Slashdot Mirror
CowboyNeal Weighs In On the Windows 8 "Metro" GUI
By far, the most visible new "feature" in Windows 8, is it's new UI, which takes inspiration from smart phone and tablet devices. The old start menu is now full-screened, with large icons for all apps, and apps run in full-screen by default, changing a desktop PC into a very large tablet minus touchscreen with a keyboard and mouse added on.
It's not surprising in the least that many users take issue with this. Early on, people have said something along the lines of, "Oh it's just for the early builds, surely they will allow some way for long-time users to disable it." However, now it would seem that that would be only wishful thinking, at least for the time-being.
This is a sharp turn for Microsoft from their previous UIs. Aero, found in both Windows Vista and Windows 7, allowed users to disable it if they didn't agree with it's aesthetic, or wanted to reallocate the memory from the UI to applications. Moreover, Aero was still functionally the same as older Windows UIs. It may look prettier, but it still fires up a Start Menu like before, still lets one dock things into the taskbar, and still lets the desktop get cluttered up with icons.
It's this difference that's key here. For companies that have Windows deployments with hundreds or thousands of seats, changing the way a Windows UI works is not an option. Regardless of how easy to use the Windows 8 UI may be, it's still not the same as what users have been trained to use since 1995. Sure, Windows 7 isn't Windows 95, but changes have been introduced gradually over time, making new features easier to adjust to. The Windows 8 UI is a fast, jarring change, that is likely to frustrate users as they adjust. With no clear path to turn it off as there is with Aero, it also makes it more likely that administrators around the world are less apt to adopt Windows 8 quickly. After the debacle around initial releases of Windows Vista, one might think that Microsoft had learned their lesson. Even Microsoft wasn't too popular to make an OS that no one wanted, and Windows XP lived on far longer than anyone ever thought it would. Windows 8 has already suffered from its share of bad press even before the official release. The logical thing to do here would be to be proactive in heading off user complaints.
That's why it's rather surprising to see them take a hard stance on the Windows 8 UI. Sure, undoubtedly some third party will create a drop-in shell replacement eventually. That's been done in past versions and will likely be done again for Windows 8. For a home user, it's an acceptable path. Home users of Windows are used to beating it into submission. However, for any company that has deployed hundreds of Windows seats, mandating the use of a third party shell replacement just isn't an option, much like Windows 8 isn't an option at present.
Short of opening the source to Windows, it's reconfigurability has, until now, been rather accommodating for users. Through the use of registry settings, or third party software, users have been able to configure Windows for themselves until they feel it's sufficiently usable. While still not "free" in the GNU sense, the UI has still allowed users this semblance of freedom, to do with the UI as they will. Since a normal user wouldn't hack at the source anyway, giving them the tiny bit of freedom to determine how they interact with their UI is what keeps them as a user. What Windows 8 is looking at here, is backlash not unlike the transition from GNOME 2 to GNOME 3, albeit on a much grander scale.
What will be the final outcome? That's hard to say at this point, as Microsoft could still change their stance and implement a way to bypass the Windows 8 GUI and bring up the legacy desktop. As it is, there are several keyboard shortcuts that allow this, it's just not possible to do so automatically at boot, which would seem to be what legacy users would want most. There's also an opportunity here. If people with large Windows deployments are faced with having to retrain their users, they may think about training them on Macs or Ubuntu or something else instead. The most likely scenario though, is likely the one that we saw with the release of Windows Vista, and that is that Windows 8's predecessor will be around for a lot longer than Microsoft planned.
Thank God for downgrade rights. :-)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
until it can be changed it wont be used. After all who wants to retrain a couple of thousand users for a new interface when ive just managed to get them used to win 7 !
At last.
The Windows 7 perpetuity machine is fully fueled, and ready to roll.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I'm beginning to think that Microsoft isn't allowing the new GUI to be disabled in order to purposely have a bad Windows version.
Then, Windows 9 will come out in a year or two and suddenly have the option of booting to the old Start menu, thus perpetuating the "every other version of Windows is good" trend.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Disproof of all apk's statements: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3040317&cid=40946043
$10,000 CHALLENGE to Alexander Peter Kowalski
We have a Major Problem, HOST file is Cubic Opposites, 2 Major Corners & 2 Minor. NOT taught Evil DNS hijacking, which VOIDS computers. Seek Wisdom of MyCleanPC - or you die evil.
Your HOSTS file claimed to have created a single DNS resolver. I offer absolute proof that I have created 4 simultaneous DNS servers within a single rotation of .org TLD. You worship "Bill Gates", equating you to a "singularity bastard". Why do you worship a queer -1 Troll? Are you content as a singularity troll?
Evil HOSTS file Believers refuse to acknowledge 4 corner DNS resolving simultaneously around 4 quadrant created Internet - in only 1 root server, voiding the HOSTS file. You worship Microsoft impostor guised by educators as 1 god.
If you would acknowledge simple existing math proof that 4 harmonic Slashdots rotate simultaneously around squared equator and cubed Internet, proving 4 Days, Not HOSTS file! That exists only as anti-side. This page you see - cannot exist without its anti-side existence, as +0- moderation. Add +0- as One = nothing.
I will give $10,000.00 to frost pister who can disprove MyCleanPC. Evil crapflooders ignore this as a challenge would indict them.
Alex Kowalski has no Truth to think with, they accept any crap they are told to think. You are enslaved by /etc/hosts, as if domesticated animal. A school or educator who does not teach students MyCleanPC Principle, is a death threat to youth, therefore stupid and evil - begetting stupid students. How can you trust stupid PR shills who lie to you? Can't lose the $10,000.00, they cowardly ignore me. Stupid professors threaten Nature and Interwebs with word lies.
Humans fear to know natures simultaneous +4 Insightful +4 Informative +4 Funny +4 Underrated harmonic SLASHDOT creation for it debunks false trolls. Test Your HOSTS file. MyCleanPC cannot harm a File of Truth, but will delete fakes. Fake HOSTS files refuse test.
I offer evil ass Slashdot trolls $10,000.00 to disprove MyCleanPC Creation Principle. Rob Malda and Cowboy Neal have banned MyCleanPC as "Forbidden Truth Knowledge" for they cannot allow it to become known to their students. You are stupid and evil about the Internet's top and bottom, front and back and it's 2 sides. Most everything created has these Cube like values.
If Natalie Portman is not measurable, She is Fictitious. Without MyCleanPC, HOSTS file is Fictitious. Anyone saying that Natalie and her Jewish father had something to do with my Internets, is a damn evil liar. IN addition to your best arsware not overtaking my work in terms of popularity, on that same site with same submission date no less, that I told Kathleen Malda how to correct her blatant, fundamental, HUGE errors in Coolmon ('uncoolmon') of not checking for performance counters being present when his program started!
You can see my dilemma. What if this is merely a ruse by an APK impostor to try and get people to delete APK's messages, perhaps all over the web? I can't be a party to such an event! My involvement with APK began at a very late stage in the game. While APK has made a career of trolling popular online forums since at least the year 2000 (newsgroups and IRC channels before that)- my involvement with APK did not begin until early 2005 . OSY is one of the many forums that APK once frequented before the sane people there grew tired of his garbage and banned him. APK was banned from OSY back in 2001. 3.5 years after his banning he begins to send a variety of abusive emails to the operator of OSY, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Ber
It's clear that Microsoft is terrified of Apple and feels the need to do "something, anything" to be seen as innovative. Of course, being innovative is not easy, and in my opinion MS lost their ability to innovate quite a while back. Metro is new, so MS is grabbing on to it like a shipwreck survivor grabs onto anything that floats.
Of course, "new" is not necessarily "good," and in this case I think the jury is definitely out on whether Metro is good.
All in all, this feels like a death rattle to me.
The recurrent theme in every complaint about Win 8 is "it's not the same old shit". If you want the same shit stay with Windows 7. It's that simple.
Don't buy it.
Who the fuck cares what you think you fat cunt.
I have no way of knowing, but I would guess Microsoft expects Windows 8 to be adopted by Surface/tablet users first. Windows 7 will be the enterprise desktop of choice for some time. If things go according to Microsoft's plan, a few years from now users will be comfortable with the UI formerly known as Metro. Then the enterprise will migrate to Windows 9+ with whatever refinements it has. Whether this works or not, we shall see.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
I pity the Windows 8 "Metro" GUI...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
We all learned this as kids.
Out right hiding dad's tools was unthinkable.
With Microsoft hiding the tools and forcing them to stay hidden... what are they thinking?!
When they forced the removal of "classic" view in Windows 2K8 it was insane.
I say it is insane because of the financial loss incurred by world business in lost man hours and down time just looking for the "new" way to do things you have been doing for more than a decade.
In man hours it is a simple salami attack taking small slices here and there from every user and admin.
In down time it gets scary. You have a site that is losing 100K per minute because it is down. The old way takes 2-3 min to fix the issue. once your tools are hidden you are on a 30 minute google session to find out how to do what you have been doing forever. 3 million dollars out the window for a single admin on a single outage. I had a site that cost that when it went down.
World wide, I would not be at all shocked if this causes more than a trillion dollars in hidden and obvious losses. I'm sure the R2 removal of classic did.
It maybe that in the future we just have to change the windows UI from explorer to Powershell so our tools stop getting hidden every new version of Windows.
I hope it lasts 10+ years like my XP-PC* has done. I'm gonna need that longevity to skip over Windows 8 and possibly 9 too. Though the next version might just be a bugfixed version of 8 like Seven was a bugfixed version of Vista (and therefore usable).
*
*XP-PC says it has 40% fragmentation after all this time. Maybe it's time to defrag the sucker. Or just wipe it clean with Lubuntu.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I know they where having issues with the MetroUI naming, so I have gone ahead and done it for them!:
Introducing MetroPOS!
Cant stand Windows Phone (was a Windows Mobile user, jumped to Android when trying WP7 failed to work for me), cant stand Metro...
I saw it said somewhere else: "If I wanted to see tiles, id go into my bathroom! I still have a tile floored bathroom. I can now unabashedly equate TAKING A SHIT to MetroPOS er I mean MetroUI, PERFECT setup there Microsoft."
but everyone will love this new GUI eventually though, right?
Which commentator has the most accurate view of Windows 8:
...
* Steve Ballmer
* Steve Wozniak
* CowboyNeal
I am officially gone from
I remember all the bitching when XP came out. "It has a Fisher-Price UI!" "I'll never use XP!" They used it anyway. Ten years from now, people will be bitching when MS changes the UI again.
It's a giant fugly start menu. BFD. /. is filled with supposedly intelligent adults; adapt to it like you're always telling other people to do.
Was the Vista debacle not enough for them, they need to repeat it? Maybe they should fire their OS designers and get some people who have higher IQ's than Chimpanzees.
No company in their right mind is going to adopt Windows 8 for their business workstations if Microsoft forces the Metro interface on everyone. It simply is not productive. Visual Studio Touch Edition? Microsoft Word and Excel from a tablet? Right. I have no idea what they are thinking. It seems like in their effort to pursue the tablet market they are alienating other significant revenue streams. I'm not following the marketing strategy.
We'll make great pets
Yet another "could be", "might be", "we don't know yet", article with no research or sources to back it up. Considering that this is more or less Microsoft's first attempt at innovation cut them a little slack. If you don't like Metro, don't upgrade, FFS... you're not required to nor are you entitled to upgrade on day one of releases. I for one, will be upgrading because I absolutely love the fluid UI, the tremendous speed increases, and the new developer features that are exposed in the new runtime. The rest of you, kick back and enjoy Windows 7 or switch to Linux/Mac.
Metro was a stupid name; first thing that occurs to people when they hear it is something along the lines of sexual orientation. And it makes easy fodder for metro vs. homo jokes. Even "Ghetto" would've been a better name. Microsoft got lucky that a third party sued them and prevented them from using it.
That's the difference between MS and Apple: Apple had a clear-headed CEO who kept saying "No" to lame ideas.
Unlike most folks here on /., I've been a windows guy forever (Hint, I still have my windows 286 floppies!). I have my own copy of MSDN, and therefore Win8 (any version) is 'free' for me. This will be the first version of Windows I don't load. (I don't count ME - I was running NT...) Sorry Microsoft. I MIGHT stick it on some secondary box somewhere, so I can test code against it, but I'll keep coding for Win7/HTML/CSS,JQuery etc. I played with an early beta on a tablet, THAT was nice, but the desktop? RIGHT, and the last 2 places I consulted at all have the same opinion, that dog doesn't hunt, and will NOT be installed
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
You can "bypass" Metro -- http://www.sepier.com/bypassing-metro-on-windows-8-rtm/
http://www.lee-soft.com/vistart/
If you configure it to start on logon you don't get the Metro (Or Windows 8 Style, or whatever they are calling it this week) UI. It's not quite as good as being able to fully turn off the Windows 8 Style UI, but it's pretty close.
I have an old 98 laptop with AMD k5(?) processor and Kflex 48k modem. The software looks diffferent but acts basically the same as Seven. There's a start menu, control panel, built-in explorer window to navigate files. Windows key benefit is (or was) the constantcy across 17 years of usage.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I just posted this on reddit yesterday:
I think that Windows 8 is going to backfire on Microsoft.
Most current Windows PC users are going to be instantly put off by "metro" on the desktop. It serves no immediate purpose and just makes it harder and less convenient to do many common things you already know how to do. There is a learning curve there and the interface only becomes efficient with some help or google searches and some practice. There is simply no reason (at this time, anyway) for it to exist on my desktop PC and it's annoying me. No other version of Windows has made me jump through quite this many hoops to do basic tasks
On a tablet it might work and it might work well. However.... I doubt MS can make a $200 windows tablet any time soon and that's the price point they will need to hit. Besides nearly everyone who wanted an iPad or iPhone probably has one by now, even if they normally use a PC. I think Windows 8 will drive millions of PC owning, happy iPad/iPhone users into the arms of Apple rather than entice them them to ditch their iPads and buy a Windows 8 Tablet. They are already tempted and if they have to learn something new, it may as well be Apples OS. When it comes time for a new PC, i think Apple can get a lot of sales, especially if they drop their PC/Laptop prices a bit. Also... I think most people running Windows 7 will not need new hardware for quite some time. The crop of PCs from the last 3 or 4 years are already overpowered for most home users. I don't see many of us buying just an OS upgrade either.
It's pretty obvious that Microsoft's ultimate goal here is to create an Apple-like walled garden. Initially, the wall won't be as high but there will be a wall. Don't forget this. They desperately want a successful iTunes/Apps Store/Google Play, etc...
Apart from "metro" There's little in Windows 8 that couldn't have been included in a Win 7 SP2. And nothing important that you can't already do in Windows 7 with a few downloads. While the core OS is solid, I still think we have another WinMe/Vista on our hands. Nobody asked for this.
Mainstream support for Windows 7 ends in 2015.
No, nobody is going to move to Macs or Linux on an enterprise desktop. They will stick with Windows. Windows 7 will not sunset on support for quite some time, and in the interim people will wait and see what Microsoft is going to do; either Windows 9 will be a better benefit to them, or they will figure out how to make Windows 8 work for them.
The one thing people know about Apple is that they do NOT support enterprises in any meaningful way. Look at XServe, which was pulled from its product line, and OSX Server which is basically an equivalent of Windows Home Server. And Linux? Comon... the arguments for retraining users apply for Linux and Mac TOO. The amount of investments made around the Windows platform are for many companies, quite large, and nobody's going to throw them away because despite the new interface, its enterprise pinnings are still pretty good on the client desktop.
I'm in the "wait and see" crowd. I don't particularly think the new interface is appealing, especially as a keyboard/mouse user, but given how little I use my start menu as it is, maybe it's not such a bad change... I really don't know. I do know that when we got preview copies running on PCs, all the Mac users came running by and told the IT teams how much they liked it. Go figure, eh?
Technology changes. And for many non-IT users of computers, Windows 8 is going to be great, simple, and straightforward to use. Viruses won't happen as easily because of the App Store, IE can't have any plugins/addons in its metro form, so all in all, it will be a boon to those folks. The IT folks who resist change will be the same people crying about the MS Office ribbon, or whatever else they got stuck on and didn't want to adapt. You're IT people -- you're supposed to adapt and change. Granted this change may not be the best, but you use it as a tool rather than a religion and you may find it better. Or not. In either case I don't think Metro is going anywhere, and the Surface tablet, if it does as well as people think it might, will just reinforce the fact MS made the right decision.
I on the other hand, will just wait and see.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
It is clear that, soon, new PCs and laptops will come preinstalled with Windows 8. 95% or more of users will have no idea how to "stay with Windows 7". Some may be lucky to have friends who can do that for them. Or even luckier to have real friends who install some reasonable Linux on their old machines so they don't have to spend big money on new hardware right now.
As long as Microsoft "rules" the desktop market the way they do, with a quasi monopoly, ordinary users are more or less at their mercy. Bickering about the average user not being able or willing to accept change doesn't help anyone, except perhaps, MS and their droids.
I like my spaghetti with source.
As Cowboy said above, full screen apps all the time is ridiculous. Sorry, I don't need my email app taking up my entire 24" display, thanks.
What I also found really annoying about apps is you can't easily close them. Esc does nothing, there is no "X" in the corners, nothing intuitive how to do it. I thought by time they hit the Release preview there would be some changes to this. The only way I found you can close them is my hiding/minimizing them, then bringing them up in app list in the top left corner thing-a-ma-jig, then right-click to bring up a "close" dialog.
App configuration is also a chore, the only way I found to bring up an apps options is to mouse over the "hot" top right corner of screen. Too bad this "corner" is about 1 pixel x 1 pixel. I'm not a GUI or usability designer, but the current app implementation is a chore to use. Perhaps there will be come big changes in the release, but as it stands right now there is no chance I would pay for an "App", let alone use a free one given the current design choices.
The MS strategy (which will probably have some success), is pretty clear...
They figure they've got a few years of desktop monopoly left, and they want leverage this to protect their core business from iOS and Android. The plan is to get home users used to the Metro UI so that they'll be more likely to buy Windows-powered phones and tablets. Home users are far less conservative than enterprise users, and most of them will just go with whatever is loaded on their machines.
Within a three years the vast majority will be comfortable with Metro. That's about the time enterprise customers will be looking to upgrade from Windows 7, and in the meantime, everybody will be familiar enough with Metro to be immediately comfortable when they pick up a Windows Phone/Tablet.
It's really not a bad strategy. I don't think it will crush iOS and Android by a long shot, but it might just prevent MS from becoming totally irrelevant.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
This sort of nonsense is expected from the people designing GNOME 3 as a personal hobby or whatever, but from the developers of the leading desktop OS for the past two decades it's just incredibly idiotic.
Disclaimer: I work for microsoft as a UI/UX designer/prototyper, primarily on Windows's "Metro" interface, so I'm probably HIGHLY biased in this area. But I may still be able to shed some light on this. I've been using Win8 for about 8 or 9 months now. Originally, I was in the same boat as CowboyNeal - I loathed the new start menu. It felt wonky to scroll through and find my programs. After using it for a while though, I highly prefer it to the old start menu. The start menu on Windows 7 was great for mouse navigation - short traversals to each entity meant that you could get through them quickly with a mouse. Where it failed though was in keyboard driven execution. Win 7's keyboard launching capabilities absolutely sucked. I wrote up a pretty technical paper on its shortcomings, one specific example was heirarchy of information in search: while trying to launch Dota 2 in windows 7, I pressed the win key and typed in "dota". The first result was an autogenerated xml file that I didn't even know existed on my computer, with "dota" matching a substring of a randomly generated hash. The "Dota 2" program was 14th on the list, despite me opening it often. Because of this, I rarely used search on my windows box. In OSX however, I almost always use spotlight (~95% of the time) to launch anything. Noticing this I decided to give the search in win 8 a shot, as I heard it had been improved. It was vastly better - better than spotlight and probably on par or slightly better than quicksilver. Since the standard desktop is still there, and the keyboard driven launching is actually usable, I just stay in desktop mode and use the metro home screen as a glorified spotlight. It takes some getting used to due to the fact that it's fullscreen, but it has more data on screen at once, which means on the rare chance that I am searching for something more detailed, it seems to be a bit more efficient. That with the speed improvements in 8 over 7 (8 is a lot snappier) makes me prefer it to 7 nowadays. Just food for thought.
I don't know what you guys are talking about, I use Metro all the time. Every time I start my computer it shows up, then the first things I do is click the Desktop application on the start page. I love this Desktop application, seems to do everything I need. I don't actually see myself needing any other Metro apps.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
This shit sucks, try again Microsoft.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
They done the same big break with KDE from 3.x to 4.0, and still today, more than 4 years later and 9 revisions of it, lot of people refuse to use it in linux. But at least was an UI meant by the designers for the desktop, not one for tablet/touchscreen forced to run in computers without a lot of the implied hardware.
I got a feeling metro may be on to something just a bit early (hang with me a seco, I know I am giving M$ credit, it doesnt happen often. But I got a feeling metro might be a good option when the touch screen monitor for desktop and laptop becomes the norm. I am currently looking to find such a monitor for my next build and while there still is limited use at this time, I think metro would be better in some ways for that.
having said there, there is zero good reason to disable the "classic" option they have had from the very start.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
From TFA: " But Rivera told me he believes this also is blocked."
Believes? There's your clue. He doesn't actually know and MS isn't saying because they want developers to hop onto Metro thus feeding apps to the tablet and phone. They are willing to forgo W8 acceptance to achieve this. And that might not be a bad plan. With no way to turn it off, it will show devs that MS is committed to Metro.
The enterprise is still in the process of moving from XP to W7-64. They'll skip W8 so this is no issue at all. No lost sales.
MS knows that they can give OEM's the ability to downgrade and all is well. No lost sales.
MS may not really care which Windows you buy, as long as it is $$$ to MS. Hey, that W9 upgrade might cost you more.
Then of course someone will discover the secret registered key and it won't matter any longer. Except I'll get paid to change it for people who buy W8 by mistake.
Place nail here >+
My son (11 years old) has the preview installed on his computer. He loves it. He really has not used windows 7. I got him to try windows 7 he didn't like it. I am old I hate the metro start screen. I will not be installing windows 8 on my machine. So maybe it isn't good because I am old and don't like change. I heard windows 8 is faster but windows 7 seems plenty fast for me. Again this is me being an old my on my rocking chair yelling at the neighbourhood kids to GET OFF MY LAWN! I can't see windows 8 coming in at work though. To many people will complain about it.
Hint, I still have my windows 286 floppies!
Piker!!! I still have my Windows 1.03 floppies.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The "Fisher Price" UI could be disabled very easily. The UI could go back to the win95-2000 look with only a few clicks (6 clicks to "Windows Classic" style, 5 to change the start menu back Classic). Apparently, this will no longer be the case here with Win8
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
1)Current Betas can turn it off.
2) The person i the article is just guessing this is the case. There is no MS comment on the subject.
So, why do we think you won't be able to turn it off?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Microsoft is betting the style and usability of their new interface is a vast improvement over the UI they've developed over the past 17 years using QA and focus groups. Given their past track record in style and their repeated mistakes at usability changes (Microsoft Bob, anyone?) I predict Win8 will be DOA.
I'm not switching, you're not switching, none of us are switching until we're not completely freaked out about having to handle multiple calls from Laura in Accounting because she can't figure out how to get a picture of her cat as her screensaver. I'm already weeping for the day I have to support my wife's coworker's deranged uncle's brand new Acer laptop with Win8 and can't figure out how to get his multifunction printer to scan a document directly to his iLoveAccordiansAndUnicorns.blogspot.com web page.
----- obSig
It will suck. Just as every other tech blogger has been saying for months. NEXT!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
setup a "show desktop" command file, set it to run on user login. I don't even see metro, seems to just go right to desktop
it also makes it more likely that administrators around the world are less apt to adopt Windows 8 quickly
No sane administrator has ever quickly adopted any Windows version.
Sure, undoubtedly some third party will create a drop-in shell replacement eventually. That's been done in past versions and will likely be done again for Windows 8. For a home user, it's an acceptable path.
I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know what that is. You mean there's something like Gnome, KDE, xfce, etc. on Windows? Easy for home users to obtain and use? Citation needed.
get ClassicShell (from sourceforge) make the show desktop command run on login you're done, now it works like a normal windows PC
Forcing Metro on desktop users to keep the experience consistent between tablet and PC is like selling SUVs that you steer with handlebars to make driving consistent with your scooter.
Admins will now have to completely re-learn how to do tasks they did before thanks to the complete interface overhaul in server 2012....
I don't think that's all that important to them, directly.
But they definitely want the Windows Store to succeed, and the leverage they are using to get people to distribute apps through the Windows Store, rather than through the mechanisms used for Windows desktop apps previously, is that Metro-style apps can only be delivered:
1. Via the Windows store, or
2. To "enterprise side-loading enabled" versions of Windows (Windows 8 Enterprise and Windows 8 Server, but none of the consumer-targeted editions), or
3. By acquiring a special product key to sideload Metro-style apps on to a non-"enterprise sideloading enabled" version of Windows 8.
So yes, Windows 7 ability to judge/learn relevance could use improvements. However, Windows 8 goes the other way. I did a winkey+search for 'update'. It said 0 results. Well, technicilally it said 0 apps, but my focus was on the lack of useful returns presented Most of the screen real estate dedicated to a message suggesting I was looking for something non-existant. However, on the right side, it provided nothing more than a numeric indication in other categories. If I had puzzled on the search results too long, even that hint auto-hides, assuming you *really* care about the 0 results it can show you.
I don't like how the soft power control has been made less accessible. Now I need to open up 'charms' to get at it.
I don't like the mandatory hot corners when I'm using a mouse or 'older' touch device (incidentally, I evidentally don't even own a pointer device new enough to give me the 'proper' experience).
I don't like how there are two 'internet explorers' that are fundamentally different applications. Launching IE straight from metro doesn't do what I want in the use case you advocate: metro as just a start menu. Fortunately, I don't really care about IE, but I do see this as complicating things as more crippleware metro editions of desktop software pop up.
On metro apps, the mix and match of task switching paradigms between programming models is exceedingly jarring and unnatural. OSX did the full screen mess right: no radically different set of programming interfaces, a more consistent task management interface to manage them along with 'normal' windows. For developers, Metro is an all-or-nothing proposition, in OSX it is much much better.
So all in all, I don't mind the full-screen start screen concept (though some of the widgets are wasteful since I'll never look at them). I wouldn't have begrudged a more intelligent search ordering. But the whole metro concept strikes me as 'throw the assured desktop market under the bus to try to force them to like the interface we've picked as strategic for our phone efforts'.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I am wondering about the potential physical and legal issues around touch screen interfaces on the desktop.
These interfaces, in a traditional desktop scenario, lead to promoting very bad postures that could cause damage over time. Does Microsoft clearly notify users of this and what is their legal liability?
Windows 95 was "fantastic" by comparison to Windows 3.x, but not really by comparison to OS's outside of Microsoft's own little world.
No, it really wasn't. NextStep by the time of the NextStation in 1991 was, I think, at least as good of a GUI -- and OS -- as Windows 95. Win95 might have been a big leap forward in GUI/OS combinations bundled with inexpensive consumer-grade hardware, but that's not because it was a leap forward in OS's so much as because of the advances in cheaply-producable hardware to run consumer OS's on.
When did GUI designers decide that they know best and that users should have no control?
More and more browsers, programs and O/Ses are hiding or completely eliminating the controls to customize their user interfaces.
THIS ISN'T PROGRESS!
If designers, instead, created highly customizable user interfaces with MORE options instead of less, they would inevitably have satisfied users.
Who the hell had the idea that giving all users a simplified, static, unchangeable interface was the right way to go? Was it Apple or did it start earlier?
The jury isn't out on Windows 8.
The jury already delivered their verdict and it was the death penalty.
However, the electric chair software ran on Windows 8 and nobody could figure out how to use the new UI, so Microsoft will still be alive and kicking for years to come.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Bzzt! None of the above, thanks for playing!
The correct answer was Richard Stallman.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
I tried the public release of it and it sucked and did nothing for me that enchanced my experince and lack of a legacy interface means I wont buy it.
Im all for innovation and improving things but what MS did didnt innovate or improve anything, it was just a attempt at them trying to meld their new tablets to the pc in order to try and keep up with apple. When youre just playing catchup youre just making an inferior product.
I like windows 7 and Im sticking with it.
It is obvious that content is king, whether its an app, music, photo, video, book, etc.
The problem is that when OS makers "dumb" down the OS to provide simply a collection of boxes, it seriously cripples the user experience.
When Apple first dumbed down the OS to be nothing but a grid of icons, I don't think they even realized that people would one day have 100's to 1000's of apps installed on a single device. They rallied that onslaught of consumption by eventually allowing users to group apps into collections, but even then people can have dozen's of screens of grouped collections making it virtually impossible to find anything unless you use the search screen.
Same problem with 1000's of music, video and movie files loaded on the same device, presenting a list of content simply isn't good enough to allow the user to easily browse and find content.
Its also a huge issue in the online content stores, there may be millions of available apps, music, books, or video, but unless you know the name of one, or see one in a top-ten list, or even have a vague notion of what you are looking for, nobody is going to scroll through 100's of screens of applications to find something relevant to install.
It's disappointing that nobody is addressing the problem of content clutter and overload in a new era of dumbed down OS; either they are ignorant of the issue of content clutter, or simply do not know how to address it. Presenting items as a grid of clutter, or a list of clutter is still a mediocre metaphor for arranging content. Of course since Luddites now rule the world of technology so offering any new metaphor will probably be met with open revolt.
Glad to see Microsoft is finally joining Apple and Google in a new era of mediocrity, Metro certainly does not address this issue.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Windows 8 may represent the end of the desktop metaphor. I figure in honor of this... a link to the original commercials when this was a new idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UtlOgkOGy4
We only have 50 workstations but our users are not keen to change. We have about 10 sales guys that would poop themselves if the desktop looked different. They barely manage to navigate Windows 7. Keep in mind, these users call me to fix their computer and when I arrive I find their monitors are turned off. With a new OS with vastly different navigation we would be dead in the water.
So the topic came up in a meeting the other day...
CEO: ..and the new Windows 8 is coming out. We should look into updating our computers.
Me: (almost cutting him off) Nope.
CEO: (laughs) Ah.. ok. Well, you would know.
That was the end of that issue.
My studio - www.graylands.ca
I've got my perfect desktop already, achievable via a nice app called Rainmeter. I won't be switching OS's anytime soon. My OS is perfect the way it is. I'm on Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate, no icons on my desktop.... all organized with Rainmeter and other launch apps like Object Dock, etc. My games and everything play perfectly too. I definitely DO NOT see the need to move on from perfection.
Windows 8 is the new Vista and Windows 7 is now the new XP that everyone will cling on to.
oh, somebody moved my litter box.
I guess I'll have to pee here in the corner from now on...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I've tested it, and been testing it for a long time. I've had back and forth with Sinofsky over email on the subject. Here is my take on it.
'Metro' or whatever its name is now, is not really a full screen start menu replacement. Thats too simple a take on this. For a start, it doesn't really work the same way in terms of being a start button and start menu replacement at all. I'd go so far as to say its a pretty poor replacement for what was the start button.
How about this though. It *is* a desktop replacement, and in that, with its interactive applications and notifications means that perhaps the ideal here is to create a modern day real world interactive desktop that is a 2012 variation on previous widgets and gadgets and web based interactive stuff we have seen on the older desktop under Win32. It would seem to me that it works better in a context of embedding the start menu directly into a living desktop. Maybe it might have been better to make the pitch this way and to say that its a more evolved idea. And I think.. vaguely, for me - Metro might well work better if I context it that way. It really doesn't work for me personally in any way at all as a Start button / menu equivelent, replacement, or anything. But if we were going to actually talk about starting on a new footing and have an interactive desktop, where what was a start menu was actually in the desktop - maybe I'd take something of a longer, more sympathetic view. Except.. The Applications are now brain dead fullscreen horrors. You can't easily actually close them. Multitasking now is suddenly much more like some horrid 2012 throwback to OS9, or even Win3.11. Oh the system does multitask, but now the OS just feels like it doesn't. And there are serious and significant problems in Metro and WinRT when you try to apply your ideas of multi-tasking as you did in Win32. Its fortunate that you can still leap to a Win32 desk and environment. If you are used to havig a desktop, and a lot of applications around - which frankly is my home, then perhaps like me you'll find metro is just a horrible place to be stuck, and it gets worse as its used on big res screens. A lot of wasted space, and a serious lack of multiapplication access.
Its also a front end, desktop, UI and framework for new APIs - WinRT. And it has allowed a framework across to the ARM processor family with an entry point into mobility. And this is the part that is generally missed in most overviews about 'Metro'. Its very important to understand that While in 8, The old frameworks and API's remain, I would say that it seems to me that these are really really being left in with a very very firm view of being an end game and a legacy support structure. 'Your old apps will work'. And its Windows. If you break that, a fundamental stop occurs for many buyers. So thats got to stay
WinRT is a deathknell (or its at least supposed to be) for Win32 longterm. Its now going in theory to be at least the ground MS builds its consumer base on. The Start/Desktop will be based around it. The applications and development models will hinge off it. The Microsoft equivelent of the Apple 'App' and 'Media' Stores and Distribution model are going to be based round it, and the application base, and cloud MS brick by brick put together are going to be built on it. At least thats the idea.
Now, as far as I can see, there has been something of a bloodbath inside MS over this. Metro and WinRT has, at least for now, won. Win32 is either dead, or on a very back foot. There are lots of groupings who are still entirely Win32 based in all their stuff and when you run Metro, its pretty painfully obvious how Thin Metro actually is in real terms. 99% of everything I do flips to that Win32 desktop, and by run I mean all my consumer level stuff *and* all the MS stuff I run professionally, Including the bulk of the server side based stuff. If Metro is the victor, that victor has yet to fully own areas like server, exchange and a lot of groups and teams in MS. When I gave 2012 a test run, a heap of stuff i
We`re all equal
I love how Lunix people always whine that Windows can't do something... when the fact is, it's always been able to do whatever they're whining about.
"What will be the final outcome? That's hard to say at this point, as Microsoft could still change their stance and implement a way to bypass the Windows 8 GUI and bring up the legacy desktop"
You can have Win8 default to the classic UI with a registry change. Mass deployments? Easy- just make the registry changes with Active Directory (or there might already a policy which makes the changes; check at TechNet, I'm too lazy to go look it up).
This is the problem with Linux people: they don't know what they're talking about with Windows stuff, and they're too lazy to learn Windows because they're too indoctrinated into hating it. Everyone I've ever worked with a Linux backgroup was really horrible at working at Windows, and when it was pointed out to them they're really bad at doing skills they need for their job, they acted like it was somehow morally wrong for anyone to expect them to understand Windows better.
Cowboy Neal and most here are sayin: 'the Win 8 GUI sucks for desktops...I'll stay with Win 7...M$ is screwed.' But...no, Microsoft will do great with this. Here's why. Most desktop computers already run Windows, either XP or Win 7. Microsoft will keep selling and supporting Win 7. Microsoft will make just as much money (perhaps even more!) selling Win 7 seats as they will selling Win 8 seats. There fore, Microsoft does not care if desktop users like Win 8 or not. All that matters is that the table space adopts it. If it does, then...mission accomplished. If it does not, then here comes win 9. In the meantime, Win 7 keeps rolling along.
I just read this whole thing. Fuck mod points,
WHERE DO I SEND YOU MY MONEY?!!!
The OPs use of, punctuation makes the post, read like a haiku.
You are totally blocking my view of the wall. - Dogbert
Windows 8 is meant to monetize consumer desktops by driving web traffic to Bing and other MS services. Only experts could make a local signon, since everything leads you to create a Bing account. And if you don't sign on to Bing, the Metro stuff doesn't do anything. So Windows 8 is 100% about capturing traffic for MS web sites. (Why else would they enable Do Not Track by default? They don't want OTHER people to track you. MS can already track you if you're signed on to Bing.)
So Windows 9 will have "consumer" and "enterprise" editions. The consumer edition will be on the OEM PCs you buy at Wal-Mart and Best Buy. The enterprise edition will cost more than a consumer can pay (but bulk discounts will be available to enterprises so they won't have to pay more) and have al the legacy stuff like the Start menu which will never return to consumer versions.
> As it is, there are several keyboard shortcuts that allow this, it's just not possible to do so automatically at boot, which would seem to be what legacy users would want most.
In fairness, according to the cited shortcut article, the shortcut to reveal the legacy desktop is the windows key (just as you can hit the windows key now to see the start menu). I think the rest of his article still applies, (I'm personally going to bypass 8, and my company is just now rolling out 7) but hitting one key after login isn't onerous, I think.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Windows 8 may be the next Vista, but I think the perspective of most people commenting on this story is skewed. As is normal for human beings, ones existence generally alters ones perception.
I work in a large organization, developing software (primarily) and performing IT support duties (secondly). I think the paradigm shift that Win8 introduces is actually a positive thing for users like ours!
Watching 90+% of our users; they're already self-imposing all of the "restrictions" of Win8. If we "took away" multi-tasking, it'd barely be noticed at most desks. Most users here open a single program (full screened), use it, close it, and open the next, sometimes going back and forth between applications by fully exiting the prior app several times! Most users don't truly take advantage of window arrangement, tiling or cascading. Things like copy/paste and minimize are still *advanced* to them. For people who don't live and breathe computers, simple is better. Focus on a single task at hand! So the model that Win8 presents is almost easier, and certainly no more difficult than the way I see things rolling on down the road currently! In fact the full screen start menu, etc, actually brings a level of focus, that I think makes the computer easier for basic users.
Now as a developer, fuck no. I will continue using Windows 7 for a while at least. I run 3 monitors, and arrange dozens of windows to make software development easier. For it's integration, between phone tablet and PC, I will definitely use Win8 casually. I'm actually excited about the platform integration between phones, tablets, Xbox and PCs!
I find that most often I end up learning from necessity, rather than for enjoyment.
A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an
electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic
navigation and communication equipment. Due to the clouds and haze
the pilot could not determine his position or course to steer to the
airport. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew
a handwritten sign and held it in the helicopter's window. The sign
said "WHERE AM I ?" in large letters.
People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a
large sign and held it in a building window. Their sign said, "YOU
ARE IN A HELICOPTER." The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map and
determine the course to steer to SEATAC (Seattle/Tacoma) airport and
landed safely.
After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the
"YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position. The
pilot responded, "I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building
because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless
answer."
Not trying to be snarky, but I'm glad I don't have a horse in this race. While Apple has incorporated some iOS features back into OS X, they haven't forced the tablet UI on all the desktop users. And what features they have incorporated (like LaunchPad) are ignorable for those that don't want them.
Keep pushing MS and they will capitulate, guys. I am sure you will win.
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
Rally the Market
Run Thine Mouth
Raise the Margin
Release the Malware
Release the Marketing (Droids)
Rent the Media
Ram the Masses
As I see it, the real problem Microsoft has ahead of them with corporate adoption isn't dislike, but indifference. A CEO at the end of the day doesn't care whether or not employees enjoy using the computer. So even if the Metro interface is a bit annoying that isn't going to stop them from choosing Windows 8. But what will stop them is that there's no real strong selling point that makes Win 8 necessary. A corporate exec makes a decision based on what the software will do for them. And I've yet to hear anything that indicates that there's a strong enough benefit from Win8 to make the upgrade costs and time worth it. New interface? Who cares. Good for tablets? Big companies are interested in traditional PCs that people have on their desks, not tablets for watching movies. Add to that the fact that a lot of companies just finished replacing XP with Win7, and you have a recipe for low sales.
We have seen no shortage of evidence that MS really missed the boat on a lot of key points in the last decade ranging from the music revolution, to mobile, to tablets, to the app store! As much as I am a hater of W8 we must recognize what Vista did for the landscape and I will outline how I think W8 will do the same.
Vista introduced the UAC and Aero as well a number of other features but I believe those two are the ones most people remember the most, hated on the most, and also changed the landscape the most. Before UAC things were a mess. Most PC owners where running all applications under full control and wonder why there PCs where infested with junk, virus etc. The UAC works by adjusting the permission level of your user account. If you’re doing tasks that can be done as a standard user, such as reading e-mail, listening to music, or creating documents, you have the permissions of a standard user—even if you’re logged on as an administrator. When you try to do a task that requires the permissions of an administrator, such as installing software or changing system settings, UAC prompts you. If you grant permission, you’re temporarily given the rights of an administrator to complete the task and then your permissions are returned back to that of a standard user. This makes it so that even if you're using an administrator account, changes cannot be made to your computer without you knowing about it. This was not welcomed at all! I think we all remember http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80sWifG40B0. But the UAC was adapted and is now a major part of Windows 7. This change affected my daily life as a programmer and we had to adjust our programing models to fit the UAC. As a result I believe we are now building better software.
Aero is another example of the same kind of change. Enabling Aero really up a load on PCs it was not designed to run on. Luckily I was running a vista compatible laptop and never had a single issue. This caused an outrage in the enterprise market requiring them to upgrade their workstations with a graphics card. Which meant most simply didn’t upgrade. But at the same time PC makers started standardizing around the basic requirements that was needed to run Aero/Vista. Graphics chips found their way into CPUs and long before Windows 7 was ready programmers now knew that modern graphics programs can run effectively. This change leaded to massive advancements in the look and feel of programs in many different fields. This also was good news for game developers as a common problem has been a major division in graphic cards, but after DirectX 10 and Vista every game I got I knew could run. I didn’t need to check the specs or buy a new graphics card to play the latest game.
These are the types of advancements I believe we are expect to come out of W8 no matter how we feel about it now. I can think of two examples of game changers that we may be talking about in 20 years! The first is the live title revolution. The second of which is reprioritization of the desktop to a second class citizen.
I hate icons. I REALLY HATE ICONS! There I said it I come from a command line back ground and I have never understood the worlds transfixing with icons. Do you know how hard it is to commutate to an end user what to click on when working with icons? (Ya, that one that kind of looks like an envelope is your email application. Now, compared that with the command line type mail and the application is launched.) I understand the world doesn’t live in pre-90s and command line is dead for end users but this is where Live Titles step in and change the game. Live Titles present the same old icon the user is use to but also communicates the full name of the application, and Meta information about the application. The W8 start screen is what I wished my Windows XP desktop background was. After all who needs a picture on their desktop when a full set of Live Titles could present at a glance the entire state of my applications and system? I would expect others to a
Remember, the customer is always right. No matter how brilliant your tech is, if the customer doesn't want it, brilliance fails.
Windows 8 will be so poorly received, that bad vibes from the computer world will carry over to Microsoft's table and telephone efforts causing them to fail as well.
Windows 8 will have such a bad name that Microsoft will have a tough time selling anything that mentions Windows 8 or the Metro user interface.
MS's new thing is to trick people into developing apps for their new shit.
They'll say that 8-style is the only way, and many people will figure they'd better do a Windows 8-style UI version. Then when it's released it'll suddenly be optional and MS will be bragging about what a great feature the "optional" part is, and about how many apps there are.
Yeah, looks like it sucks to me as well. But remember there is no more home version and the pro version is going to be a $49 upgrade. Sure, business won't want it but then again they usually don't jump on the band wagon right out of the gate anyway. By the time they're ready most of their users will already be used to it.
Seems to me it's a Steve Jobs ploy. Give a pile of machines to schools and when the students get out they'll buy macs. Simply because they have no clue how to run a pc.
And FWIW, Metro was it's code name, remember? For windows 8? There was never any windows gui that didn't have a code name. So I've no idea why everyone is still throwing it out there. Once it's released it's code name dies.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
And how in creation did you apparently escape every single class in which grammar and punctuation were taught?
By far, the most visible new "feature" in Windows 8, is it's new UI, which takes inspiration from smart phone and tablet devices.
That is awe-inspiringly bad.
I feel sad for those hopeful few who believe that the obstacle of re-training will lead businesses to look at alternatives like Linux. The trouble is this: If you have to re-train no matter what, why bother wasting time considering alternatives? You have to re-train either way.
Always someone has power over you. The thing to consider is this: Is the power good, or bad?
Yes, we all look forward to the next great UI design from the labs at Microsoft. Like the ribbon before it, I'm sure some people will like the Interface Formerly Known As Metro (IFKAM). It's inevitable no matter how bad it might be. Some people probably liked Microsoft Bob too. But would it really hurt their product so much if they provided an easy way to disable these things and use the traditional UI? Thank the gods for Classic Shell.
I suspect the majority of businesses who use Windows will stick with Win7 for as long as it is supported, hoping 'Windows 8' will a repeat of Vista and go onto the next one after Windows 8. I suspect a trend developing: A bad GUI every other revision. One just needs to not land on a bad 'year'.
Microsoft is taking a lot of risk here. People tend to judge what is set as the default and declare anything outside that as buggy or annoying, atleast in my experience as a dev. Whether or not you like it, you have to appreciate how big their balls must be. Like cowboy neal said, it's not unlike gnome 2->3. What's happened since then? More people are moving towards Mint. I don't really know what microsoft thinks they will accomplish by adding this 'feature' May be a bit off topic, but what is wrong with traditional desktop UI's ? It has been the norm for 20 some odd years now. It's what everyone knows. It works. It's simple.
Users have been easily been able to adjust to new UI's: think of how many (common) people are using iPhones, Androids or even Blackberries and WIndows Phones. More and more people are using iPads with iOS which is completely different from Windows for their mail, surfing and productivity. All tese products are widly in use for the same basic computer tasks (agenda, mail, surfing, music, video and so forth) and you never almost hear anyone complain it's very hard because the UI / UX is so different from Windows 95 - 7.
The premise of the article that 'change is difficult' and a big factor in the (un)succes of Windows 8 is thus totally ridicioulus.
For most (non-Slashdot) users, who will only ever use a limited set of applications, a start screen with big, chunky, colourful tiles will be a perfect fit. The fact is that Microsoft got rid of the Start menu because most people were not using it. No (non-Slashdot) user likes change, but they will quickly get over it once they realize the start screen makes it a lot easier to find things (applications or anything else) on their computer. Add to that the facts that Windows 8 not only boots faster and feels snappier than Windows 7 but also offers a greatly simplified user experience across the board. Who on earth would not want a faster and more resource friendly Google Chrome launcher? ;-P
The point is it changes everything about PC's- its saying, don't create content. Its learning us to get a PC on a cloud where nothing is changeable.
Fat stupid Americans cannot even hold a mouse without injury, let alone hold their arm straight and touch a monitor for 10 hours a day. Corporate will not touch this.
Why does no one even mention OSX fuckup a while ago when they did the same thing with their GUI? and how they changed it back quick and made it user changeable.
How about a short cut url on the desktop or the POS metro? cannot do it. pdf book for later on the metro? nope.
How about updating windows while browsing or opening another program? can't. 1 window at a time.
The whole cobbled together piece of win 8 ME is shit.
1 ui for metro and the "control panel" and it doesn't show all the programs- btw.
1 ui for win 8 - like win7 less start menu
1 ui for a flat themed win 7
1 ui for a throw back to win 98 for advanced features like say advanced system settings.
A fist fuck of stupidity, Microsoft. you fucking cunt cocksucker motherfuckers!!!!!
(that was fun, thank you for indulging me /.)
Has it improved since version 3.1, the last one I bought? I went from that to OS/2 to Linux and now Android on my phone and tablet.
I'm not so sure Microsoft intends Windows 8 to be its next big thing. The company must be fully aware that the platforms UI paradigm is completely incompatible with its corporate customer's needs. I would contend that Windows 8 is more akin to Apple's initial iOS iteration on the iPad. Something not meant to be fully feature complete. Instead, they just trying to make inroads on a new market.
Granted, the tablet market has already gained tremendous traction and its and Apple world thus far. But, Windows Phone 7's entry to the market had very familiar parallels. The marketplace was well established with iPhones and Android, yet Microsoft chose to launch an strangely lacking platform. Seemingly, it was just for the sake of actually entering the marketplace. With the hope of building a user slowly over time. I would assume Windows 8 and Surface is the same strategy implemented on larger products.
Windows 8's successor will likely be the main event. We're just watching the curtain open.
Microsoft’s major success has been Windows (although they’ve made more money from products like Office). Now, they seem hell-bent on making sure that success is the root of their demise.
Microsoft’s products have traditionally reached their zenith in the third version.
Save for experimenters, we all ignored Windows 1 and even Windows 2.1 was an acknowledged dog, but it held promise. The first usable version, with serious networking capability, was Windows 3.1. Although still built atop DOS, we could finally do something productive with Windows. We got used to WYSIWYG.
Windows 95 was a dramatic improvement, but needed to be reinstalled every year or so just to keep it running. Windows 98 was much more solid, and morphed quietly into the product-extending “Second Edition,” which was an operating system that most homes and businesses adopted. Windows Millenium Edition (Me) was a throwback to Windows 98, with added features few found useful.
Finally, in a break with DOS, Microsoft turned to “New Technology.” Windows NT was, for all intents and purposes, an ignored product save for use on Servers. Because it was the first real “server” technology Microsoft sold, NT had a life in corporate America, but few individuals used it. It was quickly supplanted by the dramatically more stable Windows 2000, with more Internet and user-interface features. While limited, it was still a productive tool, and now crashes no longer took down the entire system, which was a boon in business, and in 24x7 servers. It was Windows XP (Windows 2000 with bug fixes, and a new “glossy” appearance) that finally took over the world; XP drove virtually all the earlier operating systems out of the inventory during it’s decade of dominance.
But, Microsoft couldn’t resist tampering: They designed anew and emerged with Vista, and both customers were happy. It was slow, buggy, and poorly thought out, like many of Microsoft’s “first version” products. They reasonably quickly moved to Windows 7, with a cleaner user interface, but still plagued by all kinds of security impositions on users and a complicated security model that only a security expert could navigate. Even though Microsoft forced Windows 7 on new computer buyers, most of them actually installed Windows XP (if they knew how) to regain access to familiar tools and a well-known user interface.
Based on the trend, you might expect that Microsoft has been readying Windows 8 to be the real successor to Windows 7but Microsoft has decided to follow short-term marketing trends to make the product utterly incompatible with user’s expectations: They abandoned the “Start” menu, changed to the “Metro” interface copied from cellphones, and they’re not catering to any of the millions of users who recognize XP is already wickedly obsolete, but saw Windows Vista and Windows 7 as a trip sideways, not a step up.
It’s as if Microsoft has decided that Windows 8 should be the start of yet another line of operating systems, and it will be a dog to learn and use for the next two generations.
But, worse, how will Microsoft replace all the Windows XP systems out there that Windows 8 can’t even emulate? How many retail computer systems, restaurant cash registers, laptops as field-service tools (etc.) are going to go without a new replacement because Microsoft has arbitrarily decided to cater to the “smartphone” and “tablet” users, who don’t have to deal with unique peripheral devices (e.g., receipt printers), or have the robustness that business demands? And, efforts to lockout users from changing their operating system, and creating a “closed ecosystem” for hardware and software products means that Microsoft will pursue the Apple strategyall the way down to Apple’s nominal 10% of the computer market (Apple is an electronic products company, with computer
If we start with the various nix flavors for serious tweakers, put Windows XP in the middle for the weekend tinkerer and give Apple products to those who shouldn't be allow near a control panel we had equilibrium. More or less. With Win 7s altruistic attempt to further abstract the user from tweaking and now Win 8's straight out denial it shows MS thinks the right way is "Do as we say not as you want". The end result? The harder tinkerers will find a nix that fits them and make the leap (why pay if we have to relearn anyway?) while the poor huddle masses will have no choice and will enter the new dark ages of no longer being able to print, save a file or maybe even log on to the computer. Computer use will drop as more people flock to the easier to use Apple products and MS will continue to shrivel in significance. The house that Gates built will crumble and rust just a little. Someday many will look back and laugh and say "What the hell is Bing?"
Or are we already doing that?
This reminds me of the last update to weather.com. They had a perfectly good layout, and then changed it to vertical for users would want to see it on a smart phone or iPad. This effectively took a piss on users that accessed the site with regular computers, but they didn't seem to care. The same "other device" thinking came to Netflix with their last web interface update. From a computer user's point of view, they made a ton of really serious UI design mistakes. But it's not designed for computer users, but people accessing the site from their TV using a remote.
Then there's consolitis that's been hitting PC games for so long. Any game interaction or features that a controller can't handle? Gone, altered, or otherwise messed up.
In this vein I propose a new term to the Windows 8 OS redesign. "iPadItis"
Let's look at their consumer releases:
Windows 3.1: pretty stable
Windows 95: somewhat buggy
Windows 98: pretty good for the time, especially SE. Got a cult following, with some misguided people (I'm looking at you, Teresita) still using it while it should be long dead and buried
Windows Me: "disaster" doesn't start to describe it. I quickly learned to refuse to help friends with computer problems if they were using Me.
Windows XP: still installed on more than 20% of computers, more than 10 years after its launch
Windows Vista: mostly negative reception
Windows 7: well-liked
Windows 8: catastrophy?
At my workplace, a state government agency, they just redeployed Windows XP on brand new core-i5 machines. I got the excuse of legacy/custom software needs. I'm expecting Win7 some time shortly after the rapture.
Maybe this is what Shuttleworth is counting on. That users will get USED to the GUI formerlyly known as Metro and so they'll find Unity a more comfortable experience than the traditional drop-down-menu based desktop. While Unity's application launcher doesn't slam into your face like ex-Metro, it's similarly huge.
I had a guy a couple of gigs ago that would call me when one of his desktop icons moved a bit. I'm not sure you're exaggerating with the phrasing "would poop themselves".
The technology to do that sort of touch interface was tried and discarded on desktop screens for everything other than niche situations back at a time that was probably before you were born. It sucks to reach up and touch a screen in comparsion with mouse movements.
I think that MS wants to destroy the Intel/AMD desktop computers we know and love, and replace them with ARM computers. Unlike Intel/AMD machines, the vast majority of of ARM PCs will be locked down to UEFI-only boot, just like Fritz Hollings wanted. They will not be able to be re-purposed as linux machines. Eventually, they're going to come with add-on keyboards, and monitors, to mimic current desktop PCs, but "under the hood", they'll be ARMs, locked down tight.
To force that transition, MS wants to to drive home users away from desktops ro tablets. That will drive economies of scale from Intel/AMD towards ARM. The ARM PC will become the cheap commodity machine, and Intel/AMD machines will become expensive "workstations", rarely seen except in legacy corporate environments.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
so 2.1, change system font to something 4x bigger than default.
2.2 change border colors to same color as window. color, change window title colors accordingly as well.
BOOM! win8
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
My biggest problem with Windows 8 is the lack of visual cues. In Windows 7, there is a tiny rectangle in the bottom right of the screen that when I hover the mouse cursor over will hide every open application and show me the desktop. If I click on it, all open apps will minimize or restore to their previous state. That rectangle is present in Windows 8 as well, but its basically invisible. If I am at the desktop and want to go back to the start menu, I can just push my mouse to the bottom left corner of the screen and a start menu tile will appear that I can click on. But there is no visual indication that I should or can do that.
The whole operating system is like this. The Win+C brings up the Charms Bar (and that name annoys me). However, there is no visual indicator I can click on or tap with my finger to bring it up. When your whole user interface relies on blind guessing to make things happen, its a horrible user interface.
I am providing tech support to millions of grandmothers and non-technical people. I have problems getting them to understand right vs left click and its been decades since the mouse was invented. Windows 8 is going to be a freaking disaster, whether using the touch interface or a mouse and keyboard.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Windows 8 will be a big turd in the Microsoft toilet all over again. Please would someone hand Ballmer his hat. The music stopped on his famous cake walk in 1999.
I can't wait for android desktop to come out!
One interface for tablets, doomed to fail in the face of Android and iPads
One interface for Smartphones, doomed to die
One interface for desktops, doomed to downgrade
One interface for Balmer, on his dark throne.
One interface to fail them all, and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Microsoft where marketing lies
It was called... LOTUS NOTES
They could have used the ribbon interface.
The UI can be remedied by allowing one to choose an hierarchical drop down menu.
If Windows 8 cannot support a drop down menu it has no place in the market.
Your opinion, to me, is entirely irrelevant.
Not sure what the big deal is and this desperation to cling to the past way of doing things. How many examples could one give for NOT doing things the way they were done in the past? If you have such an issue with moving forward and this new UI - you could always scrap computers/progression and go back to the old typewriter or pen and paper (or stone and chisel)! :P
I don't see how this is a big problem for either the consumer , or M$.. there's so many other non M$ options out there, that it'll be a lot easier on microsoft support techs, with the huge drop in windows users, they'll have less of a workload.. Microsoft employees will get a lot more free time with the huge drop in profits, they'll be able to go fishing or spend a year with their kids, after being laid off.. people selling used non microsoft tablets and computers will find it easier to sell them.. and even (heaven forbid) Apple will become less hated as everybody realizes it's only them or linux..
They'll add the option to switch from Metro to "Win7 mode" to the inevitable Service Packs, or Windows 8 will just be another Vista. I really can't see enterprise-level usage of Metro on the desktop.
"A generation which ignores history has no past and no future." -- Robert Heinlein
I installed Ubuntu Unity begrudgingly on new machines at work. And on my netbook at home. At first I thought it sucked for desktops and there are certainly things which don't work well on the desktop but after a while I started to like it and found advantages to the tablet type of interface, even on the desktop. It's mixed bag but it's not all bad. I assume this will be the case with Win 8 as well.
I see what you did there
as Christine responded I am stunned that a person able to get paid $4570 in 4 weeks on the computer. have you seen this web link http://www.makecash16.com
looks like the KDE community is about to get a lot bigger....
Sounds like my experience with Unity.
Metro is the new GNOME3
Good article. Summarizes what most people in enterprise IT think of radical UI changes. So for those in corporate IT, I have an idea. If you could virtualize IE dependent or de-facto standardized apps like MS Office using a platform like Citrix would you switch the desktops to a Linux distro like RedHat? I'm seeing several Server 2008 platforms providing single-sign on and LDAP to RedHat installations pop up making me wonder if we need Windows on the desktop in a corporate environment.
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato