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.

Comments

Actually, not too bad.

[bodangly]

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.

They removed transparency?

[cpu6502]

Why?
It's like a step backwards to an old 80s OS where everything consisted of solid bars with no shading or variation.

That's the best they can do?

[Ashbory]

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.

Re:Clean and simple

[squiggleslash]

But people didn't bash Vista because of the eye candy. They bashed it because (a) the eye candy didn't work with their graphics card (which is a fair criticism - Vista came out long after OS X, which had similar compositing going on, which worked on old 4Mb ATI Rage 3D chipsets - I'm not kidding, Jaguar worked perfectly on an old Beige G3 that had that chipset); (b) because Vista was incompatible with a lot of their existing software. and (c) because Vista introduced some security changes they didn't like much.

The overall look of Vista got a lot of praise, for those who had compatible hardware. And 7 - which was a service pack for Vista - dealt with most of the criticisms and has become extremely popular. People are happily ditching XP for 7. And part of it is the look.

So I think you're possibly maybe overstating the criticisms.

I like Aero. Windows 7 is really the first version of Windows in a long time I've been happy using. I think it's a shame they're taking it out of Windows 8.