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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.
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
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.
These screenshots remind me of linux when the window manager crashes.
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.
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"
To me it looks like windows 3.1, but with more colors and higher resolution. And a task bar.
This design is great, but Windows for Workgroups 8.11 is going to be even better!
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.
Why would you want your CPU doing the Window compositing? Computers have these massive GPUs sitting around doing nothing - might as well use them for something like, I dunno, graphics processing.
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.
well.. you know how some people bitched that start button menu filled their entire screen after they installed 200+ programs? well, now microsoft fills your entire screen for start button and it's pressed by default.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
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.
You do realize, of course, that roughly 30 years ago, computer geeks were running complaining about these new-fangled GUIs and how they just wanted a good ol' command line interface without the pretty graphics. I think we're long past those arguments at this point. IOW, you are squarely in the minority. People want computer interfaces they can relate to and that feel "human" and that means pretty effects and cool graphics.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
You mean the key that 90% of gamers disabled or removed because accidentally touching it just as you were about to cap/frag/score/win/pwn/save the princess is the leading cause of keyboards being snapped in half over a knee in a fit of hysterical rage? That key us gamers haven't used, ever?
Great.
... looks like ass.
Or vagina.
Stay away from Morse Code, if you have that much trouble determining dots from dashes.
What kind of crap games are you playing that don't disable that key for you? Seriously. That key is 17 years old.
He said "save the princess".
I think that says it all.
Except Windows 7, which does the same thing with one less keystroke.