Windows 8: a 'Christmas Gift For Someone You Hate'

zacharye writes "Microsoft is no stranger to criticism these days, and the company's new Windows 8 platform is once again the target of a scathing review from a high-profile user. Well-known Internet entrepreneur and MIT professor Philip Greenspun handed Windows 8 one of its most damning reviews yet earlier this week, calling the new operating system a 'Christmas gift for someone you hate.' Greenspun panned almost every aspect of Microsoft's new software, noting that Microsoft had four years to study Android and more than five to examine iOS, but still couldn't build a usable tablet experience..."

Comments

Re:He admits he's not using a tablet!!!

[bemymonkey]

It's a big honkin 27" all-in-one touch-screen desktop computer... so pretty much a big tablet. If you can't get the full Windows 8 experience on that, you'll never get it on a dinky little tablet.

The most common complaints

[davidbrit2]

It seems like the number one complaint so far is "It's different, and I don't like to think". That's just lazy, and I tend to discount it immediately.

There are two fairly valid criticisms, however. The first is that by moving functions into various gestures and hidden panels, the discoverability is quite poor. I'm constantly forgetting that the search feature is buried in that "charms" bar, and instinctively look for a search field on the screen somewhere. I'm sure the Microsoft knee-jerk approach to "fixing" this will be to print tips and reminders on the display bezel, which of course won't make any sense when the screen is rotated some other way. Going back to the drawing board and completely re-engineering a concept doesn't seem to be their thing.

Second, the weird desktop/tablet UI dichotomy is baffling. Functions that were previously confined to a small number of places - chiefly the Start menu and Control Panel - are now spread across two "control panels", a hidden "charms" bar, a "Settings" button in that charms bar, and many of these functions bounce back and forth between the tablet or desktop UI, or even duplicate features of one another. Key functionality has also been removed entirely. Where does one view, edit, and reorder the entire list of saved wireless connections? Nowhere, unless you want to use the netsh command!

So while I can appreciate making finger-friendly design considerations, the way they've done it is disjointed and nonsensical. If I had to fix it, I'd allow "Metro" apps to run windowed instead of only full-screen, make it easier to scale up UI elements of "desktop" apps for touch use, get the Control Panel consolidated into a single point of access, and put some of the most common features of the old Start menu directly on the new one, without hiding them off-screen or in menus (Control Panel, Devices and Printers, Run, Computer, Documents, etc). If you change the window manager to act more like the Metro mode when a window is maximized, then you've got a reasonably successful marrying of the two concepts.

For traditional desktop use, it's not at all horrible for an advanced user, and does have some nice performance and usability improvements here and there. For casual home users, it will probably be overly confusing, and leave them shopping for iPads even more than they are already.

Re:How about a direct link to the original article

[hairyfeet]

What is pathetic is that every one of us who did the testing on the DP and CP told MSFT repeatedly this was a BAD move, and if you'd have asked any of us retailers we'd have been happy to point out why. As of this moment less than 2% of the X86 units are touch screens and Win 8 just sucks balls without touch, also the metro UI is so obviously designed for tablets and NOT for desktops that it hurts. For example the left right swipe, which makes sense on a tablet you are holding like a book but its a royal PITA to deal with on a non touch laptop with a touchpad.

In the end I think this little anecdote about my personal experience with Win 8 pretty much says it all. I had Win 8 running in my shop on a NICE AMD mini-tower, we're talking triple core Athlon with 4 Gb of RAM, 500Gb HDD and DVD burner, all wrapped up in this very sharp red and black case with silver accents, just really great looking. For the nearly 7 months I had that unit out on the floor running Win 8? I got not ONE offer to buy the unit, not a single one. When Win 8 RTM was released and I saw they didn't do a damned thing to fix all the points I had been complaining about I wiped it and put Win 7 HP on it...it was sold just 4 days later. Hmmm...7 months with NO sale with Win 8, Win 7 sold 4 days. yeah...really not hard for me as a retailer to see its a turkey.

So just like with Vista this is a Windows OS that won't be getting sold on units in my shop, I'll make sure to buy only Win 7 laptops and all my builds will be Win 7 as well. MSFT may be able to afford to throw sales down the shitter but I can't and the people have spoken. ironically my sales have gone up since Win 8 was released because people come in and say "Have you seen that new Windows? its awful! Can you get me something with the real Windows on it?" and sure enough when they see my systems are running "the real Windows" its another sale for me, thanks MSFT.