Slashdot Mirror
30 Days Is Too Long: Animated Rant About Windows 8
First time accepted submitter Funksaw writes "Back in 2007, I wrote three articles on Ubuntu 6, Mac OS X 10.4, and Windows Vista, which were all featured on Slashdot.
Now, with the release of Windows 8, I took a different tactic and produced an animated video.
Those expecting me to bust out the performance tests and in-depth use of the OS are going to be disappointed. While that was my intention coming into the project, I couldn't even use Windows 8 long enough to get to the in-depth technical tests. In my opinion, Windows 8 is so horribly broken that it should be recalled."
Sounds like a user problem to me. Windows 8 is working just fine for me.
" Windows 8 is so horribly broken that it should be recalled."
Now, forgive me, but you can totally enter into windows 8 from a standard windows interface (as I understand it). That and, data shows, people are becoming familiar with it. Put that onto anecdotal evidence that younger individuals pick up the interface just fine and I'm inclined to think you knew what you thought before ever using windows 8.
Eat sleep die
Hey just because its easier to brainwash a child does not mean we should be attempting to brainwash ourselves.
Also 3 is way to young to be allowed electronics or access to IT/telecommunications. Not until 5 yrs old and only with supervision and seriously protective software installed (I want my kids to be expert A+ hackers, not 2cnd rate script kiddies)
No amount of ranting is enough in this matter. Windows 8 is trash.
This video shows that you just can't copy Yahtzee Croshaw without his motor mouth rambling, it just doesn't feel right :D
Captcha: copied :D
Not conviced. From both design and functionality standpoints it's utterly horrible, and a kid isn't going to fix that.
Yeah, the author's attitude is more than a little arrogant. You expect reasonable people to give your video a chance after speaking like that?
Yes I have used Windows 8, and while I am one of the hoards who loves the old start menu, apart from that change Win 8 is simply better. 7 was excellent, 8 has a few improvements over that.
I've been using it just. I put up with the NewUI instead of the Start Menu when I have to, but other than that, I spend 99.9% of the time on the desktop and it works just like Windows 7. I haven't used the NewUI/Metro Tiles/Apps or Store since the first day I installed it, and I have no plans to either.
Been using it for months. At first it is a bit odd, after awhile it is really not very different than Win7 other than being faster. Metro is cool IF you have a touch device. Otherwise it is kind of in the way.
I just finished building a budget pc to replace a dinosaur. I put the XP SP3 on and did a clean 'upgrade' to 8 Pro. After three days, I have to say I quite like it. I mostly use the desktop but flipflop to the metro stuff now and then too. Still a bit put off by lack of start button but I've not really gone too deep into the whole Win8 thing to find out all the short cuts and other features (I've not had to). BTW, my other OS on the machine is FreeBSD so hardly a rah rah MSFT guy. But I do think much of the hyperobole against it is misplaced.
It seems a bit over the top for the context, but it is well-done.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
-H. L. Mencken
And who are you? "Those expecting me to..."; who was expecting you to do anything? You wrote about some OS releases 7 or 8 years ago, and now you didn't even write anything up, you made an animated video?
I'm supposed to care about this guy why?
I have been using Windows 8 for the last few weeks and it seems to work just as well as Windows 7 did on the same machine. I suspect most of the issues the OP is having is just due to change anxiety due to for example the new Metro interface. Metro does take a while to get used to but like the ribbon it grows on you after a while. I think there are better things to rant about than Windows 8 to be honest.
3 year old
five year old
I would expect them to be better at it. It was designed for them.
It's getting old. This shill account might be pretty old (879048), yet just check the posting history. Not a single post not related to Microsoft.
But can you ignore the goblin fart? Can you?!
whilst
The problem is not that it's difficult to learn (though it is a bit of a shock at first); the problem is that some people just don't like it. You might be perfectly content with a touch-first tablet interface on your desktop, but Windows 8 will never touch any of my personal machines. That being said, I am still interested to try it out on a tablet device where many of the design decisions might actually make sense.
If you find this post offensive, don't read it! THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING! I am what I am because of how apes behave.
Because three- and five-year olds don't actually have to get any work done?
I've been using it. I don't like the metro UI, so I installed a tiny program I found on ninite.com called Classic Start, self-explanatory. It works, I don't interact with metro, everything behaves as expected. Before that I classified it as a minor annoyance. They made some poor design decisions, but I don't understand the tantrums and hyperbole, I do all my work in the browser or in programs and there's no change there. And the desktop is virtually identical to windows 7. MMC, powershell, command line, control panel are the same. It might be because I've always used keyboard shortcuts to navigate windows, I just don't understand the vitriol.
Just because little kids can use it doesn't make it a good idea.
Most kids are happy to get their blinkenlights and playing their games, they aren't demanding or advanced users in lots of ways. (Note: I fixed my nephews' and niece's computers more than once or set shit up. The old truism that all kids are prodigies at technology is annoying. Some of those computers were truly malware-infested-from-free-hello-kitty crapware shit boxes.)
Why would I want to use an interface designed for a 3 year old? Hmm? Come on.
Yes I use the command line and the function keys and I can fly around the thing when I have to. Doesnt change the fact it's just about the worst interface imaginable, and confuzzles the regular users to no end, resulting in them constantly calling me to figure out how to do the simplest of things. I am not saying previous windows interfaces were all that great, but in general people had gotten to the point of being accustomed to them at least. Breaking things for the sake of breaking things does not a good product make.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
in short:
"It's not what I am use to so I won't bother with a in depth analyses that may not support my bias."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
He's not real bright.
You can pretty much use Windows 8 just like Windows 7, just the "start menu" is now fullscreen. Press the windows key, start typing what you want, bingo.
Tens of millions of licenses have been sold because there's no choice. One buys a PC with an operating system to view and edit files, and a lot of industries have standardized on file formats exclusive to applications that are in turn exclusive to Windows. Windows 8 is the only thing that sort of reliably runs these applications that Microsoft still sells for bundling with a new PC. If Windows 7 were still widely available, tens of millions of Windows 7 licenses would be sold instead. If application publishers made a point of supporting Wine, at least millions (if not tens of millions) of Xubuntu licenses would be sold instead.
No, the problem is that people keep using it as if the touch interface is the only option. If you use it like you do Windows 7, it's actually a fantastic OS. Use the desktop, and treat the Start screen like a full-screen version of the Start menu. You don't need a Start orb to click on -- just hit the Windows key. I seriously cannot understand why Microsoft chose to market the Metro/Modern UI interface as the primary interface for the OS instead of easing people into it by treating that as a new Start menu (which is what it really is).
No...what recoiledsnake means is this:
If you use a computer like a 3 year old, then Windows 8 is perfect. That includes splashy, bright coloured interfaces, and chunky buttons big enough that someone lacking good fine motor control can still click on them.
For anybody who actually uses a computer like an adult, though, it sucks rocks.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Some of us started on paper tape and punch cards. Windows 8, Unity, whatever. It's not going to stay the same forever. Cry me a river!
I have no use for an OS or GUI designed for 3-year-olds.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
So removing windowing, and requiring all programs to be full screen, so only able to run one program at a time, is an improvement to you?
This is Windows 1.01 level technology, not an improvement on Windows 7.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Now I rarely ever venture into the Metro interface.
How do you prevent yourself from swiping the wrong way on your laptop's trackpad to accidentally bring up weather, as the video points out? And if the interface formerly known as Metro is something to be avoided, why was it made the default in the first place?
To be frank, the shit is cake
Is this in the sense of "let them eat cake" or "the cake is a lie"?
and people complain just to complain.
No, they complain because they can't change it back to what they know they can operate at least as efficiently.
I'm holding it wrong?
My three year old got on my computer and sold my car, bought some drugs, and posted nude photos of herself on Facebook. But seriously, what's with the FUD over electronics and children? Get over yourself.
So removing windowing, and requiring all programs to be full screen, so only able to run one program at a time, is an improvement to you?
Yeah, that would be terrible... too bad Windows 8 does exactly none of that.
There is literally no difference in desktop mode other than the re-location of a few Control Panel options
That and 2. the complete removal of the ability to display the Start menu on top of the desktop, and 3. the risk of accidentally activating Metro by swiping the wrong way.
If you can avoid metro, it's pretty usable.
But metro intrudes at annoying times for various routine tasks. Frustrating indeed. Showing how a child can perform cherry-picked tasks doesn't change this.
QUESTION: Why'd Microsoft attempt to shove something down folks' throats they didn't, & clearly DON'T, want (and the figures show that much backing me)?
* Answer me a another question: Why should I, or anyone else, have to learn anything new they didn't WANT IN THE 1st PLACE??
(We're all used to the Win9x style interface, there was nothing wrong with it @ all - so what was YOUR point???)
Understand this as well, per my subject-line above:
You're using "blank slates" in 3 & 5 yr. old children!
So - have you considered the rest of us are NOT "blank slates", & that we're already conditioned & used to something we've all used for, what?? 17 yrs. or more now???
Please... your links are comparing us to children who haven't gotten used to a damned thing yet.
E.G.-> Why don't you learn how to drive a crane to work instead of your car... oh, wait - what's that?? You aren't used to it??? What's the MATTER with you, boy!!!
APK
P.S.=> A cardinal rule of sales: You can't sell something people don't want... & they do NOT want to have to LEARN what they do not want to - get it? Good... now, try make Microsoft understand that, & thanks.
Above ALL else here - This, from me? It isn't "negativity"... it's just telling it how it is, & I'm probably 1 of a VERY SMALL MINORITY AROUND HERE (windows fans, vs. *nix folks)
... apk
...from a usability standpoint; and as everyone has pointed out a million times, it's the lack of some type of Start menu. It just doesn't make sense to have to completely leave the desktop whenever you want to launch another application. The silly corners aren't even that big of a deal (although they work much better in a tablet environment than on a desktop).
Win8 was obviously built for a touch screen. Microsoft sees things headed in that direction and decided to make that the primary focus. The desktop gets what feels like a "port".
It's sad too, because other than that Win8 works really well. And it really could have been the perfect desktop. Picture this: You boot into Metro. That's perfect for people who just want to check email or a quick look at the news or weather or what have you. It's good for mouse and awesome for touch screen. When you have serious work (or gaming) to do, you click the "desktop" icon and boom, you have your actual desktop. I mean a real desktop, with its own menu for launching applications. If you want to go back to the Metro it could be a hot corner or even a right-click option. Whatever.
The point is, if you're in the middle of something and need to launch, say, a calculator it's just silly to have to leave the desktop to do it. Sure, you could clutter things up putting the icons everywhere but who wants to do that? I get why MS wanted this for its tablet (how is the Surface working out for you, by the way?) but it seems just plain lazy to not have a true desktop version.
I'd imagine that someone will come up with a mod that essentially adds it back (actually, there already is one, although all it does is put metro in a window on the lower right of the screen where the Start menu would be--not ideal, but it shows people are thinking about it) or maybe even MS will realize that it's best to give people what they want.
But then, everyone knows you skip every other version of Windows anyway.
It's the primary interface because they will collect a 30% fee of the retail sales price of every program written for it. So obviously they want to coerce people into using it.
too bad Windows 8 does exactly none of that.
Until you accidentally swipe the wrong way, and your desktop disappears and is replaced by a full-screen weather application.
Coming from someone who has had a deep and long dislike of Microsoft, Windows 8 is not that bad. Metro is half baked and feels like it was tossed in at the last moment. Other than that, I have had less issues with Windows 8 than its predecessors.
Now then, what were they thinking with Metro? I have no idea. It feels half assed, and adds no value. The screen looks like someone's idea for webcasting push technology from the late 1990's.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Just out of interest, I walked into a PC World store to check out the new touch-screen PCs running Windows 8.
I timed myself: I was sitting there trying to work out how to do the gesture to get the Start screen. 90 seconds later, I simply gave up.
Windows 8, even on high-spec hardware with multitouch displays is completely unintuitive, completely undiscoverable, clunky, and amateur-looking.
I am GOBSMACKED, that Microsoft claimed that they've put a million user-hours into usability testing.
It'll snow in Hell before I put my hand in my pocket to upgrade.
have kids try working desktop and metro apps at the same time.
MS will need to let you install metro apps out side of the app store and let up on some of the sand boxing as well.
The Sandboxing in the app store apps just get's in the way of many work flows.
Microsoft needs to destroy Android or they will lose their monopoly pricing power, and the only way to do that is with pushing Windows Phone and it's Metro application stack. If the users see desktop first there's no reason for Metro apps to be developed, and with no applications, no reason to by WinPho.
There's inevitably going to be fans for any OS, even windows ME.
Since we have a Windows 7 slate that I really wanted to upgrade (read: make usable, as 7 is pants on a slate) daughter and I went to an Office Despot that had Win8 running on a big touch screen monitor, and I tried to get it to do stuff. Never touched Win8 before, but had worked on most previous Windows operating systems, (starting with 3.1, 3.51, 95, 98 SE, NT 4, 2000, ME (shudder), XP (still using it) and 7, plus experience with server 2000 and 2008) how hard could it be?
I massaged the screen for about ten minutes and couldn't get it to do anything useful. Oh, you can touch a tile and something happens, but it's easy to get into a mode where it's not at all obvious how to get out. GUIs, especially touch GUIs, should have visual cues on how to navigate, or at very least do things in consistent ways.
After awhile, daughter pushed me aside, as she has experience with Windows 7, Android and iOS on touchscreen, she wanted to take a crack at it. She figured out how to get out from where I had gotten stuck, but not much else after another ten minutes of pawing at the thing. Like 7, there seems to be little cabalistic gestures one has to learn to perform certain actions in 8, and they don't seem to be similar to what you had to do in 7. We finally gave up.
Mind you, I'm sure it's possible to learn Windows 8. The point is, it's not at all obvious how to use it.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
treat the Start screen like a full-screen version of the Start menu
And because it's full-screen, it all but encourages the user to forget what he's working on. Ever have amnesia as you go through a doorway? The fact that the Start screen is full-screen is like that.
You don't need a Start orb to click on -- just hit the Windows key.
How are users who have been opening the Start menu with the mouse for a decade and a half expected to discover the Windows key?
I don't like the fact Win8 has two "modes" and hidden context/UI, but frankly, being a VIM user, I don't think I have the right to make that complaint.
Seriously, there's a lot that's broken about Windows 8 right now, but I'm willing to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt long term. I'm certainly not going to upgrade until they've fixed a lot of their poor UX decisions, but I'm pretty sure they'll figure it out by the next version. Microsoft "Window" is a very apt analogy at the moment, but I'm putting my money on this being a success long term.
Happy user of Lenovo X1. Got it with Windows8 (no other option), played for 4 hours and installed Ubuntu. And since Windows for some reason showed me that there's only 65 gigs of free space left on my shiny new computer with 128Gb(Gib?) SSD I wiped windows cleanly (including recovery partition).
I also got a new Dell workstation at work. Not sure if it was managements fault or there is no choice but it came with Windows8, which was wiped immediately. Got it on VirtualBox now for IE testing which is about 1hr/month. I'm not sure if many of those millions had a choice.
...But I found this entertaining and pretty accurate. But hey, I have no connection to Microsoft. For all the guys calling this man an idiot, well, that's just idiotic. He's clearly no idiot; just doing quite a good job at a well-deserved rant about a grotesque product. It sure beats 20 minutes of jabbing pins into a Billy doll, which I'm sure many are doing or should be, just in case it has an effect.
So removing windowing, and requiring all programs to be full screen, so only able to run one program at a time, is an improvement to you?
You seem to be confused between Windows RT and Windows 8, the latter (which is what we are talking about) does not have the attributes you describe.
and is replaced by a full-screen weather application.
Which can be run side by side with the desktop and other apps, and does not prevent any other applications from running. The fact that some subset of programs run fullscreen does not mean Windows 8 requires all programs run full screen, and only one program can run at a time. This would be like saying "Windows 7 removes windowing, and requires all programs to be full screen, so only able to run one program at a time" just because you run games in fullscreen mode.
In fact, even for the programs that run full screen (metro apps) they can run in the background simultaneously, and side by side.
metro apps need to be able to run in a window / over lap as well.
limited # of apps at the same time on the same screen is not a good idea on a desktop or big screen laptop.
You are the same one here years ago saying how Vista was the Best version of their OS ever made. And before that you ranted about how Windows ME was incredible!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you HAVE to deal with a Win8 system then install classic shell and be done with it
If you think the measure of things is how a 3 year old does them then i would suggest your choices are a bit different beginning with say your underwear,
note for MS please restore the Start menu/Orb at least as an option for SP1
note for IT managers please allow things like Classic Shell so that your folks can get WORK done.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Metro apps are designed to be very simple, quick full screen apps. if you want to "work" you would not be doing so through a metro app. you would use a real software program witch would not run through metro and thus it would works 100% the same as windows 7. you can have 500 windows open side by side if you wish.
"Tens of millions of licenses have been forced down the throats of new pc and laptop buyers...."
FTFY
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Even the windows 8 calculator is not full screen and maybe some at MS said calculator does not need to be full screen but to bad metro apps need to be full screen so it's not a metro app.
Most of these comments are from stupid people who either (1) work for micro$oft or (2) wish they did. Why is it fashionable to say 'OH NO! He's negative! He's wrong!" Oh QQ and STFU. Windows 8 sucks and so do most of you.
Use those two tools to make it even easier.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I don't give a shit that a small child can interact with a device and get stuff to happen. My needs are a lot different than a child's.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
My Model M doesn't have a Windows key, you insensitive clod!
Now then, what were they thinking with Metro? I have no idea. It feels half assed, and adds no value.
I've already posted a bunch of anti-Windows 8 comments to this story, so I'll try to balance it out a bit: Adding support for the "modern UI" might have something to do with ability to buy one application and run it on your Windows Phone 8 phone, your Windows RT tablet, and your Windows 8 PC. Or it might make Surface Pro and other x86 tablets more desirable. Or it might make the interface easier to navigate with a remote control; the Xbox 360 bears this out (apart from the ads that take up two-thirds of the tile space).
So you're ignoring half the OS, and you've installed a 3rd party application to make the part you aren't ignoring actually usable?
Until you accidentally swipe the wrong way, and your desktop disappears and is replaced by a full-screen weather application.
I always found myself pressing the power button and turning off my PC when going for the DVD drive Eject button, clearly this is a terrible design problem and the fault of someone other than me.
You can't touch type on a touch screen
No shit, you can't touch type on a touch mouse either. It's called a touch screen because you interact by touching it, you'd have to be pretty defective to even think that the concept of touch typing would work on a touch screen.
Basically, he discusses the four c's: control, conveyance, continuity, and context, and gives examples about why all of these are horribly back-leveled from earlier Windows versions. Most damningly, he points to reduced control by the user...which is a trend that seems to have permeated through Windows since Windows 95. He summarizes by referring to someone else who observed that Windows 8 was really designed for content consumption by the user rather than content creation as personal computer devices were originally intended for. Content consumption is probably the main purpose of a tablet but we will still need content creation equipment and Windows 8 appears poorly suited for that, while not offering any alternative due to ending sales of Windows 7. His most damning comment is that Windows 8 is "user hostile." The best thing about his comments is that they will (hopefully) start the discussion about what capabilities need to be retained in future personal computers and future Windows versions.
It's not. You need very intricate mouse control to use the charms bar for example.
That's fantastic. Bring that kid to my work and let's watch it actually produce product on Windows 8.
My studio - www.graylands.ca
I hear Windows 8 is perfectly usable as long as you reconfigure the HOSTS file. Any idea how to do that?
You know why I say Fuck You? Because your links are like boasting how easy it is to bypass an AES128 encrypted file by watching a fucking youtube video that shows you the key. If you don't know something, I don't care how short a video is if I shouldn't have to watch it in the first place. So, fuck you.
You mean sort of the way I accidently hit something on my Mac and Firefox went full screen? Or you run a game on pretty much any computer and it goes full screen? Sounds like a horrific bug.
Whoa, what? I'm not in love with Windows 8 but you're just incorrect man :(
Don't make the rest of us look like idiots.
How is a person supposed to know what to type to find a thing that isn't listed? This has frustrated me at times in Ubuntu also. Why the menu hate?
And I replied to the wrong dude. Even quoted the wrong dude. gj me! high fives all-around, no more eggnog while on the internet.
That is sort of the point. You aren't using it like Windows 8 you are using it like Windows 7 with a 3rd party application to make it MORE like Windows 7.
The complaint is Windows 8 out of the box is junk.
My studio - www.graylands.ca
on the Princess Bride? INCONCEIVABLE!
Nope. He means the way I try to move my mouse to the right to moderate something on Slashdot in Firefox, and Windows 8 thinks I am using the right swipe gesture and changes to next application (Weather if always open, and is very often the next app). That is what he means.
Oh, shut up Brian.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I think you'll find that over the next couple of versions, that the 'classic' interface disappears or has reduced functionality. Anyone think this is not gong to happen? Apple set the precedent, now Microsoft is going to try cashing in on the same lock-in. Buying or using Windows 8 is funding the loss of your ability to actually 'own' your own hardware, same as iOS.
Looking over the posts, most of the one defending Windows 8 follow this scheme: "Windows 8 is great, [I installed something | I found a way] to never use Metro".
Considering that the UI formerly known as Metro is the heavily advertised main feature of Windows 8, are people now endorsing or rejecting Windows? This is so confusing.
at least in 95 you can still do folders setup win 3.1 style.
8 get's rid of the menu and folders / groups for starting apps with out 3rd party add on's.
A desktop loaded with apps in not a cell phone and NO I don't want to scroll though pages of apps to find one.
OR let's say take a game in's folder you can have links to a webpage , a map editor, the game add, maybe a updater app, unit editor, uninstaller, also add expansion packs with there own links and ECT. Now all of that fit's nice into 1 folder and NOT a full page of the windows 8 start screen.
How does it compare to Classic Shell?
http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/
You should send some advice to the Unity developers.
Sure, why not?
It's still less stuff than you have to install to make Gnome Shell usable. I've got five plugins installed just to make it work vagely right.
It means you don't use your computer for anything serious.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Because using my OS like a Fisher Price steering wheel is about like driving a formula 1 race car by moving wood blocks. Some things just are not meant for 3 year olds, other things are not meant for adults, at least not normally functioning adults.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
There are two fundamental problem with the "just install XYZ add-on and it becomes tolerable" perspective.
1) Every time you have to use the computer of someone not savvy enough to want/install such a thing, you're stuck with the horrible stock configuration.
2) Every time you have to use a locked-down/policy-controlled computer, you're stuck with the horrible stock configuration.
#1 kinda reminds me of having to use the Gentoo or Ubuntu machine of someone who has different command-line needs from install-to-that-point.
#2 is a tad less of a short-term concern, since many of those are just moving from XP to 7, but a serious long-term concern if things aren't fixed in 9.
I'm looking at for a new laptop, and it will almost definitely be from System76. I've had enough of the Microsoft tax, and locking their 'Metro' interface to force all software through their store is beyond acceptable.
I've been using Windows 8 exclusively on my primary computer since it became available on MSDN in August. It originally BSOD'd randomly and had a weird file copy bug, but MS has really stepped up their patching game since it was released to the general public in October. I haven't BSOD'd in almost a month, and the file copy bug I was experiencing seems resolved as well. The OS seems to have seen a host full of bugfixes since official release, and stability has certainly improved.
he surely has some valid points,
and i'm no windows fan,
but this piece is super fluffy.
it seems like about 80% "it's terrible, it's like < analogy >, it's really bad" and 20% actually saying what was bad,
so in the end it's 80% appeal to this dude's authority.
anit trust / EU laws / enterprise / GOG/ steam /ea / adobe and others are a big and MS can't just lock people in.
I'll state it again - E.G.-> Why don't you learn how to drive a crane to work instead of your car... oh, wait - what's that?? You aren't used to it??? What's the MATTER with you, boy!!!
* You can call me an "unwilling to change" type & all that, but... I've done SO MUCH CHANGING since 1982 on computers it's not even funny.
You noted this earlier: I was used to Program Manager, but I was also used to OS/2 2.1-3.0 WorkPlace shell as well (& loved it, hence why taking to the Win9x desktop was cake for me).
This new desktop & metro stuff? No, I know it's not for me is all... many are agreeing, ala "argue with the numbers" & not just on /. (the home of 'anti-MS' & 'anti-Windows' to a large extent amongst the populace here, excluding myself... heck, I am practically the poster-child for "Windows Fan of the Year" around here & everyone knows it), but all over the place.
MS messed up imo & apparently that of many. That's ok though - they CAN afford to make a minor blunder like a desktop shell & bounce back NEXT round.
Besides - the "turn-around time" is a drag on productivity, just like making you drive a crane to work vs. your automobile (or truck) per my example above.
APK
P.S.=> The rather fundamental mistake MS made? It wasn't developing a SINGLE CODEBASE for their PC desktops, mobile phones, tablets, etc./et al - it was not offering the option on the PC desktop during installation for users to have the option to do either the classic desktop, vs. the new "metro-ized" 3 to 5 yr. old ready one (which imo @ least, makes sense for smartphones or tablets, but not on a PC desktop)... that's all!
... apk
Now try that on a WinRT tablet.
Also, by default, Win8 insists on using Metro apps for a lot of things. E.g. the default file associations for images and PDFs are Metro viewers for the same - and they open even if you double-click on those files from the desktop.
I think you'll find that they're going to take a very committed run at it. Everyone else is getting away with it now, so they have a bit more of a defence.
I am not at all a fan of Metro, I think it is a stupid decision to try and force their tablet sales, and it isn't going to work. I dislike the start screen, and on my personal work desktop I replace it with a start menu (Start 8 is my choice).
However it is not hard to use. It is different, and I feel a number of the things it does make for a less efficient workflow, but it is not hard. Inferior to what it replaced, but not hard.
So if you truly can't figure it out you are either:
1) Extremely technically inept. No shame there, but don't write for a technical publication.
2) A moron, in which case please try and get your learn-on and don't be.
3) Trolling/lying, in which case please stop.
I get tired of the tech troll types trying to make Windows 8 out to be worse than it is. That is stupid and it weakens your real point (which is presumably that people shouldn't use 8). If you have to lie to make your point, it leads one to question how valid that point is. If you can't make your argument based on truth, then you need to reevaluate it.
Windows 8 has a somewhat poor user interface, not a hard one. There's a difference. A command line is a hard user interface, though it can be very good for some things. Without training you will likely be able to do literally nothing with the system since there are no hints as to what to do. When one learns it, it can be very efficient, but it is hard to learn.
8 is the opposite, it is actually quite easy to use and learn, but it is somewhat inefficient compared to what it replaced. That is a bad thing and MS shoudl be scorned for it, but don't try and claim it is hard.
I always found myself pressing the power button and turning off my PC when going for the DVD drive Eject button, clearly this is a terrible design problem and the fault of someone other than me.
On my laptop, the power button is fairly close to the Esc key. But it has a decidedly different feel from Esc: it's slightly recessed, and it needs slightly more force, which helps with blind reaching. If two buttons are that close together, and the eject button feels like just like the power button, then the case does indeed have a design problem.
And when I press power on my laptop, I get a dialog box that offers the choice of log out, restart, sleep, hibernate, or shut down, and it defaults to something sane after 30 seconds. If your operating system goes straight to shutdown without an option to cancel, then the operating system has a design problem.
you'd have to be pretty defective to even think that the concept of touch typing would work on a touch screen.
That signature is aimed mostly at people who think physical buttons are obsolete, that everything traditionally done with physical buttons can be done better with gestures. But good luck typing or playing something like Mega Man or Contra on a touch screen.
Kinda like how people use Cinnamon to make GNOME3 usable you mean?
Seriously, I know several people who actually like Windows 8 better.
Cool story bro.
Watch a couple of videos if you're lazy and learn some shortcuts and it's a better Windows 7 at the worst.
While Windows 7 was a bit annoying when you were trying to find somehting in the new control panel, if you knew Windows XP you could pretty much use it right away, and teach yourself the few things that had changed.
WIndows 8 simply has too steep a learning curve. You need to watch instructional videos to figure it out. I'm sure it's a fine phone OS, and maybe if you're used to a different phone OS it's not that strange, but nothing changed for the better for keyboard/mouse users trying to get work done. Why would I want this on a laptop or desktop?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Because you can move to the bottom right and do the same thing.
So why does the charms bar visually slide in from the right center no matter where the user activates it instead of sliding in from the top right corner when the user activates it at the top right corner or sliding in from the bottom right corner when the user activates it at the bottom right corner?
Or press WIN+C.
When I pull down a menu in the desktop, I get a list of reminders of the keyboard shortcuts for those menu items that have them. Why doesn't the charms bar have a "Win+C" reminder?
If I'd been drinking I'd have spit coffee all over the keyboard. I do believe that charms is one of the most unreliable chunks of interface I've seen in recent OS.
Come on charms, come out, you can do it.. There you are.
By the way, this is exactly the same reaction I have with TABBED editing windows etc. Trying to read or copy/paste from one file while working on a different one at the same time is impossible by the self imposed limitation of the GUI. You can't expect EVERYONE to have a photographic memory to remember the actual contents of the multiple text windows behind the one on top.
Then it should slide in from the right when activated through the trackpad gesture or touch screen gesture, slide in from the bottom right (and end up where it currently is) when activated with the mouse at the top right, or slide in from the bottom right (and end up where it currently is) when activated with the mouse at the bottom right.
What you're left with is an OS that is better than Windows 7 in every appreciable way from security, compatibility, performance, and resource consumption.
How so? It's just an incremental/service pack release with a new UI.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
...he can always switch to Ubuntu and Unity - oh wait...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
So you're saying the changes from Windows 7 to Windows 8 are fine if you use 3rd party software to ... suppress them all and make it just like Windows 7 was? Hardly an endorsement.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Windows 8 is now about giving each application your full attention
Which leads to doorway amnesia, as I pointed out in another comment. I don't want to give attention to an application; I want to give attention to a task that involves the use of several applications.
The Start screen is an overview of everything you have available and live tiles allow them to each give you different types of information allowing you to decide if they are worth your time or not.
So why can't I have this Start screen take up only half the screen, so that the other applications involved in this task remain at least partly visible to retain context in my brain?
The best way to describe what's been done is that windows is now more about flipping through a book
A task may require (and often does require) more than one book.
and less about putting all the pages spread out on your desk.
In other words, as the video points out, it's Microsoft Window, singular, not Microsoft Windows, plural.
Make a folder with all the shortcuts you want, name it Start. You can split it up in to subfolders if you want. Add the toolbar to your taskbar. Now you don't have to deal with that POS metro start page.
I'm sorry, but if a video featuring a child moving pictures around the screen is the best counter-argument Microsoft can come up with, there has to be something seriously wrong with Windows 8.
I recently had the opportunity to try Windows 8 for the first time. I'm a 40-something IT consultant with 20+ years experience, so I'm not your typical user by any stretch of the imagination. I've used DOS, Netware, AIX, SCO Unix, Linux and every Windows version from 3.0, but I've actually never used a tablet and I've never owned a smartphone. I was ready to give Windows 8 a try. I mean, how hard can it be?
Pretty hard, as it turns out. I knew I was in trouble when after staring at the "start" screen for a few minutes, I had no idea how to access settings or navigate the file system to get to, say, my NAS unit or USB stick.
In previous Windows versions, I can remember feeling annoyed over having to search through the system to find settings or applications that Microsoft had decided to move around. In Windows 8, I felt like I did that time my car broke down: I was stuck. There was nowhere to go, and nothing seemed familiar.
I though most of his rant was spot on, and my customers seem to agree. I sold a few laptops with Windows 8 preinstalled, but ended up having to downgrade to Windows 7. I'll be doing that with every laptop from now on (but Microsoft still gets to count them as Windows 8 sales).
Just because a small child can fumble through it doesn't make it an attractive platform for getting real work done.
All you need to know is - who the hell decided to call this crap on the side the "Charms Bar"?
Seriously? That alone disqualifies Windows 8 from being a usable operating system.
His list of four design elements that Windows 8 CLEARLY breaks is perfectly correct. A tablet and a desktop PC are TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT ANIMALS. Mixing the UI metaphor is just stupid.
I don't think the notion of a "recall" is likely to be a useful suggestion. However, I think a "Service Pack" that makes some of the UI screwups "optional" is likely to be in Windows 8 immediate future, despite Microsoft's insistence that there won't be any more "Service Packs".
OTOH, there are enough third party utilities out there that attempt to correct some of the more egregious UI errors that maybe Microsoft will try to "tough it out". After all, as the guy says, anyone buying a new machine is pretty much going to be force-fed Windows 8, and we all know Microsoft couldn't care less about its customers.
I do agree that Linux is undergoing the same sort of stupidity. The Ubuntu Unity interface was roundly denounced by many Linux users. I didn't like a lot of the KDE 4.x changes when I shifted from KDE 3.x to 4.x and either never used the "features" that were added and in a couple cases disabled them.
I don't have an a priori problem with trying to improve PC user interfaces. I DO have a problem with making changes that no one has asked for, simply on someone's notion that "hey, this could be COOL!" "Cool" invariably leads to CRAP.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
This astroturfing paid for by Microsoft.
He's right, you know. I've been using computers since 1961. Back then you could read the manual in an evening and then you know all the commands you needed to know. Now the systems are so complicated that only the Internet is big enough to hold the documentation. That's what makes discoverability so important in a user interface these days. Windows 8 is sorely lacking in that department. I have spent the last two weeks building a virtualized server on top of Windows 2012 Server. As a server it's just dandy. Hyper-V works beautifully; networking, backup, management tools are all great. BUT the new interface is still awful and the screens are just plain ugly. I've been working with a Remote Desktop connection to Windows 2012 Server from a Win 7 machine. The Win 7 side is beautiful and functional. The Win 2012 Server side is ugly and functional. It looks a lot like IBM stuff from the 60's. At least there's no confusion about which machine your working on.
Yes, that was the idea of Metro. The problem is that as Apple has shown, Desktops/Laptops and tablets are used in very different ways, so need a very different UI and apps.
I cannot sympathize with you on 1. This is a situation where you are using someone else's machine, so you have no reason to expect their interface preferences to conform to your own. The default options are enough to present this situation. Some people hide the task bar. Some people put it on the side. Some people disable grouping and enable labels. Some people have disgusting skins and terrible wallpapers. If you were to use any of these systems for whatever short time, would you just go around changing their user preferences to fit your needs?
Two is a more complicated issue. I understand that the particular interface might make you less productive, but in a work environment you're paid to use what hey give you. Whether it's a Burger King POS or a 6 axis router, you use the interface you're given to do your job. As far as an enterprise situation, you're not installing apps, you're not using metro apps, so the start screen and the entire metro UI is reduced to a simple launcher. Pin your programs you want to the desktop and use Windows 8 as you've always used Windows. If Metro proves to be a real long term drain on productivity, I'm sure you'll see enterprises staying on Windows 7.
Nope. He means the way I try to move my mouse to the right to moderate something on Slashdot in Firefox, and Windows 8 thinks I am using the right swipe gesture and changes to next application (Weather if always open, and is very often the next app). That is what he means.
And I'm not sure what you mean. My Windows 8 machines never interpret mouse movements as touch gestures. The only thing that can be annoying from time to time is if I move the mouse cursor all the way to the right of the screen and it pulls up the Charms bar. Are you using a Metro version of Firefox or something? And if so, why?
Breakfast served all day!
So you are arguing that a subset of the GUI ifs half the OS? That doesn't make any sense. It may be more than 50% of the changes from the previous OS, but it obviously not 50% of the OS itself.
Learn to love Alaska
There's literally a fucking tutorial that shows you how to access most of what you mentioned
If you have parental controls turned on, is there a version of the tutorial that doesn't involve the fucking?
We've been trained already, even if we didn't want to or didn't ever use MS. So when it changes, it's harder to adapt, but anyone who has never used it has an easier time. We are too much creatures of habit, and even bad ones are hard to break.
Learn to love Alaska
It's a nightmare on dual-screens, but I found windows key + C to be much easier :)
I thought in a general sense, as a community, we'd moved past cheering for nerd-rage melodrama.
Windows 8 makes a few gaffes, but they're largely the same problems that Windows 7, Office 2007, and others started introducing. It can be annoying, but it's the same stuff taken to a reasonable next step, as well as UI unification between desktop, laptop, and tablet.
None of that is necessarily a fun thing, but OSX has been pushing many similar UI changes for longer. A lot of people were unhappy with Lion's increasing similarity and unification with iOS, just in case anybody actually forgot that in less than a year.
The bottom line is, 8 works in the same ways as 7, just with some added complexity. The easiest way to almost entirely remove that complexity? A start menu replacer. People recommend Start8, ViStart, and others. My personal recommendation is "Classic Shell". It works exactly the same as it used to on Vista+, except it adds the "Apps" to the start menu as well.
But even so, why wouldn't somebody be able to figure this out? The video author was squealing about how the start menu "hurt him deeply". Trackpads aren't really supposed to do "touch gestures" by default. It's vendor opt-in. Logitech opted in, and chances are, this guy didn't install whatever WIndows 8 drivers or control panel may or may not be available. Either way, it's a vendor issue. Just like 'no install/repair/recovery/etc' disk is a vendor issue. If you don't want vendor issues, you don't buy things from those vendors.
All of the UIs Windows (95-W8), OSX, KDE, iOS, Android, etc are different. What everything has in common is that there are roughly 6 different things you have to know about each, then consistency covers all of the multi-step operations, or using various applications. Occasionally you get something that breaks out of that a bit (Office 2007+). There are so many "advanced" things, like command line digging, reinstalling from scratch, that the overwhelming majority of people will simply ask a friend for help with or pay a PC repair company. That's pretty much regardless of operating system.
But I digress. The rant is pretty simply over the top drama. It should sell itself as entertainment (if it at least had any humor), not as something relevant to 'tech news'. It's not politically correct to mention, but this guy sounds and acts like the stereotypical nerd, going into a panicky, narcissistic rage about primarily one change that, overall, isn't that significant to day to day use, AND for which there exist free, open source, and easy to use workarounds, while still obtaining benefits of a newer OS.
He himself admits he only tried it for 30 minutes, in a coffee shop, and didn't bother one iota further.
Personally, I've been using it for 4 months (and preview versions before that) with NO issues that would meaningfully impact your average, or above-average user. All of my personal complaints are exceedingly specific and technical, and have mostly been taken care of by various updates.
And, in the interest of disclosure, I'm not the kind of person who likes Windows, or most other OSes, in a general sense.
I prod and patch kernels, have no problems custom-rolling EFI stub-only boot on Linux, etc. What I really miss, is being able to run highly customized FreeBSD and still use ~90% of my Windows games at full speed. That's mostly a hardware/driver/wine(!) issue, though.
So when I say I'm using Windows 8 in the exact same manner as I use Windows 7, I'm not exaggerating. I actually like the availability of some of the W8 new features. I middle click on the start button (or use Shift+Windows) if I want to see live tiles like the weather...just like on OSX, you use F12 to get the Dashboard to pop up a full screen of 'one glance' kinda information. Even before using Classic Start, the only quirk I took issue with, on the 'start screen', is that when typing for programs, it wouldn't search for stuff like control panels "by default". You'd have to move the mouse over to select "settings". Mos
"A Goddess rarely smiles for she is forced by others to be an island unto herself." - Zephiris
Sooner or later I am going to walk in somewhere and have to use Windows 8 to get something done. Sooner rather than later. Currently, there is no major OS that I could not be modestly productive on in a few minutes. However, the video rant gave me pause with respect to this new iteration of Windows. Also the video was actually instructive in a backassward sort of way. Note to self: Careful with the touchpad. Or disable the swipe feature. Use Windows key to see applications Etc...
So now I am going to take advantage of the price-of-a good-dinner introductory cost and put Windows 8 on an old Vista laptop I have in order to do a solid familiarization. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised. And ... Forewarned is forearmed. I might even RTFM. A little.
This appears to be a matter of self preservation because in my experience there seems to be some stuff that has a learning curve for dweeb types, but not for three-year olds. I remember the terrible experience I had with iTunes the first time I used this "easy-to-use" application. (And a lot of people do find it easy to use.) At the time (about four years ago) I had had an MP3 player of one sort or another (not Apple) since 1999 (Creative Nomad was my first). Someone gave me an iPod Shuffle she wasn't using. So, and for the very first time, I downloaded Apple's music utility onto my PC and attempted to use it to put mp3 files on the Shuffle in the straightforward way I was used to. All my other players worked like flash drives if I wanted. It took me far too many frustrating minutes (and a dash to the dreaded help files) to realize that Apple's resource was padding my experience and preventing me from using the equipment in the manner I wanted and which made sense. Nanny Apple: "First we make a playlist... etc". Sometimes resources are so dumbed down and bullet proofed that people who have a feeling for how computers work get limited, confounded and frustrated. Seems like this poor guy repeated my brief iTunes nightmare with Windows 8 -- on steroids. And since I have had similar experiences with easy-to-use stuff I better get familiar with 8 since it might not be a cake walk should I walk into it cold.
So, as I said, A reverse effect. Now, instead of being put off by the negative review, I heave a heavy sigh and download this thing. This because sooner or later I'll have to deal with Windows 8. Good, bad or indifferent. Feh!
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
"Its authoritarian, but in this case I feel like its sound advice."
I don't think you understand the words you are using. Authoritarian? Whose "authority" are you drawing on, to make such statements?
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/authoritarian
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I use Gnome 3 on a daily basis. Most of it makes sense and while it launches apps fullscreen by default, it doesn't restrict me from putting my apps at 50% screen. I just drag the app to the side and I get a nice little context that says the window will be resized to 50% width. In Windows 8 Metro it makes it something like 20% and there's no option to split the screen 50%.
Now, admittedly, I have a few extensions on Gnome 3 to make some minor tweaks which probably should be options to Gnome itself (rather than an extension) but adding extensions is a simple as going to a webpage and turning on a switch and if you want to tweak settings with an extension, right click on the activities or the extension icon.
My biggest complaint with Gnome 3 is the inability to favorite any app so it shows up on the quick launcher on the left side of the screen. (Only apps with shortcut launcher files created will allow you to favorite them.)
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Myself, when I need to find something on the Start Screen (or the old Start Menu), I just hit the Windows key and type in the name of the app I'm trying to launch. If I use the program often enough, I'll pin its icon somewhere to save me the trouble.
Breakfast served all day!
There is no "Ubuntu 6". There was Ubuntu 6.04 and 6.10.
There was no Ubuntu 6.04 EITHER.. It was officially called Ubuntu 6.06, a bit late for the first LTS release out of the then new-kid-on-the-block Ubuntu...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Windows 8 isn't bad... it's new. Just like Windows 95 was... and we all know how Windows 95 through windows 7 failed so miserably. (Can anyone remember the term "Ludite"?)
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=edit+hosts+file+windows+8&l=1
For one, editing your hosts file is unchanged from the previous version (you were a lying idiot over-simplifying to the point of incorrectness). For another, the security feature restoring it to default can be disabled, so your oversimplification was still incorrect, even if we forgive the simple factual errors in it.
Learn to love Alaska
Wait, you're saying well Win8 is no different than Linux....for USER INTERFACES? ouchie
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
What, you want to watch the kids watching porn? You are sick.
Learn to love Alaska
Yes it does. It's the 'metro' interface which has exactly ONE app on screen at any one time (apparently random times too!).
When people say, it's a good app, I use the Desktop...they're saying that Win8 isn't good and Win7, which is what the Desktop basically is, is what they prefer to use.
Video's point stands. the WIN 8 interface SUCKS for PCs.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Let me understand this.
You like Win8. You're part of a select audience for which Win8 was designed for. You haven't enabled the start menu, because you love the metrosexual aspect so much. You love that shit, and you didn't even have a learning curve to deal with. You don't need or want any of the more advanced features of Windows that are semi-hidden on the metrosexual workspace.
Of course that invalidates the complaints that all the rest of us have about Win8 and the other metro "desktops" being pushed by Gnome, Unity, etc. We're all just idiots.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
List of features new to Windows 8. Of this list, only a couple line items relate to the interface. Every release of Windows is characterized as "a service pack with UI changes" but I've never seen any service pack with a changelog like this. The closest is Windows XP SP2, which added the security center.
Which is why I bought my stash of 10+ Win7 licenses a month or two ago. And why I'm upgrading my Mom's old computer to Win7 for Xmas...I am NOT supporting that crap.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Who cares how many Unix geeks like Windows 8?
Windows 8 has one purpose in life, to come before Windows 9. Something new had to be done (to remain competitive in a phone/tablet market). Windows 8 is just a try it and see tool for that market. It does fine. Anyone who can use a computer, 3 years old and up, can use windows 8 just fine, and may bitch some about it - big deal. Bitching is how things get changed for the next release.
Isn't it here on Slashdot where we are reminded constantly about how Microsoft misses every other release? And your friggin memories are that short?
I'm sure you all want to hear my thoughts on how bad KDE and OSX are, don't you? I didn't think so.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
No but when I'm working on a native Japanese car, I can still see the damn steering wheel in the front...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Are those children programing? Doing graphical design or CAD? Making professional music or videos? Writing professional documents or academic papers? Playing or modding high-end games? No? Then their "proficiency" with the OS is meaningless.
879048 is old? Who knew.
So it's more like the awesomeness that was Windows 2.
One thing I can tell you for sure, when my organization does its updates first quarter next year, we will be requesting Windows 7 Pro.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You need to watch instructional videos to figure it out.
No, the only thing you need to know the OS is "move your mouse into any corner" which is told to the user on first log in. Moving your mouse to the corners reveals everything you need to navigate and use the OS.
>Adding support for the "modern UI" might have something to do with
Ah, desperation. It is a terrible perfume.
What I don't get is how some pieces of metro can feel so unpolished when they've had years and two other touch/tablet OS's to copy from?
No amount of ranting is enough in this matter. Windows 8 is trash.
no, No, NO!!! Windows 8 isn't trash -- VISTA is trash. Vista IS TrAsh. See?
Windows 8 is rubbish, conceived by the marketing droids and PHBs positioning Windows in the touch world for the future. In 4 years when everything has been converted is touch, you'll wonder how you ever managed with a simple "read only" display. (MSTSC.exe's going to have to be re-written for another input device.)
And just think about all of the new market share Microsoft will have after Every Single PC and Laptop has to be completely replaced to become touch-enabled. (Time to sell my mouse-hardware stock.)
Forget cutting spending or raising taxes --- the economy is saved! Windows 8 is going to end up with the largest market share E...V...E...R.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Just wanted to come back and point out, that if you read the previous articles this author did for HardOCP, he slagged on Windows Vista for pretty much the same concerns, and also said "Yes, it is possible to enjoy both Windows and Linux - but unfortunately this product is unfit for any user."
There's an EDITOR'S NOTE attached that says: "The fact is that Vista is far from "unfit for any user," and this statement by the author is simply incorrect."
Coincidentally, it was his last article on the subject for HardOCP. I wonder why...
"A Goddess rarely smiles for she is forced by others to be an island unto herself." - Zephiris
Yes it does. It's the 'metro' interface which has exactly ONE app on screen at any one time (apparently random times too!).
Within the 'metro' UI that is partially true (there is some support for side-by-side apps), but that is not the only UI on Windows 8, as such his assertions are demonstrably false, they didn't remove windowing, they didn't require all programs to be full screen and they didn't remove the ability to run multiple programs at once, that is all still there.
When people say, it's a good app, I use the Desktop...they're saying that Win8 isn't good and Win7, which is what the Desktop basically is, is what they prefer to use.
So you are under the impression that the only thing different between Windows 8 and Windows 7 is the 'metro' UI, in that case your post makes more sense, still wrong though.
I agree with your general sentiment. It works in most cases. Most problems with programs aren't quite a show-stopper. You know, like my personal pet peve in the newest GiMP. You can't "save as..." any format other than XCF. It violates the continuity rule for user interfaces. I understand why they did it. And I agree it is probably more "correct" but the argument is that "professionals might lose their work!!!" Sorry, but if they are professionals, they know the difference between "save" (which is supposed to save out in the same format you opened the file in) and "save as..." which gives the user the chance to save the project out as a different name and format. Simple and elegant and decades old in terms of conventions. Oh yeah, all oither programs do this. Unless the latest versions of Adobe products are doing this (the newest I had was CS5.5) then "professionals" aren't demanding this. Anyway. Not a "show stopper." It's an annoyance. (Oh yeah, when you do a "save as..." it would allow you to see all the other image fomats... you know, like JPG and BMP and GIF and PNG and all that... just not SAVE in those formats. "Conveyance" is violated there. They called it a bug and said they would fix it. I haven't looked to notice.
Anyway, the things this Gilbert Gottfried wannabe ranted about were very entertaining. And "It's funny because it's true!" also rings true here.
Even before I played with Windows 8, I knew from the beginning that if Microsoft wanted to make a tablet UI, great! Just don't try to put it on the desktop!! I knew Microsoft would try this because they tried to put a Windows interface on mobile devices and wondered why people couldn't use it. But then someone woke up and said! AH HA! They didn't like it because the UI wasn't suited for the device type!!! Great!! Let's just do the opposite and put touch interfaces on desktops! That'll solve everything. People will love us again!
Nope.
People call me a hater or anti- whatever and that's fine. This time I'll come across as an apple fanboy. (This parenthetical comment should dispell that. I'm not, I hate that they "hate our freedom!" "The terrorists" don't hate our freedom! They hate what we do! To them!!! But if any group is openly hostile on freedom? It's Apple.) Apple gets UIs. Microsoft doesn't. I don't think they ever did. The best they ever did was make bad copies of MacOS elements and evolve from there. Departure from that evolution? Not so much.
Also, the 3 year old thing? He was taught and coached. The big complaint in the rant video is that if that none of the operations were in any way natural or intuitive. Try again. The second one? Once again, he knew what he was doing. And he was a paid actor. C'mon. It's like you're not even trying.
I'm using a model m from 93 my keyboard doesn't have a windows key.
With impartial sources and impeccable anecdotes like that, how can we possibly argue.
I should have mentioned, I was using a touchpad (not a real mouse). The swipe gestures work both in desktop and metro mode. It is not able to interpret whether I am trying to move my mouse pointer to the right or I was using the swipe gesture (well, how could it).
I figured that I would buy a copy and load it on an unused computer I have sitting around. You know what, they only sell an OEM version with no support or upgrade. There was no clear info on the various packages to be found. In general they even succeeded in breaking their own web site and curtailing sales that way. Well did you ever finally get a copy you ask? NO!!! I got so pissed at the site and the ridiculous complication of trying to find what I was looking for that I gave up. I will stick with Vista and 7 for now and later migrate to some flavor of Linux. Microsoft is a ship without a rudder, no prop, and hell the engine is even seized as well. Nice job Microsoft, I didn't even have to buy a copy of your OS to be dissuaded. Mike
3 year olds use computers with their fingers. The mouse is a legacy device.
I love that the second link, once played through provides a "related link" to "Ultimate Girls Fail Compilation 2012" :) Somehow fitting.
Funny. If I'd been drinking, I'd have spit rum all over my keyboard....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
May I ask, what improvements?
Aside from the new Start Screen / Start Menu, which is controversial at best, the second most important feature I had heard is that 'it boots up faster.'
Ok, so it boots up faster...I am on a SSD, and before that a 7200 RPM hard drive. My boot times are, what, less than a minute? And part of that has to do with my machine having any number of startup programs / drivers for things hanging off of it?
I mean, don't get me wrong, faster boot times are always appreciated, but for that to be the second most taughted feature....I'm having trouble justifying the $40 upgrade from Windows 7, let alone buying OEM or full versions of 8.
And the third feature is, what, the Windows Store? How is that a feature? Why do I need a marketplace on my desktop? It's an Operating System...what new, compelling features are you offering that makes this operating system a must have? Better driver support for exotic devices? Easier mass deployment / imaging routines? A more powerful framework for designing applications / programs that is not arbitrarily limited to the latest version?
Has MS Paint been upgraded to something Photoshop like? Has the Image Viewer been redesigned to have more features / work with more formats? Has the CD / DVD / BluRay software been upgraded to something more useful? How about the creation and extraction of archives? Backup and restore? Has the Media Player been rewritten to be less annoying, something approaching WinAmp in terms of usefulness? How about its support for codecs? Both old ones and new ones. Subtitles. Have they implemented 'Admin Command Line' here as a standard option? How about video transcoding? A PDF viewer that doesn't make people spit tacks?
I am John Hurt.
The Xbox UI is, to be frank, shit. Nintendo's isn't great but Xbox is light years behind that. Microsoft's UI gets in the way of what you want to do and if you want to buy a game via code, God help you. Let's not even talk of the intrusive updates and requirements to pay their subscription to use applications which are free on other platforms.
8 get's rid of the menu and folders / groups for starting apps with out 3rd party add ons
No it hasn't. This structure is maintained and displayed in the all apps menu (win+Q). You can pin this folder to your toolbar too.... pin %USER PROFILE%\Start Menu as a toolbar and you have a mini start menu replacement... no third party apps required.
I don't understand it.
Windows 8 is just Windows 7 PLUS metro.
Surely you could just not use the metro parts and it would be just the same experience as windows 7 (mostly). In fact, I do just that.
I got used to the new start screen - it's not _that_ bad, no worse than hunting through menus to find what you're looking for, and actually better in that you can just start typing the name of a program and it comes up in the search. Or you can type the name of a control panel applet or setting, and that works too.
There are definite improvements over windows 7, even if they are minor. So in general, if all you want is an incremental improvement over windows 7, you can use it just like that.
No one is forcing you to use metro for all your apps.
So yeah, windows 8 is less than ideal in that some settings screens take you to a metro interface (but you could live without them), and metro itself is horrible, but if you use it just like windows 7 and all versions before that, it still works fine.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Oh, here's a really good one in Windows 8 with the PDF view.
Open a file with the default windows 8 reader. Ok, winkey out or go to something else like most people will by default.
Open up firefox and attach the pdf to an web based email (yahoo in this case). Uhh? what?
It doesn't work??? (a normal person would be putting a tech call, or doing some serious google-fu about now).
Oh, you have to figure out how to close that damn reader first.
One wonders how this user can rate a very Vista-like OS that he can't even operate.
Believe it or not APK, you don't have to use Microsoft software, there is no law saying you must use Microsoft software in the USA.
You're just not the target audience. :)
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
If only there was some sort of magic information warehouse that someone could access from a variety of electronic devices in order to access basic documents that could explain in simple terms how to use Windows 8 or anything else for that matter. We could call it, I dunno, the internet
And in the video, the reviewer ended up searching the Web for how to solve each of the annoyances. But the reviewer had to pull out a second computer running a more familiar operating system to have a chance to do this without accidentally running into one of the annoyances. So Windows 8 is fine as long as you already have a second computer on which to search the Web.
I look forward to seeing your UI design specifications written out for Windows 9 that shows a superior unified interface that can be used across multiple devices, better than Modern UI.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
"WIndows 8 simply has too steep a learning curve. You need to watch instructional videos to figure it out."
Strange ... I still haven't watched any videos. The only two things I needed to know were where the Desktop tile was (bottom left, easy to find) and how to turn off the "swipes" on my touchpad. Of course that one took figuring out where the Control Panel was and figuring out that the swipes were in the touchpad settings.
If you don't want to use apps, then don't use apps. What's so hard about that?
I use it as a keyboard interface, it's fantastic.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
If you cannot get windows 8 down in 30 seconds, you really should return it and buy a Apple product. That will be more your speed.
So you are confirming Microsoft's worst fears, they have built another OS that pushes people to Apple products. Metro emulates iOS... Poorly!
And we still had the program manager in XP as a fully usable option. Hmmm...maybe I should see if it can run in 8.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
because you love the metrosexual aspect so much. You love that shit
What happens in those hot corners stays in the hot corners. It's like Amsterdam in there!
Is this an actual problem you've experienced or just something you're supposing could be the case?
I have in fact experienced this on another platform. The launcher on both iOS and Android is a full-screen application, and the effect when bringing it up resembles that of clicking "Show Desktop" (Win+D) on a machine running Windows XP or Windows 7. Android has a list of Recent Apps (dedicated on-screen control under Android 4.x, or long-press Home on a 2.x device) that just dims the frontmost application instead of completely hiding it, but if the application I want to use isn't in the list, I have to lose all on-screen context, drop to the launcher, and navigate to the application. And I've often lost my train of thought while switching to another application, at least more often than I would have under Windows or Xubuntu where the launcher takes half the screen if that.
Install machine:
Fujitsu Lifebook P1620 (tablet.. not multi-touch, etc)
2gb RAM
64GB SSD
1.2ghz C2D
Okay, I got this machine for like $75 off of ebay awhile back. Upgraded the RAM with a 3rd party module off of ebay, tested and works fine. I was going to install linux, but I already have a linux laptop in the form of a Sony Vaio TR3A (Pentium M 900, 1gb RAM (same 3rd party vendor), and a 32gb CF Flash card as a cheap SSD test). Besides, from the research I gathered online, the tablet functions are pretty spotty and I hate having functional hardware that's not supported. Besides, I can always install something else later. Anyway, replaced the HD with the SSD the other night and installed Win8 on it.
Thoughts so far: Okay, it's an old machine, no multi-touch. No finger recognition, but I can use my nails or the stylus and it's generally okay. Definitely not as smooth as my android phone, but this is hardware, not Win8 (it was fine on the tablets I played with the other day). I installed Visual Studio 2012 (I work primarily in the .NET world at work), and ghci and clisp, and just added IntelliJ to the mix earlier today. So far, haven't done anything intensive, but it's not been so bad.
Things I don't like:
Where the fuck do I shut the goddamned machine down? Or do I have to "sign out" everytime I want to use the shut down feature? This is beyond annoying. The spash screen that I have to move to get to a login is an unnecessary step. I think I'll have to dig through the user settings and see if there's a single user mode.
Moving tiles around on the screen is hit-or-miss, at least with my 2005-era hardware. I don't mind moving my tiles around, and using that to launch on the desktop, as that feels like an extra step.
Things I like:
As a tablet, and even with crippled touchscreen hardware, I actually like this a lot. I can lay in bed and read or browse books in tablet form, typing with my stylus on the soft-keyboard. A modern tablet touchscreen would make this much smoother, so can't fault Win8 here.
So.. as a serious dev system? since I use the keyboard, a lot of the touch interface seems to be a bit clunky and clumsy. When I'm deving, I don't want to fight metro, i just want a desktop.
As a tablet, web browsing machine: Lots of potential, and wouldn't hate it on a phone, for example.
I'll give it a few more weeks and see how I like it then, at which point I might wipe it and install fedora or mint on it.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Interesting. I wonder who's in the wrong here - it could be that the reader opens file with inappropriate sharing mode (i.e. anything more than 'read'), or whether it is Firefox that does the same (also shouldn't need anything more than 'read').
Information density. I don't touch my desktop with my finger. I use a mouse that has exceptionally fine control. This allows me to have an information dense workspace. Most professionals I know, when they use their desktops are using them with lots of applications open. Touch is useless in this environment. Just imagine your mouse as 50-60 pixel wide blotch that randomly selected where in that blotch it was clicked. The new start menu is not information dense, if you get more then a few programs on your computer it grows huge in size. Hidden options under all apps make it a mousing race to display the information you want.
Or, more simply put, Metro sucks for workstations. It may be great on media consumption devices where only one or two applications are commonly used, but when it comes to professional use, every one I've seen use it so far finds a way to get it to work like Windows 7 again.
iOS and Android would make poor workstation operating systems too.
Note: I am not the grand parent poster.
And I know people on both sides, I tend to ridicule those who claim to be geeks that are incapable of grasping the interface within a reasonable time frame or bitch about issues that are caused by poor habits and lack of even looking for a way to change the preference. I suspect you are one of those people.
I didn't, I figured out Windows 8 almost entirely within 15 minutes and most of that was through general usage.
Oh dear! Just typing what you want in Modern UI and selecting the settings category, so hard to find things in the control panel!
Actually, the UI is definitely a lot better for exclusive keyboard usage. For one, you don't need to tab through a billion options in the UI like you had in Windows 7, you can just select things quickly with the cursor keys, as well as not having unselected areas etc. Seems like you don't really know the OS.
In your case, to figure out better complaints with the OS, because you don't appear to know much about it.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
He explained exactly what was wrong, and why.
He used the basic principals of GUI design and explained why Windows 8 is a total failure.
Great job. No wonder the MS shills are going crazy.
It's especially fun trying to hit it from a laggy VNC connection.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Multiple versions of windows came with the single click to launch option (default in one of them I think).
If single-click means launch, then what click means select? You already said you don't want to add a right-click to select an item and bring up a menu of actions.
Users of the best keyboard ever produced can simply press Crtl+Esc.
Required reading for internet skeptics
All I saw was a 20 minute Patton Oswalt impression.
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
I do all my work in the browser or in programs and there's no change there.
I'm going to posit that you don't understand for fairly obvious reasons.
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
For more years than I can remember I've been A Windows User, pretty much since Microsoft HAD Windows.
Don't blame me, I worked for Companies and Companies used Windows Desktop Computers.
But suffice to say that Using Windows had become an ingrained habit.
The one day I found myself the excited owner of a MacPRO desktop Personal Computer.
Despite the many and various differences, I found almost everything intuitive, almost everything was pretty obvious, and the not immediately obvious things were not hard to find.
Since then I've become a very happy MacOS user.
Any new OS I have the opportunity to explore now has an extremely high standard to live up to, because quite frankly if it's even slightly more difficult to 'learn' than my experience migrating to MacOS was I'm going to give up in frustration.
IMMEDIATELY.
Yes I have become a SPOILED CHILD as a result, but let me be very clear about this I'M A VERY HAPPY SPOILED CHILD - you WILL NOT gain my business by FRUSTRATING THE LIFE OUT OF ME.
I DO NOT and NEVER WILL care that your shiny-new is "better" or "faster" (unless it's measurably orders of magnitude faster), if it is NOT significantly "easier" you have an extremely hard sell in front of you.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
I will be more than happy to write out the design specifications once the money is in escrow or a job offer has been accepted. Until then, quit expecting me to do your homework for you.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
This guy is an idiot. It is not hard to understand the UI nor is it that vastly different that you do not know what you are doing. This is only a guy upset that it is not Win 7. I have beta tested it for about a year and have had no problems with the OS or any programs, drivers or security...
I dont think you understand the words you are using.
Authoritarian != Authoritative
It is authoritarian, but sound, advice, in the sense that it falls into the category of things that people just dont naturally tend to do without some older and wiser person initially forcing it. Kind of like potty training.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Also, knowing a few shortcuts will save you a lot of pain:
For completeness, a a few bad things about Windows 8:
I find Windows 8 to be usable. Not great, but at least usable.
While Windows 7 was a bit annoying when you were trying to find somehting in the new control panel...
Or trying to search for files. (Slightly off topic for Win8, but within the realm of Usability) Seriously. I don't need or want the Indexing service scanning everything and I don't want the content searched/reported when I'm looking for a file name. Having to know the secret search keywords to *limit* my search is really annoying (I had to search the Internet for those). I'd much rather have a GUI mechanism to specify or expand my search. And don't get me started on using "Back" instead of "Up" ... In short, the Windows Explorer is better in XP than 7 (haven't tried it in Win8) - and anything pre-Unity for Ubuntu (to be fair to MS).
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
He is right though. The negativity against Win8 has gone way overboard, even for /.
I've at least used it for a good period of time now (a year.). The start screen is ok at work, on my dual 30" monitor set-up because the desktop is always visible, but it's jarring on my home system. I'm also not a fan of the non-flat search. This is all solved by using classicshell or start8 or some such thing - which I have done at home, at least for a month or so, and then I just slowly got used to the "new" way of doing things. It's tolerable. I spend >99% of my time on the desktop, so really I can't be too loud about where I spend
Yes I use the command line and the function keys and I can fly around the thing when I have to.
So, the Microsoft/Windows 8, Ubuntu/Unity contribution to continuing modern GUI design and usability is keyboard shortcuts and a command-line interface? Nice.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You do understand that I'm being sarcastic, right? I'm saying that having something go full screen isn't some horrific Win 8 bug, it's a common occurrence in a lot of O/S's.
You mean the way I accidently hit a key on my Mac and it pops over to the next desktop? That kind of thing?
That must work great on a tablet interface with no keyboard.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I got a little further thru this guy's video before I gave up at the part where he starts ranting about how on a touch screen device like the Ipad you always touch a particular spot and never swipe... I don't know what touch device he uses, but I swipe on my ITouch ALL the time.
I understand the frustration. First time I used it I had no idea what to do. I could not find the control panel, I did not know about the charm bar or how to access the metroUI until I hit the Windows Key, afterwards did not know how to close the metro apps, did not know how to shut down the pc. It took some time and got used to it, but yeah, the new OS GUI interaction is not as obvious as with the previous versions. Once in a while MetroUI freezes which I can easily rid off by simply hitting the windows key. And I just don't see any performance boost over windows 7. Maybe they should had released this as a service pack without the metroUI and release the metroUI for windows 7 as an option for those who want to use touchscreen or just web apps on the desktop.
To move the cursor with a touchpad, you "swipe" in a direction.
You need to move the cursor to select with a mouse or a touchpad. On your iPad ("iTouch"??), you just touch; there is no need to move the cursor.
Which means swipe is separate from move on the "iTouch", and is not on the authors system (may be the system vendors configuration error, or Microsofts, or a driver issue, doesn't matter because it rendered the system unusable),
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
I watched a good portion of the video, but could not reproduce any of this guy's complaints. I haven't modified the way the touchpad is setup on my laptop with a fresh windows 8 install, but there is no weather app popping up every 1.5 minutes due to moving the cursor (or swiping).
So I gave up watching, decided that life's too short to waste on this silliness (especially since we have 12 hours and 2 minutes till the end of the world).
WIndows 8 simply has too steep a learning curve.
Now, I swear I've heard that complaint before. Where was it... ah, yes! Of course, how silly of me. That's the exact same complaint I heard from people when I tried to convince them to use Linux!
The simple fact is anything new has a learning curve, and there's nothing wrong with that. Microsoft is attempting something new. Whether or not it works out is still up in the air, they are learning. I can't fault them for that. Perhaps, like the ranter in the article, it just isn't right for him. Perhaps it is the desktop version of the Nintendo Wii - not targeted at hardcore users, but rather at grandma, grandpa, baby brother, and others who are largely computer illiterate (let's face it, Slashdot has never been Microsoft Window's target audience). Perhaps it is truly a horrible interface. Perhaps they are banking on desktop touch screens becoming the next big thing (I was surprised to learn my neighbor had just purchased one). All I know for certain is that the computer industry changes too fast and too rapidly for anyone to actually be able to predict how good or bad something is, and I certainly can't understand the hubris from one ranting computer user on the Internet mentioned in the article declaring a product should be recalled. By all means, the individual should return the product and get your money back, and if enough do so, then the product may be worth declaring a recall.
Remember, you can't look dignified when your having fun! Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive
Why, oh WHY does Microsoft not understand that I DON'T WANT TO TAKE MY HAND(S) OFF THE KEYBOARD!?!?!
Sorry to interrupt your ignorant rant, but there are keyboard shortcuts in Windows 8 for all important UI features, as there were in previous versions of Windows. Of course it requires that you'd take five minutes of your time to learn them, who does that when you can just spew rage on internet.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
TL;DR; of the video: He spent less than 30 minutes using the OS (apparently). He couldn't find his way around. Gave up.
This video is horribly flawed. While there are things to complain about in Win8, he not only misrepresents several things (ie. he ignores the fact that the desktop is still fully functional), but he start conflating ignorance about the interface with the lack of features in the interface. Sure, it's good to have hints about what to do, and MS failed that one, but they do at least have the ability to perform all the old functions. Tucking them away is not a great idea, but it's is not removing them entirely. I'm also having a hard time reproducing his trackpad problem. I get where he's coming from, but it somehow is not making my (or anyone else who I know) computer "unusable". Lastly, his "icon" comparison - why would he have icons somewhat familiar common apps on OSX compared to obscure icons on Win8, and especially not using the video medium to show that the Win8 icons are animated... So much fail in this video.
Yeah, it's kind of funny really, on win8 I can either search and try to figure out what series of magic spots to rub and click in exactly the right order to get where I am going, or I can just remember the command and win+r right to it. In a way it's kind of cool, I should really be doing that anyway, but I think by the goals the 'designers' set for themselves it's epic fail. And every 'normal user' type I have spoken to that has it... hates it.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
I feel for you bro. I, too, wanted to seriously give Windows 8 a try, but I've found that it seriously disrupts my Norton Commander workflows.
Our support group meets every Thursday on 7 pm. That's right after Asperger's, so you can conveniently attend both.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
Yeah they need to work on their dual-screen tablet interface!
/troll fail.
For that you'd need to virtually spit the coffee.
Someone had to do it.
An AC with a sig is still an AC to me, I didn't realize I stepped in an AC fight. I'll scrape that smell off my shoes and move on.
Learn to love Alaska
Oh dear! Just typing what you want in Modern UI and selecting the settings category, so hard to find things in the control panel!
We're seeing more and more of this. When did a command line interface become easier to learn than a UI again? I mean, once you learn exactly what to type it's great and fast and I like it, but it's no way to get started.
In your case, to figure out better complaints with the OS, because you don't appear to know much about it.
True enough. It exceeded my frustration threshhold, and I never went back. I have no desire to "learn an OS" as an activity, and there are many fine OSs that let me do the things I do enjoy easily enough, including WIndows 7. While I do enjoy trying out the latest whatever, if that trial experience is unpleasant then I'm done.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Agreed - wIndows explorer was the worst part of Windows 7 IMO. It seems that particular tool just keeps going backwards.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
There are ways of moving to new ideas without leaving your entire user base asking "WTF?". As a good rule of thumb in UI design, the right thing to do for any given action or control is "what the user expects".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Touchpad !== touchscreen.
The rest of the video is worth the watch. It squarely identifies some of the things that just make win8 feel unnatural, but you don't explicitly notice unless you regularly ponder UI/presentation issues. Like having no visual distinguisher between clickable items and informationals/decorations.
Someone had to do it.
Two things come to mind:
He is correct that its usability suffers from Metro and the abrupt changes to the UI when it is being pushed so hard. One of many points made in the video was that people who have never used it will find it very confusing because in more ways than one the UI gets in the way. Microsoft trying to have its cake and eat it too is what is causing all this grief. Instead of doing like Apple did with the change from OS9 to OS10 and dropping legacy and backwards compatibility to go with the new paradigm they want to maintain backwards compatibility. This is because Microsoft fears backlash from both its main customers, big businesses and governments, and the developers for those businesses and governments. Worse, they really made it for the tablet market all the while still trying to hold onto the laptop / desktop market with it. The point made in the video of the differences between a mouse / touchpad and touchscreen are valid.
To do it right, Metro should NOT be the default interface if you are installing it to a machine without a touchscreen just as the "classic" should not be the default if you are installing it to a tablet. They are different beasts. A tablet is more for viewing content than it is a great workhorse for making that content no matter what Microsoft or Apple may think. An even better solution is to do two different products. One for the tablets and one for the desktop / laptop and let the consumers choose which they really want for what products. Again, that too was pointed out in this video.
The second observation of your post deals with your contempt for humans. It is those very humans that Microsoft is trying to impress. There is a very, very large segment of the population that are not pleased with the Metro interface that Microsoft really wants to go with. The so called "fix" of downloading a second application to eliminate it as the advice that is often given is proof enough of that dislike. Calling that many people names isn't the way to win over support.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Yes, apparently you do not understand it. Windows 8 is Metro with windows 7 running as an application inside it. Metro cannot be fully disabled and goes out of its way to hinder any task you vainly hope to complete whilst using this abomination of an OS, even if you decide "not to use" it.
Nobody is saying anything against all Windows version. Just this specific one. Yes, Windows will work well for people who can't afford a Mac. Actually it could be argued that even with their problems the stable and reasonably well designed versions of Windows (XP, 7, etc) are actually better than anything Apple has to offer in this area. Apple desktops just suck.
Windows is not easier to install or use than Ubuntu or any other end-user Linux, though. You are just wrong about that. Figuring out how these Linux distributions work is about as hard as figuring out as Windows 8 works for a layman used to Windows 7, for example, with the added benefit that in the end you will have a much less frustrating experience.
That said Windows 8 is simply unusable for anything serious and thus does not work, perfectly fitting your definition of trash. Metro is an horrible UI and the choice to make it entrenched in the OS like a virus turned this OS into a useless piece of trash.
The guys just don't say anything precise, he just say it's bad with no reason. He press hotkeys and compare it to a goblin jumping in your face? Plus, he stolen a lot of art from Yatzee.
> Why not learn from a 3 year old how to use Windows 8?
>
> Or from a five year old?
As the video stated, tablets are targeted at *CONTENT CONSUMPTION*. You can use them to...
* read ebooks or reports
* view images
* view Youtube videos
* play "Angry Birds", etc, etc.
And so can a 3-year-old.
But what about *CONTENT CREATION*? Try...
* *WRITING* a 5 page report, let alone a 500-page novel, on a tablet
* *EDITING* images (Photoshop, Gimp, MS Paint, etc) on a tablet
* *EDITING* videos, beyond merely changing the simplest settings
* *WRITING* computer games, or any other type of program
Windows 8, being so tablet-oriented, is a bleeping *TOY*. Yes, a 3-year can use it, but they can't do serious work with it. And neither can an adult.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
I've seen trolls on Youtube who display more professionalism. I get it - you don't like the OS. I don't expect you to say otherwise. That is your right as a reviewer. But using analogies like Goblin farts, raping dogs? (I closed the video at this point - I realized this wasn't a reviewer so much as a rant)
And I'm not sure whether he was using a tablet or a computer with a keyboard (as suggested by the animation). If one app pops up and it is full screen and you can't figure out how to close it - how about Alt+Tab? How about Win+Tab (which has been there since Vista)? Hell, how about Alt+F4 to close apps? Should the user know these shortcuts? Of course not. But he seems to be using it like a tablet (everything full screen) while wanting a desktop experience, but refusing to touch the keyboard. He doesn't get that he can press the home button (start) - like every other phone or tablet (I don't know how to close apps on any other mobile device either - without task killing)
It seems like this guy has never used Windows before and looks at the tablet UI and decides that he doesn't want to use the keyboard or mouse. Sure, there could be indicators that tell him where the start is and charms bar is (I won't defend all the poor UI choices). But if he claims he wanted to use it for 30 days, maybe he could put an hour effort in learning how to use the OS?
It was like the first time I moved from Windows to Linux (I use both on a daily basis - I love Linux for remote command line via SSH, but as a desktop I prefer Windows). If I wrote a rant about how Windows shortcuts failed in Linux and dropped it after half an hour, I'd get flamed and fully deserve it. Every OS has a different system. There are only two major additional shortcuts in Windows 8 that I use - Win+I, and Win+C. Everything else is almost like Windows 7 - whether it is a change for better/worse is a personal opinion.
But if you want to be a profession reviewer, take some damn pride in the job and put some minimal effort into what you are doing. Here is a hint: If you want to write a complete review, learn some tricks that can help you navigate the OS and share it - then it might even be helpful to a broader audience. The OS is something people interact with (via applications) for years. So if you take one hour to learn a few tricks that saves you a lot of time, it is worth it for a normal user and that would be a good review. If you want to claim (after learning a few simple shortcuts) that it is still not worth it - go ahead. I'll listen. But to say - I started it and it didn't immediately do everything just the way I want - that isn't a review. That is whining.
Wrong. A portion of Windows 8, the metro ui, on desktops, is junk. The third party application fixes some minor annoyances. Windows 8 basically contains a slightly more stable (for me) windows 7 with a few minor upgrades. Yes, it also contains some dumb bloatware. That doesn't make the whole package terrible.
as far as ms goes, the legacy desktop is just a necessary evil and metro is where you should be doing "more" with "apps". those are the adverts, that's the pr message - both to professionals and developers and to consumers. if you don't understand that then you haven't been paying attention - and as far as their pr goes they're very proud of the fact.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Just because people have found ways to make Win8 more usable, or more like Win7, doesn't mean they are "promoters". They have spent the time to figure things out and are making suggestions. The common rhetoric that win8 detractors use is to call those who have learned to use it "promoters".
Yes. Win8 has problems, but this video is a piece of crap. The editors of /. need to pay more attention to the content before allowing it in. This video is an embarrassment to /. as well as it's creator.
How, exactly, am I locked in on my Apple. I can open up the CLI, use my favorite package manager and get most any tool I want, edit the config files for my servers, write my own software. What, exactly, am I locked into?
I'm kinda at a loss here. Who wants to "afford" a Mac?
I don't use Apple products because they were very late to do anything about gaming. It still sucks at embracing gaming especially with legacy games.
This whole Mac red herring is kinda idiotic to the point that win 8 sucks.
I can "afford" a Mac. I'll never buy one. Well, I might buy one if the Steam effort in Linux fails, Win 8 becomes the only windows, and Mac becomes the gaming system of the planet.
Till then I'll stick with XP.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
At first, I hated Windows 8 because of the "fuck desktops, you're gonna use a tablet!" interface. Now I hate it for a much bigger reason.
Metro Apps, which Microsoft refers to as "modern" and intends to replace desktop apps, are only available through Microsoft's walled Windows Store. This could put an end to, and Microsoft intends it to put an end to, both free and Free software. It's an anti-consumer powergrab.
This is the first time I feel like I understand Microsoft's motives in the Windows 8 fiasco. Until I'd read your comment I'd been thinking along the lines of: Microsoft doesn't want to pay for long-term development of both PC and Phone operating systems, so to save long-term development costs, they're creating an OS that will work on both hardware platforms. That line of thought never really made sense to me because Microsoft makes money only on Windows and Office, but they continually spend huge amounts developing other code that has never and probably will never make them any money. Why would they suddenly become so stingy when it comes to making separate user interfaces for PC and Phone, especially when they are risking alienating virtually their entire customer base?
Now I get it. This isn't about coercing customers into using a cheaply-developed UI, to save Microsoft money. It's about (possibly illegally) leveraging the Windows monopoly to coerce independent developers into creating Phone-compatible apps - thereby potentially expanding Microsoft's monopoly into another line of business. It's all about "developers, developers, developers!" and to hell with "users, users, users". Ballmer is betting his company on this - and possibly risking another antitrust action.
He brings up a lot of good points. To be fair, there are a lot of UI changes in the new OS, and many are not "Conveyed" well (to use his language). However, I feel like he really didn't give the OS a chance. He openly admits he didn't figure out how to do certain things. He says he doesn't know how to close apps in the Metro UI. He says he couldn't figure out how to easily open up Control Panel. Um, hit start, start typing "control panel" and it pops right up.
Come on. It's different, but it's not impossible to use, not by a long stretch.
Disagreeing with me does not mean you get to mod me troll.
I don't understand it.
Windows 8 is just Windows 7 PLUS metro.
And a [spam]* sandwich is just a sandwich with [spam] as an ingredient. I won't eat a sandwich I suspect has [spam] in it, or smells of [spam]. I raise my eyebrows hearing so many people arguing that "you can hardly notice the [spam]", and "Mmm, mmm - you really got to try this, it's really great [spam]" in cases like these. I'm sure there really are some people who really like [spam], but it's not something anyone I've met would prefer over any other ingredient, given the choice.
*censored for increased Montey Python reference rating.
Ryan Fenton
I think you'll find that over the next couple of versions, that the 'classic' interface disappears or has reduced functionality. Anyone think this is not gong to happen?
Yes, I think that is not going to happen. I do expect a few other changes however, like the Windows Store to expand it's reach so that it covers more desktop applications (and the accompanying updates to the app).
And the thing everyone needs to remember is that no previous version of windows used the screen corners as a UI trigger. It's simply not expected: there's no visual cue in the corners to indicate that they cause something to happen. Not much different than if win95 had shipped with no task bar, but the 80x20 pixel block 4 pixels up and to the right of the bottom left corner was still the start button. Who would know to click there?
Win8 defenestrates most windows usability conventions, and on top of that doesn't express itself very well, if it bothers to at all. People know to click on buttons because they look like physical buttons, they have depth. Metro is just a Wall of quasi-meaningful white shapes (with little to no context) floating on colored boards.
This is the main reason I hate 7. I don't put anything on that machine because I don't want the hassle of trying to find it later.
You misspelled "by".
Do you demand they move the steering wheel to the other side of the car for you?
Neither do ACs
No, he's saying that if you are inflexible, and need the Windows 7 look and feel, you can still do so through 3rd party software. The rest of us can actually adapt just fine.
Users of the best keyboard ever produced can simply press Crtl+Esc.
And that's at all intuitive?
Please don't tell me "you just have to learn a few more shortcuts". I didn't have to "learn a few shortcuts" to understand that "Start" is the manner by which I start things. "Window" is the way I... um... Window something? Like, throw this rotten UI out the window if I want to get anything done? Wait, no, Ctrl+Esc makes sense in that case, because I want to take control of my system by escaping from Windows 8.
A child opening a couple of simple apps != an adult doing complex content creation on a workstation with an os designed for creation instead of consumption.
I haven't used it yet. I'm quite leery of it. I really didn't like the idea of ribbon's in office and still have annoyances even after years of working with them.
But one adapts to these things, even if they are a step backwards, and in some cases they are a step forward.
The video, even if you take into account irrational bias or whatever, still has some pretty damning comments.
However, the biggest put off for me is... well... just look at it. Its just plain fugly. As OSes go, its the equivalent of the ugly girl in your class at school. Yes, you remember the one. The one who nobody would ever date, except as part of some nasty dare, which would inevitably leave the poor girl even more depressed. This is Metro... hell, even CDE or windowmaker could look nicer than this. And... can i have a desktop background please? Something that identifies my desktop, personalizes it, shows it as being mine?
Now, plenty of people have mentioned installing a classic shell program. That's cool. I love things that allow you to customize your desktop, but that is flying in the face of where MS want to go, and as Windows RT, Windows 9, etc are developed further, i imagine this is going to become harder and harder to do.
For all its faults,Linux is awesome because i can chose the desktop interface of my choice, and customize like crazy. This is what we are losing with Metro and the planned direction for Windows.
By that logic, nothing would ever change.
There always has to be a first. For instance, before Windows 95, no other previous version of Windows had had a button to get to your programs.
Once the initial adjustment period is over, everyone knows that corners are now where things get done, and in 15 more years people will complain about how their corners have been taken away and replaced with a stupid button.
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The guy who made the video is a tard. And a sensationalist tard. Or perhaps he just read some FUD and then decided to make a video from a tards point of view hoping that people that don't know better will believe it.
I'm not YT conspiracy theorist but something has to be wrong here....
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8659/screenshotfrom201212211.png
300 views
600 likes?
200 dislikes?
That's false.
First, if touch gestures annoy you, you can turn them off.
Second, this is not actually a feature of Windows 8. It's a feature of the Synaptics touch pad drivers for Windows 8 that emulate touch screen gestures. Microsoft did NOT build touch pad support into windows.
Third, the driver only interprets gestures if you start at the very edge of the touch pad and swipe. You can solve this problem simply by starting your touch movements slightly away from the edge of the touch pad.
Fourth, THIS IS A FEATURE OF THE SYNAPTICS TOUCHPAD DRIVER AND NOT WINDOWS.
In case you didn't catch that.
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that fish on the desktop made me so horny
For me, the bigger the screen, the more useless it is because the touchpad interface requires larger and larger gestures to get at what's needed.. Remember the windows 2k/xp start menu with its crazy long cascaded menus? No one wants to sort through those. Metro 'start' is like that, only worse because the tiles are huge.
Most of the complaints in the video link are right on.. It's jarring and mystifying at the same time. Basic functionality should never, ever be hidden. That includes configuration utilities. The whole concept of having two separate interfaces with separate rules is also beyond stupid. The frustration isn't just in figuring it out, it's having to figure out ways to complete the work I need to that actually take longer than it did on previous operating systems.
What's this trend in attacking 'negativity' as though doing so is a legit argument against what was said? Is this some kind of peer pressure to conform to the head-in-ground masses of ostriches who can't handle reality because they're too weak willed to not take everything personally?
Like it or not, Windows 8 is here and it shall be staying. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to dislike about the OS and keeping a steady stream of criticism (at least mildly constructive) is a good thing, in the hopes that Service Packs and forthcoming versions of Windows will improve it. However, just saying "OMG it sucks, its horrible, its unintuitive etc..." isn't going to change the fact that it is currently the latest version of Windows, the vast majority of new PCs not sold exclusively for business use are going to come with it thus leading to a growing installed base, which all means that developers of Windows software/drivers/etc.. are going to start targeting the "new, up to date" Windows. Criticism is important and the suggestion to move to another OS (preferably Linux) is good advice, but regardless there are still going to be a lot of people using Windows and increasingly its going to be Windows 8 in front of them.
Thus, I suggest that the power user, developer, and enthusiast community who will have direct or even tangential exposure (ie. All your relatives are going to be looking to you for tech support on their new Win8 PCs purchased during the holiday) should start educating themselves and others on privacy, safety, usability and other configurations, tips and tricks for Windows 8. Providing tutorials for accessing the different features of the UI, Metro features such as the Start Screen's live tiles, how to find certain functions is a great start. Instruction on Secure Boot and UEFI/BIOS features is important for users that wish to install another OS Suggesting additional programs like Start8 or ClassicShell to provide additional functionality or is another benefit. One of the most important issues I feel is that of privacy and security. Win8 has a lot of potential vectors for private information to be shared and it behooves those with the knowledge to show how to configure to protect one's privacy and any trade-offs that may require. For instance, should users turn off SmartScreen within Win8 itself? Create an "old fashioned/offline" user account instead of one linked to their MicrosoftLIVE account? What Live Tiles are safe to use and which send information to unknown 3rd parties or make it available for data mining? Likewise, the Windows Store etc..
Some will, quite rightly, say that it shouldn't require this sort of analysis and decision making to an OS without being the victim of privacy, security, or just an obtuse UI, but the fact of the matter is this is what we're given to work with in terms of the latest Windows OS. Much like how "Make sure you install Service Packs/updates, Install and use Firefox instead of IE for general use, Install MSE/another antivirus etc..." has always been part of the tenets of preparing and using previous Windows versions in private, secure, easily accessible manners, we're going to need to add some additional steps for Windows 8. Figuring out a relatively simple set of steps meant to help users of Win8 ensure that the OS is efficiently serving their needs is paramount for dealing with it as a part of the market.
While we provide constructive criticism and offer alternatives such as switching to Linux, we have to deal with having the Windows ecosystem revolve around Windows 8 until (hopefully) an improved, newer variant comes along. Just saying how horrible it is, in and of itself, isn't constructive.
I'm sure if you want to do the things a three year old wants to do, Windows 8 suffices.
Nobody thinks Win8 is completely unusable, just that it's a lot less usable than Win7 and other OS'.
Here's another video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk2sPl_Z7ZU
Does this video demonstrate that MS Paint is as good as Photoshop or Gimp?
I'm sure a three year old could use MS Paint too.
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I wouldn't say that. The metro UI is an unnecessary part of the operating system. Haven't you used a framework or IDE with heaps of features that you mostly don't ever use? I use the third party program pretty much just so the start menu search won't be full screen. Again, that was a minor annoyance that took all of a minute to correct. I just don't understand people harping on this. End result is that it took me 10 minutes to figure out and set up windows 8 to my liking. It does exactly what I need it to do in almost the exact same manor as windows 7, but slightly faster. Not exactly worth the upgrade, but not worth the downgrade/rollback was the case with Vista. The amount of hate being expressed perplexes me.
For a weather widget?
Even my small-screen mobile phone doesn't require the entire screen for a weather widget.
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You can shrink the size of the tiles, but I think it would be a disadvantage. I can use a higher mouse sensitivity because I don't have to be anywhere near as precise when I actually click on those tiles. I can completely mitigate the gesture size, and use a mouse sensitivity I like. I see there is also an option to fill my large monitor (settings->show more tiles), which actually gives me an array of 8x12 tiles if I use the smaller setting for each tile - 92 icons I can access without navigating submenus or scrolling on a 2560x1600 monitor. That's actually not bad. I like flat structures, they are fast.
That said, I rarely have to use the start screen. I stay in desktop mode. I've pinned my commonly used applications, about 15 or so, to the taskbar. I never need to open the start screen to access them. It's how I used 7. The start screen comes in to play when I search, and I now access it using win+F intead of just hitting the windows key.
I've seen the actual "start" tiled interface a few times this month because I had something specific to do on it. I'm not even trying to avoid, it's just the way I use windows tends to avoid it. I would still prefer to have the old style search back - flat, and tucked down in the lower left, as it should be. In short, the new start screen is not the end of the world. As for gesture size, I don't care, because it's fairly silly to call an OS bad because of that, especially when a highly efficient type-to-launch system is in place. Win7's start menu needs more precise aim, but I never ran into that limitation because I never used my mouse to find and launch programs.
What I do agree with is that functionality is hidden. The problem with the video is that it claims that the functionality is not there at all first, then says, "actually it's hidden". Hidden is bad, but manageable. All the same shortcut keys work, so for keyboard users like me there's really no difference. The guy didn't even notice that the old windows 7 backup feature is still there, which would have allowed him to restore to an SSD. The video is pretty much completely un-researched, and while it makes one good point - don't hide features - it's a failure in every other sense. The person who made it should be embarrassed. He's also contradicting himself: In the past he claimed Vista was unusable, now he's claiming otherwise.
i love how fanboys can declare one OS trash because they've become religious about using 1 or 2 platforms.
might as well stop reading after this.. You can't pass off a criticism with the assumption that the person making it is deficient or otherwise unqualified. The statement stands on its own or it doesn't.
1. the 'compatibility crud' is still there. Basically, all that changed was the change from explorer.exe as the shell, and they disabled aero..sorta.
2. There are all kinds of hotkeys for windows. Many of them are useful, but this one thing is not an excuse for other deficiencies.
3. a search box is a crutch for a shitty and/or limited interface. It's ok on a tablet or a phone (even that's a stretch because the difference between picking from lists and typing is even larger), but on a desktop it's definitely faster to use the mouse on a gui. Having to click a menu, then hit 'search' then type 'recovery', then back again to click (as he mentioned in the video) is positively the WORST way to do this. With all the search boxes these days, I'd rather just have a full screen terminal again. It's more powerful and requires less guess work about what you're supposed to type!
4. that's right.. trash is something that doesn't work. Windows 8 doesn't work for all but the simplest of tasks, the kinds of things that could be done with a tablet, media player, or a tracfone. Again, the video is right, the desktop is not about media consumption, it's about content creation. Consumption is a sideline use. Thus windows 8 is trash.
5. the task manager is improved? it's worthless. They've been dumbing it down since windows 2000. Now it's gotten to the point where the default screen shows nothing..literally nothing.. just a blank window. The rest of the tabs are seriously short on information.. The task manager is supposed to give you a top down view of ALL processes running on your computer. Deliberately hiding certain classes and details makes it worse than useless because it's deliberately bad at doing what it's supposed to do. the icing on the cake is that getting at what info is there requires even more clicks than before.
That's why he's so frustrated, he's missed a big issue. As a fellow computer-literate-expert-for-decades-with-grandparents I know the dream of making computer use easier for grandparents. And I also know that things like creating an installation disc are important and vital things that need to be done on every computer.
Here's what he missed. Windows 8 does one big thing really really fundamentally. It wasn't required, and it could have been subtle, but it's not. It's done as a fundamental core element. Windows 8 divides users into two classes -- user and support. Cheerleader and IT geek.
For any given task, simply ask: "is this a task for a cheerleader or for an IT guy?" Then it all makes sense. Creating an installation disc? IT guy. Identifying apps by iconic representation? IT guy. Identifying apps by their content? Cheerleader. Knowing how to get to a particular setting? IT guy. Knowing how to close an app? Guess what, you need never close them. Real people don't leave rooms, they enter other rooms.
This particular it geek is frustrated by the configuration of his logitech/acer touchpad. As though that can't be adjusted. He's upset that he didn't know the command to create an instal disc. As though decades of regedit didn't prepare him for under-the-hood maintenance.
Windows 8 does a fantastic job of letting dumb users -- e.g. my grandparents -- figure things out in a way that doesn't get them into trouble. And it does a fantastic job of letting expert IT admins access areas that are effectively hidden from the dumb user. Just like my car has a "check engine" light, and my mechanic knows what it means with a simple tool. I don't.
Icons have been fun. And the whole concept of icons was to replace a wealth of information with a small object for space-conservation. Tiles are super-nice for anyone who already knows what their own tiles mean. Sure it's not obvious to someone looking for the first time. But why am I using my own computer for the first time? It's mine, I'm using it thirty times a day. Ramp up the learning curve, and let me benefit from it being mine.
But hey, like every time, I've got the patience. In six months there'll be a teeny tiny service pack that adjusts three defaults, and this same guy will swing the other way saying that it's the best thing in the world and credit the service pack for having changed a few defaults.
My advice to the frustrated computer expert? Read the manual. Don't go in blind and expert to know how to generate an install disc. The default configuration is for the dumb user -- which makes sense because expert users can change defaults, whereas dumb users can't. It's that simple.
reminds me of the early kde4 builds.. that charm thing was retarded.
1. not if you're doing more than one thing at a time with a monitor on a desk. holding your hands up like that is about as unergonomic as it gets. having to switch between that and the keyboard is even worse.
2. not if you're playing an FPS game that requires aim tighter than "somewhere within 90degrees of the target"
3. not if you're actually producing content that involves more than a simple text editor.
Is windows 8 usable out of the box?
It's an Operating System... Perhaps you should look in the Windows Store.
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The problem is having two different interfaces competing for your attention the whole time you're working. That is not the same thing as occasionally hitting the maximize button.
Don't mistake being brainwashed with being a shill.
There ARE people out there who genuinely like Microsoft, just as there probably ARE people out there who get arroused by the goatse picture.
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The only reason to upgrade to 8 (except if you need to make Metro Apps) is if you don't have Windows 7 and you want to get a similar OS for 30 euros (until Jan 31). The interesting part is, they didn't even verify if I had a legal version of Windows XP when I upgraded. In the email, they didn't even say that I bought the upgrade. They said "here's the Windows 8 Pro product key, enjoy."
Yeah that's exactly it. Windows 8 is just too great for dumb humans.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
He means when you're selecting something.... ..way to misrepresent his statement.
Wait. The tablet doesn't even do dual screens? What is the HDMI port for?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Except that on windows 7 you don't have two interfaces with different rules competing for your attention. It wasn't just that the weather app was full screen, it was that it went fullscreen unexpectedly because metro took over when it decided his mouse movements were swipes. Metro should've been an install or control panel option... Metro or explorer. choose.
There are plenty of shortcuts in previous windows as well. Of course that wasn't really what he was talking about. It's switching between touch/mouse and keyboard that's time consuming and frustrating. A good gui will minimize this.
Metro reminds me of playing superman 64 on N64. How many rings would you like to fly through today to get where you're going?
There are plenty of shortcuts in previous windows as well. Of course that wasn't really what he was talking about. It's switching between touch/mouse and keyboard that's time consuming and frustrating.
If you use shortcuts, there is no switching. There wasn't before, there isn't now.
With touch, it's arguably more convenient and intuitive to do certain things on the screen than it is with the mouse.
I don't get what people are complaining about, except that it's CHAAANGE!
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
You seem to be confused between Windows RT and Windows 8, the latter (which is what we are talking about) does not have the attributes you describe.
Unless the application your using is a windows rt app then it has those exact attributes.
Actually that would be nice. I'd go for Win8 if it had multiple desktops like every sane window manager since twm (1988?). Even my phone has multiple desktops.
So you have a common place to both find and update applications from a trusted source, rather than www.coolutility.ru?
define trust? I can guarantee that the most empowering 'cool utils' will never find their way onto the store because they will directly compete with some obtuse middleman business strategy.
The rest of your post avoids the point.. If none of those things are updated, then why the hell should we upgrade the OS at all? The 'windows store' is hardly interesting or consumer friendly, nor does it require a new OS. If anything it's consumer hostile. You'll never find the best of anything on a walled garden system because it takes extra effort to get your app published there, and, even if posted, it could be revoked anytime. Most programmers writing software that's not intended as fly paper for more user money won't want to bother. Their users know how to open zip files or run setup.exe, so why pay the 30%? Then there's the DRM crapola, including after purchase app revocations and such.. yeah no thanks. app stores suck.
If you have to do that the interface has already failed. Ideally speaking you shouldn't have to search for anything on a gui. Ever. slapping search boxes all over everything like they did with windows 8 just proves how bad the design is. This is ok for input constrained devices, but not desktop computers.
Except this is irritating.. I'd rather just go to ONE corner that has a little menu that pops up, allowing me to go anywhere I want to go today.. Seriously, that's all that's needed.
There are definite improvements over windows 7, even if they are minor. So in general, if all you want is an incremental improvement over windows 7, you can use it just like that.
With price of DRAM the way they are if you want to improve the performance of your windows 7 computer buying a couple more gigs it will get you more value for your buck without the unwelcomed nonsense.
No one is forcing you to use metro for all your apps.
If you run a metro app you are forced to use metro. Metro apps cannot run within the desktop. If metro really is "the future" of Windows then your "choice" will in fact be forcibly curtailed at some point.
So yeah, windows 8 is less than ideal in that some settings screens take you to a metro interface (but you could live without them), and metro itself is horrible, but if you use it just like windows 7 and all versions before that, it still works fine.
Another stick of ram seems like a better deal to me. All of this apologizing... if you do x then it aint so bad is really quite telling. Why waste your money on a bad experience and then have to waste your time working to mitigate? What is the point?
because if I don't want to use 'apps' then why do I have to keep looking at 'metro' and be subjected to its flagrantly different tablet derived interface design every time I want to start a program? Compared with a little menu in the lower left, the 'experience' is obtuse. Apps as desktop widgets I could understand (though I never used that either in vista/7), but this is a whole new level of stupid.
1. Complaints != lack of understanding or lack of ability to learn
2. The default should be sane such that most users can be as efficient as possible with only minimal tweaking. explorer shell was a lot closer to this than pretty much anything else.
3. Guessing at what one should type into a search box is a horrible design. With a gui the whole point is to minimize typing arcane commands (or in this case, arcane searches) into a terminal.. Actually, metro is worse than that because it's neither a good UI nor a good terminal. It's a tablet UI! Having to switch between typing and clicking all the time, whenever what you're looking for isn't exposed, is retarded.
4. It's not about knowledge. It's about workflow. With enough time and 'knowledge', one could get all his work done in microsoft bob, but that doesn't mean it's suddenly the best way to do things.
So you have a common place to both find and update applications from a trusted source, rather than www.coolutility.ru?
Props to our Russian friends serving up those IOS images amoung other goodies.
What I never understood if Metro apps are isolated what does it matter who the app came from? Can't the OS frigging protect itself using policy determined by the user? Also I fail to understand how anyone even with the most vigorous testing ensure safety of applications? You can't..it is just impossible unless the OS has the ability to isolate and enforce access controls.
I mean MS can't even pay their own programmers to write safe applications after spending billions on secure development.
Finally there is a difference between providing an option to buy something from the store and forcing everyone to use the store because there is no other way to install any applications.
It's an Operating System...
It's an Operating System...
It's an Operating System...
It's an Operating System...
There is a lot of extraneous shit included standard with operating systems these days. These things provide the user value. It does not seem to be out of line to ask these questions especially considering the other major general purpose operating systems bundle these things and often a whole lot more.
Microsoft needs to destroy Android or they will lose their monopoly pricing power,
They don't have anything like "monopoly pricing power" in the markets where Android is relevant, i.e. on mobile devices not intended for serious work.
If the users see desktop first there's no reason for Metro apps to be developed, and with no applications, no reason to by WinPho.
It may come as a shock to you, but there are already users of Metro UI on tablets and phones where it works rather well, regardless of how Windows 8 feels to all kinds of change-averse people. You may hate Microsoft as you like, just don't try to pass this for market analysis. Or why the heck not, this is Slashdot.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
1. more secure than what? every version of windows gets hacked to ribbons even before RTM comes out. Long ago I assume that all windows machines are full of holes by default when I use them. I've been right every time.
2. It's marginally faster than 7, but not so much that I'm willing to give up a useful environment.. In fact, even if windows 7 was dogshit slow compared to 8, I'd still use it.
3. 'interesting use cases' that are not the desktop computer I'm running it on! so who gives a shit? Would you run an embedded OS designed for home automation on your desktop computer as your productivity environment? why not? Oh right, it's designed to control and automate house equipment, which is great and interesting if that's what you're doing with your hardware, but not much else.
Fact is watching video for gathering how-to information is slow as hell. Reading, or learning intuitively (which is what's supposed to be the method on a good UI design) are both far more efficient.
I'm not YT conspiracy theorist but something has to be wrong here....
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8659/screenshotfrom201212211.png
300 views
600 likes?
200 dislikes?
If I was not feeling particularly lazy I would post a youtube link to none other than Alex Jones (who is a certified conspiracy theorist) explaining technical reasons for inconsistancies in the view counters.
The weirdness is due to "distributed systems" following one of those "eventually consistant" memes.
But the UI is basically exactly the same as it was in Windows 7. Everything pretty much works the same.
Breakfast served all day!
I got used to the new start screen - it's not _that_ bad, no worse than hunting through menus to find what you're looking for, and actually better in that you can just start typing the name of a program and it comes up in the search. Or you can type the name of a control panel applet or setting, and that works too.
What if you don't remember the name of that control panel applet? What if you don't know the application's name, but would otherwise find it if you could browse through menus?
"Just typing the name" of some computer program or appet can be horribly inconvenient.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
We're a kinder, softer, and somewhat more squishy generation. Name-calling is forbidden, and making fun of someone's work doubly so.
It doesn't matter if little Timmy's science project is an abomination that only serves to display how little he knows about the subject, but only that Timmy tried. Trying is good enough.
There are no winners, and no losers. No reward for being the best at something, and no detriment for being the worst, but just the same mediocre praise...as long as they tried.
So, any expressed negativity can only serve one purpose: To hurt someone's feelings. And feelings are what's really important.*
Why are you so mean? Can't you see that they tried?
(* Yes, this is non-requiter, but then so is reality.)
Kid-proof tablet..
right.. then you have tons of annoying context switching between metro and the desktop whenever you want to start any new programs.. just give me a damn little menu already.. all this flickering flashing gesturing bs is counterproductive.
Seriously. I always thought the press was unfair on IBM for the whole OS/2 debacle. OS/2 actually worked good, till MS decided to kill it with good anti-marketing. IBM helped kill it themselves with their ad campaign stating that OS/2 "obliterated" your software. Oh, I guess the karma thing is coming back on Microsoft now. Instead of Charlie Chaplin friendly ads, there are ones showing me how stupid I am because a 3 year old can do Windows 8. Really? I think MS obliterated my software. Seriously.
Oh, yeah! Wise guy, huh? Woob woob woob woob! Nyuk! Nyuk!
For instance, before Windows 95, no other previous version of Windows had had a button to get to your programs.
Exactly! Can't you even see the difference? With Windows 95 there's a frigging new BUTTON on the screen. So you click on it, and certain stuff happens. Even though people found it amusing/strange that to shutdown you have to click on the "Start" button, it didn't really matter - new users can see the button and click on it.
With these corners you don't see anything.
The shills say "just use the search to launch programs". Hey if you have a user interface where you can only have one main foreground app, you don't get many clues, and it works better if you already know the names of the programs you want, then the interface is not much better than a frigging Unix CLI.
By that logic, nothing would ever change.
Who is asking for no change? I want real IMPROVEMENTS not step backwards or cosmetic crap. Interfaces should augment humans so that they can do way more than they'd otherwise be able to.
Any crappy OS can run one program at a time. A good OS can efficiently run from one to very very many programs at a time.
Similarly any crappy UI can help a user manage one task/program at a time, but a good UI allows users to easily do one task and far far more.
Like it or not, Windows 8 is here and it shall be staying. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to dislike about the OS and keeping a steady stream of criticism (at least mildly constructive) is a good thing, in the hopes that Service Packs and forthcoming versions of Windows will improve it. However, just saying "OMG it sucks, its horrible, its unintuitive etc..." isn't going to change the fact that it is currently the latest version of Windows
I don't mean to sound rude but aint that like saying yellow is still yellow even if you happen to think yellow is a shit color? What information is being conveyed with such statements?
Thus, I suggest that the power user, developer, and enthusiast community who will have direct or even tangential exposure (ie. All your relatives are going to be looking to you for tech support on their new Win8 PCs purchased during the holiday) should start educating themselves and others on privacy, safety, usability and other configurations, tips and tricks for Windows 8.
When people ask me what I think of windows 8 I recommend against upgrading.
When people who have windows 8 express displeasure I tell them how to contact the vendor of their new PC to obtain a "downgrade" to Windows 7.
The few people who care about what I think are now happy campers.
Win8 has a lot of potential vectors for private information to be shared and it behooves those with the knowledge to show how to configure to protect one's privacy and any trade-offs that may require. For instance, should users turn off SmartScreen within Win8 itself? Create an "old fashioned/offline" user account instead of one linked to their MicrosoftLIVE account? What Live Tiles are safe to use and which send information to unknown 3rd parties or make it available for data mining? Likewise, the Windows Store etc..
Or you could just install windows 7.
What Live Tiles are safe to use and which send information to unknown 3rd parties or make it available for data mining? Likewise, the Windows Store etc..
Trick question.
Some will, quite rightly, say that it shouldn't require this sort of analysis and decision making to an OS without being the victim of privacy, security, or just an obtuse UI, but the fact of the matter is this is what we're given to work with in terms of the latest Windows OS.
The fact of the matter is Microsoft is a business and its survival is tied to customers purchasing products. The defeatist additude you are powerless and have no other choices is both incorrect and self-reinforcing.
There is no more powerful driver in business than voting with your dollar.
Windows 8 is not about imparting any new value on the customer. It is about CPR on tablet and phone market share. It is about a boiling frog approach to a closed app store model where all execution must be currated and approved by MS with hands in the cookie jar at every step. It is about epic leaks of data and privacy. It is about monitizing everything possible... even the shit metro apps that come with windows have ads with content downloaded from the Internet.
If you don't like all the bullshit you have a choice. If enough people fail to exercise their choice it will in fact vaporize.
For example the movie industry would like nothing better than to kill off DVDs and force everyone upgrade to blueray. Why don't they?
Except of course, when you first log in to Windows 8, it plays a 2 minute animation in which it TELLS YOU TO GO TO THE CORNERS FOR FUNCTIONALITY.
In both cases, Windows tells you what to do, but for some unknown reason, people that have never used it want to complain about something that the OS itself tells how to do.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
No thanks. I shouldn't have to add hackneyed bs for basic functionality. I might've considered this if I hadn't had over 15 years of having the desktop shell as the default in the first place. I'll just stick with windows 7 for now and see what windows 9 brings..
Eggnog!
I forgot about the fucking EGGNOG!
It's Christmas time, and all the while I've been drinking samplers of good, cheap beer and completely oblivious to the fact that there are mountains of eggnog at the store right next to the booze section.
Thanks for reminding me. Now I know how my Friday is going to turn out, and it is good.
Kid-proof tablet..
Also if its so crap why is the linux community starting to emulate it?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
When I masturbate, I like to open at least two and up to four different porno videos and tile them over my screen, so that I can get most visual stimulation at once. Will I be able to do this in Window 8? It seems to devote all screen real state to only one application at a time.
Playing movies on your TV, that's pretty much the ONLY use for it since there's no way to control a mouse on the secondary display.
I HIGHLY doubt the synaptics touch driver turns a right-swipe into a "switch applications" key-code, it generates a "right swipe" event which Windows then turns INTO a "switch applications" event.
Like having no visual distinguisher between clickable items and informationals/decorations.
It's not the first time Microsoft fucked that one up. Remember the "icon button" in Office 2007 which replaced the "file" menu? If I recall correctly, they had to release an update for office that added a "light gleam" animation to the "icon button" so that people would realize it was actually a fucking BUTTON and not just a decorative logo.
You can't touch type on a touch screen
No shit, you can't touch type on a touch mouse either. It's called a touch screen because you interact by touching it, you'd have to be pretty defective to even think that the concept of touch typing would work on a touch screen.
That was part of his sig....
There's nothing wrong with customizing your work environment, but the default environment should be at least USABLE or alternatives offered. For instance, if you don't like Gnome 3, pick a distro that uses KDE, Unity, XFCE, etc. What's really stupid is when people say "There is nothing wrong with Windows 8 if you spend hours making it not behave like Windows 8".
There's a difference between "all Microsoft posts are positive posts." and "all posts are positive Microsoft posts".
As it turns out, this account was my personal account made back in the 1990s. But in 2006, I took a job with NetQoS, and created a new account, boyko.at.netqos - to submit stories to slashdot (Basically, I wanted to make sure that Slashdot's editors knew my affiliations). When NetQoS was bought out by CA, I left the company, and left the account. So that's why you don't see a lot of activity on this account.
and goes out of its way to hinder any task you vainly hope to complete whilst using this abomination of an OS
Okay, I'll bite. It what way does it "hinder any task". Does it jump out and steal your keyboard or something? Does clippy interrupt your session to make crude jokes about your mom? Does the 5-minute learning curve make you feel so bad about yourself than you have difficulty focusing?
Required reading for internet skeptics
I got used to the new start screen - it's not _that_ bad, no worse than hunting through menus to find what you're looking for, and actually better in that you can just start typing the name of a program and it comes up in the search. Or you can type the name of a control panel applet or setting, and that works too.
Not sure what you're getting at here. You can do that with the Windows 7 start menu as well, except in Windows 7 it's faster, more intuitive, more comprehensive and it doesn't take up the entire screen.
What if you don't remember the name of that control panel applet?
Try typing "control panel"?
Too obvious?
What if you don't know the application's name, but would otherwise find it if you could browse through menus?
Then just browse through. You can do that, you know. Swipe up or right-click on the start screen and select "All Apps" -- you'll find control panel under "Windows System"
You can even go classic in control panel by switching from Category view to " Small icons" or the "Large icons" view.
Windows 8 isn't all that different from 7 -- just a stupid start menu with it's own special apps. You'll get used to or get over it pretty quickly. Of course, you could always skip this release and hope that Metro goes away. (I figure if MS doesn't change their Apple-like restrictions on Metro apps, it'll die in a version or two.)
Required reading for internet skeptics
I don't have much of an attention span at the moment, and 23 minutes 43 seconds is too long to watch stuff whoosh about a screen with annoying sound effects and a voiceover in an impenetrable accent.
I personally can't get stuff done on most operating systems: be it windows 8, windows 7 or mac os x. The lack of control and conveyance is just so frustrating.
The only operating system I find usable is Linux. It appears to be the only system designed for productive use.
it's arguably more convient and intuitive to do certain things on the screen than it is with the mouse
SERIOUSLY arguable. I can't find a singe use case in MY workflow where touch on the screen (for a workstation) works better than a mouse. There are no tool tips for context information. The contact point is far less precise. I haven't seen how selecting text for copy and paste works on Win8, but for all the other touch interfaces, f-me. Now touch works great for mobile devices where a mouse just isn't practical or logical. I have no complaints about going this route for mobile. But jamming a mobile interface down my throat for my desktop is not going to garner you any sales with me.
I don't get what people are complaining about, except that it's CHAAANGE!
That is like arguing that "GMC Sierra owners are only complaining about the new Corvettes they have been issued because it's CHAAANGE". Yes, the bitching is about change. A Corvette may be a significantly faster vehicle that can pull 1.02g on the skid pad, but you are NEVER going to haul a load of firewood in it. Change is relevant. What am I supposed to do, switch from being a lumberjack to a race car driver? Who gave GM that much control over my life?
I have been a Microsoft basher for a loooong time (think wfwg), but Windows 7 finally works the way I want it to. It is finally stable enough and secure enough for me to be happy with it. I transitioned my departmental workstations back from Kubuntu to Windows a year ago May.
There is no way I'm going to switch to Windows 8's (subjective) usability nightmares. Yes, it is a rant, but you mistake your arrogance as my ignorance.
A lot of the complaints with the Metro UI are not unique to Metro, they are actually shared by Android (probably by iPad users too but they are cognitively incapable of criticizing Apple) . I would NEVER use an Android device as my primary workstation. I do like Android, I have a tablet below my monitors with ICS on it. But it is an ancillary mobile device, not a primary interface that I spend 10 hours a day working with.
Your argument about shortcuts is really pretty weak. There are places where shortcuts make more sense. Places where mouse gestures make more sense. On Windows 7, I get to make that choice. On 8, in lots of places that choice has largely been made for me because the mouse interface just doesn't work well with it. You could likewise argue that if they replaced all the fonts with Klingon, that you could still read the screen with a screen reader, like somehow that addresses the fact that I can no longer interact with it in the manner that I find most efficient.
So am I complaining about change? Yes, I am. You are absolutely correct. Because if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I don't want to deal with UI nightmares every two years, that played a considerable role in my decision to switch back to Windows from Ubuntu. The one thing Windows had going for it was its consistency.
If these changes were somehow better, OK, I could see your point. But you aren't even arguing that. You are arguing that they don't suck that bad and people should quit whining. Seriously? Do you work in sales?
If they had released Windows 8 as a mobile platform, and kept a standard version for desktop usage that would be great. But they didn't do that, and there is a reason why. Because Microsoft has never been able to gain any traction with their mobile OS's. By making them a single OS, it should make the transition to Microsoft based mobile devices easier and increase sales. But this is completely flawed logic. Microsoft failed in the mobile space because the Windows paradigm did not work there. Now, instead of addressing the issue, they are just flipping which platform is screwed. Just as pre-8 Windows didn't work on mobile, 8 doesn't work for me and many others on the desktop.
Hey, if you are happy with it, great, I'm happy for you. We will let the free market choose whether it is a success or not. Wait, what? I can only get that new PC with Windows 8? Really? oh.
I remember when all this was fields....
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Considering the complaints are invalid... It's entirely possible it's lack of understanding or inability to learn. However, I believe it to be just plain hate for having to learn something 'different'.
What guessing? I've tried several variations of typing password management with completely different words and it turns up the same relevant results.
I guess you could use three keys to go into the control panel category as opposed to the eight keys I have to press in windows 7 (through the start menu), but lgw was specifically talking about finding something and honestly, finding something is probably better done by the computer than you (I know, terrible to think computers are better at something!).
I don't know what you're talking about, I use Windows 8 almost exclusively with the keyboard (I find it more efficient and faster - It doesn't suffer the drawbacks windows 7 has with using it exclusively with the keyboard either). The only time I use the mouse is when I'm thrown into desktop mode. But, alternatively, I could also just use the mouse exclusively too, I guess?
And I got a workflow mostly within 15 minutes of using it. This is all black magic to you, isn't it?
I could give you genuine reasons to complain about Windows 8, instead of your vague bullshit. One example is the fact that neither UI is quite 'complete'. There are some things where you are thrown into Modern UI to use when using Desktop mode, and vice versa (for example, when changing specific windows update settings). I find that experience rather jarring and annoying. The idea you have to know two different user interfaces is just a piss take. That would be a genuine reason to complain about Windows 8, not this prissy non-sense that you guys hate on something you state you canâ(TM)t do and yet I can do it.
Meanwhile, you guys are backing up your opinions with vague statements that hold no grounds to my actual usage of the platform.
Inspired by lgw:
Cool story, bros!
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
That's not command line interface, it's 'search'. Something computers are usually better at than humans.
You were complaining about being unable to find something quickly, that's how you do it.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Metro is clearly a bunch of shit. *Everyone* I know who's tried it says so. I don't know a single business that plans to upgrade to it. W8 may have improvements under the hood that make it superior to 7, but Metro is a regression, plain and simple.
I have been using it for a while. For the most part it is just like windows 7, the only difference are those Metro-Apps that replace the Dashboard/Widgets and a couple of UI changes, that actually make the OS faster.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
it's a hybrid OS that makes enough compromises on both sides to make both mediocre.
Just RTFA, or in this case watch the video and you will see. Actually you may choose one from the dozens of videos about Windows 8 and you will see. Just to cite a few things:
- it more than doubles the number of clicks and moves you have to do to perform normal operations,
- applications (like the weather predictions) keep popping up when you least expect because you made a gesture with your mouse that the horrible horrible UI mistakes as another touch gesture that has nothing to do with what you want to do,
- you simply cannot find configuration features without knowing the specific keywords, because there are no shortcuts that do not involve typing these specific keywords/ This is something they started with the advanced file search in Windows 7, which is much worse than XPs, but went viral on Windows 8
He explains that once he got hold of someone with Windows 8 experience, the got the explanation that when he moved the mouse in a straight line to the right, the OS interpreted it as a touch swipe gesture to change applications.
So, not a stuck key. Broken by design because of Microsoft trying to cram a touch interface down the throat of PC users.
Oh, and now that we have users complaining that Windows 8 is harder to use than Linux, it's suddenly stupid users, but when it was the other way around, it was called "Linux is not userfriendly".
Would you astroturfers please make up your mind. (Oh, yes you are, as long as you blame the user when we're discussing Windows, but the UI when we discuss Linux).
Your inability to use/manage Windows says more about you than it does about Windows.
Really, it's getting boring. I'm using Win8 for 2 months now and it works fine... my desktop at work is CentOS and I've been using Fedora for years at home.
Some people like it. Some people don't. That's life.
none
Quit making excuses for your failure to comprehend something simple.
All the other improvements I can think of, are "under the hood" kernel type stuff regular people aren't going to care about, or be able to make sense of.
Windows 8 improves ASLR, allows NX non-paged pool driver memory allocations. It introduces some security features like ELAM (well ok, that one might be a double-edge sword that slices the user more than it protects them), etc. There is a new integrity below "low", called "app container", which basically applies to Metro apps and contains them in their sandbox, restrict r/w access to parts of the OS, etc.
Improvements are there, along with Metro. They just aren't really marketable to normal users.
Yes it does. It's the 'metro' interface which has exactly ONE app on screen at any one time (apparently random times too!).
I was just farting around with my work Win 8 machine, and found you can force a Metro app to share the desktop with desktop apps. I hadn't seen that before.
I knew you could have 2 metro apps up, splitting the screen 75%-25%, and from there I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL (unfortunately the keyboard I have attached to my Win 8 machine has a busted Windows key, grrrr) and picked "Task Manager". What I got was a desktop taking up 75% of the screen, and my previous Metro app on the rest. It looks weird.
Works great for me, one mans trash is another mans treasure I guess.
Disclaimer: I've never used Windows 8. I have however, used every version of Windows (excluding Vista) since Windows 3.11 -- And I'm currently using Windows 7.
Seriously; anyone. Have they fixed COPY yet? When I drag files from one folder to another, it still does a blind copy. It doesn't check available disk space, it doesn't perform a count of files, the estimated time remaining is still a wild guess, and if there's a problem (such as duplicate file name in target), it still brings up a requestor in the middle of the operation, when I might be busy doing other things.
It seems to me that a lot of CORE functions of being an "os" are still from the 16-bit days, and when you consider that MS is supposed to be full of relatively bright people, they still manage to create a dumb-as-a-sack-of-bricks Operating System.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I don't get what people are complaining about, except that it's CHAAANGE!
Change to actually improve something is good, but this appears to be change for the sake of change, which is nothing but stupid makework shit that makes PHBs feel good and have points to put on their bonus-justifying PowerPoint presentations.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
define trust? I can guarantee that the most empowering 'cool utils' will never find their way onto the store because they will directly compete with some obtuse middleman business strategy.
What kind of guarantee are you giving? 30 day money back guarantee, or you will commit seppuku in disgrace if you are wrong guarantee? Utilities that have the most interest will always be in the official stores. Niche stuff maybe not so much. That doesn't devalue the need for a central place people can browse, buy, and update the majority of their software from a place they trust to not be intentionally infecting with Trojan horses, key loggers, etc.
The rest of your post is just rants about you hating the "man", society, and other useless conjecture that goes against proven trends and facts. Sorry you don't like it. Sucks to be you.
Windows 8 is just Windows 7 PLUS metro.
Window's 8 is just Windows 7 MINUS the start menu PLUS metro.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
and actually better in that you can just start typing the name of a program and it comes up in the search. Or you can type the name of a control panel applet or setting, and that works too.
And if you don't know the name of the programme or applet? Tough luck, Windows 8 is going to do nothing to help you find it. So you've a quick way of finding something, as long as you have already found it before. Looking for it the first time? Good luck with that.
No one is forcing you to use metro for all your apps.
Yes they are. Microsoft has made it impossible to start applications without going back through Metro. Unless you install a third part application that (kind-of) gives you back what Microsoft decided to take away from you. And why did they take it away?? I can't think of a single user-driven reason for this. The user doesn't benefit one bit. The UI doesn't benefit one bit. The only reason that can be sensibly reached is that Microsoft benefits, because it funnels users into Metro whether they like it or not. And once there they are much more likely to purchase Microsoft Apps than if they'd stayed on the desktop. Cos this is what it's all really about. Microsoft wants a app cash-cow just like Apple and Google, and there's no easy way to get that integrated into the existing desktop.
This is a clear case of crippling the UI in order to maximize follow-on sales and consumption. This is why Microsoft have planted Metro on top on Windows 7, like some 10 tonne tombstone. The conclusion near the end of the video is spot on. Windows 8 is optimized for content consumption, not content production. As someone who is a producer of content, Windows 8 sucks.
Then what is the USB port for?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The community is emulating the metro thing. I did mention Gnome 3 and Unity, so yes, you are right.
There is also a large segment of Linux people who DO NOT have any use for a mobile device workspace on a desktop machine. For that reason, we have Cinnamon and Mate, not to mention a half dozen excellent, if less eye-candy intensive desktops that have been around for years, and aren't planning any changes.
I'm running Linux Mint Debian Edition, with Cinnamon, Mate, Enlightenment, Blackbox, XFCE, FVWM, and Fluxbox all installed. I spend almost all my time on Mate. There was a very slight learning curve on both Cinnamon and Mate. Kinda like going over a speed bump that is almost unnoticeable, but it was there.
So - despite the fact that "the community" is emulating the Metro thing, there are more than enough of us who despise the whole metro that we have created not one, but TWO new desktop environments, plus we have all those wonderful OLD desktop environments from which to choose.
This ain't Windows, after all.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
In single click mode, hover did selection.
I haven't seen a touch screen that detects the sort of finger proximity without contact that would be required to implement hover. A lot of Slashdot users have supported the early decision not to support SWF on tablets because too many SWFs rely on hover. In Android, one emerging pattern is for a long press to select an item, and then once an item is selected, the context menu replaces the toolbar. But of course, if you have a bunch of items to select, a long press (or even a long hover) on each is likely to take a while.
There is a lot of extraneous shit included standard with operating systems these days. These things provide the user value. It does not seem to be out of line to ask these questions especially considering the other major general purpose operating systems bundle these things and often a whole lot more.
Oh, it contains all the stuff he was asking about. He just wants it all differently. Unfortunately, Microsoft really can't do that because they are a monopoly, and they would get sued for it. Mostly from the EU. You want better apps standard in your OS? Write your EU representative and tell them to back the hell off.
He'll in the EU, they got sued for including IE, and I doubt most of slash dot considers that competitive. They also had to remove media player. Seems like the windows store is a nice way of removing some of that stuff, and offering it as a free download through the windows store. Not a bad idea. Those who don't want it (or are in an oppressive union) don't have to have it, while those that do want it, can get it easily along with any other competing offering. It may not be free, but at least it is distributed the exact same way so it SHOULD avoid lawsuits since the terms are the same.
This was only a mess if a) you didn't organize the "Programs" folder yourself, creating folders like "Tools" and such and b) used the mouse to navigate. For example I have a folder "DevTools", where "Microsoft Visual Studio" resides in. It takes me five keystrokes to get there: -> CTRL + ESC (open start menu) -> "P" (Programs) -> "D" (folder "DevTools") -> M (start Visual Studio). It takes less than 2 seconds to go there with the keyboard from wherever I'm at the moment.
BTW, that's one of my mean complaints about MS Office > 2003. That shity ribbon interface seems to be solely designed to prevent any ergonomic keyboard navigation. Whoever came up with the idea of having to press the ALT key in order for ugly little letters popping up, which denote the accelerator key instead of the well understood underlined letter, needs to be removed from the human gene pool immediately before this craziness spreads around.
In older versions of Windows, if I moved the taskbar to the top and clicked the Start button, the Start menu would always appear next to the Start button. It's the same Start menu; it just appears next to where it is summoned. Menus summoned by taskbar notification icons, or by jump lists in Windows 7, also appear next to the control used to summon them.
Not brainwashing. Sure a kid has no preconditioning and so no bias. But its not brainwashing. Its not some propoganda or lie being foisted on an unsuspecting victim. Its an operating system about which you have an opinion. Your post is not insightful and his is not a troll.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
not a troll. someone abusing mod points.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Since there's no cursor, what would the mouse move...?
The sad thing is that MS could have made Win8 touch-friendly without changing everything and ignoring all known usability research; all the touch-friendly stuff could easily been added to the traditional UI. Think about it: they could add bigger buttons, swipe up/down for kinetic scrolling, tap and hold for right-click or tooltips, a resizer-blob in the lower-right corner, some multitouch gestures for quickly organizing windows and so forth (bonus points if two users could use different apps on different windows at the same time).
Instead we have... two totally different UIs, one of which is no more touch-friendly than it was before. Plus, to slow down development they told developers "oh hey, we're gonna make you learn a totally newï set of APIs too."
Except now I can pin a metro app next to the classic desktop in a 20/80 split and retain full functionality between both of them.
And I've been able to put a desktop application and a desktop application side-by-side since Windows 3.1. Windows 7 and several X11 window managers added the "snap" gesture. Besides, how should one develop and distribute applications that support this 20 percent without paying Microsoft its annual tax or running the risk that Microsoft will decline an application because it allegedly duplicates a feature of one of Microsoft's own applications?
"What the hell do I need a fork for, I have fingers to eat with"
I remember that some movie asked that exact question. The movie pointed out that a fork can be washed after a meal, but so can hands. Later, when I was eating in a college cafeteria, I realized the answer: a fork allows washing to be deferred to a later time and to be performed by someone else.
got used to the new start screen - it's not _that_ bad, no worse than hunting through menus to find what you're looking for, and actually better in that you can just start typing the name of a program and it comes up in the search. Or you can type the name of a control panel applet or setting, and that works too.
Who hunts through menus anymore? I've been able to "just start typing the name of a program and it comes up in the search" since, *gasp!*, Windows Vista.
Shitty link, bud. How about a link with a little more authority?
Hell, wikipedia would have been better, was the 1st in google's list, webster's was second. I've found the "free online dictionary" often has wildly inaccurate definitions that don't match any other source. It's therefore worthless as an authority.
Free Martian Whores!
I know a much more relyable way to figure out if I will get rained on than looking at a computer screen.
How so, without using television and watching television's ads, or using the radio and listening to radio's ads? What I want to know is whether I'll get rained on during the drive there, whether I'll get rained on during the lunch hour, and whether I'll get rained on during the drive home. If all the rain will fall while I'm inside the office, I can still assume no rain. Radio and TV tend not to give the hourly precipitation potential forecasts or on-demand long-range radar loops for which I used to use The Weather Channel's web site and now use the National Weather Service web site.
So someone posts an opinion you dont like, and he's a shill? I dont care for 8, I prefer the classic layout and use 7 in such a way. But 8 aint that bad. Its not nearly as bad as people all make out on here. Its not the end times and youre nto forced to use it. Its made for a specific market, and that market is not the classic home pc. Dont like it? Dont use it.
On the desktop scene 8 isnt and wasnt a must have developement step. But MS does just care about the classic desktop anymore. Theres this huge new market if you havent noticed that's absolutely exploded in the last couple years, and everyone is trying to get a piece.
the main reason its even on the home pc and not just on tablets and phones should be obvious to any engineer: platform commonality. Instead of Windows CE, and Windows Mobile, and Windows CE mobile, and Windows 7 and Windows Cause We Can....its just Windows 8. (though admittedly RT musses that a bit).
So I say it again. 8 isnt the greatest and I dont care for it, but its not the end times like commonly presented around here. And if you have problems with a reasonably stated dissenting opinion (and all he really said was "the hate is getting old"...and it is, you all sound like my dad talking about the "damn vietnamese coming here after we kicked their asses"), and think he's automatically a shill you're just falling into a True Scotsman fallacy ("no REAL /. would ever not-hate windows 8"). and if you then feel so inclined to abuse the mod system and label him troll, well, go bugger yourself you insecure little peon.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
To a dumb user who doesn't understand the concept of "manually" installing software from setup.exe, the app store is a "feature." Other than that, it isn't much.
Backup and restore has been improved - does make a nice system image backup.
It wasn't just that the weather app was full screen, it was that it went fullscreen unexpectedly because metro took over when it decided his mouse movements were swipes.
The swipe gesture is very specific. I don't know how it works on this guy's machine, but on mine it's implemented such that you have to swipe in from off the touch pad to active the gesture. It's next to impossible to activate just through using the touch pad. Seems like this particular laptop had a bad implementation or a sensitive touch pad.
Metro should've been an install or control panel option... Metro or explorer. choose.
Why? You can already completely disable it with any of the dozens of third party start menu replacements.
They've basically moved the start menu and provided a new type of app that behaves exactly like android apps.
If Windows Store applications on Windows 8 and Windows RT behaved exactly like Android applications, then the user would be able to turn on "Unknown sources" and install third-party app stores. As it is, one has to install a developer certificate to sideload and renew it every 30 days, and I've read that Microsoft monitors the use of developer certificates to control what it considers misuse.
I'd rather just go to ONE corner that has a little menu that pops up, allowing me to go anywhere I want to go today.. Seriously, that's all that's needed.
You've just described the charms bar. Start menu gives access to search, settings, devices, and application/folder shortcuts. Charms bar does the exact same thing. That's the top right corner.
Another option is the bottom left corner. There you have access to run, search, desktop, explorer, control panel, task manager, command prompt, disk management, device manager, system, power options, event viewer, programs and features, network connections, personal folders, and the start menu.... all 2 clicks away in a smal radius.
I think it was a 16-bit app that never got converted to 32-bit. If that's true, it won't run in 64-bit Windows 8.
On a tablet you swipe in from the right side. The hot corners mess is only for mouse access.
FFS the only people I've heard winging are people who only ever try any version of Windows for 1/2 an hour so they could say they tried it and didn't like it.
Well DUH. "Hey, George, check out this new computer I just bought with w8. Try it out!"
Half an hour later, George replies "Jesus but I absolutely fucking HATED that! It was worse than listening to my ex-wife. Let me try it a few weeks and see if I hate it any less."
Yeah, that's going to happen.
Also if its so crap why is the linux community starting to emulate it?
You have that backwards, Metro is MS's attempt to emulate Unity (which was out long before w8 and also sucks donkey balls).
Free Martian Whores!
What's a 'field'?
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Exactly! Can't you even see the difference? With Windows 95 there's a frigging new BUTTON on the screen.
Yet this still confused users.Windows 95 had tips on how to use the start menu, and even a little arrow reading "Click here to begin" pointing to the start menu. Don't forget the massive "Start me up" advertising campaign which taught users what the start menu was and featured repetitive images of the button and people clicking it. If you think people automatically took to the start menu without any training whatsoever, I have to question whether you were around in 1995.
Why do you need the mouse when you can use the start button on your keyboard.
I've known gamers to pry off the Windows key after one too many accidental presses has jerked the player out of the game, causing a crash in some single-player games or a disconnection in online multiplayer games.
I agree with you completely. I upgraded my HTPC to Win8Pro the 1st day it was available and have been happily using it since then. At the end of the day it is the same OS as Win7 with a better Start interface, there is no excuse for someone that used Win7 not to be able to use Win8. I prefer the Start screen as opposed to the Start menu. It requires a little tidying up whenever a new desktop app is installed to remove unnecessary Start screen icons, but other than that it works perfectly fine. It's been faster and more stable then Win7.
The only thing I don't necessarily care for is the Charms bar, but that simply because I tend to use desktop apps full screen and often cause the charms to appear when all I wanted to do was close the open application. It's still lights year better than any Linux distro and more reliable than Mac OS X (I've tried both, many times).
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Perhaps I'm getting old, but I kinda expect my new PC to be somewhat usable out of the box without spending a day installing additional crap on it.
What's this trend in attacking 'negativity' as though doing so is a legit argument against what was said?
It's astroturfing. You can be pretty sure that almost all those comments are from someone who works for MS, holds stock in MS, or...
Is this some kind of peer pressure to conform to the head-in-ground masses of ostriches who can't handle reality because they're too weak willed to not take everything personally?
Indeed, that's exactly what the shills are attempting.
Free Martian Whores!
Did you use it with a kinect? It was designed for use with a kinect from what I can tell. Were you using it as a home entertainment hub? I upgraded last weekend, and yes a lot of stuff broke. It's either that or you run viruses from the eighties. I enjoy then new interface, and am excited that all the content from my xbox will be available on my pc, which is a lot easier to hack than an xbox. go back, load all your movies, turn on netflix, amazon prime, buy a kinect and play with the development kit. Hook it up to a 42" screen. Until you have done that, then you have not tried windows 8.
LOL. My kids were navigating vitual cities before they could talk.
It's pretty clear what Microsoft is doing with Windows 8, and it really has little to do with desktop user experience. They are trying to get developers to build applications for their mobile/tablet ecosystem by leveraging the one thing they are dominate in - The desktop. That is the sole reason they force Metro on everyone and are selling the upgrade for $40. If people are forced to use it, companies will develop for it (or so their thinking goes...).
Unfortunately for them, it's not working. Companies still look at the Windows mobile platform as a joke (behind Blackberry for crying out loud) and instead of effectively leveraging the desktop, they are destroying it. The criticisms of the OS are spot on and unless they are addressed, you're going to find people looking for alternatives. Right now there aren't that many viable ones - but if they don't get their act together soon, there will be.
This goes beyond being people being "afraid of change" - Microsoft just really just dropped the ball. It's almost 2013 - You shouldn't have to fight with an OS on top of all the critical work you use a desktop computer for.
Hello, his video rant is nearly insufferable, however he does have a point.
In his setting, he is using a laptop without a touch screen but with a touchpad.
On a touchpad, one moves the mouse cursor with swiping fingers. By default, W8 interprets these swipes as gestures, and interprets them. Hence W8 keeps switching applications seemingly randomly. This is useful on a tablet but not on a touchpad.
Moreover there is no easy way to turn gestures off. Overall this is pretty terrible of W8. If you are not using either a true mouse or a touchscreen you are stuck.
That isn't old...
But I have yet to here one person I know give a positive review of Windows 8 on the PC or phone. I do know that MS is paying people to make positive posts however so I'm dubious whenever I read them in posts.
"The guy didn't even notice that"?
A bad user interface doesn't necessarily mean that the option isn't there. If the option exists, but is difficult to discover or presented in such an unintuitive way that people will miss it, that's the fault of the user interface, not the fault of the user for not noticing it.
Has the CD / DVD / BluRay software been upgraded to something more useful?
In fact, MS removed Windows DVD Creator from Windows 8. And Media Player no longer supports DVD playback.
Is that because 3 and 5 year olds use the computer for real work or because you're equating yourself with 3 or 5 year olds?
Yes, it may work well for 1 app that a 3 or 5 year old may want by the parent putting it smack in the middle of the screen but for the rest of us that actually have work to do, Windows 8 is a horrible, horrible failure.
Multitasking, task switching, hell even completing a single task is simply too much to ask from Windows 8.
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Nice. I wondered if anyone would pop up older than me. Good to see you :).
Also if its so crap why is the linux community starting to emulate it?
I wouldn't say GNOME/Unity are emulating it so much as Microsoft is emulating them. Unity was out long before Metro was advertised by Microsoft - true WinPhone7 was probably out first, so it may go both ways.
However, the vast majority of Linux Windows Managers and Environments do not do anything like Unity/GNOME or WinPhone7 or Win8.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
There are ways of moving to some new ideas without leaving your entire user base asking "WTF?".
FTFY. The point is, some things are just so new that they simply require learning a new skill. That seems to be the case here. People decried touch screens for years - now they are common. The Kinect is an entirely new input device. So was the Nintendo Wii. I heard all these same complaints then, too. Perhaps they are right this time, and Metro (which is not Windows 8) sucks - but perhaps not. Incremental changes are fine, but sometimes starting from scratch and coming up with something new is also useful. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, and time tells. Anything beyond an individual stating whether or not they like it (such as the original rant) is mere hubris.
Remember, you can't look dignified when your having fun! Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive
Myself, when I need to find something on the Start Screen (or the old Start Menu), I just hit the Windows key and type in the name of the app I'm trying to launch. If I use the program often enough, I'll pin its icon somewhere to save me the trouble.
That's similar to the way I've worked since I discovered Launchy back in the Windows XP days. One problem is when you don't know the name of the app, or if you just want to browse to see what's available.
I'm at work setting up a new laptop for a user. This will be the second Windows 8 machine in the company - the first being my own desktop. If I press the Windows key and bring up the Start page, I get tiles for Internet Explorer, File Explorer, Desktop, and Store. I know there's got to be more - my gut tells me that Microsoft must have built in the usual stuff like a media player, messaging, and probably a bunch of other stuff too, but there's no sign of it. Right-clicking gives me an "All Apps" option at the bottom.
I don't have a problem with gesture-based controls. I absolutely loved WebOS, partly because of the gestures. They can be a quick and convenient way to interact with a device, and once you know about them, they can be very intuitive if they're done properly. But the gestures in Windows 8 aren't done well. The "Charms" bar is a perfect example of that, as the video mentioned. Aside from having a stupid name, the Charms bar appears from the side but is triggered by mousing into one of the right corners. This kinda works in Metro apps, but in the Desktop, the top-right corner is where the Close button sits, and the bottom-right houses the system tray. (Speaking of which, I've been using Win8 for about 2 weeks, and I still haven't found a way to close Metro apps other than Alt-F4.)
With Windows 8, Microsoft is moving to a tablet-centric interface while ignoring a very important point: Computers are not Tablets, and - here's the kicker - people don't use them the same way. The interface that you want while using a 10-inch tablet on your lap is not what you want when you're using a PC with dual 20-inch monitors at your desk.
While trying to set up Window 8 for actually doing real work, it's becoming very clear how consumer-oriented Microsoft tried to make it. When setting up my own desktop, I saw the option to put a calendar widget on the lock screen. I figured that might be handy, so I tried to enable it, only to find that it requires creating an account with Microsoft, so I could display items from my Microsoft calendar. You know what? On my work PC, I already have an account I log in to - on our Windows domain - and that account already has a calendar associated with it - on our Exchange server. Why can't it just work with those? Seems like a basic option that should be available as soon as you join a Win8 PC to a Domain.
Redundancy is good And also good.
Why don't you learn how to drive a crane to work instead of your car... oh, wait - what's that?? You aren't used to it??? What's the MATTER with you, boy!!!
Perfect analogy. Different tools, different use cases....
I can't even begin to comprehend how people can defend Windows 8... unless they are getting paid.
Windows 8 is designed to have a user account for every person. This is important, because key privacy information is tied to the user account. If you let someone use your computer account, they can buy things in the store using your credit card. They can read your email. They can do a lot of things you may not want them to do.
The recommended approach is to create a new account for any new user of the computer.
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Windows 8 is just Windows 7 PLUS metro.
Surely you could just not use the metro parts
Wouldn't that be called... Windows 7
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
I tried to watch that abomination of a video. I got about half-way through before I couldn't stand the lack of actual information, thoye toilet humor, and the author's horrid voice.
I can't speak to your first point, though I don't have enough information.
On the second point, this is addressed elsewhere in the comments. In short: That "problem" is not the fault of the OS.
On the thrid point, that's false on its face. You need not know any specific keywords to find any configuration features, as noted elsewhere in the comments.
Even if all three were true (and I'm certain at least two of those points are false) that hardly validated the claim that the OS: "goes out of its way to hinder any task you vainly hope to complete"
Required reading for internet skeptics
There is a registry entry that calls up the Apps list of the start screen. You can create a shortcut that points to that registry entry, then change the icon on the shortcut to look like the start button (I used the Media Center icon). Pin it to the taskbar on the left, and there you are.
I found out how to do this by googling Windows 8 setup tips, but don't remember where I saw it.
Also, if you put your desktop tile of the default start screen on the top left, hitting enter will take you to the desktop. Since the windows key takes you to tile view, it's pretty easy to toggle back and forth. The way I look at it, the tile view and full apps list are the same as previous Windows pinned to start button and "All Apps", just blown up to full screen size for touch devices.
That's false.
First, if touch gestures annoy you, you can turn them off.
The point you are missing is that the video producer (he really isn't an author) tried to do just as you said.... and couldn't figure out how to do the thing you are saying he should try to do.
Perhaps the laptop hardware developer should have written their own operating system so he didn't need to figure out how to turn the bloody thing off. Oh.... that is what Microsoft was supposed to be doing in the first place for that company, wasn't it? More to the point, Windows 8 should never have been installed onto that laptop in the first place by the manufacturer. Windows 7 might have worked just fine, but note that wasn't even an option because of Microsoft's contracts with the various manufacturers.
Windows 8 simply isn't the right tool for the job, but unfortunately some suits at Microsoft simply don't give a damn about stuff like that and think this is the one operating system to "rule them all". It is likely that Linux will be installed on this particular computer by the time the reviewer is through.... but why the hell did he have to pay for an operating system he wasn't even going to use in the first place?
Hm?
Because we would all have world peace if everyone looked alike and dressed alike and walked down the street at the same speed.
You know, "conformity" seems to be the key here. And strangely enough it has changed over the years. When I was young the generation gap was about young people being non-conformist free spirits and old people just accepting what the authorities told them. Even in computing the Today it seems flipped. The younger generation all seem to be about doing just what Apple and Microsoft and Google tell them to do and dismissing any ideas of having options and customization and choices.
Maybe it's not generational though, but from what I see it really does feel that way.
If the stuff is hidden, then it's not found. If it's not found, then he can't do what he wanted to do. If he can't do what he wanted to do then he's left with nothing to review except to rant.
It's absolutely ridiculous to have to go through a lot of training just to be able to review a product. What, is he supposed to say "I spent a few weeks training myself on this product, reading all the documentation, and now that I've figured it all out it really is simple to use"?
Actually Macs are pretty darn good, with the biggest drawback being the price. The UIs are clean and simple and easy to learn and use and they're consistent. The command line is extremely good because it's bash on top of unix. Multiple desktop screens are built in without finding a third party app. Windows has always felt behind; the UI is full of fluff, the command line is clumsy. One nice thing in Windows 8 is that the UI (on desktop) is actually a lot cleaner than it was in Windows 7 (though I haven't used it enough to see if I can get rid of borders altogether ala mac). The "menu on the top" is a bit disconcerting at times but it really did not take much effort to learn.
Yes there are things wrong with Mac too. The new launchpad is pretty stupid in some ways, seeming to be a way to capitalize on touch screens or smartphone styles (but at least you're not forced to use it like win8). Integrated store is absolute stupidity, but Microsoft is even more stupid by copying stupidity, and at least there are no commercial advertisements embedded within Apple applications. The "dock" is not as nice as a good taskbar in my view but with it configured to auto-hide I can put it out of mind.
The task manager seems an improvement over Windows 7 view. Remember Windows 7 starts off by showing you only applications, not all tasks. You have to click a tab to see all tasks, and at that point it's the default next time you start task manager. This is similar with Windows 8 task manager as well (don't know if it remembers where you last were). The information Windows 8 task manager shows looks to be more than you get with Windows 7, like it combined features from the Windows 7 "Resource Monitor" into the task manager.
But it's not quite that. It's Windows 7 plus service pack plus metro PLUS mandatory metro as your start screen PLUS discontinuity between desktop and metro MINUS the start menu (that was a very popular feature even if some people didn't use it.
If the UI-formerly-known-as-Metro had been an optional feature during install and the start menu had been left in place then no one would have been complaining about Windows 8, instead they'd give reviews about how not to install the poorly tested Metro until a later service pack.
Right now Windows 8 is not just a incremental improvement over Windows 7. It is only that if you spend extra time and money to get third party apps which bring back the start menu. As it ships today, Metro will intrude on you.
You apparently can't speak on either of the three points, because you are completely ignorant about all the three.
That problem is indeed the fault of the OS, no matter how you try to spin it. Mouse gestures being confused with similar touch gestures is the inevitable result of this schizophrenic interface.
And no, you don't need to know specific keywords when you are trying for example to look for a file that was modified between today and 3 days ago on Windows XP, but you cannot do it on Windows 8 (and even on 7) if you don't know the proper (and counter-intuitive) syntax of the command you must type in order to do so, just to give you a quick example.
Even a single one of these is enough to validate the claim that the OS goes out of its way to hinder any task you vainly hope to complete, unless, of course, the task is to torture and frustrate yourself.
You're flat out lying.
trash is something that doesn't work...windows works for folks that dont have the money to buy a 1200 macbook or the wherewithal to figure out how ubuntu works
Kubuntu (KDE Ubntu) is more like any version of Windows from the user's perspective than any other version of Windows.
switching between interfaces is a no brainer
Making your users switch between interfaces shows no brains.
ive run and compiled with the best of linux distros for the latter of 15+ years
You're full of shit, boy. Get back under your bridge.
Free Martian Whores!
Well that was the point made in a part of the video. If you want to find the applet you can't search for it, but instead you search for the control panel first then search from it from that point. In other words you can not just search for the final control panel applet you want. If you want to do something with sound settings, you don't search for "sound" but have to unintuitively search for "control panel".
Hm...people complaining about GUI changes....AHHH I found it "A totally new screen design begins with a desktop even less useful than the one on the Mac, whose icons, folders and document orientation have been "borrowed," lock, stock and subdirectory. Desktop icons let you explore files on My Computer and in the Network Neighborhood. You can also click on a Recycle Bin, where deleted files are stored until you empty them; a Briefcase, which lets you pack files for travel; an electronic Inbox, which stores your mail and faxes, and, unless the Justice Department intervenes, the Microsoft Network on-line service. The Start button at the bottom left of the screen launches a list of programs and documents. A Taskbar beside it shows what programs are currently running and is supposed to be visible at all times. But in just one of many maddening inconsistencies, multimedia programs often make the Taskbar mysteriously disappear." This was taken from the windows 95 UI review....back in AUGUST OF 1995. Seriously people...idiots who are afraid of change shouldn't be reviewing new software. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/01/science/personal-computers-personal-computers-what-is-windows-95-really-like.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
I do. If microsoft wants to claim that I don't matter, and all the users who used to use the start menu don't matter, then they should have a great big media compaign where they say "Windows 8 for Everyone Except You and You And You and You and..."
Do they teach you how to be condescending at Windows Indoctrination Certification classes, or does it come naturally?
(reposting - logged on - lol)
. . . get off my lawn
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Windows 7 SP2. Plus some improved apps. Plus occasionally Metro sticking its head into the desktop saying "Hey, I noticed you're not using me, would you like to use me?"
Yes, it says he's intelligent enough not to put up with really REALLY poorly designed interfaces when there are much better ones out there.
Free Martian Whores!
No. It doesn't work that way at all. You can't just search for what you think somehting is called - you have to know the specific name of the thing. Now, Windows is better than Unix in this regard - you don't have to know that search is named "grep" - but if you try a natural English synonym for the name of the program that you need, you're out of luck.
It'svery much a command line interface: you type the words you memorized, after learning them throug trial-and-error or asking someone, and quickly get what you need. And a CLI definitely has its purpose! But the whole point of a GUI is to be discoverable. And while WIn8 has a functional CLI and that's nice, it lacks a discoverable GUI. Instead, it has a GUI with lots of tricks you have to memorize, after learning them throug trial-and-error or asking someone (or watching an instructional video).
It's like we've lost 20 years of progress on usability.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I suggest seeing a doctor if you are having problems keeping a thought for longer than a few seconds.
You mean a doctor like Professor G.A. Radvansky, who led a study about doorway amnesia?
I'm not arguing that, I'm agreeing with it. What I'm saying is that because he couldn't find it, he went online and posted a video about how it's not there, when in fact, it is. His claim that the functions are not there is completely false. Them not being there is a completely different issue than them being hidden. Sure, "hidden" is bad, but it's nowhere near as bad as "gone". That is why this video fails.
The faster boot is done essentially by doing a limited type of hibernation. It shuts down applications and then hibernates the OS, so it doesn't take as much time/space as it would if it had to hibernate all the processes. Plus of course a small percentage of the boot time improvement comes from other factors as well, but the bulk is the hibernation.
The store is an anti-feature. Anyone who actually uses it deserves what they get. What's amusing though is that the windows "refresh" option that essentially does an in-place OS reinstall for you only saves default applets and applets from the store, but it will wipe away all real applications not purchased from the store.
Media player has been removed I think, you have to download and install it manually.
You are defending this as being intuitive to the new user?
Also, in that particular case where I said, "The guy didn't even notice that..", was a case where there is no excuse. Windows 7 backup is not hidden. It's available via the desktop interface, and appears if you just search for "backup", choose backup and file history, then use your eyeballs to read what's on the screen, where you see "Windows 7 File Recovery" as a link at the bottom left.
Are you defending change for change's own sake? Windows 8 changed but not for the better (at least on the metro side), so they should be called out for it instead of being congratulated for making unwanted changes.
Probably the reason they had that tutorial is because everyone found the Windows 8 preview candidate to be incredibly difficult to figure out.
You can do everything you want with a command line that accepts raw assembler language. Anything beyond that is a crutch for the feeble minded.
Sure, but you still look like a complete idiot if you claim a bunch of functionality is not there when, in fact, it is. Also, most (or pretty much all except for the "Start" button thing) of his rant is in regards to metro. Now I didn't have a problem figuring out everything in metro inside of an hour, which I know is maybe a bit too long, but once you find it, the hinting issue is gone. Most of what was there I was able to access on the first try. Maybe I'm just smarter than him. Maybe he's just whining and trying to make a video that is amusing like those on The Escapist's Zero Punctuation, which means it's more for comedy and entertainment than actual content. He fails pretty badly in that regard. Really, there is no excuse for him.
And remember that the executive in charge of Windows 8 left the company as soon as it was released. Rumors are that he was pushed out. Even if the rest of the executives loved that guy, I have absolutely no doubt that there is a sizeable percentage of Microsoft employees embarrassed by Windows 8.
However the vast majority of all computers capable of running Windows 8 today do not have touch screens. Yes, doing a touchscreen interface using a keyboard and mouse is certainly "new" but it's also a stupid idea. An idea can be "new" and "stupid" at the same time.
That doesn't make any sense in the context of the discussion. The parent wrote:
What if you don't remember the name of that control panel applet? What if you don't know the application's name, but would otherwise find it if you could browse through menus?
To which I replied adequately.
Where did you get that other nonsense? It has absolutely nothing to do with the parent or my reply.
Moving on:
Well that was the point made in a part of the video
The video is both unwatchable and disturbingly inaccurate -- in the very rare case where he actually says something concrete (that occasionally happens between long bouts of fake, pointless, rage and making crude fart jokes), he's usually wrong. (e.g. weather jumping out to get him. See other posts for why this is complete nonsense.)
I don't have a machine running Windows 8 handy right now so I can't test it out. A google search shows exactly one complaint about this "inability to search for control panel apps" but only mentions being unable to search for "Event Viewer". Perhaps someone could check to see if other more common control panel applets don't appear in a search on Windows 8 (like sound, display, etc.)? I suspect that (given the solution below) that the "missing" options may be limited to "advanced" control panel applets and not the more common.
Anyhow, the solution? There are at least two: (1) Win+W to bring up search with "settings" pre-selected. or (2) From the charms bar, select "Settings" and enable "Access Administrative Tools"
I know that it's cool to hate every single aspect of Windows 8 and deny that it could possibly have any positive qualities. Do you know what's even cooler? Focusing on actual problems instead! How about the evil walled-garden around metro apps? That one is pretty nasty.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Microsoft did it that way because they honestly are patronising. They always act as if they know better than the users do what is best for the users. They did some research and figured out that MOST users don't use the start menu, so in their infinite condescension decided that NONE of the users would get one in the future.
Also, they want to push and shove their store at everyone. They're jealous that Apple has one but didn't clue in to the fact that Apple (at least on the mac) doesn't shove the store in their customer's faces. If everyone went to the desktop first they wouldn't see the store. So when someone figured out how to bypass the metro screen in the windows 8 preview by tweaking the registry, Microsoft made it a point to patch that hole in the released version (while leaving alone other problems that users discovered). There are third party apps to help out here, such as bypassing metro and/or adding a start menu, and I actually do think that in the first service pack there will be something added in an attempt to break those utilities.
Hmm, Apple has kept its classic OS X interface, even in Mountain Lion. What precedent has Apple done here?
The only intuitive interface is the nipple, and most three year olds should have outgrown that.
If you are Microsoft, you actually can sell stuff people don't want. You just bundle it up cheaply with something that people do want. So OEM pricing of Windows 8 with new computers, while eliminating OEM access to Windows 7. Customers will be thinking about buying a new computer instead of actually buying Windows 8 on its own merits.
Windows 8 is just Windows 7 PLUS metro.
But Windows 7 is already Windows 7 plus it doesn't have the inconvenience of Metro. Why should I shell out for a version of Windows which is basically the same thing only with a less convenient user interface?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
his assertion (and rock solid design principle) is that your GUI should be CONSISTENT unless there's a compelling reason not to be.
What compelling reason is there for the Metro interface on a Desktop PC?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
"I think there are better things to rant about than Windows 8 to be honest."
Absolutely. It's been a few hours and still no story on this truly monumental event:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20812870
Jeesh, people, where are your priorities? We already know that Win 8 sucks, Apple is a walled garden, and the Raspi is a great platform for doing nothing. How about some "news" for nerds?
Unless the application your using is a windows rt app then it has those exact attributes.
How is that different from any fullscreen only application?
What compelling reason is there for the Metro interface on a Desktop PC?
Because it's on all their other consumer platforms, and you shouldn't have to have a Windows RT device to run Windows RT apps when the desktop version of Windows is perfectly capable of it.
I thought the author made some good technical arguments about the usability, and was going well with valid criticisms, until he started having to use the F-word to criticize Windows 8.
Now I cannot safely point other people to the video, because they will find the content utterly offensive.
I am shocked Slashdot would link to such a thing.
For me, the bigger the screen, the more useless it is because the touchpad interface requires larger and larger gestures to get at what's needed.. Remember the windows 2k/xp start menu with its crazy long cascaded menus? No one wants to sort through those. Metro 'start' is like that, only worse because the tiles are huge.
Most of the complaints in the video link are right on.. It's jarring and mystifying at the same time. Basic functionality should never, ever be hidden. That includes configuration utilities. The whole concept of having two separate interfaces with separate rules is also beyond stupid. The frustration isn't just in figuring it out, it's having to figure out ways to complete the work I need to that actually take longer than it did on previous operating systems.
What's this trend in attacking 'negativity' as though doing so is a legit argument against what was said? Is this some kind of peer pressure to conform to the head-in-ground masses of ostriches who can't handle reality because they're too weak willed to not take everything personally?
Both Ubuntu's Unity and Gnomes G3 suffer the same problem, but to a much lessor degree than W8. Both show you icons, but these do not reveal the application program's name.
Furthermore, you are blocked from setting startup parameters against each icon.
Sigh, Cinnamon (All versions) are great. Back to the menu and functionality. Or bye Unity and Gnome, hello KDE.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
"I don't mean to sound rude but aint that like saying yellow is still yellow even if you happen to think yellow is a shit color? What information is being conveyed with such statements?"
Simply that we have deal with the fact that something is yellow, no matter if we approve of the color or not. The damn thing is yellow. So now, what CAN we do from here?
"When people ask me what I think of windows 8 I recommend against upgrading. When people who have windows 8 express displeasure I tell them how to contact the vendor of their new PC to obtain a "downgrade" to Windows 7. The few people who care about what I think are now happy campers."
I offer similar advice, but I am realistic enough to know that especially as time goes on, the amount of people who are going to be satisfied by these steps is going to decrease. I've already talked to people who don't want to bother getting Win 7 as a downgrade, reinstalling, setting up their data and programs again (and/or don't have the technical know how) simply to get away from an OS that "works", yet has some irritating OS issues and esoteric "invisible in one's day to day life until a calamity happens" privacy, security, and ethics flaws.
"Or you could just install windows 7."
I most certainly can. But many of those people purchasing new PCs (including touch screens, tablets etc..) can't, or won't. It will become more expensive even for those who are self-built and buying their own OS. (Buying Win8 Pro is already considerably cheaper than Win7 Pro, Ultimate, Home Premium in many cases).
"Trick question."
Not at all. There is going to be a significant difference between using some Facebook tile, one that only connects to Microsoft directly, and one that is simply a UI add-on for some Free Software program. etc. I expect that with Windows Store and whatnot there is going to be a whole assortment of varying Metro app policies. Would you rather have a bunch of Facebook and Angry Birds stuff alone, or would you rather direct a user who WANTED TO USE A METRO APP to something like VLC Player (which is attempting to secure funding to get VLC player on the Windows Store/Metro Approved.). Not to mention, a "ClassicShell-like" FOSS alternative to Metro such as KDE/QT Plasmids that can provide the Metro-like experience without some of the dangers, if users are knowledgeable enough about their presence.
"The fact of the matter is Microsoft is a business and its survival is tied to customers purchasing products. The defeatist additude you are powerless and have no other choices is both incorrect and self-reinforcing.
There is no more powerful driver in business than voting with your dollar.
Windows 8 is not about imparting any new value on the customer. It is about CPR on tablet and phone market share. It is about a boiling frog approach to a closed app store model where all execution must be currated and approved by MS with hands in the cookie jar at every step. It is about epic leaks of data and privacy. It is about monitizing everything possible... even the shit metro apps that come with windows have ads with content downloaded from the Internet.
If you don't like all the bullshit you have a choice. If enough people fail to exercise their choice it will in fact vaporize.
For example the movie industry would like nothing better than to kill off DVDs and force everyone upgrade to blueray. Why don't they?
I'm not advocating quitting, or even rejecting the notion of offering criticism and voting with your dollar. However, I'm pragmatic enough to know that even if every single geek self-built PC rejected Win8, MS would barely be scratched compared to all the pre-installed and embedded marketplaces. Most users who want/need Windows for whatever reason and aren't open to switching to something entirely different as well as those that simply use what comes with their new PC/device, are going to increasingly be using Windows 8. Microsoft has heard our objections and frankly doesn't care - they are betting that the big OEMs a
That Gnome 3 complaint is almost certainly a for-technical-reasons one. The problem is that you can look at a window and observe that it's open, and make a good guess about which app it belongs to, but that doesn't necessarily give you enough information to be able to open another copy of the app.
(I've been looking into the technical details behind this in an attempt to improve it for Unity, and I'm reasonably sure there's no 100% reliable way to figure it out. Unity's solution seems to be just to randomly fail when it can't figure it. Gnome 3 is presumably only making it possible when it's sure it'll work.)
(1)DOCOMEFROM!2~.2'~#1WHILE:1<-"'?.1$.2'~'"':1/.1$.2'~#0"$#65535'"$"'"'&.1$.2'~'#0$#65535'"$#0'~#32767$#1"
When you connect the mouse there is a cursor. Have you not tried it?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Oh cool. Where is the manual? What variation of sweeping, tapping, swiping and clicking at unmarked positions of screen calls it up?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I don't know about the other two, but in Unity hovering the cursor over an icon still gives you the full programme name. Seeing as Unity isn't intended for touchscreens (believe it or not), this isn't a big issue. Although saying that, I still prefer the old fashioned way- where the name appears right there next to the icon.
Even if that's still a feature in Windows 8, it doesn't help you if you're trying to use it on a touchscreen device.
Exactly like that. If someone said "Gnome 3 is brilliant, I use it all the time and it's my favourite!", you would be justified in being sceptical. If it turned out that they were using Cinnamon, you would cry foul. You'd say "That's not Gnome 3, it's Cinnamon! You still hate Gnome 3, but you like the related but different Cinnamon!".
If you spend hours modifying Windows 8, ripping the guts out of it, changing your default boot-up settings, running third party replacements for core functionality, then you can't in all honesty say "Windows 8 doesn't suck, it's brilliant!". That smacks of it being badly broken out of the box.
Just like Gnome 3.
Not in the case of control panel items. I know because I tried several variations of "password management" with different words and it still turned up the relevant results.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
...trying to support end-users over the phone when they're using an interface like this? Help Desk turnover has always been very high (I once saw someone hired to work the HD leave for lunch and never come back -- on their first day). I hate to think of the level of stress they're going to be subjected to having to walk someone through problems when applications are running on Win8/Metro.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
It seems pretty clear that you've never used Windows 8, particularly because you're referring people to the article rather than offering your own experience.
- it more than doubles the number of clicks and moves you have to do to perform normal operations,
When launching applications I actually need to use less clicks than before. I can also type the name of an app rather than hunting through menus.
With settings, I can launch the control panel via swiping on the right side of the screen, or right clicking at the bottom left. Again, less clicks.
Other than those two things (launching applications and accessing the control panel) everything can be done the same as in windows 7.
- applications (like the weather predictions) keep popping up when you least expect because you made a gesture with your mouse that the horrible horrible UI mistakes as another touch gesture that has nothing to do with what you want to do,
Never had that happen. You could always disable the weather app. I'm pretty sure you need to set this up to begin with before it even works, so if you never went into the app to start with, you wouldn't have this problem.
- you simply cannot find configuration features without knowing the specific keywords, because there are no shortcuts that do not involve typing these specific keywords/ This is something they started with the advanced file search in Windows 7, which is much worse than XPs, but went viral on Windows 8
I'm not sure what you mean. Yes, you can search for configuration options, which is something you could not do in previous versions of windows.
How would you find configuration features in Windows 7? What about XP? and how is that different from windows 8? AFAIK those "old" ways of finding things are still there, but now there is ALSO the ability to type what you want and have windows display settings that match your query.
I tell people that apart from the start menu, you could pretty much use windows 8 exactly like windows 7 and never know the difference.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
I got used to the new start screen - it's not _that_ bad, no worse than hunting through menus to find what you're looking for, and actually better in that you can just start typing the name of a program and it comes up in the search. Or you can type the name of a control panel applet or setting, and that works too.
What if you don't remember the name of that control panel applet? What if you don't know the application's name, but would otherwise find it if you could browse through menus?
"Just typing the name" of some computer program or appet can be horribly inconvenient.
Um, then you do it the way you would've done it in windows 7. Just open the control panel and clicky clicky.
The control panel can be accessed either by right-clicking the bottom left of the screen, or swiping up from the bottom right of the screen. I found this out by myself, so I'm sure it isn't that hard.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Now you have the problem of trying to explain how this is somehow worse than what we had in windows 7 or any other prior version of windows.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
the start MENU has been changed into the start SCREEN.
It is more in line with OSX launchpad and gnome shell's launcher. Whether that's a good or bad thing is a matter of opinion and preference.
Personally I decided that there wasn't a lot I could do about it, and might as well just get used to it. I tried a start menu replacement app and it was terrible.
Nowadays I actually don't mind the start screen - it is a quicker way to launch my often-used apps than trying to hunt through menus to find them. It's not perfect, but I don't really care.
Worrying about stuff like that just makes your life negative for no good reason. Just live with it and move on. There's always more important things to worry about.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Have you used it? I'm willing to bet you haven't.
Let's be objective about it.
What could the old start menu do that the start screen cannot do? Why not challenge yourself to get used to the start screen and then see if launching apps is not actually faster using the new start screen. Same with organising your apps.
As for looking for the name of control panel apps, how is that different to windows 7? At least windows 8 provides the ability to search. Your complaint applies to all previous versions of windows too.
You say MS crippled the UI, but now you need to give examples of how the start screen offers less functionality than what you had before.
I can think of how it offers more functionality (ie. search), but not less.
I'm not interested in metro apps - and you're replying to my post which was all about how you could use windows 8 just like windows 7 with no regressions in functionality nor ease of use.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
I've seen no evidence of what you described about metro. I don't use it, and it doesn't ever bother me.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Well no, because MS decided to call it Windows 8. Sure, if there was a Windows 7 with all of the OTHER benefits of Windows 8 then you might have a point, but the fact is that Windows 8 does have a lot of internal improvements over Windows 7, even if you never touch metro apps.
I found the improvements and new features (automatic backups - see File Versions) enough to justify the $39 upgrade from Windows 7. My Win7 used to take 2.5 mins to boot up. Contrast to about 30 seconds in Windows 8 (same machine).
I'm not trying to sell it. I don't care if you never buy it. I don't care if it's a flop. It works ok for me, no different to win7 in practice really. When the next version comes out, if they release it at a low price just like windows 8, then I'll again review the features and decide whether it's worth the upgrade. I was late moving to windows 7, and never bought XP on its own. I use Linux on my work pc and until last year used it on all my PCs as the main system. Windows 8 does what I need without much fuss, and I'm getting past caring about the intricate details of different OSes.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Are you pretending that they didn't touch a single line of the old windows code?
Of course they made improvements all over. It's like Windows 7 SP2. No one's forcing you to upgrade. My whole point was that metro shouldn't be the reason you don't upgrade, since you barely need to touch it.
If it was the usual $200-800 that previous versions were, I'd wholeheartedly agree with you. But it's $39. I found the new features enough to justify paying that low price.
Feel free to wait for Windows 9.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
People really have a lot of inertia against the start screen don't they?
Really, it isn't that bad. It can do everything the menu used to do. In most cases it is faster. It also allows you to search for apps by name, which is something the start menu could not do.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Perhaps you should actually use it before commenting. I've been using it since late October and if it was like you describe, I too might hate it. But it isn't like that at all. In fact, it works just like Windows 7, but just incrementally better.
You can tell who has used it and who hasn't just be reading the comments. The ones who haven't used it are just feeding off the rumour mill.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Huh? you can still sort by modified date in windows 8 explorer.
I agree that for your particular example it's a bit clunky - you have to select 'Search' -> 'Date Modified' -> 'Today' (for example) and then when it does the search you can click on where it says "datemodified:today" and it will pop up a date-range box allowing you to specify your own date using the mouse.
I worked that out in about 2 minutes. Surely you're not slower than me. I'm no windows expert - I mainly use linux. I just try things until I figure it out.
If your problem is just that you don't want to have to learn new things, then why not just say that instead of blaming it on some hypothetical shortcomings of windows 8. It seems that your problem is more that it is different, rather than worse. It's just that for you, different IS worse, but for anyone starting with windows 7/8, it's a non-issue.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
I bet you 99.9% of tablet users don't even know you can do that. So why would the tablet companies bother putting in a feature (dual screen) that 99% of users wouldn't even know CAN be used, let alone want to?
This is reminding of Slashdot's lame attempts and FUD against Windows 7 with the fake benchmark shit and false claims of DRM.
Yeah, that wasn't quite true. The grousing about Windows 7 was minor at best. Did it exist? Sure, but no where close to the same extent that ME and Vista received, and it seems like Microsoft is swinging back and forth between bad and good OSes like the Star Trek film franchise. It started with Windows 98, most people thought it was an improvement, but Windows ME was poorly received. Then came XP which did great, but Vista was a flop. Windows 7 seemed like the successor to XP, a fine OS on its own, but Windows 8 is getting the reception that the poorer entries on the list received.
"Utilities that have the most interest will always be in the official stores." -> Unqualified statement. For example, any program which MS disagrees with will probably be banned. They may be immensely popular, but that does not mean they will be available through this store. If anything, a number of the more capable programs out there will require installer or setups that may conflict with the Windows Store installer, as such ensuring that they cannot be purchased.
And the rest of your post reads "Dude, this is where everyone else is going, there's no stopping it, so get on the bandwagon and shut up. You sound like the arrogant business guy right out of college, who lands a job at his dad's company, and has whipped out a 'sure thing' strategy for its products, while berating your customers and insulting your employees when they disagree with you. Good luck with that, better learn to enjoy eating vegetables from cans."
I am John Hurt.
Edit:
Dude, this is where everyone else is going, there's no stopping it, so get on the bandwagon and shut up." You sound like the arrogant business guy right out of college, who lands a job at his dad's company, and has whipped out a 'sure thing' strategy for its products, while berating your customers and insulting your employees when they disagree with you. Good luck with that, better learn to enjoy eating vegetables from cans.
I am John Hurt.
OK, let's take a long step back. The original post I made was about why you would want a central market place, and I responded to that question. I didn't take it as a specific reference to Microsoft's Store, either in it's current form or any form it may take in the future, but as a generic answer as to why one would be beneficial. It is on a generic level the equivalent of a linux software repository. Arguing that having hooks in the OS for a software repository/store isn't a feature is silly. You may not use it, nor like it, but that doesn't mean the some (I would argue most) users would like it.
Now from that, every response wants to take a look and nit pick about specific implementations of that. While I tend to think that the Microsoft Store will be less heavy handed than say Apple's in regards to what they will and won't approve to put in the store (I haven't seen anything that is restricted, but I haven't actively looked). Regardless of that, there is nothing keeping users from installing whatever they want from outside of the store environment on Windows 8 Pro machines -- so again, if you don't like it, don't use it. Find your own software and install it. However, I believe having one place to which you can find most/all of your applications, and be fairly sure that it isn't just some malicious trojan infected piece of software AND you have one central place to check for updates (rather than 200 different background "update checkers") and actually do the updates (one at a time or in batch), is a good thing. You may disagree.
Also, I'm not right out of college, I don't work at my dad's company, but I do occasionally berate clients when they say what they do, and I do sometimes disagree with employees under me, work with me, or I work for -- it is always on a professional level. I don't know everything, and neither do they -- if we disagree it is either because we have different philosophies, or are on different levels of experience and eventually I or they will learn. Often our discussions are more about learning the why and transferring knowledge from someone who is more experienced in a subject to one that is not than trying to prove who is right to brag. We are all pretty solid headed and understand we aren't all experts in everything, but we always try to learn from those who have more experience than we do.
Microsoft really does need a preinstalled app that is just to teach you how to use the new UI.
They actually do have a manual, it's right here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/2/E/A2E4C3EB-99A0-47B4-A620-D2F94FCDF3E5/Windows8_WindowsRT_ProductGuide_EN.pdf
This is on page 11, it's also in the intro video shown to all new users (which is incredibly short and vague).
I tried in the shop and it was as bad as I expected. As a power user creating stuff I like multiple programs open and clearly this not the OS for that. I guess they are targeting the 90% of users who simply consume and only single task. That's fine, I have the choice of sticking with what I like, Linux Mint Cinnamon edition, but do I really?
As I looked around the shop at all those Windows 8 laptop I wonder how many of them have locked down boot loaders that won't let me install Linux? And how many retail store are going to let boot a USB key and have a look at the HDD with a partitioning tool to see if it will be possible? I left the store depressed about the loss of choice. Maybe the old joke "We have both types of music, country and western" should now be "We have both types of OSes, Windows 8 and Mac OS 10.8".
You are defending this as being intuitive to the new user?
Interesting point. Observe that for Windows 8 Microsoft is only selling an upgrade package through the retail channel. You need to jump through hoops to get a clean-install version (or at least buy new hardware). It seems that Microsoft's argument is that there is no such thing as a new user.
Breakfast served all day!
The community is emulating the metro thing.
If you're referring to the gnome 3/unity fiasco, that occurred well before metro went GA, so its quite the other way around I think.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Most of the criticism of Brian's criticism is valid, but this video is hilarious and points out some very valid flaws. They may be overstated, yes, and if he gave it the 30 days of use he was planning to give it, maybe Windows 8 wouldn't be so perplexing, but I'm sure glad we got to experience this knee-jerk reaction in its current form. Kudos for Brian for posting this awesome animated essay.
OK, I'll bite.
A big part of my job (at an IT integrator) is going out with salespeople to chat with customers when potential projects are looming, determining requirements and a suitable solution. From that perspective, we've had a lot of questions asked about Windows 8, so we've run some demo units up to loan out for the curious. Our help desk also had a couple of their workstations converted to familiarise themselves with the environment.
Within a business environment, the feedback has been entirely negative. We have yet to do a Win8 rollout within a client. Internally, those deskbound staff who got a Win8 PC have since reverted to Windows 7 after trying really hard for a week or 2 - I'm not sure why, it more likely relates to us having a lot more clients running Win7 and helpdesk staff wanted to have an environment to match. There is still a spare Win8 demo PC for internal use by any tech team members. Even reverting to a "classic Aero" interface with a start menu was frustrating.
Our customers found the interface very confusing (far more so than WinXP to Vista). Even with classic mode, they did not like the distractions, the interfaces, and felt that nothing in Windows 8 added business value beyond what was available in Windows 7.
All of that is pretty obvious - I never expected something touted as effectively "Windows Touch Screen Edition" to have a huge business focus. However, I've been talking to our various IT contacts at customers - we would talk to a few hundred at least once a month, managed services and whatnot - curious about Win8 for their own use on laptops, tablets and home PCs. I gave them my opinion of it (which isn't high from my admittedly limited exposure). The feedback there has been almost entirely negative. Even customers who adore their new Windows Mobile devices hate the similar interface in Win8. I don't think we've sold a single PC without downgrading to Win7 first.
Very few of these people have used anything but Windows since '00. We HAVE had a big spike on MacBook purchases recently.
Admittedly, we're an integrator and we do not box drop or sell retail product. Harvey Norman might have a different story, but they don't have to deal with the support issues on the back end. We get that when a CFO calls us because his kids can't use the new home PC - and we're not going to tell him we can't help.
So why would the tablet companies bother putting in a feature (dual screen) that 99% of users wouldn't even know CAN be used, let alone want to?
For the same reason that Microsoft puts the security policy MMC console into every version of Windows?
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
I have no problem with using, or managing Windows.
However, the changes to the UI for Windows 8 are not for the better. They are a significant cause of lost productivity for any user who uses more than one program at once.
As an example, the Image and Fax Viewer in Win 7 was a windowed component, just like every other component of Win 7.
In Windows 8, it's a full screen Metro app.
Now imagine the following use case:
You're to look at an image, and type up a description of it.
In Windows 7, you open the image in Image and Fax Viewer on one side of the screen, and your word processor on the other side, and type up your description, while looking at the image.
In Windows 8, you open the image in Image and Fax Viewer, look at it for a while, swap to your word processor, type some, swap back to the image, look at it some more, swap back to your word processor, type some more, think "Crap...what direction was that piece facing," swap back to the image, check what you needed to, swap back to your word processor, etc.etc.etc.
See the problem? Windows 8 requires the installation of third party software to not be unreasonably inefficient, whereas Windows 7 (and virtually all other windowing OSs) can efficiently do the task without third party software.
Changing something to improve efficiency is fine. Changing it for purely marketing reasons that have a detrimental effect on efficiency for a large number of use cases is a bad thing. That's exactly what has happened with Windows 8.
Putting up with someone's poorly thought out, authoritarian design decisions, simply because using it is possible, even though less efficient than the past, says much more about you than it does about Windows, too.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Most pre-Win8 full screen applications don't make sense to run windowed. The one that's usually brought up by Metro proponents as an example is games.
Ok...how often do I need to work on a Word document while I'm also killing pixels in Call of Duty? The attention required to not die in CoD means that I can't do anything else anyway, so running any less than full screen doesn't make sense.
Image and Fax Viewer, OTOH, doesn't make any sense at all to be full screen, unless you're using it to display a slideshow, but it's a Metro app in Win8. I can't remember exactly what other included applications have been changed to apps in Win8, but I know there are a few.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
What could the old start menu do that the start screen cannot do?
See the app I was working on when I brought up the start menu.
Instead, the entire screen changes to something different, then I have to scroll around to find the app I want, then go back to where I Was.
Its jarring and breaks concentration.
I could go on, but you clearly don't do enough work to see the biggest most obvious differences, nothing else I say will make you be any more objective anyway.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The start menu could do everything the start page can, except the start menu didn't have such a jarring experience and the start menu didn't hide what I Was looking at originally. The start menu also requires me not to move my mouse across the entire screen to get from the 'start' part to the application I'm trying to quick.
Theres nothing that makes it 'faster' unless you have some sort of special computer that makes it so you can move your mouse over longer distance quicker than shorter distances. Perhaps some sort of time dilation device?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
WTF are you using VNC on a Windows machine? 2000 called, they want their bad hack back.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Tell the moron to stop holding the mouse button down then, since thats whats required for it to confuse it as a gesture.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
No actually its built into windows, and documented. Try again.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
No, it's *NOT* built into windows that gestures work from a touch pad.
The touch pad is emulating the touch screen gestures, and you enable it in the touch pad driver configuration utility.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
To answer your question: "Who wants to "afford" a Mac?": Some of us actually use computers for working. Besides, I'm on a computer 12 hours a day and I'm quite entertained but I never play a "game" on it.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Most pre-Win8 full screen applications don't make sense to run windowed. The one that's usually brought up by Metro proponents as an example is games.
Ok...how often do I need to work on a Word document while I'm also killing pixels in Call of Duty? The attention required to not die in CoD means that I can't do anything else anyway, so running any less than full screen doesn't make sense.
Perfect example of a strawman argument.
Image and Fax Viewer, OTOH, doesn't make any sense at all to be full screen, unless you're using it to display a slideshow, but it's a Metro app in Win8.
And you can run it in side-by-side if you want, or on another monitor, or use a desktop application instead.