with a MS key, and no one has cracked this key yet to make it usable on a stock system without hacking a DLL. Why not give a registry option, at least, to enable unsigned themes? It could be disabled by default (and allow admins to force disable via group policy) if they're concerned about security, but it would give some choices to users who want their system to look the way they're used to.
I know there are third-party packages that can do this. But that's not the point. I shouldn't have to buy additional software just to get around some bullshit "protection" Microsoft put in to keep us from having full control over our own systems.
Just curious, what did you find bad about the UI in Windows ME? It was basically the Windows 2000 interface back-ported to Win9X line, which wasn't really too terribly different than the Windows 98SE interface. About the only complaint I had was that they went out of their way to try and hide the fact that ME was still based upon DOS. Granted ME had a lot of other problems, but I didn't really remember anything terrible about the interface.
While they're at it they might as well just go to a plain command-line since it looks like they're trying to go back to 1985. Glad I use a Mac.
Windows 8 may be the biggest disaster they have ever created.
I blame Ballmer.
Looks like they've gone back to 1986 and Windows 2.0 style 2D.
It looks hideous to me, I much prefer the gloss and depth of Aero Glass.
Back in the early 90s there was a little program you could get called All3D. This used a DLL called ctl3d.dll to make all the 2D elements of regular Windows 3.1 (such as checkboxes and radio buttons) become 3D, as was eventually the case with regular Windows 95. I daresay some enterprising person will come up with a similar thing for Windows 8.
They use white to separate columns and sections in Gmail now, If I view an email with lots of white in it, then I can't tell at a glance whether each section belongs to the email or the page fluff around it.
It's like they have only 2 colours to divide/group and they really need 3. So the grouping color on the login panel that groups the username/password fields together, is used as a button colour on gmail..
Just because there's incompetent people in Google doesn't make the incompetent people in Microsoft any more competent.
I do not like the look of Gmail either. That is why I use a desktop eMail client.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
I think the interface is simple, because it's quicker for a vm to draw, scales better to weird screen sizes and pixel densities and compresses better on a remote desktop connection. Maybe MS is betting the farm on the cloud and want the best interactive experience when the installation count of the OS peaks in 5 years time.
Windows 3.11, is that you with more colors?
Windows XP was the first release that merged the home & business lines -- before that, it was:
home users: 95-->98-->ME
business users: NT3.x-->NT4-->2000
The every-other-release curse was really just because it took a couple of years to kill enough bugs for each one to be acceptable, by which time its successor was in testing. Of course, even MS knew it was a lost cause for ME & Vista; it's a shame they escaped their cages, since only an incestuous relationship could explain something as horrifyingly twisted as Windows 8.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
Fellow KDE 3 fans should try Trinity Desktop, the team has been doing a great job and figures on releasing 3.5.14 this Fall if all of the blocking bugs are squashed. (I'm not on the team, just a fan of their work.)
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
It reminds me of those educational "laptops" for kids that have ten built in programs and an interface looking very very similar to this. I can tell with some certainty that, baring absolute necessity brought upon by business related pressure, I will not be installing this crap on any of my computers - I'm much too happy with Windows 7. And that's saying a lot for someone much preferring to work with Linux.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Sure, we all attacked XP for looking like a Fisher-Price toy, and slammed Vista because the hardware requirements meant a lot of people either couldn't use Aero or (as in my case) install Vista at all.
Compare the Windows 8 UI to that of Windows 98, though. While they're both much simpler than recent releases, the older one actually did make use of visual cues like gradients -- and it allowed the user to decide what color the various window elements should be. The new UI's lack of color to distinguish between parts of windows or shadows to differentiate windows made those screenshots look cluttered and a bit chaotic, as there are no visual cues to tell the user at a glance where the text/icons belong.
Comparing Windows 8 to various Amiga screenshots, from what I can tell the Amiga at least included bevels on its windows and outlined various user elements... What Windows 8 really reminds me of is the Apple IIgs operating system, though even GS/OS bothered to put lines in the titlebar to direct the eye towards the title.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
I think of telephone sanitizers...
Have you ever heard of spell check? C'mon...your writing is atrocious!!
so many xp users out there its not funny ....
and until MS settles to a OS that is about me and letting me do what i want i dont upgrade
XP does all i need and more.
end of the line
I've been using Windows 8 for a few months as my primary OS and Metro is definitely growing on me. I wish they would do more to bring the Desktop world and the Metro world together. For example, they should show my running Metro apps on the taskbar next to my running Desktop apps. They should also show my running Desktop apps in the left-hand bar next to my running Metro apps. That would make life in Windows 8 a lot easier.
I would if the Hot Dog background will return from Windows v3.1?
Yeah this set up for a smartphone may be neat, but sometimes it's nice to not have to clean a screen ever 5 or so minutes. Plus, I kind of like using a mouse. Better accuracy if you aren't drawing. I'm artistically challenged, so it's not my cup-o-tea. No way will I "upgrade".
That's a bold statement. I mean, come on ... CE? ME? Vista? Server 2000? Server 2003? Server 2008R2? There's a huge lineage of disaster come out of Redmond over the years.
Okay ... okay .... I'll admit ... 2008R2 isn't as bad as the others.
REPEAT - WIN 8 CRASH, FAIL, BURN
I'm one of the last active 3-digit UIDs. Been aboard since Windowmaker tips on Rob's "Chips N Dips". My Karma - always excellent is down to good.
Look at this - 6 downmods on a +5 anti-Microsoft comment, on the eve of Win 8 launch.
Kicker that proves the targeting? This comment is more than 2 weeks old.
The comment is May 131, and mods are all June 15 - after the thread was archived and closed for responses.
Someone is paranoid that we will sink Win 8. I hope this isn't internal to Slashdot, by an editor.
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"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I like the new flat and clean window borders. But they didn't update the icons. They're the curved and glossy ones, with drop shadows, from Windows 7. So, it all clashes. It would look ten times better if they updated the icons to something like the KDE Reinhardt icon set (which also happens to be my favorite set ever).
Reminds me strangely of BeOS.
Everything old is new again.
It's "Windows Classic" desktop!!
So much for the "Windows 8 run a lot faster!"... now we can see why!
My Windows 7 runs a lot faster if I switch to classic desktop... and it looks better than that when I do.
Windows Nasty.