Windows 8.1 May Restore Boot-To-Desktop, Start Button

New submitter geekoid writes "According to media reports about leaked Windows 8.1 code, the next incarnation of Microsoft's flagship operating system will have an option to boot directly to the desktop. People have discovered 'references to a "CanSuppressStartScreen" option in early builds of the Windows 8.1 registry.' There is also speculation that Microsoft will be re-implementing the Start button, though the claims come from nebulous 'sources,' rather than the leaked code. In light of recent reporting about the general distaste and design flaws of Windows 8's user interface, will Microsoft's updates be dynamic enough to stop the current Windows exodus?"

Comments

Too little too late

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The real problem is that the innovator who really stole all their ideas from other people, has failed to realize that their own User Interface has become a mature technology, as familiar to most people as "gas on the right, brake on the left" in a car.

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about all those European cars with the gas on the left and brake on the right so they can drive on the other side of the road?

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Even in cars with steering wheel on the right, gas is still right and brake left.

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

The pedal orientation is not switched in RHD cars.

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

The real problem is that the innovator who really stole all their ideas from other people, has failed to realize that their own User Interface has become a mature technology, as familiar to most people as "gas on the right, brake on the left" in a car.

Haven't thought about that, but you're right. And when you change gas and brake controls to gestures on the glass, you see a lot of people frantically cleaning their windshield as they head towards the cliff. "Not dome light! Brake! Brake!!!"

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is that the innovator who really stole all their ideas from other people, has failed to realize that their own User Interface has become a mature technology, as familiar to most people as "gas on the right, brake on the left" in a car.

That's just because you're too primitive and non-fashionable enough to realize the true beauty and wonder* of putting the gas above your head and splitting the brake into three pedals, a button, two switches, and voice control. Oh, and Facebook integration.

*: Note I did not say "functionality".

Re:Too little too late

[GrumpySteen]

I can't tell whether you're an incredibly subtle troll or you're just dumb.

Re:Too little too late

[millertym]

I agree - and really their greatest folly with Windows 8 adoption was with trying to create a single UI for all platforms. That just doesn't make sense from a user standpoint at all. Phones are going to have different UI needs than tablets. Tablets are going to have different UI needs than PCs. Each specific family of hardware needs a UI created for use on that particular hardware type, due to each hardware type having it's own nuances in user input. I don't know why their designers thought otherwise.

Re:Too little too late

[GrumpySteen]

Windows predates Linux. The actual 'theft' would be from Xerox PARC, Apple and others who predate Windows.

But the ideas aren't stolen. They were freely available for everyone to use because they were developed before we reached the level of intellectual property idiocy that allows rounded corners and other moronically simple design elements to be patented and copyrighted.

Re:Too little too late

[A10Mechanic]

I fail to believe that Windows 8 has a gas pedal. It just has brakes on the left and right.

Re:Too little too late

[sa1lnr]

FYI, the clutch is on the left here. :)

Re:Too little too late

[Synerg1y]

I don't get why people have such a hard time comprehending this:

Win 8 is Microsoft's entry into the mobile market, not the PC market, they ported it to the PC market... well to make money. They had to enter the mobile market to stay competitive, everything else was secondary.

You're right though, their taskbar and start button have become a standard for users, and take away the standard and you're going to have a long line of people complaining. Perhaps where Microsoft may have tripped up is confusing the mobile UXD with a desktop one.

Re:Too little too late

[poofmeisterp]

But what about the children?
(and their damn smart phone addictions) /snark :)

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong!
They are over/under.

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

No the real problem is that there isn't a real problem. Yes, 8 was another Vista/Me experience but writers and commentators keep tying this back to the "global PC market collapse" which may or may not be due to Windows 8 as the story guys. The subby wasn't much better with his "exodus" comment, the simple fact is Windows 8 isn't bad by any means from a UI stand point if, ya know, you actually use it. It's start up time and performance on computers is at least on par with 7 and to me feels a little more spry. The real issue is that PC hardware has been good enough for years, my 07/08 Dell laptop died a couple weeks ago, and surprise surpise I'm on an 07 Vaio to tide me over until I purchase and guess what? It works for everything but games and Adobe Lightroom (which is still 'passable'). Keeping that in mind this 'collapse' may very well be happening as far as new PC sales go, but it has no merit when it comes to PC usage. Show me a person that has truly gone mobile and left the PC behind and I'll show you someone desperate for clicks. No all that is happening is that people are buying other devices while their PC keeps on plugging along year after year and the sheer amount of hyperbole and linkbaiting surrounding this issue is absolutely ridiculous.

Re:Too little too late

[i kan reed]

With Balmer in charge, the answer is really "developers developers developers". They imagined "write once run anywhere(that's a MS device)" would appeal to UI developers. The reality is that devs don't want to write code for a platform that users don't want to use, and the "old" windows paradigms were more natural to code for in addition to having legacy support.

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

OP's obviously never driven in Europe before, while not the smartest post ever, yours is even dumber and adds less value by a factor of about 100x.

Also 3 people pointed this out the mistake before you commented so it's probable you didn't have a fuckin clue either.

AC Strikes Again!

Re:Too little too late

[Joce640k]

I don't get why people have such a hard time comprehending this:

Win 8 is Microsoft's entry into the mobile market, not the PC market, they ported it to the PC market... well to make money. They had to enter the mobile market to stay competitive, everything else was secondary.

That explains why they took out the start button when you go into "desktop" mode!

Re:Too little too late

[h4rr4r]

Brake is in the middle. The clutch is on the left. Otherwise you were sold an inferior vehicle.

Re:Too little too late

[justthinkit]

Nope, November 20. 1985, after having been "conceived" in 1981.

Re: Too little too late

[UnknowingFool]

I think Ballmer and MS knows that different hardware require different UI. I think MS wanted to foist their tablet/smartphone UI on desktop users to get them used to it so if/when they bought a tablet/smartphone they were already family with Metro. Basically they couldn't compete on the merits of the UI alone so they had to leverage their monopoly.

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Windows 1.0 was released in the 80s and Windows 3.0, the first version of Windows that really caught on in the consumer market was released in 1990.

So if you are going to try pointless nitpicking how about trying to be right.

Re:Too little too late

[avandesande]

The interface is even older than cars- all string instruments have a right handed bow hold or picking. (The right hand being the source of power)

Re:Too little too late

[Synerg1y]

Took out or never added?

Re:Too little too late

[Solandri]

But the ideas aren't stolen. They were freely available for everyone to use because they were developed before we reached the level of intellectual property idiocy that allows rounded corners and other moronically simple design elements to be patented and copyrighted.

Actually, Apple does get credit for one type of rounded corner. They came up with a very fast way to draw rounded rectangles in the early 1980s when computing power was very limited. (The same guy came up with regions - a way to quickly display overlapping arbitrary shapes.)

The difference is back then, Apple didn't try to do something stupid like claim nobody else was allowed to draw rounded rectangles on a computer.

Re:Too little too late

[Beorytis]

Why was this not modded up informative? I've never driven a RHD vehicle, so I did not know. There's no reason to assume the whole vehicle isn't mirrored.

Re:Too little too late

[zmollusc]

Your honey can change gears with her free hand, surely?

Re:Too little too late

[The Grim Reefer]

OP's obviously never driven in Europe before, while not the smartest post ever, yours is even dumber and adds less value by a factor of about 100x.

Also 3 people pointed this out the mistake before you commented so it's probable you didn't have a fuckin clue either.

AC Strikes Again!

Did you happen to hear anything after you hit the reply button?

Like a big WOOSH!

Re:Too little too late

[Tarlus]

They're on the right track, but their implementation is still too blurry. Right at the first boot (or during the installation) of Windows 8 the question should be asked before the user can do anything else: "Do you want to use this as a desktop or as a tablet?"

Choose "Desktop" and you are presented with the same familiar UI you would expect in Windows, and no full-screen Metro. If you want to use the built-in Metro apps, launch them from the Start menu they just appear in their own self-contained, manageable windows.

Choose "Tablet" and it'll default to its current behavior, with the full-screen touch-friendly interface and Desktop mode accessible as its own tile.

Stick an option in the control panel where people can change this setting if needed later on down the road. One OS to develop, both usage cases covered.

Re:Too little too late

[Sesostris III]

Just dumb. As any fule kno, it is accelerator on the right, brake in the middle and clutch on the left - just like in the US!

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nothing. Windows ME broke left, right and center.

Re:Too little too late

[Tarlus]

In fact, Windows 8 was a thing before Metro was. Even the early builds still had the start menu and Aero.

Re:Too little too late

[JSombra]

Except it did not work,it actually backfired and many warned them it would.

Windows 8 on phones and tablets is actually pretty good, but the negativity/bad press generated by windows 8 on the pc has spilled over and affected peoples view of the phones and tablets.

If they had not forced metro on the pc and left it optional, not only would windows 8 pc sales have done a lot better, but also probably the phone and tablet sales would have been better as well.

Re:Too little too late

[Tarlus]

You can give +1's to AC's. The purpose of modpoints is to promote constructive posts, not to reward registered users.

Re:Too little too late

[Buchenskjoll]

All those European cars are in United Kingdom, the only European country to drive in the left side. And they mostly have the brake in the middle.

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple didn't dump OS X in favor of an all-device version of iOS for a reason: they knew it wouldn't work. It really doesn't take a lot of experience to realize that fact. Microsoft has lost its ability to innovate entirely and has mistaken corner-cutting to the "next big thing" as such.

From a designer's perspective the new interface makes fine sense for a mobile device but absolutely none for a traditional desktop. In the case of the latter it is clearly change simply in an attempt to force users into a new Microsoft-controlled "AppStore" ecosystem that works across devices. This approach, although inspiring in concept, is colossally stupid and could have been done in far more appropriate ways. Instead, they've pissed off a good portion of their only stable cash-cow: Windows users.

From a business perspective you introduce a new interface on a smaller scale and see how it works in the real world before you gut 30+ years of UI/UX and put your balls on the chopping block. That kind of brand-gambling is reckless and if I was a shareholder I'd be pissed. It doesn't take a UI/UX expert to see this gaping hole in business strategy here. In my opinion, this would be a CEO-firing offense a-la HP, EA, etc.

Re:Too little too late

[aztracker1]

Paddle Shift FTW!!!

Re:Too little too late

[Type44Q]

Windows predates Linux.

Windows predates Linux; the operating system known as Windows most certainly does not.

Windows was nothing more than an application running on top of DOS (the actual OS in the equation) in those days.

Pedantic nitpicking, perhaps - but technically accurate nonetheless. :p

Re:Too little too late

[no1nose]

I personally can't wait for them to fix this in Windows 8.1. I want to buy a new desktop and laptop. But I am holding off since I can't get Windows 7 on anything available over the counter at Best Buy, Costco, Sam's Club (those are about it for people in Reno, Nevada. I need to see if Fry's over in Roseville, California offers anything with Windows 7.

Re:Too little too late

[Predius]

Apple has chosen to migrate to an all iOS world slowly, subtly. Give them time, it's in the grand plan. The walled garden with all of it's ways of providing a continuing revenue stream after the initial purchase will eventually be the way of all Apple systems.

MS on the other hand kinda of has to cut the cord and make the jump in one move or forever get stuck in limbo as people refuse to let go of the old ways. It will cause a lot more gnashing of teeth initially, but I suspect by the time Win 9 or 10 (or whatever they dub them) ship the new format will be cleaned up enough to appease most naysayers and the people jumping in for the first time won't have any preconceived expectations to worry about. That seems to be what MS is banking on anyways.

Re:Too little too late

[itsdapead]

There's no reason to assume the whole vehicle isn't mirrored.

If they were then, at the typical international airport, you'd notice the large ring of car wrecks around the rental garage. Moving the steering wheel is a helpful hint to remind you to drive on the other side of the road. Swapping the brake and accelerator pedals would be a recipe for unpleasantness.

Re:Too little too late

[lgw]

There's a reason clutch pedals are disappearing from race cars. Robo-shifters are the way of the future. As fun as it may be to operate a UI that's some combination of rowing machine and stationary bike, most people don't want to pedal their cars to work, and with robo-shifters you keep the efficiency and performance that you would lose with a slushbox.

Re:Too little too late

[rockout]

Why was this not modded up informative? I've never driven a RHD vehicle, so I did not know. There's no reason to assume the whole vehicle isn't mirrored.

Probably because the AC post before him was so obviously a joke to 90% of us, that some guy missing the joke doesn't deserve to be modded up, according to the mods. (they're right)

Re:Too little too late

[jxander]

Proper terminology please : flappy-paddle gear box.

Re:Too little too late

[h4rr4r]

Robo-shifters that are not slush boxes and allow me to down shift, I can accept.

Learning to drive in the mountains means I value engine braking. Boiling the brakefluid is no good.

Re:Too little too late

[h4rr4r]

I have seen 0 cars that can handle that task on a long downhill. They will all pic a nice high gear to let you coast with low fuel consumption. Too bad about you wanting to use engine braking to avoid boiling the brake fluid.

Re:Too little too late

[jxander]

[voice of Jack Black] That's fuckin teamwork!

Re:Too little too late

[Marxist Hacker 42]

A good option is when you go to ninite.com to install your freeware, install a bit of freeware called "Start8".

Re:Too little too late

[mlts]

MS already had success with this method. Back in the XP days, MS needed to drag developers into modern days using a decent security model, which required a rewrite of drivers. So, Vista came out which resulted in vendors writing alpha quality code, and blaming the breaks on MS's new OS.

By the time Windows 7 got out the door, third parties finally got the concept of not having admin rights for every single executable, so it was painless.

Windows 9 is when people will say that MS has it "right"... and the cycle will begin anew.

Re:Too little too late

[WinstonWolfIT]

Sounds like a Turing test.

Re:Too little too late

[itsdapead]

The real problem is that the innovator who really stole all their ideas from other people, has failed to realize that their own User Interface has become a mature technology.

However, its worth remembering that Microsoft are not the only ones to jump on the tabletization bandwagon whether their users like it or not.

Gnome 3, Ubuntu Unity have had similar castigation for their new 'post PC' interfaces. However, what with Linux being open source and not having the GUI joined at the hip to the rest of the OS this is less of a problem for Linux users.

Apple have also received flak for the fairly limited tabletization that they've done with OS X.

Problem is, we're in a tablet bubble, coming at a time when everybody who wants a regular PC already has one and PC specs are no longer rising fast enough to make them obsolete after 18 months. I like tablets, think they raise some interesting new possibilities and are great for some uses - but the current attitude is "the solution is mobile technology - now, what was the problem again?".

Re:Too little too late

[SillyHamster]

But the ideas aren't stolen.

Not in a legal sense, but the phrase, "good artists steal" makes me think the distinction you're making doesn't matter too much.

Re:Too little too late

[DarkOx]

Windows 3.x was certainly more than an 'application' running on top of DOS. Windows did its own disk I/O on i386 hardware, its own memory management, its own task scheduling, its own video etc. It did what an OS does and shared that hardware and furnished higher level SYS and API calls to applications. DOS was hardly more than a boot loader for Windows 3.x It just happens that windows preserved the environment and allowed you to return to it.

Its a bit of matter of semantics and what definitions of things you like to use; but Windows 3 was not just an 'Application' in the modern user of the term, nor was it quite an OS.

Re:Too little too late

[NJRoadfan]

Many automatics, CVTs, and all hybrids (via regen braking) will hold onto a lower gear downhill in newer cars.

Re:Too little too late

[UltraZelda64]

Hey, with something that crashes that much, you need all the brakes you can get!

Re:Too little too late

[drsmithy]

Windows from version /386 has handled hardware drivers, process scheduling, memory management and user interface.

Pretty much any OS textbook will identify these as the things an operating system does.

Re:Too little too late

[Beorytis]

So, is the gearshift blocking the drivers side door so it can still be operated with the right hand? How do they fit the transmission over there?

Re:Too little too late

[dingen]

I would say by modern definitions Windows always was more of an operating system than DOS ever was. DOS is really just a launcher and does almost nothing help out the application it is running.

Re:Too little too late

[Dzimas]

Brake is in the middle. The clutch is on the left. Otherwise you were sold an inferior vehicle.

Or perhaps I'm driving a Ford Model T. They sold millions of them with a brake on the right, reverse pedal in the middle, and the clutch on the left. The throttle lever is on the steering wheel.

Re:Too little too late

[Beorytis]

And yet, someone saying "I can't tell whether you're an incredibly subtle troll or you're just dumb." gets modded 5 insightful.

Re:Too little too late

[gomiam]

Not to karma-whore, but actually almost nothing is mirrored: the gears usually handle the same way (which makes it easier for right-hand driving since the shorter gears are nearer to the driver), the dashboard is just moved around, and even the starter key hole is on the right of the driving wheel. Then again, I also know of English cars (a Land Rover to be specific) which had the starter key hole on the left, which is almost unheard of in the rest of Europe.

Re:Too little too late

[drsmithy]

There's a reason clutch pedals are disappearing from race cars.
The only reason they've stayed around this long is because of artificial rules.
Computers have been able to shift gears better than humans for a decade or more.

Re:Too little too late

[drsmithy]

Because that one corner case, trivially dealt with simply by moving the gearshift or hitting the flappy paddle a few times, invalidates the other 99% of usage.

Re:Too little too late

[hairyfeet]

I'll just jump in here because the entire thread is now talking about God damned cars, if that was your intent congrats as it worked.

As for Windows NINE, or Blue, calling it "8.1" when we haven't seen how much they did to the guts would be like calling Vista "XP.1" when they had radically changed everything (for the better I might add, even though Vista sucked getting rid of "run as admin" by default had to be done and the idiot that did that with XP, most likely so win9X games could run easier, should have been fired) would be stupid so lets hold off judging whether its a point 1 or another radical shift until we see the thing.

But if they don't bring back the start menu and traditional desktop? I predict MSFT will be EOL before Win 7 is EOL in 2020 and I honestly never thought I'd be able to say that. I mean look at the facts, we have Alienware selling an Ubuntu based gaming rig, you have Chromebooks on the main pages of Tiger and many other web sellers...this is unprecedented folks, it really is. Not even 5 years ago trying to sell a PC without Windows was the kiss of death. Sure dell had a few but they were on the back page and you had warnings like you were walking into the adult section of a video store, now all these companies are openly advertising non windows systems? We haven't seen that since IBM killed OS/2 more than 20 years ago.

But despite what the morons at places like Motley Fool say the PC is NOT dying, its NOT going away, heck PC gaming alone made more than 20 billion dollars last year and PCs still sell hundreds of millions of systems yearly. The entire premises is because PCs don't sell like they used to then its "ZOMFG they are dying, everybody is just buying iPads ZOMFG!" when in reality its just PCs are now INSANELY overpowered for what people have to do. I built a new PC every year from 94-07...why? Because I really didn't have much of a choice, with single core speeds jumping so fast you really couldn't upgrade and a 2 year old PC would be struggling to run the latest software. in one 5 year period I went from a 400MHz to a 2200MHz, that is 5 times the speed in 5 years, it was just nuts. Now that the MHz war is over they switched to cores and quickly ended up with systems much MUCH faster than anybody but a rare few percent can actually max out. Now my nearly 4 year old PC has 6 cores, 8GB of RAM, and 3TB worth of space...why would I build a new one when nothing is maxing out what I got?

So somebody at MSFT had BETTER grow a damned brain, X86 is still a billion dollar business and is here to stay, it will simply move from the insane "OMG I have to throw my 2 year old PC away because its too slow!" to a more sane 5-7 year cycle but that is still hundreds of millions of units every year. if MSFT wants to be Apple that is fine, I don't think it will happen but whatever, but you don't shit all over your existing markets because you want to get into a new market. Look we ALL know what the start screen and TIFKAM was, it was somebody at MSFT that had heard of the EEE strategy but didn't know how to actually do it trying to use the desktop to EEE their way into mobile and of course it flopped, anybody with a drop of common sense saw that it was sticking handlebars on a pickup, tablets and desktops just don't work anything alike and trying to shoehorn a mobile OS onto the desktop was just as dumb as the itty bitty start screen they used on WinCE. But with so many selling OSes other than Windows MSFT better wake the fuck up because we know what that is, that is the OEMs looking at exit strategies. If MSFT doesn't make a desktop people want somebody is gonna take that market and with their shitty numbers they can't afford to just abandon the X86 market.

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Right at the first boot (or during the installation) of Windows 8 the question should be asked before the user can do anything else: "Do you want to use this as a desktop or as a tablet?"

Not necessary.

If the device has touchscreen input, then use the touch interface.

If the device has a mouse, then use the desktop interface.

If the device has touchscreen and the user plugs in a mouse, then automatically switch to the desktop interface. Then switch back when the mouse is unplugged. If the mouse is present on boot, then assume the desktop interface.

The OS should ask only if it's truly ambiguous -- such as a notebook that has both a touchscreen and a trackpad.

I guarantee you that 10 years from now everyone will be totally baffled as to why they didn't implement this obvious algorithm right from the very beginning.

Re:Too little too late

[Wookact]

It was in the prelim releases. They removed it. They did it for one reason, get people used to the new UI and they will be comfortable picking up a win 8 tablet. The entire thing was an attempt to strong arm the consumer into getting used to something. There was no reason to remove the start button, BUT THEY REMOVED IT.

Re:Too little too late

[DarkOx]

'operating environment' -- I like that, its a fair description.

Re:Too little too late

[webmistressrachel]

Thanks, Targus, for helping Microsoft re-secure domination again next time round. After all, a heavy brick-like screen with portable gaming specs (Radeon 4870, 1Gb) can't cost that much to make if EVERYONE wants one.

You could have it running Windows 7-esque Aero GUI when connected the KB and monitor, (come on M$, your best GUI yet and you ditch it after one, the most successful ever, release?) and running Metro and switching to Intel low-power graphics on the road.

And a small ps, Why can't I buy Win7 Retail in the UK now? Wouldn't you (M$) rather just take my £50 that crippled my rig with Win8 "Pro" (don't make laugh) and give me a key for my 7? I don't need disks...

Re:Too little too late

[LVSlushdat]

I don't know why their designers thought otherwise.

s
I DO! IDO! (waves hand!) .... Its because they're idiots.. I am the neighborhood tech support guy (probably cuz I'm retired and around the house most of the time), and since Windows 8 was shoved down everybodys throat, I hardly go a week without somebody in the neighborhood asking me "how do I get *something* besides this new Windows?"... There have been several neighbors who didn't ask me before going to WorstBuy or Frys and buying a new laptop and then finding it came with Microsoft's latest steaming turd, Windows 8. Universally, these poor folks agree with me that Windows 8 IS a steaming turd.. I've pointed those who ask to the Dell Outlet and purchasing one of the excellent factory refurb'ed Latitude laptops there.. They come with Windows 7 (at least for now) and have the same 3 year warantee as a build-to-order system, with a VERY nice discount.. For my own systems, they come from either the Dell Outlet or Dell Financial Services Off-lease sales.. A couple of months ago, I picked up an off-lease Dell Precision T3500 workstation, Xeon Quad-core processor, 4GB of ram, 160GB 10Krpm SAS drive, and an Nvidia Quadro FX580/512mb video card for $408. The system was originally $490, but I found a 25% off coupon on Slickdeals that brought it down to $408, including the $39 add-on warrantee. Another hundred dollars took the system to 12GB of ram. It came with Windows 7 64Bit. oops.. got a bit off-topic there... Anyway, Microsoft is going to HAVE to address their brain-dead Metro interface on Windows 8 IF they want corporate America to stop turning their noses up at it.. Your average corporate "cube-rat" doing spreadsheets/word documents and is currently using XP is gonna most likely be pulling his hair out by the roots IF his IT department takes away his XP system and plops down a Windows 8 system in its place.. Just before I retired, I worked on a temporary contract support job rolling out new Windows 7 systems to replace the companies old XP boxes.. Since I was a contract weenie, I just swapped boxes and got them working, I didn't deal with the following from users... "Hey! this looks different... How do I....".... But the regular IT weinies sure were getting a LOT it, and you gotta figure this was ONLY a move between XP and 7.. Can you flippin' imagine the questions from a XP to windows 8 rollout???????? With budgets as tight as they are, you're not gonna see any training on the new UI. Soo... Unless Microsoft
decides to admit they made a mistake, and replace the "Windows7-ness" of Windows 8, I strongly suspect you're gonna see Windows 8 become another Windows Vista...

Re:Too little too late

[loufoque]

First, when you say European cars, it usually refers to continental Europe, not the UK.
Second, British cars do not have pedals reversed.
Third, most cars in Europe (including the UK) are manual, meaning the left pedal is the clutch. The brake is in the middle.

Re:Too little too late

[Culture20]

Even in cars with steering wheel on the right, gas is still right and brake left.

And they're on the left side of the car, which makes for some interesting driving.

Re:Too little too late

[TapeCutter]

Yes but prior to 3.0 windows was "acsii art", the windows were frames created with ascii characters. Everybody was writing these type of windowing frameworks in the late 80's. I even recall one where the code was presented in a series of Dr Dobbs articles.

Re:Too little too late

[Caedite Eos]

> and clutch on the left - just like in the US!
Err ... what is this "clutch" you are speaking of?

Re:Too little too late

[GrumpySteen]

My point is that the windows, icons, menus and mouse pointer that make up Windows' interface couldn't have been copied from Linux because Windows was released before Linux.

Why do you think that one being a full operating system and the other being a graphical shell makes any difference to that point?

Re:Too little too late

[non-e-moose]

Phalse. Windows 3.x did NOT have "task scheduling" It was "pre-emptive multi-tasking". My college OS project was better at Multi-tasking (and context switching) than WinDoze 3.x. In that sense, Windows 3.x was actually "less" than an application on top of DOS - it constrained things to prevent actual multi-tasking.

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly why I hate Unity and Gnome too. KDE is way more user friendly!

Re:Too little too late

[Alphathon]

Actually, they also drive on the left in Ireland, Malta and Cyprus (plus the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands which are not technically part of the UK). Admittedly the vast majority of Europe is right-hand drive, but it isn't just the UK.

Re:Too little too late

[Brulath]

Stardock seems to have made a way to test your theory. You can use Start8 to bypass the start screen on boot, heading directly for a desktop with start menu, then you can use ModernMix to run metro apps in a window; the app layout still appears to be full-screen sized with two scrollbars, however, so it's not precisely what you're talking about. Those apps are $5USD each though, so I've only personally acquired the first (as no metro apps I've seen seem useful on desktop).

I think I read that Windows Blue is adding the ability to use metro apps at different sizes, so perhaps it'll be possible to do it properly at some point. At least it's proof that implementing what you're talking about would be really easy for Microsoft to do.

Re:Too little too late

[kelemvor4]

The real problem is that the innovator who really stole all their ideas from other people, has failed to realize that their own User Interface has become a mature technology, as familiar to most people as "gas on the right, brake on the left" in a car.

I always wondered what that pedal on the left did.

Re:Too little too late

[smash]

Pretty much. the other big problem is that Windows 7 is "good enough". The jump from 98 to 2k or XP, and XP to Vista onwards was significant in terms of changes to the audio system, drive subsystem, security model, 64 bit support, etc.

The jump from 7 to 8? Minor incremental improvement, tempered with a loss of functionality, workflow familiarity, compatibility, etc. On balance, it's just not worth it even if it was a free upgrade (as it IS for me due to enterprise volume licensing agreement. Tried it in test for a month, more trouble than it's worth - and I'm not just referring to the start menu).

Re:Too little too late

[smash]

Moving the steering wheel also helps you to actually be able to see to overtake safely when driving on the correct side of the road. And gear shifter/gearbox is in the middle of the car. Hand-brake can vary.

Re:Too little too late

[mcmaddog]

left hand to operate gear shift.

Re:Too little too late

[Zemran]

You have obviously never travelled !!!

Re:Too little too late

[Zemran]

Why? You sit on the wrong side of the car and manage OK...

Re:Too little too late

[shutdown -p now]

then you can use ModernMix [stardock.com] to run metro apps in a window; the app layout still appears to be full-screen sized with two scrollbars, however, so it's not precisely what you're talking about.

It actually tries to fit apps to the window, but not all of them support them. Most seem to be able to adapt, in my experience (after all, Win8 allows for many different resolutions, and apps have to handle that when fullscreen).

Re:Too little too late

[superdave80]

Can you let me know the next time you are going to be at a party? Cause I want to be there to see how much fun you are.

Re:Too little too late

[Zemran]

Can you tie your own shoe laces?

Re:Too little too late

[epyT-R]

Simple. You can't. Both hands are supposed to be on the wheel by default. The only time your right hand should leave the wheel is when it's time to shift. Your 'honey' should have her belt on if she has any sense of self preservation left.

Re:Too little too late

[Osgeld]

BTW Steve Jobs is dead

oh my bad the OTHER guy who pillaged Xerox

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

The Windows interface and icons were copied from many other sources. Xerox being the first, but also GeoWorks. You are correct that it was not copied from Linux but incorrect that it was original to, or innovated by, Microsoft.

Re:Too little too late

[s.petry]

DOS 6 was much later than Windows 3.1. If you search for specs, you will find that Windows 3.1 required DOS 3.1 or higher. Windows stated "MS-DOS" but it would run on other DOS OSes like DR. DOS and IBM PC DOS.

Re:Too little too late

[s.petry]

Me thinks you should go read the definition of Operating System and compare that to what Windows 3.x was. Windows required a Disk Operating system in order to run because it lacked very important aspects of an Operating system. Low level drivers could not be loaded in Windows, like Disk I/O and Network devices (hell even Keyboard and Mouse was loaded by DOS). Windows was an easier way to launch applications, sure, but a launcher is not an operating system.

Re:Too little too late

[Curunir_wolf]

I have yet to see an automatic trans of any type that does not have manually adjustable down-shift.

Re:Too little too late

[coxymla]

Turn on cruise control and then the car will engine brake as much as it can. Even on a normal automatic.

Re:Too little too late

[armanox]

Which is why you still have gear options on an automatic (or why it says P-R-N-O-D-2-1 on my shifter. Newer ones don't say O anymore), for when you need to decide something instead of the car (also, means I can still downshift and floor it).

Re:Too little too late

[Demonantis]

I remember booting DOOM from DOS and the actual windows application when I wanted to use the windows interface. I think that is what he was thinking. I suspect the OS was still running in the background?

Re:Too little too late

[toddestan]

I've never seen an automatic downshift while in cruise control to slow down via engine braking. They will reduce the throttle to 0% and coast in the highest gear, but if they are going down a steep enough slope the car will gain speed. Granted, I've never used one of the newer cars with the adaptive cruise control so they may behave differently.

Re:Too little too late

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Yes, but the problem is, they started by changing the paradigm.

What was so wrong with Windows CE? At least it had a start button! Even my Android has the launcher.

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true

Re:Too little too late

[Swampash]

windows did not steal from Apple - Apple and Microsoft both stole from Xerox and implemented them poorly...

IIRC:

Xerox licensed all GUI concepts to Apple for commercialization in a perfectly normal licensing deal in exchange for Apple stock.

Microsoft took Apple's variations on those concepts and created Windows, Apple sued because there was no licensing deal in place, Microsoft found a loophole in a code-sharing development contract that meant Apple had given Microsoft a license to the GUI code by accident.

Re:Too little too late

[execthis]

I fully agree with this observation. Was just thinking earlier what a supreme waste of money the new MS kiosk stores in the malls are. Its also a PR disaster among the in-the-know crowd for a company to be perceived as so conniving and so desperate as MS are.

Re:Too little too late

[narcc]

You forget the ever-popular "I don't understand sarcasm" mod than nets your "flamebait" an "insightful".

Though it's possible that a "flamebait" is mistaken for "funny" -- which old-time mods usually give an "insightful" or "interesting" as "funny" doesn't net any karma.

It balances out in the end, when your (hopefully) "funny" posts gets modded "troll" or "flaimebait".

Re:Too little too late

[mjwx]

The pedal orientation is not switched in RHD cars.

Also, most of Europe is LHD, only the UK is RHD.

Re:Too little too late

[narcc]

As the AC below me mentions, that was never true. Even the lowly and long forgotten Windows 1.0 was graphical -- exclusively. There was never a version of Windows that ran in text mode.

You might be thinking of VB DOS, which did the whole "make windows out of text" thing using the IBM Extended ASCII character set. That came much, much later in the world of Microsoft products. (If you can dig up a copy, it was really neat. Well worth a spending a lazy Saturday tinkering with if you haven't seen it.)

Re:Too little too late

[mjwx]

You can give +1's to AC's. The purpose of modpoints is to promote constructive posts, not to reward registered users.

This.

I'd mod you up but I've already commented on this thread. So I found a previous comment of yours I thought was constructive and modded that up.

Re:Too little too late

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...that was my whole damned POINT with the previous post MS AC, we don't know jack monkey squat about what is actually going on, its a "dude that has a cousin that works there" kinda third hand bullshit and just plain ass pull speculation so making assumptions is not only wrong its fricking pointless.

But considering we all got first Dev then consumer previews of their last three OSes there really isn't any point in speculating as we'll get the dev preview close to a year before release if they do as they did previously. Now once THAT is out THEN we can debate whether its just an SP or if its a change or what, until then its pointless.

Re:Too little too late

[smash]

That's "driver subsystem"...

Re:Too little too late

[TwentyCharsIsNotEnou]

There's no reason to assume the whole vehicle isn't mirrored.

Well there's at least one reason to assume that - mirroring all the parts would mean a hell of a lot less re-use between LHD and RHD cars.

Re:Too little too late

[Vegan Cyclist]

Funnily, with bicycles (and i believe motorbikes) the brakes and shifters are swapped between Canada/US and the UK/Europe. So while i'm used to using the left brake lever to activate the front brake, in the UK, it'd normally be set up to activate the rear.

Re:Too little too late

[Cederic]

Nah, I've seen it go both ways.

Although admittedly recently all my cars have had indicators on the left. My last two cars have had windscreen wiper controls on the right.

Re:Too little too late

[A Friendly Troll]

But what about all those European cars with the gas on the left and brake on the right so they can drive on the other side of the road?

Erm... The clutch is on the left. The brake is always in the middle.

Re:Too little too late

[blane.bramble]

There seems to be a lot of confusion here.

LHD = left hand drive = steering wheel on the left, driving on the right of the road (Europe, US, etc)

RHD = right hand drive = steering wheel on the right, driving on the left of the road (UK, Japan, etc)

Re:Too little too late

[isorox]

There's no reason to assume the whole vehicle isn't mirrored.

If they were then, at the typical international airport, you'd notice the large ring of car wrecks around the rental garage. Moving the steering wheel is a helpful hint to remind you to drive on the other side of the road. Swapping the brake and accelerator pedals would be a recipe for unpleasantness.

It's bad enough at U.S. Airports as people struggle to drive away without a gearstick, handbrakes located where the engine-opener is, etc.

Re:Too little too late

[Liquid Len]

The pedal orientation is not switched in RHD cars.

Woosh

Re:Too little too late

[jawtheshark]

When I had to drive an automatic for the first time, it is a small wonder that I didn't cause an accident. You're so used to push down the clutch hard (when braking) with your left foot that it's the equivalent of an emergency brake (given the brake pedal is doubly wide and contains the space where the clutch is.). Since you do that instinctively, it's very hard to avoid. The best was was to lock my left leg behind my right leg.

I got used to it after a few days, but still... it's a wonder nothing happened.

Re:Too little too late

[jawtheshark]

Windows 8 Pro has downgrade rights. Find a 7 Pro disk, use 8 Pro key and you're good. I haven't done this, but I know Pro has downgrade rights. (source)

Re:Too little too late

[Pino Grigio]

It doesn't crash. Like Windows 7 it's rock solid.

Re:Too little too late

[webmistressrachel]

From your "source":-

|| "The following OEM versions of Windows software are eligible"

Hmmm. Seems like my ruined Vista machine is stuck where it is, since I went out and paid my £50 for a retail copy, like everyone else who wants to UPGRADE from Vista right now in the UK HAS TO, because buying a HDD is pointless (1TB onboard) and doing so doesn't make me a new machine (so is it even legal?)

Re:Too little too late

[CatBandit]

I had the same problem, but in the cars I used, I found it easier to stick my left foot on the leftmost part where there was something similar to a fixed pedal made of plastic out of the side of the car, just to leave your foot rest there. When I had the instinct of activating the clutch, I just pushed there with no fatal consequences.

Re: Too little too late

[CGordy]

Definitely not for modern motorcycles - left is always clutch and right is (front) brake. There are some obscure exceptions, such as some prewar bikes.

Re:Too little too late

[jawtheshark]

Ouch. Yes, well, most people are stuck with OEM copies, so I assumed you were "most people". My mistake.

Re:Too little too late

[DarkOx]

My point was assuming 386 enhanced mode was enabled and enhanced disk I/O was enabled, and it should have been on most i386 machines. Windows pretty much did everything it needed to do with the hardware directly. Did it use some DOS sys calls yes, but it also did its own thing for the most part. Its that fact that DOS remained resident in memory and Windows continued to call some DOS routines that makes DOS 'a little more than a boot loader' in the case of running Windows 3, not its command line. GRUB and Lilo have command lines but your would not hesitate to call them boot loaders.

Re:Too little too late

[jonbryce]

European cars have gas on the right, brake in the middle, and clutch on the left.

Re:Too little too late

[jonbryce]

Ireland, Cyprus and Malta are also RHD.

Re:Too little too late

[karnal]

Some vehicles go out of their way to protect the transmission and driveline, it doesn't allow you full control. My vehicle won't allow me to downshift into first unless I'm moving less than 20mph even though redline would be closer to 40-45mph for first - but in my area, the distinct lack of hills usually have me just hitting the brakes.

Re:Too little too late

[drinkypoo]

Swapping the brake and accelerator pedals would be a recipe for unpleasantness.

The problem is, not swapping them around is idiotic as well. Your right foot works the pedals, and your left foot sits on the dead pedal, while your right knee can be used as an occasional brace against the center console. With the wheel on the other side of the car, the foot you'd want on a dead pedal for outside-turn bracing is now being used to work the accelerator pedal. Moving the steering wheel is a helpful hint to remind you that the country you're in is backwards and contrary.

Re:Too little too late

[drinkypoo]

I have yet to see an automatic trans of any type that does not have manually adjustable down-shift.

The Mercedes 300SD and SDL have an automatic transmission which will not downshift for you if you simply click the lever. You also have to manually match revolutions. Most transmissions will simply downshift, not this one. It downshifts automatically when you slow down to well within the speed range for the next gear, though, whether your foot is on the accelerator or not. Mine's a 1982, same trans used until 1991.

Meanwhile, my Subaru had a fancy electronic transmission that you could put into manual mode, and then it would only downshift to avoid killing the engine, and never below second when in D, for ice starts. Just included for comparison. It was a '93.

Re:Too little too late

[drinkypoo]

Like PC-GEOS, Windows 3.1 used DOS BIOS calls for file access, not having its own storage drivers. WfWG 3.11 added 32-bit file access, but that only worked on bog-standard storage setups, and many people still had to use DOS for storage.

Windows 3.1 is not a full-fledged operating system without DOS. It uses it for more than just a boot loader. Windows 3.1 is only part of an OS, it is not an operating system on its own.

Re:Too little too late

[ButtonMashingGorilla]

Just dumb. As any fule kno, it is accelerator on the right, brake in the middle and clutch on the left - just like in the US!

It's like that in Japan too. The only difference is the steering column on the right side of the car and the blinkers/wipers swapped.

Re:Too little too late

[drinkypoo]

3.1 however had a 32-bit pre-emptively multi-tasked kernel using native device drivers.

Well no. It had a partly 32-bit blah blah blah. And it used DOS BIOS calls on a regular basis, which makes it a DOS application. That's the definition of a DOS application.

Windows 3.0 was not an operating system. Windows 3.1 and later certainly were

Windows 3.1 makes DOS BIOS calls during normal operation, so if Windows 3.0 isn't a full-fledged operating system, neither is Windows 3.1. It's not until Windows 95 that Windows stops making BIOS calls after boot time, and even then only in 32 bit mode which many users couldn't use because there was no Windows 95 driver for their hardware and they had to keep using the DOS driver that they were using with Windows 3.1 because Windows 3.1 didn't even have a driver facility for that kind of hardware.

Windows 3.1 is not a complete OS on its own, period the end. If it did, you could use an alternate loader which was much simpler than DOS, and someone would have made one long ago.

Re:Too little too late

[Dins]

Woosh

Re:Too little too late

[Custard Horse]

vast majority of Europe is right-hand drive

That's just confusing. 'Right-hand drive' is usually the term used for the position of controls on the car whereas 'driving on the right' is the preferred term.

Right-hand drive cars drive on the left and left-hand drive cars drive on the right. Motorcycles drive in the middle (obviously).

Re:Too little too late

[FyRE666]

Don't know about the US, but in Europe the turn signal (or, "indicators" as we call them) can be on either side, depending on the manufacturer. It's mostly on the left, but typically cars from Japan (for example) have it on the right. Not exactly life threatening to turn on the wipers though :)

Re:Too little too late

[Cro Magnon]

IIRC, Windows 95 was only preemptive with 32 bit programs. It was still cooperative with 16 bit Windows programs.

Re:Too little too late

[Alphathon]

Yeah, my mistake. I was (apparently erroneously) using "right hand drive" to mean "drives on the right hand side of the road" rather than "has the steering wheel on the right hand side of the car". Sorry about that.

Re:Too little too late

[Alphathon]

Yeah, it would seem I misused the term (see reply to blane.bramble).

Re:Too little too late

[bryan1945]

I see no purpose in up-modding AC astroturfers. Completely against the point of why AC was created in the beginning.

Re:Too little too late

[IwantToKeepAnon]

Choose "Desktop" and you are presented with the same familiar UI you would expect in Windows, and no full-screen Metro ...

Then no one would ever write Metro apps and that whole "new" side would fail ... which it is anyway. What MS is trying to force on the end user is experience with metro. THEN when you decide to buy a phone or tablet the end user will "naturally" buy something he/she is familiar with ... an MS metro phone or tablet. They are trying to leverage all the desktop eyeballs they already own in to mobile eyeballs they need. And THAT is why Win8 deserves to fail.

Re: Too little too late

[Vegan Cyclist]

Good to know, thanks for the correction!

Re:Too little too late

[rpstrong]

Porsches are infamous for their left-handed (and dash mounted) ignition switches. This is supposedly due to their racing heritage; specifically for the "Le Mans start." Traditionally (but no longer), the cars were lined up on one side of the track, the drivers on the other. At the signal, the drivers would dash across the track, jump into the cars, start the engines, and take off. The left-handed key allowed a driver to start the engine with one hand while shifting with the other. Rather silly, and dangerous too - the drivers often wouldn't buckle-up till they were on the Mulsanne Straight. (The Le Mans start was used in other races as well, but was dropped in 1970.)

See: http://www.porscheophile.com/2009/05/end-of-le-mans-start.html

Re:Too little too late

[creepynut]

Wow um... I didn't read your wall of text, but would you like a cookie or something?

Re:Too little too late

[BeerAndLoathing]

left hand to operate gear shift.

Which to me seems much safer as you keep your right hand on the steering wheel. I wonder if this contributes to the popularity of automatic transmissions in left-hand drive countries

Re:Too little too late

[Anomalyst]

The pedal orientation is not switched in RHD cars.

That's a relief, the chaos that could be brought about by LGBT pedals might be catatrophic.

Re:Too little too late

[Anomalyst]

After years of practice on random strangers shoelaces, yes.

Re:Too little too late

[Vlado]

Depending on the car make and model the blinker/windscreen wiper levers can be mirrored or not.
In my opinion whether they are mirrored or not shows how cheap the car vendor is.

My hypothesis is like this:
Since majority of cars are manufactured for driving on the right side of the road, the "native" car designs are also made for those versions. This means blinker lever on the left and windscreen wiper lever on the right of the steering wheel. This kind of layout helps you to operate the blinkers while shifting gears with your other hand (for instance when overtaking).
If car manufacturer is cheap, then they will simply take the whole dashboard/steering wheel assembly and move it from left side of the car to the right and NOT reverse the blinkers/windscreen wipers. If that happens, then you'll have to be slightly more inventive with gear changes and direction indication, than you would have to be otherwise.
If car manufacturer can be bothered with a bit of extra expense, though, the wipers lever will be on the left and the blinkers lever will be on the right. This may be a bit disconcerting initially, but will eventually make it more intuitive to use blinkers while shifting at the same time.

Re:Too little too late

[Vlado]

And Ireland

Re:Too little too late

[UltraZelda64]

Did you ever *use* Windows ME? You have to be confusing Windows 98SE or something.

In my opinion, Windows ME's biggest problem was that it still just didn't have enough brake pedals. It just crashed and burned that much. It needed a few more on the sides and on the back.

Re:Too little too late

[rpstrong]

Maybe the same merkins who'd expect to find the London Bridge in Arizona?

Re:Too little too late

[rpstrong]

Ireland, as well as Eire? Can Erin be far behind?

Re: Too little too late

[rpstrong]

Not just pre-war, but for decades afterwards as well. My '65 (or '69?) BSA had a left hand clutch, as did my brother's seventy-something Triumph - and, I suspect, all other British makes. The shift pedal (on the right) and rear brake pedal (on the left) were also reversed from what was becoming the norm for the rest of the world. I believe subsequent U.S. regulations may have forced them to eventually change.

(I bounced that BSA off a telephone pole in '76, paralyzing my left arm. The day I got out of the hospital, I switched the clutch control cable over to the right side lever so that I could get back in the saddle again - albeit briefly. Just a lap around the block, rear brake only).

Re:Too little too late

[rpstrong]

Oh, I wish I had mod points.

Re:Too little too late

[rpstrong]

No, that would be "touring" test. Back on the road.

Re:Too little too late

[rpstrong]

Is this a good spot to recall how Poland eased in the switch from driving on the left to driving on the right over a weekend? On Friday, the cars switched, on Saturday the trucks followed, and buses and all others switched on Sunday.

Re:Too little too late

[jrugger75]

You could have said the same about the pre-ribbon Office UI. The current UI has won awards, and more than a few converts once they get used to it.

Re: Too little too late

[CGordy]

I think you may have misread; left hand clutch is still standard. Foot pedals have moved from side to side over the years though.

Re:Too little too late

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I still hate the ribbon. I don't know why ANYBODY would give it an award.

Re:Too little too late

[chargersfan420]

My last car (a Saturn) had P-R-N-D-3-2. The manual said that "3" is every gear except 4, and was good for "trips in town where the vehicle does not exceed 70 km/h", and "2" was every gear except 1. I always thought that was a little strange.

Re:Too little too late

[OneAhead]

DOS wasn't multitasking. Resident in memory? Sure. Running in the background? Not really (in a literate and modern sense at least).
</pedantic nitpick>

Re:Too little too late

[OneAhead]

And all this time I thought the ROM BIOS wasn't an operating system....

Re:Too little too late

[vandamme]

I just downloaded and installed a new operating system, and it has a menu button in the left corner bottom, just as God intended.
When I press the "Windows" key, the menu pops up and I can find all my apps, categorized neat & tidy.
What's the problem?

Re:Too little too late

[armanox]

That's what my Saturn says too (I have a 95 SL1 and my other car is an 88 Mustang LX). I use the manual gears for the occasional mountain trips, and for those pesky occasions the brakes don't work right.

Re:Too little too late

[drinkypoo]

And all this time I thought the ROM BIOS wasn't an operating system....

In most cases Windows 3.1 made DOS interrupt calls on a regular basis, some of which made ROM BIOS calls...

Re: Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Laughably, their little 'cunning plan' had most likely backfired. People who are pissed off with Windows 8 on the desktop most probably won't get a Win8 tablet or phone.

P.S: What's the statistically insignificant market share of Surface and Windows phones?

Re:Too little too late

[WinstonWolfIT]

I'd mod you punny but I've already posted.

Re:Too little too late

[scarboni888]

The first Windows opating system was released in 1985:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0

Re:Too little too late

[robthebloke]

+ Ireland, + Malta.

Re: Too little too late

[rpstrong]

D'oh! Of course they are; releasing the clutch while cranking the throttle was a pain. (I haven't been on one for decades.) It was indeed the pedals (only) that changed.

Re:Too little too late

[Marxist Hacker 42]

My Prius Hybrid (first actual automatic I've owned) has "B" gear for this (which, in cruise control, switches on regenerative *and* connects the gas engine without turning it on- no fuel usage at all and gas engine used as a vacuum pump for braking- at least until the batteries are full, then it starts using the radiator to dump waste heat)

No

[Stargoat]

Microsoft cannot stop the exodus. And it is only going to speed up once smart phone docking stations become ubiquitous.

My smart phone has almost as much horsepower as my PC. There's no reason in the world why I should not be able to hook up my IBM Model M, a mouse, and a couple of large monitors to it for the purposes of media creation. Once this happens commonly, it's all over for Microsoft.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you have a crappy PC.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Your smartphone has almost as much power as your PC? May I ask how old your PC is?

I see smart phones being able to replace the PC for most "average" users, but to state they are almost as powerful as a PC is a pretty bold statement. Even the lowest end consumer PCs today are much more powerful than any smartphone. The question is- Do most users need that power?

Re:No

[Seumas]

Microsoft cannot stop the exodus. And it is only going to speed up once smart phone docking stations become ubiquitous.

My smart phone has almost as much horsepower as my PC.

Unless your PC is extremely crappy, then it really doesn't.

There's no reason in the world why I should not be able to hook up my IBM Model M, a mouse, and a couple of large monitors to it for the purposes of media creation. Once this happens commonly, it's all over for Microsoft.

Sure. I bet you'll have no problem pumping out enough pixels for a 7680x1600 display (or even 2560x1600, with a single monitor) to play games on or create and render video content on. Why, I bet that's just around the corner.

Of course, then what desktops can do by that point will be far greater than they are now and the standard will have shifted.

Your $200 pocket phone can do a lot of things that it couldn't do a decade ago, but it will always trail behind what is possible with more dedicated hardware and is a very long time off from being able to do everything you need to a satisfactory degree such that you don't need any other form of computing. It can't even compete with a standalone digital camera, yet (unless your needs are very minimal -- just for snapping pictures of your drunk idiot friends at a frat party or something).

That said, I have no doubt that Microsoft would be willing to just dump the whole market and dedicate themselves to mobile, because -- by sheer numbers -- that's going to end up more profitable the same way it's more profitable to make a mediocre show that ten million people watch than an award-winning highly revered show that only four million people watch.

Re:No

[Paperweight]

"If only my phone had a PS/2 port..."

Re:No

[Hatta]

Your $200 pocket phone can do a lot of things that it couldn't do a decade ago

A $200 pocket phone can do a lot of things a full desktop PC couldn't do a decade ago.

it will always trail behind what is possible with more dedicated hardware

If commodity hardware does everything I need, why do I care what is possible with dedicated hardware?

It can't even compete with a standalone digital camera, yet (unless your needs are very minimal -- just for snapping pictures of your drunk idiot friends at a frat party or something).

Most people have very minimal needs.

Re:No

[Billly Gates]

Smart phones have more graphics power than an intel chipset sadly. Maybe the newest are fine but if you have a crappy GMA 915 or even the 2000 with an ATOM it will be inferior to my 2 year old Galaxy S 1!

I think you underestimate how cheap the OEMs are when it comes to just satisfying the cpu mhz speed and ram but including bottom of the line components for everything. Most do not run dedicated graphics and the embedded is 10 years obsolete on 70% of all new pcs.

A smartphone is a top of the line PC from 10 years ago. My Galaxy s1 is very similiar to my Windows2000 machine back then with 512 megs of ram, 700 mhz pentium III processor, and geforce2MX graphics.

Re:No

[firex726]

Yea, in terms of light web browsing and made some word processing a phone could work; but no way can it replace a full PC, even if you had the power the OS versioning is so fragmented and SW can be so outdated or unsupported it'd be nigh impossible.

Re:No

[Kjella]

Or just a sufficient PC... A modern smartphone has a gigahertz processor, a gigabyte of RAM and for plain 2D it can do a full desktop no problem. The question is do you really have a horsepower problem or do you have an interface problem? Yes, if you're doing 300 DPI poster layouts you'll need more but a lot of people today do "media creation" that'll be a part of a 2MP web page, they just need to be able to see it up close and manipulate it. Also note that a docked cell phone can run at whatever speed the cooling solution can handle, it's no longer limited to energy saving modes to keep it working all day. If most smart phones were x86 I think it'd already have happened, but the only two who can produce x86 chips don't want to kill the PC market.

Re:No

[Mashiki]

Or just a sufficient PC... A modern smartphone has a gigahertz processor, a gigabyte of RAM and for plain 2D it can do a full desktop no problem.

Uh...if sufficient you mean a PC from 2001, then I guess so.

Re:No

[Mashiki]

A $200 pocket phone can do a lot of things a full desktop PC couldn't do a decade ago.

Like what? Video games, movies, web content, email/IM, well those are all on the same. Calculating large mathematical equations, yep on that one too. No I'm seeing a fundamental lack of what that $200 phone could do compared to a 10 year old PC. In fact, I'd say that they could do the same thing though that new phone is only about on par with that PC from 10 years ago.

Re:No

[Joce640k]

Or just a sufficient PC...

Or he doesn't really do any work on it.

Re:No

[Minwee]

A modern smartphone has a gigahertz processor, a gigabyte of RAM

A modern smart phone has an ARM processor, which is nothing at all like the more powerful CPUs used in desktop PCs.

If most smart phones were x86 I think it'd already have happened, but the only two who can produce x86 chips don't want to kill the PC market.

If smart phones were built on x86 they would be the size of a football and you would need to carry the battery on your back. The complete System on a Chip used in a smart phone consumes around one or two watts, while the smallest embedded i3 CPU alone draws ten times that much. There's a very good reason for not using x86 processors in embedded devices and it isn't "Intel doesn't feel like making them", but rather "It's like swatting a fly with a Cadillac".

Re:No

[h4rr4r]

Go google the RAZR M. Intel sells an x86ish SOC. It is not the full x86 with PCI that we all know and love though. Too bad about that too, else it could run normal linux builds.

Re:No

[afidel]

The international version of the Galaxy 3S produces ~6400 BogoMIPS, about 20% more than a CoreDuo from 2006. Add in the fact that it has a pretty sweet GPU and the average users really can't tell the difference.

Re:No

[interkin3tic]

Perhaps he was overstating the current situation, "media creation" seems unlikely, but most people don't do much besides internet browsing and typing on their laptops, which phones can handle. From what I've heard, the motorola atrix keyboard and monitor were a bit gimmicky, but I think before too long, that will be satisfactory for most people.

Re:No

[UltraZelda64]

They do if they continue to run the bloated (yet increasingly dumbed down) garbage that Microsoft keeps churning out.

Re:No

[Kjella]

If smart phones were built on x86 they would be the size of a football

Actually it would look like this...

Re:No

[Hatta]

You've got 2 gigs of RAM instead of 1 or even 512mb. You've got hardware accelerated video playback. You've got voice recognition that actually works. You have GPS, accelerometers, and a camera all built in. You have network access through wifi, the cell network, and bluetooth. 2003 wishes it had all that.

Re:No

[AcidPenguin9873]

A $200 pocket phone can do a lot of things a full desktop PC couldn't do a decade ago.

A $200 pocket phone still cannot do a lot of things a full desktop PC could do a decade ago.

Most people have very minimal needs.

I would say "Most people's needs are minimal." The distinction is very important. Most people have some computing needs that cannot be met by touch-only input and a slow processor (i.e. smartphone and/or tablet).

There are even some people who have many computing needs that cannot be met by devices like that.

I think the percentage of people who can meet all of their computing needs with a smartphone and/or tablet, and who will not ever need a notebook or desktop computer, is still low enough that calling Microsoft Windows dead is just silly.

Re:No

[Beorytis]

If commodity hardware does everything I need, why do I care what is possible with dedicated hardware?

You don't and shouldn't!

Most people have very minimal needs.

You are right. Even their wants are not often very extreme. This is why I'm predicting that Windows on the desktop will end up being only for those who are not "most people".

Re:No

[h4rr4r]

Which would be for everything but modern games.
If you just want a web browser and an office application it should more than handle that.

Re:No

[FuzzNugget]

Indeed the hardware is there and is capable, but it's only half of the equation. The other half is software, which is where Microsoft still has the upper hand.

Mobile software still sucks for anything but consumption. Apps are so crippled and limited that I struggle to call them "apps" more so than I do "applets".

Re:No

[Kjella]

Uh...if sufficient you mean a PC from 2001, then I guess so.

My ultra-portable laptop from 2002 had a single-core 750 MHz Pentium III-M processor, 128MB RAM and 20GB HDD so you're off by at least a couple years if you want it to be as apples-to-apples as the comparison goes. The latest Samsung Galaxy S4 that launches in 10 days has a 1.9 GHz quad-core Krait 300 (GT-I9505 version), 2 GB LPDDR3 RAM and 64 GB of flash - it'd run a million circles around my old laptop.

Re:No

[Scragglykat]

I have a PC from 2003 that wanted me to offer a rebuttal... because it is way faster than the latest smartphone, has 2GB of RAM, hardware accelerated video playback (albeit, from a video card from less than a decade ago... but let's see you upgrade the video on your phone in 5 years)... the all those other features could be had as add-ons, assuming they are relevant to the platform.

Re:No

[Anonymous Cowled]

The international version of the Galaxy 3S produces ~6400 BogoMIPS

produces ~6400 BogoMIPS

BogoMIPS

LOL. Bogomips. From Bogus and MIPS. How many millions (or is it billions?) of times per second can the processor do absolutely nothing. Good argument. ;-)

Re:No

[amicusNYCL]

You've got 2 gigs of RAM instead of 1 or even 512mb. You've got hardware accelerated video playback.

That's fantastic, you can finally replace your 10-year-old Windows XP PC with a phone dock. Meanwhile, my PC has 8GB of RAM, a few hundred GB of SSD storage plus 2TB of HDD storage, and a GeForce GTX 580 (that comes with 512 cores, compared to your phone's 1-16; with room for a second GTX, if necessary). I'll leave out my CPU because I don't want your phone to recognize your voice and start crying. I'm not going to be replacing my PC with a phone any time soon.

Re:No

[flimflammer]

Gigahertz has not been a particularly big matter of distinction in PCs in a long time now. There's lots of other things that go alongside it. Really, your modern phone does not hold a candle to even the lowest tier of PC being shoveled out on the market today.

It may be sufficient for him and maybe you, but that's sort of like stopping advancement and keeping technology in the mid 2000s for the sake of one guy who doens't happen to do much computing in the first place. I have to question what he defines "media creation" as, as anything video would take eons to encode on a phone. Even photography retouching thorugh Photoshop can be a lengthy endevor on strong machines, let alone using a "modern smartphone"

Re:No

[Hatta]

A $200 pocket phone still cannot do a lot of things a full desktop PC could do a decade ago.

Only because the software isn't there. And fixing that is only a matter of time.

I would say "Most people's needs are minimal." The distinction is very important. Most people have some computing needs that cannot be met by touch-only input and a slow processor (i.e. smartphone and/or tablet).

For typing, you can use a bluetooth keyboard. The CPU is really only a bottleneck on things like video compression, compiling source code, or mining bitcoins. Not things most people need.

I think the percentage of people who can meet all of their computing needs with a smartphone and/or tablet, and who will not ever need a notebook or desktop computer, is still low enough that calling Microsoft Windows dead is just silly.

You're right, in that that percentage is low. But it's getting higher and higher at increasing rates, and there's no indication that that trend will reverse.

Re:No

[Kjella]

It's still an Atom processor, not a true x86. If you don't understand the difference you may want to do some serious reading before you make yourself look even more foolish.

Sweet little troll, x86 is an instruction set and Atoms are as true as they come. In fact it supports x86-64 as well, not the oldest Atoms but even this little smart phone is a full 64 bit processor. It's not very fast but if you think that's anything to do with it you're the foolish one.

Re:No

[Hatta]

I won't be replacing my PC with a phone any time soon either. But my mom could replace her PC with a phone or tablet today and lose nothing. Most people are more like my mom than they are like you or me.

Re:No

[jxander]

If full size PC rigs become the niche of the nerd or gamer, then wouldn't it stand to reason that Linux gaming might make a rise.

Re:No

[UnknownSoldier]

>> A $200 pocket phone still cannot do a lot of things a full desktop PC could do a decade ago.
> Only because the software isn't there. And fixing that is only a matter of time. ... The CPU is really only a bottleneck

Can I have some of what you are smoking please?

1. Let me know when I can _compile_ on a smart phone. Last time I checked there is NO native compiler running on iOS -- you need a "real" computer (aka desktop) for that. Likewise for game development you're not going to use some shitty 1 GB mobile CPU when you have 16 GB or more plus an i7 for game development. Maybe you'll complain most people don't need "high end code editing". Fine. Let me know when I can edit my HTML / Javascript pages on a phone. Just because you _can_ do it, doesn't mean you _should_ do it. My next point addresses this:

2. Why the hell would I even try to develop on a phone at a crappy low res phone display 1000x600 when I have 2560x1440 27" monitor to write code on AND a 2nd 1920x1080 monitor to run my app on??

IF phones would let me extend their "screen" to a REAL monitor then Yes, you MIGHT have a point someday.

At least you didn't mention the GPU. The advancement of GPU and OpenGL is moving along quite nicely. Every iOS user needs to check out "The Room" for a perfect example of how to properly use a GPU ! https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-room/id552039496?mt=8

Just in case you don't get it. The KEY point is:

Mobile = great for consuming content,
Desktop = great for creating content.

Will Mobile catch up to the Desktop? Yes, I agree the gap will significantly decrease but I seriously doubt it will even come close within 10 years. The number of people consuming content is always much > the number of people creating content.

--
In other news ZDnet is dead. I haven't read "PC Magazine" in years.

Re:No

[Bacon Bits]

A $200 pocket phone can do a lot of things a full desktop PC couldn't do a decade ago.

A $200 pocket phone still cannot do a lot of things a full desktop PC could do a decade ago.

I would say it depends if you mean a $200 pocket phone, or a $1000 pocket phone "discounted" to $200 with a 2 year contract. If the local ISP sold a $1000 laptop for $200 with the caveat that I use their network for 2 years, they'd sell a shitload of computers. However, since the ISP telecom market is an oligopoly full of non-competition agreements and price fixing (in the US at least) there's no incentive for them to do this like there is for wireless companies.

Hm. I wonder how well Verizon would sell tablets if they offered them for $50 with a 2-3 year contract?

Most people have very minimal needs.

I would say "Most people's needs are minimal." The distinction is very important. Most people have some computing needs that cannot be met by touch-only input and a slow processor (i.e. smartphone and/or tablet).

Agreed. At some point almost everybody misses a mouse and keyboard. Or at least misses having a typewriter. I can't imagine doing one's taxes on an iPad or smartphone would be particularly enjoyable. However, I'm sure someone here on SlashDot is jonesing to reply and tell me I'm wrong and that their iTax experience was orgasmic.

There are even some people who have many computing needs that cannot be met by devices like that.

I think the percentage of people who can meet all of their computing needs with a smartphone and/or tablet, and who will not ever need a notebook or desktop computer, is still low enough that calling Microsoft Windows dead is just silly.

Also agreed. The tech business media can't tell the difference between a mature market (PCs) and an emerging one (smartphones and tablets). The PC market is stagnant due in part to Windows 8 not being what people want (compared to Windows 7, which was exactly what most people wanted). Office 2013 is fantastic, outside of the shoehorned cloud BS, but the major benefit I see over office 2010 is that MDI is finally dead. That matters to me since I use a lot of Excel on multiple monitors, but it won't matter to most people. Office 2010 is largely good enough, and Office 2013 can be seen as just adding bloated cloud nonsense.

The existence and popularity of Windows 8 Start Menu applications like Start8 and Pokki should be telling MS designers that not an insignificant number of their desktop users want the functionality they spent the last 15 years building in to the Start button, even if it doesn't make sense for touch users. Overall, I think Windows 8 should be teaching Microsoft that designing a desktop to be a desktop is what traditional PC users want. People jumped on the GUI and mouse because the DOS command line was shit for getting work done for 95% of the users. Unfortunately, the next big interface innovation, touch, is also shit for getting work done for many users.

Of course, MS might not learn these abject lessons. Ubuntu didn't, and if DistroWatch is any indication users have abandoned it for better, more traditional interfaces in Mint and Mageia (of all distros). Heck, even classic Debian is making a comeback thanks to Unity. Fortunately for Linux, users can more easily control what their desktop looks like. Unfortunately, most regular people don't understand what "OS" even means, so they're going to think that Windows 8 is just the end of the desktop. Until the next version of Windows that doesn't suck comes out.

Re:No

[Mike Frett]

Niche depends on your POV. Where exactly do all those Apps and Games come from? A Desktop of course, It's not going away at all. By the way, Linux Gaming is making a rise, Ubuntu's Software Center and Steam are seeing to that. As for this article, it doesn't matter to me if Microsoft ditched 'Metro' entirely and brought back the Desktop, I will never switch back to Windows after learning what I know about Skype and Windows being Law Enforcements tool.

I mean seriously, do people really not care that someone may be listening and watching everything they do?. And even still, you are forced to use just that one UI, unlike Linux where you have multiple choice. Not to mention when the security updates stop, you are basically forced to upgrade, most times your PC also due to Windows needing more power with each release. At least in Linux (I use Xubuntu) I can add some PPA for back-ports, it's unlikely I'll be hacked or ridden with a Virus even without them. I'm finished with Microsoft, best of luck to them but my 15 year affair with Windows is over.

Re:No

[VortexCortex]

Your $200 pocket phone can do a lot of things that it couldn't do a decade ago, but it will always trail behind what is possible with more dedicated hardware and is a very long time off from being able to do everything you need to a satisfactory degree such that you don't need any other form of computing.

This is where you're wrong: The pocket phone is currently the dedicated hardware. The PC is the general purpose computing. If you plot the graph in both business machines and games you'll see that it points towards more general purpose hardware. Pinball (one game per machine) / Adding Machine (one use per machine) -> digital machines with more than one application, but dedicated to running only one (Arcade cabinets, whole-room computers, fax machines, teletype) -> Machines that can select between applications ( game consoles, desktop computers (look! faxmodems) ) -> More multifunction machines adopting every possible feature -- Consoles & PCs with games, social networking, movies, (they're the same damn thing now) Portable computers -> Smart Phones and tablets (Just integrating a cell phone into a small portable PC, really). However, this first few generations of mega mobile PCs (smart phones / tablets) had to take a hit in the processor department -- Much like Consoles did compared to Arcades, or how minicomputers did compared to mainframes... Guess what? Consoles and Minicomputers won out, they were more unibiquitous due to availability. Just like phones and tablets are becomming. Eventually the faster hardware cycles meant that consoles surpassed arcade cabinets, or were at parity. This is what you can expect in the "PC" vs "mobile PC w/ phone" department.

Sorry pall. I agree with you to an extent, but you either don't know your history, or are being willfully ignorant of it as it repeats all around you time and again. It's a real pain in the ass to synchronize shit, even when it works it's screwed simply because it's nicer for all your stuff to be in one device (no sync needed). You'll have your big screen HD wall of monitors -- You'll even have a keyboard and mouse -- There will even be a media / controller system to control it all, but you'll be using a touch screen to do WACOM and other interface, and it'll store and process your data in conjunction with everything else -- It'll be the hub since you can take it with you. I mean, it's not like computers are still the size of buildings or rooms or closets or desks or crates anymore...

Re:No

[exomondo]

Dude I've got a Nexus 7 and the thing can barely scroll web pages smoothly...I certainly wouldn't be using that thing as my primary computer.

Re:No

[Zaelath]

Voice recognition is about tuning software, it's not a hardware advance. And then you have Siri... a VR service that relies on offload to a server farm at Apple, it's not "on the phone".

GPS, accelerometers, and a camera are all; a) useless or peripherals, not unavailable, b) so horribly draining on battery they require a battery pack the size of a car for life support (in the case of GPS)

Wifi was certainly an available option on a PC in 2003, and as for cell and *snicker* bluetooth networking, they aren't anything a desktop needs either. It's like saying "Well, this Lamborghini is a fine car, but it doesn't have a winch or off-road tyres..."

Re:No

[Mashiki]

My ultra-portable laptop from 2002 had a single-core 750 MHz Pentium III-M processor....so you're off by at least a couple years if you want it to be as apples-to-apples as the comparison goes

Uh, no. The coppermine T was released in 2000, and there were 1.5Ghz versions in mid 2001, though memory in itself was still limited due to the cost per-unit, I do remember building more than a few thousand machines with 1GB of memory onboard.

Re:No

[armanox]

Mine's a little beefier then that - 1.2GHz Pentium III-M, 1GB RAM, and an 80GB HDD (ok, it had a 40 in it when I got it, but still). RAM and graphics are definatly better on the S4 (PC-133 and an Intel i845....Linux doesn't even support the i8xx series anymore).

Re:No

[armanox]

While my SGI gently weeps....

(Two Octanes and an O2 sitting here. After I got them I found out I'm missing part of my IRIX disk set....)

Re:No

[toddestan]

Ultra-portables tend to lag behind a bit. I have a PC from 2001 here, a P4 1.5Ghz with 1GB of Rambus memory(!), 40GB hard drive, and GeForce 2 something-or-another. Must have cost someone a fortune when it was new. I bought it for something like $100 used in 2006 and ran Linux on it for several years.

Re:No

[jones_supa]

Heh, I snickered too. But at the same note I must say that the often used "gigahertz" is also a very bogus way to describe a CPU's performance.

Re:No

[jones_supa]

Sometimes I feel the opposite: the people who brag how they need gobs of jigabytez and corez, do not do any real work with their machines...

Re:No

[Cederic]

1. Let me know when I can _compile_ on a smart phone. Last time I checked there is NO native compiler running on iOS -- you need a "real" computer (aka desktop) for that.

Oh, I agree. Something like an Android phone.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui&hl=en

Re:No

[Xest]

To be fair I wouldn't say your laptop was typical of the time. I bought a Dell Inspiron 8200 that same year and it had a 2ghz P4 processor, 512mb RAM, a 60gb HDD, and a GeForce graphics card (can't remember specs of it) but your point still holds regardless.

Re:No

[thegarbz]

Most people have very minimal needs.

No. True to the old saying "What Intel giveth Microsoft taketh away," most people actually have a surprising need for power.

The average users these days is a user who will run Windows 7, watch high-def content in flash, open a website full of animation, sound, and crappy adverts, the average users have phones with 720p video support at a minimum, and +10mpxl cameras are becoming the norm. The average users will not want to sit around waiting for images to appear, or for video to render for hours.

The quality of content creation, and the quality of content being absorbed is what will drive hardware. Minimum system specs for Windows 8 are 20GB of harddisk space and 2GB of RAM which should give you some indication of just how much code you can expect your computer to have to play around with just to provide an operating system. Phones are similar. When I look at how ungodly slow the Facebook app runs on a Galaxy S despite it being a flagship phone from only 3 years ago it would make your eyes water.

Minimal needs does not mean crap hardware.

Re:No

[Stuarticus]

To be fair in 5 years he's going to have "updated" his phone about 3 times and that phone will probably be looking somewhat askance at the computer you have on your desk right now.

Re:No

[jrugger75]

Not true. The Atom doesn't include any of the floating point capabilities. Also, most (all?) Atoms are 32 bit, not 64.

Re:No

[strikethree]

Sure. I bet you'll have no problem pumping out enough pixels for a 7680x1600 display (or even 2560x1600, with a single monitor) to play games on or create and render video content on.

And my current PC can do this? It has a rough time with 2560x1600 on modern games with 4x Anti-aliasing. The video card is a 460GTX.

Seriously, I would be pretty happy if I could just dock my phone. Most of the stuff I do does not require much horsepower. I was pretty happy with my 486 and my only complaint at the time was that I only had 12 megabytes of RAM rather than 16.

Granted, software has bloated up, even Linux, but the 700+ megabytes of RAM and its CPU is enough for a fun desktop experience with Linux.

Re:No

[Marxist Hacker 42]

With a proper docking station, you can externalize the GPU:
http://www.amazon.com/AOC-E1649FWU-USB-Powered-Portable-Monitor/dp/B005SEZR0G

Re:No

[Marxist Hacker 42]

My phone seems to be able to capture video just fine. 99% of the world doesn't need to edit to upload to facebook.

Re:No

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Most phones use cloud drives anyway. The "data" lives in some server farm someplace.

Big square uniformly-shaded buttons.

[Animats]

Now if we can just stop the trend of dumbed down web sites composed of big square buttons with uniform shading.

Re:Big square uniformly-shaded buttons.

[mikael]

Just about every user interface has some kind of texturing or subtle shadowing (even 1980's DOS games has some kind of texture like marble for their score panels). If Microsoft had done some themes like industrial/technical (rotating lights, yellow/black lines), urban (grafitti/sidewalk/neon lights style), cyberpunk (varnished wood/copper), they would have made the user interface much more interesting with minimum effort. Or at least allowed people to customize the theme.

Re:Big square uniformly-shaded buttons.

[Synerg1y]

deviantart.com > windows customizations???

They did make it so you can make your own UI and replace theirs, what else can you want? Your own personal Microsoft programmer?

Re:Big square uniformly-shaded buttons.

[Animats]

They did make it so you can make your own UI and replace theirs, what else can you want?

That kind of answer is why open source consistently loses on the desktop.

Re:Big square uniformly-shaded buttons.

[just_a_monkey]

Using 3rd party themes require you to install modified system files first: http://www.askvg.com/how-to-install-use-custom-3rd-party-themes-in-windows-xp-vista-and-7/. And a quick search seems to indicate that this is necessary in 8 as well.

I think that's more like "they didn't go far out of their way to stop you from..." rather than "made it so that...".

Windows 7

[Todd Knarr]

Suggestion to MS: just put the Windows 7 UI back on. Oh, and while you're at it, tweak Office to honor the UI theme instead of implementing it's own.

Re:Windows 7

[roc97007]

Dunno about you, but I'm in no hurry to update Office, so whether the latest version forces the new gui is not important.

Incidentally, I confirmed last weekend that Office 2000 works on Windows 8. I'm good.

Re:Windows 7

[Jezisheck]

I like it's UI. Except for that missing Start button. got great app for that and I'm fine. And Office is fine too. Really nice looking.

Re:Windows 7

[Billly Gates]

At this date I only send documents that are .docx or .xlsx MS OpenXML. Good luck with that and hope you are not sending out resumes with that format. A hint. that table that looks fine will look like crap and be misformatted in my Word 2010 viewer. I will throw it out and go to another candidate.

Re:Windows 7

[roc97007]

At this date I only send documents that are .docx or .xlsx MS OpenXML. Good luck with that and hope you are not sending out resumes with that format. A hint. that table that looks fine will look like crap and be misformatted in my Word 2010 viewer. I will throw it out and go to another candidate.

Apparently you've never heard of the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. Google it; it's a free download.

A hint: Don't send out resumes in docx format unless you're trying to get a job as an MCSE. Use pdf.

Re:Windows 7

[Sperbels]

I like the UI too. It's pretty neat for what it's for...tablets and phones. However, I use a mouse and full size keyboard and two monitors at work. I use all the hotkeys, use alt-tabbing, use the function keys, and flip between perhaps 10 - 20 windows in a typical day. I don't need a tablet UI for this, I need a desktop UI. In short, Windows 8 decreases my productivity.

Re:Windows 7

[Synerg1y]

Do it yourself: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2027945/how-to-banish-metro-from-your-windows-8-pc-forever.html

Re:Windows 7

[fahrbot-bot]

Do it yourself: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2027945/how-to-banish-metro-from-your-windows-8-pc-forever.html

That article is interesting, but merely proposes replacing all the native productivity applications with third-party versions and suitably reconfiguring the system and desktop. If one is going to go through that much trouble, why not simply switch to another platform like Linux, *BSD or OS X? (I know I will.)

Re:Windows 7

[Bacon Bits]

Actually, I've had several job listings specifically require either a Word document or text pasted into a web form (usually HR software from Aspex or similar). You can't submit a PDF. You couldn't submit a .docx, either, since the version I used required a .doc file extension. It's a huge pain in the ass to anonymize a Word document and remove all tracked changes.

I suppose it makes sense. Even an idiot can upload a badly formatted Word document, but a fair portion of the general population has no idea what a PDF printer is.

Re:Windows 7

[roc97007]

i was one of those who hated hated hated moving from office 2000 to office 2007..
and you know ?
office 2007 really is a lot better, on average; sure there are places it is worse, but on average, it is better

And you know? It doesn't really matter. At work, where the company provides my tools, I use Office 2007. It's ok... shrug... it's just another version of Office. At home, I use the last version that I purchased, (Office 2000) and will continue to use that until it doesn't work anymore, for a reasonable definition of "work". I feel no inclination at all to spend $322 (amazon) to be able to say "Ooooh. Ribbons!".

Mind you, there's basic functionality, and then there's categories where I actually need closer-to-cutting-edge stuff, and it's important to know the difference. I'm primarily a photographer, so am inclined to keep moderately up to date on the Adobe suite. (Although even there, I'm currently a major release behind.) Office, is like, pad and paper. Yes, I use it almost every day. No, I don't need the latest and greatest. Not even a little bit. I might feel differently were I a technical writer by profession. Just as, professional coders probably need a close-to-recent version of code development tools, web designers need relatively recent versions of web development tools, and so forth. I'd hazard a guess that most people who are not tech writers don't really need to drop three-plus benjamins every time a new version of Office comes out.

Re:Windows 7

[vux984]

If one is going to go through that much trouble, why not simply switch to another platform like Linux, *BSD or OS X? (I know I will.)

Because their accounting software, video games, and so forth all still work just fine in Windows 8 and would either have to be purchased in an OSX version or discarded outright in many cases.

I like Linux as much as anyone on slashdot can, but I've got 100+ games from GoG, Steam, HumbleBundles etc. Only a fraction of those work on other platforms.

I don't really want to start over with a new accounting system, so I'll be sticking with windows for that.

More over, most of the stuff in that article was superflous, the average person who wants to "fix" win8 doesn't need to do 3/4s of it. Spend a few minutes cleaning up the live tiles and start screen, fix a few default file associations so that they launch suitable desktop apps, and those are the big two.

Adding a start menu app maybe. Personally I like to disable hot corners and put in a start menu button that launches the Win8 start screen ... because in my case once the start screen is cleaned up its actually pretty good... but I still hate hot corners.

Re:Windows 7

[roc97007]

There will always be exceptions to the rule.

Re:Windows 7

[roc97007]

I use edlin and 7-bit ascii graphics characters to edit my resumes you insensitive clod...
requires a dos emulator to run the bat file that cats the text - if running on a modern system, you have to load up at least 256 copies of moslow
for it not to scroll by at light-speed.

...wow... I'd forgotten I'd even known that. I remember moslow. Used it on old Wing Commander games when the hardware got too fast.

But seriously, I still use VI daily, and it's four years older than edlin. So if you want me offa your lawn, you have to do better than that. :-)

And somewhere online I still have my original IT professional resume, in .fm format. Those were the days... Mind you, not *good* days, but days...

Re:Windows 7

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how people on this website are always bragging that they don't hire people for the most ridiculous reasons, and without ever even indicating those reasons.
I hope I never have to apply to work at a place with brain dead people like that doing the hiring.

Re:Windows 7

[roc97007]

This.

Re:Windows 7

[vux984]

I don't think you realize how many jobs request word format. It's not an exception to the rule if it happens so often that it becomes the rule.

Frankly, I'm with you, I prefer pdf all the way for any sort of non-collaborative inter-business documentation, including resumes.

However, the reality out there is that more often than not they want MS Word format.

I think its one part because the HR person doesn't know better, one part because some non-trivial fraction of PDF applications are something containing pictures of the pages of a resume that were scanned in upside down after uncrumpling the paper copy they pulled out of the trash

In large enterprises there's also the group that wants to pre-process the applications automatically with some tool that handles word documents before even looking at them.

Re:Windows 7

[Todd Knarr]

Which .docx format? The ECMA-376 1st Edition version included in Word 2007, or the ISO/IEC 29500:2008 Transitional included in Word 2010? And what about the formal 29500:2008 Strict format, which the Office OpenXML standard says should be preferred to Transitional but which Word can't write? It makes a difference, since ECMA-376 and 29500:2008 aren't compatible (among other things, date formats differ and dates valid in one format are illegal in the other). I don't know if Office 2013 introduced another variation on the format, I need to remain compatible with work so I can't install Office later than 2010.

Re:Windows 7

[dissy]

Incidentally, I confirmed last weekend that Office 2000 works on Windows 8. I'm good.

That you very much for that. I actually had scheduled testing Office 2000 on Windows 7 this week at work, which is at least now one less thing to worry about working around.
(Old crusty ERP systems, massive dependencies on all sorts of MS products, and frightening hard coded bits n bobs - makes for a slow migration off XP :/ )

The best part of Office 2000 is you don't need to activate it, which means you CAN still use it.
Unlike Office 2003 and 2007, for which Microsoft has shut down the online activation server for, and refuses to reactivate 2003 via phone anymore.
As if our 150 Office 2003 licenses screamed out in terror all at once and then were null routed.

Re:Windows 7

[Billly Gates]

Which .docx format? The ECMA-376 1st Edition version included in Word 2007, or the ISO/IEC 29500:2008 Transitional included in Word 2010? And what about the formal 29500:2008 Strict format, which the Office OpenXML standard says should be preferred to Transitional but which Word can't write? It makes a difference, since ECMA-376 and 29500:2008 aren't compatible (among other things, date formats differ and dates valid in one format are illegal in the other). I don't know if Office 2013 introduced another variation on the format, I need to remain compatible with work so I can't install Office later than 2010.

Which is a greater reason to keep updated. THe compatiblity pack for Office 2003 does not cover it so there will be some formatting issues the longer you keep Office 2000. I can't stand Office 2013, and spent extra money to downgrade to Office 2010, grrr thanks MS for ordering retailers to destoy all older copies so Amazon can boast the price of its older products on its users.

Re:Windows 7

[roc97007]

I've been using Office 2000 on Windows 7 for years. (Except for (shudder) Frontpage, of course.) I know that eventually M$ will make a version of the OS on which 2000 doesn't run. Then, I'll stay on the last version of the OS on which it does run for as long as I can, and by then maybe the tools I need will be ported to Android and I can be done with Windows. But buying new versions just because Ballmer thinks I should is just flat out not acceptable.

I wondered how activation was supposed to work when the product is deprecated. Thanks for that info. It's remarkable that you can buy a product, and find that the product you've purchased can't be re-installed (because it will no longer activate) even though it is still useful to you. It's almost like you have to pirate the product to use the instance you have purchased.

Re:Windows 7

[antdude]

FYI. Office 2000 can't open password protected DOCX files from newer ones like Office Mac 2010. I discovered this a couple months ago. :(

Re:Windows 7

[dissy]

It's beyond ridiculous.
Back in Jan I tried installing an Office 2003 basic, and kept getting errors during online activation.
Couldn't ping Microsofts server, and a traceroute showed a router upstream was returning ICMP "network administratively down" messages.

Ok, so telephone activation it is. The first guy claimed ignorance and told me his computer was down so he couldn't look up a code, and to try again in a bit in case the server is over loaded.
Sure, OK. An hour later, same results.
This time the phone rep told me there was a retroactive change in policy for office 2003 that happened the first of this year, you are now only allowed one installation per key and zero reinstalls. Including for HD failures, as was the case here (our previous base system image didn't include office, as not every PC needed it)

So the fact it was installed to a HD that died once was one install too many. They refused to reactivate it and told me to purchase a newer Office 365 subscription (HA!)

Our ERP client won't even work with access 2007, let alone anything newer or a web based product you can't pass DDE messages into.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact this is at my place of work, I would have pirated it in an instant with zero remorse.

However in the past 5 years, we've gone from a 100% microsoft shop run by my predecessor, to what is currently about 75% windows / 25% linux, and with the exception of Outlook, I've gotten us down almost to 50/50% on MS office / LibreOffice.
Thankfully I have 250 Outlook 2007 licenses from the open license program, so they don't require activation.

When the entire front office and all the managers need to run reports out of ERP, at least until the vendor updates the crap to use a real reporting engine, we're a bit stuck.
The sad part is, it was only about 2-3 months ago they released a point-version that (barely) installs and runs on anything newer than XP! Access to .net screen conversion is still 9 months down the road!

Re:Windows 7

[roc97007]

> This time the phone rep told me there was a retroactive change in policy for office 2003 that happened the first of this year, you are now only allowed one installation per key and zero reinstalls. Including for HD failures, as was the case here (our previous base system image didn't include office, as not every PC needed it)

That borders on criminal.

It sounds like you should make disk images of the remaining systems that are at risk, so you could restore to new hard drives as necessary.

Re:Windows 7

[armanox]

Newegg, Lenovo, HP, and Dell will all sell you desktops with W7 on them. I think Microcenter still caries them too.

Re:Windows 7

[jawtheshark]

What surprises me more is that we didn't hear about this on slashdot or mainstream news. I think this should have been front page news. I didn't know, obviously, as I migrated to Linux, but I can imagine being infuriated when such a thing happens. Wonder what will happen when XP is EOL. They claimed to release an unlock patch, but I have my doubts now.

Re:Windows 7

[drinkypoo]

Oh, and while you're at it, tweak Office to honor the UI theme instead of implementing it's own.

That would not be a tweak. Office has used its own widget set since Office 97 at the latest. And it's shit, too. Put office 97 on the second display on an XP multi-display system, open up a popup menu, and laugh and laugh.

Re:Windows 7

[drinkypoo]

Applying for a job someplace that won't take a PDF is going to result in one of three kinds of hell. Either someplace whose HR department is so incompetent that they have to use headhunters, who typically produce poor results, or someplace where the HR department is so incompetent that they can't print or annotate a PDF, or someplace that won't buy their HR department acrobat pro so they can annotate PDFs (or training to use another tool) and which is therefore too cheap to do business in a sane fashion.

In large enterprises there's also the group that wants to pre-process the applications automatically with some tool that handles word documents before even looking at them.

Oh good, that's just what we need, even less of the personal touch.

Re:Windows 7

[vux984]

Oh good, that's just what we need, even less of the personal touch.

Yeah, I think that's pretty weak too... but I do sympathize with the plight of HR faced with 100s of applicants for the same job.

Something has to pare the job down to manageable, especially when some people looking for work will just carpet bomb every job posting they can find whether they are qualified or not, only takes a few seconds to attach a resume to an online form or email after all, and what have they got to lose?

Re:Windows 7

[Jezisheck]

Then you are using it wrong. I haven't seen Metro for weeks. I boot to desktop, I have normal start button and everything else works like in Win 7. Except it does few more things. it changes the cursor when topmost on the screen, shows additional toolbar on right, but hey: no one is forcing you to click in it when it shows and it doesn't get in the way with neither closing button or start bar icons and can even be turned off. So, investigate on how to use your OS. It is your tool. You are not it's toy. :)

Re:Windows 7

[fiddley]

I second this. I work for a large recruiting firm in London, and almost all the third party tools we use for automating CV entry into our candidate database etc. work exclusivley with Word. It's a real PITA sometimes when we get a PDF and it's impossible to extract the data due to some or other lockdown the candidate has applied.

Er...what exodus?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> will Microsoft's updates be dynamic enough to stop the current Windows exodus?

Er...what exodus? Within the Windows community, people are just opting to stay with Windows 7 rather than go to Windows 8. Same thing happened with XP/Vista...

Re:Er...what exodus?

[roc97007]

I think what is meant by "exodus" in this context is failure to jump on the next version as soon as its available. I think "continued exodus" might mean that of the last six major releases, at least three have been overlooked in significant numbers. That's a lot of money that Microsoft did not receive. (What's wrong with you people??)

Re:Er...what exodus?

[Threni]

> Er...what exodus?

Haven't you been paying attention? No-one's buying Windows PCs any more!

http://parislemon.com/post/47719786064/the-year-of-windows

Microsoft are going to have to wring as much money out of their corporate muppet cash cow over the next 18 months because after that they're fucked.

Re:Er...what exodus?

[Dancindan84]

Within the Windows community, people are just opting to stay with Windows 7 rather than go to Windows 8. Same thing happened with XP/Vista...

And 98/ME...

It's becoming SOP to just skip every second iteration.

Re:Er...what exodus?

[ColdWetDog]

Stay with Windows 7?

You mean upgrade to Windows 7. Most corps are still on XP.

Re:Er...what exodus?

[Sperbels]

Haven't you been paying attention? No-one's buying PCs any more!

FTFY

Re:Er...what exodus?

[GrumpySteen]

No. Your statement is only true if you assume that everyone who buys a tablet is throwing away the computer they already own. That's an incredibly foolish assumption.

Re:Er...what exodus?

[sphantom]

Exodus to mobile devices like tablets and smart phones. It's no secret the PC industry is losing customers as your average non-techie is able to do almost everything they want on a tablet instead of some beige box in the corner of a downstairs den.

I get this kind of blank stare from colleagues at the office too. Let's face it, yes there are many things PC's can do that tablets don't, but those things are being done less and less by the average device buyer. Us techno-literates are a minority. It's myopic to think that just because we need PC's, everyone else does too.

Sorry, I know this wasn't the debate your comment was necessarily aimed at, but it's relevant..

Re:Er...what exodus?

[roc97007]

So "what's meant by 'exodus' in this context" is apparently the exact opposite of the meaning of the word "exodus"?

Exodus means that a large number of people are leaving something. If a large number of people were leaving the Windows platform, that would be an exodus. After a new release, it's proper to expect an exodus from the previous version to the new one. What's happening here is the opposite of that. You might call it an "anti-exodus". We've seen this before, when XP was so entrenched that Vista died.

I agree, and "exodus" is, I think, the wrong word to use. But it was in the original article, and I was trying to speculate on what was meant. In this case, I think it meant getting off the "buy whatever Microsoft craps out as soon as the sphincter snaps shut" bandwagon.

I don't agree that Vista died because XP became entrenched; at best that was a minor factor. Vista died because (a) XP was Good Enough; people could stop worrying about managing the OS and concentrate on getting stuff done, and (b) Vista sucked. Or rather, there was no compelling reason to migrate to Vista, and a lot of compelling reasons not to. Similar to Win8 now.

I really think the days of worrying what new OS versions are on the horizon are basically over. We're high enough up the curve in reliability and feature set that whatever we're running is likely to meet our needs. (Talking about PCs here -- one's mileage will vary on other kinds of appliances.) Win8 has three major hills to climb -- (1) the parts that are better aren't enough better, (2) the parts that suck, sucketh mightily, (3) the users are tired of "upgrade hell" and starting to revolt against the concept of "gotta have that next new release". I don't see 8 getting much traction except in hardware sales where the user doesn't understand that they may have an alternative.

Parenthetically, I think Microsoft needs to stop trying to invent new GUIs for the desktop and concentrate instead on reliability, security, virtualization, and interoperability. But that's just me.

Re:Er...what exodus?

[scarboni888]

And I do.

save it for the next paid iteration

[rjejr]

Windows 8 is already doomed like Me and Vista, they should save this for Winfows 9 or Horizon or Durango or whatever the next 1 will be called. Its too late, the damage has been done.

Re:save it for the next paid iteration

[Captain Splendid]

Canyonero!

Re:save it for the next paid iteration

[u64]

The Maibatsu Thunder!
"On the tall road of life, you have to pay to prove you can."

https://youtube.com/results?q=gta+maibatsu+thunder

Windows is not disappearing anytime soon

[ZeroPly]

From an enterprise viewpoint this looks very different. Right now I am in the middle of our Windows XP to Windows 7 migration. We skipped Vista entirely - when users asked for it, we told them "we don't have the time".

Same thing all over again. It's great that your aunt has a new smartphone that does everything, and she thinks that's the wave of the future. But I have legacy code, ODBC connections, custom written drivers, and automated patching to worry about. Not to even mention bare metal imaging, inventory agents, or the thousands of lines of old batch files that glue things together. About 90% of the enterprise IT guys have told Microsoft "we'll wait for the next bus". What they're doing right now is putting together the next bus. I'm certainly in no hurry, it will be 2014 before we even think of how we're going to implement Win8.

I can cruise on Win7 until 2017. Microsoft is still getting our software assurance money if we upgrade or stay with WinXP. No one's in any hurry right now.

Re:Windows is not disappearing anytime soon

[theurge14]

An interesting "full circle" given the history of the PC that the main reason given now for keeping it around is that is corporate inertia.

Re:Windows is not disappearing anytime soon

[Billly Gates]

Windows will be disappearing.

After 2019 Windows 7 will be EOL. The corps have 2 choices then. Switch to futuristic tablets with bluetooth docking stations for keyboards and mice and host all their legacy IE 6 and win32 apps in a virtualized cloud/server somewhere and use a terminal program? Or continue the complexity with a nasty tablet interface? Businesses in 10 years will pick the later.

Employees will be trained in Android and iOS by then on their own. Same argument existed for the mainframe and VMS too when the PC was new. Look what happened after the products appeared to be stable and enterprise ready? Yes tablets will be enterprise ready then. No active directory needed. That is for the cloud only running legacy products. Just turn them on and fire your I.T. department and save money. DONE.

Statistics are showing this in small business switching to the cloud already. all that legacy odbc is something a cloud providoer can do in a 3rd world country. Look at the trend and not just the present. Windows is a legacy product yes, but that is all it is. It will fade and be treated as such once Windows 7 is EOL.

Re:Windows is not disappearing anytime soon

[Billly Gates]

... I meant businesses will pick the former. Doh

If you are stuck running applets use a tablet with a bluetooth monitor and keyboard doc rather than a bulky non touch PC screen running a tablet OS. The laptop will be the new tablet and you can take it on the go out of the office. Clouds are part of the progression to this and we see it already. How many corps still use Exchange? Sure about 2/3 do, but 1/3 is hosted on outlook.com as an example.

Re:Windows is not disappearing anytime soon

[ZeroPly]

This is not strictly true. The reason for keeping it around is that people like me get to leave at 5pm and do things besides messing with computers.

When we get a new PC in, it takes all of 20 minutes for us to load on a custom image with our network specific settings. Maybe another 15 minutes for Office, Adobe Pro, antivirus, and all the utilities that are installed by default. Applications like Photoshop or AutoCAD might take 10 minutes each. All this is fully automated, an 8th grader would be able to do it once we showed them how the management tools work. And it's over a 1G Ethernet link, so it's fast.

Contrast that to when we get a new iPad in. No PXE booting, no easy configuration through the network. No management tools that are worth a tin shit. I have to physically enter all that information in. Can't even swap in a replicated hard drive since it can't be taken apart. Loading from a USB stick? Hahah... No we have to go through the "cloud" for everything.

This isn't inertia. This is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I do this for a living and have to stay late when things change. Chasing the new shiny from Apple isn't as important to me as getting home in time to get a motorcycle ride in. When the CIO asks me about Windows 8, I just say "let's wait for a start button".

Re:Windows is not disappearing anytime soon

[an unsound mind]

From a consumer viewpoint it looks like Windows 8 is an experiment by Microsoft to try new things to keep up with Apple, and by Windows 9 the problems will be fixed and we'll be back into a variant of the same old UI.

Little risk in experimenting when the vast majority of users will be ones getting it bundled with the hardware - enterprise users won't upgrade this soon after Windows 7, and few people buy the latest version of an operating system if the one they have works for their purposes.

The only thing Microsoft is risking here is the Windows brand, and frankly, after the disaster the Vista launch was, Windows 8 looks small.

Re:Windows is not disappearing anytime soon

[linebackn]

An interesting "full circle" given the history of the PC that the main reason given now for keeping it around is that is corporate inertia.

Exactly, take a look at the software that made companies buy IBM PCs in the first place. These were spread sheets, word processors, databases, financial programs and such. Those needs may seem mundane today but they are not magically going away, and they are just as critical to businesses as they were then. And those are not the sort of things you can easily do on a toy phone or tablet.

Re:Windows is not disappearing anytime soon

[theurge14]

In a way you made my point. There was a time when a PC was the "new shiny". There was a long period of time during PC history when there was no PXE booting and WDS, no AD, no GP, no easy configuration through the network or management tools. But yet it caught on and eventually became what it is now. I look at the large cycle of history of the PC and I see how it replaced the "restrictive" old client-server paradigm in favor of all that local power and freedom on your desktop, only to be retrofitted over the years to go right back where it began with the restricted and confined client-server paradigm. And now we're seeing it start over again with the whole BYOD movement.

Re:Windows is not disappearing anytime soon

[NJRoadfan]

You'd think the simple "sealed box" that an iPad is would be easy to manage.... apparently not. Apple also hasn't figured out that multiple people use iDevices and offers zero multi-user functionality.

Re:Windows is not disappearing anytime soon

[Billly Gates]

You do not need to reimage.

Windows 8 Pro/Exchange 2013 have app downloads tied to each users corporate account that is tied to the profile in a hidden encrypted partition. When the user wants to do something personal he or she logs off and logins in with their hotmail account and his or her personal apps all show up. Easy

Windows Blue and Windows 9 and Exchange 2015 will offer more integration. MS has a demo of it too. This puts an end to Active Directory too for all bout cloud providers serving ancient win32 apps in virtualizers to tablet users. They do not need to upload.

The business world is heading to this too but bare in mind it is typically 5 years behind the consumer market. 5 years ago the IPhone 1 just came out so this is where corporate America is now with Windows RT/8. In the coming years I expect the cloud and tablets to take over everything and end the annoying IT cost center as we know it.

Re:Windows is not disappearing anytime soon

[dissy]

I'm in the same boat as you, and currently figuring out how to get our XP dependent ERP stack up to Win 7. Fortunately I have a similar setup, still not as nice as an apt package manager would be, but for Windows I'd never expected this level of automation.

However with the whole BYoD crap I, and I'm sure you too, get pestered about all the time, I thought I'd share what made my life easier dealing with iPhones and iPads.
To be honest, I haven't seen this level of configuration since blackberry.

(PS, if you or anyone knows of anything like this for Android, I would love to hear about it. That is the last system that is a thorn in my side to support)

Contrast that to when we get a new iPad in. No PXE booting, no easy configuration through the network. No management tools that are worth a tin shit. I have to physically enter all that information in. Can't even swap in a replicated hard drive since it can't be taken apart. Loading from a USB stick? Hahah... No we have to go through the "cloud" for everything.

Check out the Apple iPhone Configuration Utility - About or Windows download page
and any one of the many MDM (mobile device manager) servers for the backend.

You create various "profiles", which are signed and/or encrypted XML files with a .mobileconfig extension.
Think Active Directories Group Policy for iOS.

I've made quite a few of these configs and have them posted on a sub-website on the Intranet, as well as keep handy to forward as email attachments.
On iOS if you click one in a browser or as an attachment, it will display what parts of the system it will change, and if it can be removed, requires a password, or can't be removed (except via factory reset - think company owned devices)
You just click accept, and if you only use required values the entire setup is done. Alternately you can mark some things as user provided (like domain username, and AD password) and you're prompted for those in one screen after confirming to install it.

I have one with our Exchange servers settings (which I admit is so simple to setup this one isn't really needed), two different ones for each VPN endpoint server, one that contains our wireless "guest" network settings as well as how to handle channel hopping and roaming between APs keeping sessions alive over wpa2-enterprise, all of our Sharepoint shared resources that can be linked in, as well as our public contact book.

These are available (in my case, user removable) for any employee to use to better utilize our resources without me having to setup anything.

Further, and at this point I'm probably starting to sound like an ad or something, still..

If we actually had company owned iOS devices, you can go as far as restricting any/all settings apps and extensions, pre-install your own apps, only allow apps on a whitelist to install, or even to not be able to install apps at all.
It can redirect all iCloud services to internal services, or simply disallow them.
iOS can link into active directory (via LDAP), and CalDav / CardDav, and have your x500 certificates installed

You can even do things currently only cellular carriers are privlidged to do, such as put apps or web shortcuts on springboard and not allow them to be removed or even repositioned.
It even lets you reconfigure the cellular radio settings, changing the APN, GRPS, and a proxy that all data communications passes through.

You can reconfigure and push out settings updates over the air as well. About the only thing I don't think you can do is push app installs over the cell network, you have to wait until they are back on the wifi for that.

While I personally have been fortunately enough to never had to touch the blackberry enterprise server, Apple seriously went out of their way to rival BES in what you can do using these policies.

Unfortunately some

Microsoft has learnt a very good lesson.

[bogaboga]

the next incarnation of Microsoft's flagship operating system will have an option to boot directly to the desktop.

The lessson appears to be that much as you can force a horse to the well, you can't force it to drink.

Question is: Hasn't this lesson come rather late?

Re:Microsoft has learnt a very good lesson.

[roc97007]

Especially when the water is foul.

exodus?

[roc97007]

> will Microsoft's updates be dynamic enough to stop the current Windows exodus?

...or will 8.1 only be adopted by people who purchased or otherwise had Win8 thrust upon them?

Sources?

[Anonymous Coward]

These "sources" (which TFS says are nebulous) are making stuff up. We've seen that it allows us to dock 4 metro windows on a 2560x1440 display, 3 on a 1920x1080 display, etc. Not enough to fix it. Who wants full screen / half screen non-overlapped windows on an actual computer? On a tablet - sure, that is par for the course. But on a real computer it is an artificial limitation and is just very annoying. The problem Microsoft faces here is that they cannot give ground on this. They have to stay the course. Why? Because they want to sell some tablets so they don't become completely irrelevant. But, they have no real market share in tablets and their are two mature market leaders already there in this space with iPads and Androids. These competitors have app ecosystems with hundreds of thousands of apps. Who would be stupid enough to write a metro style app for an MS tablet if they couldn't also sell it / give it to Windows desktop users? Nobody. So Microsoft needs to have the silly metro on the desktop even though it makes no sense at all there - so that they can convince people to build apps for their tablet. Good luck to them - I think they are screwed.

Re:Sources?

[wierd_w]

There really *was* an option to disable metro and ribbon UIs in the win8 release candidate.

Microsoft said "bend over and squeal with delight!" When they removed it from the final, and kept pounding away, ignoring the protests of their users, instead making grunting noisesof their own that users will "get used to it", and "you'll like it, I promise!"

There's a lesson here, and it isn't exactly Microsoft that needs to learn it, because the *exact same* bullshit has happened 2 other places in Gnome3 and Unity.

That lesson? If you are a UI "designer", DON'T FORCE YOUR "VISION" ON USERS. In business, the *customer* is always right, not your personal sense of aesthetic bliss.

Gnome's hamfisted refusal to accept that is why most of their userbase flew the coop. Unity on Ubuntu is why many users fled to Mint. And on win32, Metro is why users refuse to migrate to 8.

The lesson here applies all around. If people want tacky, they want tacky. If somebody orders a double cheeseburger, don't try to force them to eat caviar, while insisting it's classier. It isn't what they want, and they won't come back.

Caviar is nice as an option, but don't force the issue. Your* personal foibles about seeing tacky UIs only matter to YOU. Wear the shoe on the other foot, and imagine a world where only BBQ and cheeseburgers exist, and are what get enforced, preventing you from even trying caviar. That is what you do to people when you deny them the options they want. People don't need a reason to have a preference, and some prefer the tacky UI paradigms. Respect that preference, and keep your userbase.

*this is meant to sound confrontational, but does not apply to any specific person. If you are a UI designer, and try the BS cited, it applies to you. If you are not, naturally, it does not.

Re:Sources?

[CurlyG]

Totally agree with you regarding moronic UI designer arrogance. It is the same attitude that gives us 'mobile' versions of websites (often without any way back to the normal version than changing the User Agent string in your device's browser) which disable zooming. The only justification I've heard is that it 'preserves the integrity of the design' which matters not one fucking iota if the user can't actually see the content that the design is meant to be presenting.

Re:Sources?

[Billy2600]

That reminds me, I remember XP had the option to use the classic Windows 9x style of start menu. Nobody really used it, but the option was there.

Re:Sources?

[jawtheshark]

Nobody? Hell, it was standard in many corporate images, and I know many people who vastly preferred it. When I still used Windows, I used "Classic". My father still uses "Classic" on 7.

Re:Don't get people's love of the Start Menu

[Attila Dimedici]

Oh yeah search is a GREAT way to find that program I use every six months that lets me put some of my pictures together to create a collage for those posters I make twice a year. I think it was called "Blue Pixie". /s
Except that it was called "Green Pyxel" and started with an executable named "grnpxlUI.exe".

Great!

[Billly Gates]

I can get to the desktop/IE faster than ever now so I can download Windows 7.

Re:Great!

[afidel]

Agreed, Windows 8\2012 has some seriously good under the hood changes but I haven't been able to take advantage of them due to the training costs from Metro. Removing Metro from the equation will mean it's pretty much a certainty that we'll upgrade within a year of the next release instead of riding 7 until it's almost EOL.

Re:Great!

[Billly Gates]

I like aero, rounded corners, and knowing my apps will still run and using a well supported and industry standard operating system. Otherwise I would be running Linux. How do I know the upgrade trendmill wont turn into another Firefox 4/5/6/7/8 where shit broke each release?

Firefox just now is finally morphing into something cna be updated all the time. Windows is not. The apps require specific versions of IE, dlls, paths, and whatnot and an agile development environment would be disasterous. It is not Android much like Firefox is not Chrome.

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[GodInHell]

I don't know about the devs at MS, but I got used to it pretty quickly. My new laptop came with Win8 -- which I committed to using for 2 weeks before I spent money on a Win7 license. At first I hated the stock interface, but I got over it. The desktop is a desktop -- I can still load software off the task bar by pinning a link there. The only time I see metro is when I need to load something other than the core 4-6 tools I use (Firefox, Word, Excel, IE and Publisher) ... so mostly when I want to run steam or wow.

For everything else, just hit start and start typing what you're looking for -- it pops up.

Now -- I don't think it's "better" than the start button (which did all of that without a full-screen interface that blocks my view of open docs, etc) but it's not all that bad.

The trade off is that the rest of the OS makes a bit more sense -- the interface is cleaner (less clutter around the window edge), file and print sharing is more stream-lined, etc. I have no idea what the charm bar is for, I think it should go away. But overall -- it's a standard windows experience - slightly annoying but it gets the job done. I have to go back and forth from Win7 (at work and on my desktop at home) and Win8 on my laptop -- not really enough of a difference to notice 9 times out of 10.

A bet too far

[onyxruby]

The problem is that Microsoft didn't bet their company on their attempts to force a paradigm shift in how people interact with and use Windows. They bet the entire desktop computer industry along with them. By way of point on how bad things are Windows Vista wasn't released at Christmas like Windows 8 was and Windows Vista saw much higher deployment rates (not sales rates) than Windows 8 has for the same months after release. The net result was an almost epic level collapse of the industry that followed with a record drop in PC sales, however all of the offered excuses fall flat when you look at them with a touch of logic:

The economy. It's actually better now than it has been for the last several years and unemployment has been starting to decrease.
Tablets. Tablets started becoming popular a few years ago, the slump in PC sales is directly timed with the release of Windows 8.
People already having a computer. Since the Mhz wars petered out a several years back speed has had a little to do with new computer sales. Again, nothing new here.
Smart Phones. Smart Phones started taking off en mass about 3-4 years ago and there is nothing particularly expansive related to the last 6 months there.

The bottom line is that Microsoft started causing severe economic damage to the PC industry with their attempt to force a UI change on the market. If they hurt the industry enough, the industry while feel compelled to look for alternatives to Microsoft to distribute their products. Microsoft knows that this can and has happened with smart phones and tablets and industry simply couldn't take any more pain without risk of simply no longer being dependent on Microsoft.

The secondary reason is that the enterprise market has made adamantly clear that they absolutely will not deploy Windows 8 until the start button and boot to desktop interface issues are resolved. Microsoft saw enterprises stick it to them with XP for a decade and realizes that enterprise is not about to put up with another Vista experience. Microsoft has to make these changes, or they risk losing their distribution chain to their competition.

Re:A bet too far

[roc97007]

Great article. I know people will disagree with some of the analysis, but personally, I think you called it.

But this.....

> The secondary reason is that the enterprise market has made adamantly clear that they absolutely will not deploy Windows 8 until the start button and boot to desktop interface issues are resolved. Microsoft saw enterprises stick it to them with XP for a decade and realizes that enterprise is not about to put up with another Vista experience. Microsoft has to make these changes, or they risk losing their distribution chain to their competition.

....worries me. Because if Microsoft sees this as an Enterprise-only issue, they may restore the old interface to *only* Enterprise copies of Win8. And yes, this could be done, relatively simply, by making the feature hinge on the node belonging to an Active Directory domain.

Why would they do it this way? Because there is less lost face in accommodating the demands of the Enterprise sector whilst continuing to double down on the new GUI with the Consumer sector. (I could see Ballmer needing to do this. And throwing chairs until it's done.) The official argument could be "Although our Enterprise customers may have legacy needs, it's important that our non-Enterprise customers maintain a consistent interface across multiple types of devices to avoid user confusion."

As a consumer, I wouldn't pick up 8.1 until I was certain the desktop/start option was back to stay for all users.

Re:A bet too far

[roman_mir]

The economy. It's actually better now than it has been for the last several years and unemployment has been starting to decrease.

- a random wrong thing in the mix.

Unemployment only 'decreased' because half a million of people who were on unemployment moved off of it to other things, like disability and welfare, basically gave up searching for work. Economy is worse than it was even a few years back, you may be confusing the economy with irrelevant asset price indicators in the stock market. The economy (as in money management of the entire system) is more in impossible to pay debt, ever growing inflation and government mode. That's not a good thing at all.

Re:A bet too far

[JDG1980]

Because if Microsoft sees this as an Enterprise-only issue, they may restore the old interface to *only* Enterprise copies of Win8. And yes, this could be done, relatively simply, by making the feature hinge on the node belonging to an Active Directory domain.

This seems unlikely, and there isn't really any precedent for it. Even XP Mode in Windows 7, which was definitely an enterprise-focused feature, was supported on Windows 7 Professional whether or not it was a VLK version or whether it was on a domain. What I can see is the start menu and direct-to-desktop boot being limited to Professional, and omitted from Home. Also, it's likely it would require using a registry key or gpedit.msc to configure, rather than being in the standard Control Panel. That said, I suspect some OEMs would enable this by default unless Microsoft bribes them not to.

Re:A bet too far

[FaxeTheCat]

Even XP Mode in Windows 7, which was definitely an enterprise-focused feature, was supported on Windows 7 Professional whether or not it was a VLK version or whether it was on a domain.

Actually, XP mode was for the small to medium companies. For the enterprise there is MED-V.

Re:A bet too far

[FaxeTheCat]

Well, my non-tech 13 year old son got a new PC with Win8, and it took him all of 15 seconds to get the point (the desktop...).
He wanted a new PC. He got one with Win8. He really did not care that it has Win8, 'cause he got a new PC.

Re:A bet too far

[rhodium_mir]

Unemployment decreased because the value of the dollar increased by 30% as measured by the price of gold.

Re:A bet too far

[tftp]

Because if Microsoft sees this as an Enterprise-only issue, they may restore the old interface to *only* Enterprise copies of Win8.

Millions of small businesses buy Windows boxes from retail stores. I know because I do just that. Those boxes run Windows Home editions, and they cost 30% to 50% of the cost of "professional" boxes. Most of those businesses don't care; they don't bother joining the domain - and really with few computers around the domain is not a requirement. They don't need same-day service either.

This also will create another divide - between Windows at work and Windows at home. MS was always insisting that both are the same as much as possible, so that the user could seamlessly operate (and learn) at work and at home with no retraining needed. This is what employers are expecting today from new hires. But if Windows Home comes with a tablet interface and Windows Pro (at work) has desktop, there is no transfer of skills between the two. A business would be not any worse if they load Mint onto all work desktops. If the new user is clueless about the Windows Desktop then what's the value in keeping it around?

MS should stop trying to change the nature of people. USSR tried to do that for 70 years and failed. MS has no chance here. They should give the users what they want - and if MS believes that some new interface is better then they should offer it as an option. Best if it is a seamless option, like Metro in a window (or full screen if you maximize.)

Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot here

[Faizdog]

In the last 6 months I've bought 2 computers, a desktop and a laptop. And both times I went well out of my way to avoid Win8.

Now I consider myself at least slightly more computer savvy than the average individual, and when I went to Best Buy to play around with Windows 8 (since I'd heard it was different) the 20 minute trial I gave it was VERY FRUSTRATING. I managed to figure things out a bit, and I had no doubt with some time and internet searching I could figure the rest out, but I had no desire to!!

I didn't want to spend time figuring it out! It just pissed me off. I needed a desktop very urgently, and was planning on buying a new computer and buying a copy of Win7 online and just wiping off Win8.

(Side Note: Basic economic supply and demand, Pro Edition of Win8 cost ~$60, Home Edition of Win7 online cost ~$150. Hmmmmmm)

I got lucky because the guy working at Best Buy said they had a desktop at 25% off only because it had Win7. Looked at the tech specs, was good, just what I wanted and left happy, getting a discount to get what I wanted.

A few months later I needed a laptop (was travelling a lot). I deliberately went to the Lenovo and Dell business line sections to search since the machines for business users still have Win7 (ended up getting a ThinkPad).

Now, I paid the MS Win tax regardless both times. I wanted a Windows machine. But Win 8 so frustrated me that I went out of my way to avoid it, when it would've been simpler to just buy a machine with it. I was ready to spend more online to buy Win7 and overwrite the default installation.

I can't be the only one that's done this recently.

Microsoft will not learn

[ravenswood1000]

Microsoft will never learn no matter how much thier customer base screams and will alway assume they are doing things correctly and everyone else is wrong. Yes, they need to settle in on windows 7 and give up for a bit becase they can't do it right. Wouldn't hurt to fire some guy by the name of Ballmar either.

Re:Microsoft will not learn

[kn9sli001]

I agree, the user base screamed bloody murder when they found out win8 didn't have a start button. Almost every review repeated this.MS released Win 8 like that anyway and are paying the price. Stardock has made a mint with Get start back. But that was just one problem with 8. Bill might need to put a hold on his charities and come back and save his company . Like Steve Jobs did. Before it's too late.

Re:Microsoft will not learn

[epyT-R]

A little corner menu is simple. A full screen menu with oversized tiles on a 23" screen is retarded. Search boxes that let the user have fun guessing what he's looking for are a royal pain. Sticking them on every dialog box and menu is the designer's way of telling the user "I don't know what I'm doing, so here, do the work for me."

I do not want my local experience to mimic internet search engines. There's no reason for such broad ambiguity for the simple task of starting a program. At that point, just get rid of the whole gui and run everything from a shell prompt...right? At least that has tab-complete.

Re:Microsoft will not learn

[Cederic]

At that point, just get rid of the whole gui and run everything from a shell prompt...right? At least that has tab-complete.

There is a joyful irony going back decades on this one :)

Re:Microsoft will not learn

[FaxeTheCat]

I do not want my local experience to mimic internet search engines. There's no reason for such broad ambiguity for the simple task of starting a program. At that point, just get rid of the whole gui and run everything from a shell prompt...right? At least that has tab-complete

Just to give you an example:
I frequently need to install some program from SCCM on my work PC. I have no clue under what menu the program to do this is. I do not care. I just type "programs" in the start menu search box, and I get a number of options. All of them are related to "programs" but the one I need is usually in the top 3.
This begs two questions:
- Why should I need to remember what menu a program has been hidden away in?
- How would you solve that one from a shell?
Besides, there is also an excellent shell in Windows: PowerShell. I use it more and more for server administration. And it has tab complete.

Windows exodus? Really?

[sshirley]

I know that we Slashdotters would love to believe there is a Windows exodus because of Windows 8. But in reality, that will never happen. Are you saying that Grandma or Joe Blow, as pissed off as they are with the Win8 UI, are going to switch to Linux? Most "average" people might have heard the name but have no idea what it is. And forget about learning to use it. Mac OS have a better chance at getting people to jump ship. To most people "Windows" is synonymous with "Computer". They don't know there are other OS's out there. People will be pissed off and not buy more more Microsoft products. People will vote with their dollars, not their choice of OS.

Re:Windows exodus? Really?

[JDG1980]

I know that we Slashdotters would love to believe there is a Windows exodus because of Windows 8. But in reality, that will never happen. Are you saying that Grandma or Joe Blow, as pissed off as they are with the Win8 UI, are going to switch to Linux?

Grandma and Joe Blow haven't updated their computers since 2006, and don't plan to do so any time in the near future. Those computers mostly still run XP, and sit in the corner unused most of the time. Grandma and Joe Blow now do most of their web browsing/Facebook/whatever on a smartphone or iPad.

Microsoft had hoped that Windows 8 would bring Grandma and Joe Blow back into the fold, luring them away from iOS and Android. They realized that businesses and power users might not be too thrilled at the change, but as Adam Orth put it, they'd just have to "deal with it." Or so Microsoft thought. But they overestimated their market power and the desirability of their brands. The predicted new converts failed to materialize, while their existing user base hated Windows 8. In attempting to gain back lost marketshare, they risked losing the market they already had sewn up: businesses and power users. I suspect that feedback from large organizations was responsible for Microsoft's decision to backpedal here. Most likely the Fortune 500s flat out told MS that if they were going to have to pay for all that retraining, it wouldn't be retraining for Windows 8, but for some other OS.

Re:Windows exodus? Really?

[im_thatoneguy]

I'm always amused when people say that people are "being driven away from windows 8 because it's too simplistic." Where do these people claim users are going? The Ipad. Wait.. the ipad? The device which doesn't multi-task... at all, that has an even more dumbed down UI screen etc.. For everything you can complain about Windows 8 it's nowhere near as feature anemic as an ipad.

Re:Windows exodus? Really?

[PyrousLavawalker]

Four years ago that would be true, but today lines are starting to blur. Very few of the customers I worked with was concerned weather it was windows or not, they were concerned at the fact they could not do what it was they were trying to do with there computer. The same old people you talk about will not so much ask if windows is on it, they will look at the computer screen and say, "Gosh it looks just like my one at home! I know how to use this." . They wont care if it Windows, Google, Linux, or fuzzy wuzzles. All that will matter to them is that they know how to use it, and thanks to all the other operating systems out there that are looking more and more like each other that line will blur more and more.

Re:Windows exodus? Really?

[epyT-R]

They're not comparing windows 8 to an ipad. They're comparing windows 8 to windows 2k/xp/vista/7. You are right that a pad's interface is even more limited, but it was never designed for complex workflows. A desktop PC is.

Re:Windows exodus? Really?

[MemoryDragon]

The problem is not that Win8 is simplistic, it simply has a lousy UI and is definitely a step down usabilitywise from Windows 8.

Not enough

[Guspaz]

Microsoft is going to need to do a bit more than what can be accomplished by bundling Start8 with Windows (it supports both boot-to-desktop and a perfectly simulated start menu). To be sure, if Windows 8.1 was nothing more than the functionality of Win8 and Start8 combined, they'd be better off, but that's not quite all there is to it.

I can't help it

[jbeaupre]

It's far too early to start celebrating (and not very accurate to boot), but in my head it's the song:

Ding dong the Metro's gone!
The Metro's gone!
The Metro's gone!
Ding dong the stupid Metro's gone!

Golden years, gold, whop whop whop

[Bob_Who]

Last night they loved you
Opening doors and pulling some strings, angel
Come get up my baby

Bowie sang it best, You're better off opening doors than closing Windows.

paradigm shift

[DarthVain]

You had me until "paradigm shift", and then I just sort of wandered away.

Re:paradigm shift

[onyxruby]

Oh, I understand, those words are rarely used properly and almost always used as management speak. In this case I rather deliberately used them as a tweak on Microsoft management.

What Microsoft didn't get

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Your customer's knowledge of your interface is a monetizable asset. Changing interfaces without a very compelling reason doesn't just inconvenience customers, it affects the bottom line.

This principal works the same for Bob's whiz-dang word processor as it does for an operating system UI. The easiest interface to use is ALWAYS the one you already know.

Bottom line? If you don't have to change it, don't.

Apple gets it. Apple has been using this fact since the Lisa hit the shelves in the 80s and continues to use it in phones, pads, etc.

Re:What Microsoft didn't get

[WheezyJoe]

Your customer's knowledge of your interface is a monetizable asset. Changing interfaces without a very compelling reason doesn't just inconvenience customers, it affects the bottom line.

Bottom line? If you don't have to change it, don't.

The Great Metro Experience will be seen as a knee-jerk corporate move driven by suits freaked-out by what they perceived as the death of the PC in the wake of mobile devices. Instead of continuing a positive trend of improving the desktop experience from XP to Vista to 7, they turned ALL their effort to an interface that either runs lousy on desktop screens or runs ok on devices that are (too) late to market. This is Steve Ballmer in an act of desperation - and why? because Microsoft's market cap fell below Apple's?

I care because I liked the trend Microsoft was taking to improving the desktop. Was everything in Aero perfect? No, but it brought plenty of good ideas to improve upon. Now with Metro as the new big thing, all hope of continuing that effort is gone. In its place, Windows 8 makes the desktop feel like a legacy/compatibility mode that's available but being put to pasture.

The parent poster is absolutely right. The fact that so many people worldwide know what to do with a desktop with a Start Menu in the lower left corner (since 1995) is Microsoft's biggest asset. Dilute that away, and Ballmer might just be able to make his company irrelevant.

It isn't about horespower...

[Junta]

It's about UI design. For the same reasons that metro is frustrating on a desktop, so too would Android or IOS as they are currently designed today. The multitasking paradigm in the mobile phones is tolerated, but most everyone sees the downsides of implicit app management causing an app to 'close' when you really thought of it as a task switch. The ability to reconstruct state from stored data on switch away perfectly varies app to app from perfect to not implemented at all.

What exodus?

[kzagor]

I am starting to believe that I am leaving in an alternative universe. Most people (~90%) doesn't have a pc with some version of windows in their homes?

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[The MAZZTer]

I actually think MS greatly improved the start menu with the new start screen. The problem lies mostly that people hate the Metro that came with it, but everything else is great.

For starters, nested folders are gone. In All Apps, shortcuts are grouped based on a single folder, and everything is in one view. The stupid Company Name > Program Name > Program hierarchy is gone.

MS has been telling companies to stop adding Uninstall links and other garbage (link to your website? Put it in your app, not in the start menu) to the start menu for a while but no one listens of course. MS has solved this problem by allowing you to remove shortcuts from the start screen, but still leaving them available in All Apps.

"boot to desktop" wont be enough.

[linebackn]

I wouldn't count on this change until the final gold images are pressed and on store shelves. And even if it is there, expect it to be some hidden registry key that only exists for "legacy" users and the whispers will suggest that it will "go away" at some unspecified time.

Furthermore, both the Windows 8 metro and desktop have many other things wrong with them that Microsoft is not likely to fix. Even if you start up in a desktop, what happens when some accessory you used is now only available metro-ized and pops up full screen covering all your work?

Microsoft have gone too far down this road now, they can't fix things without doing a complete 180. And I don't think I have ever seen Microsoft do that before.

Re:"boot to desktop" wont be enough.

[NJRoadfan]

Window the Metro apps, which seems to work surprisingly well and adds the missing close button!:
http://www.stardock.com/products/modernmix/
http://retroui.com/retrouipro.asp

What annoys me with Metro apps is that they live in a separate world from standard desktop apps. You don't see them on the taskbar. The Metro task switcher doesn't show multiple desktop apps either, just "Desktop". Luckily Alt+Tab still cycles between all running apps. Full screen Metro apps are just goofy on a 1920x1200 display.

Re:"boot to desktop" wont be enough.

[tftp]

Microsoft have gone too far down this road now, they can't fix things without doing a complete 180. And I don't think I have ever seen Microsoft do that before.

It's nowhere that bad. Here is what they metroified:

- Some control panel applets. This is irrelevant because they can be rewritten for windowed interface in about a day. There is nothing special there, just on/off switches and a couple of text fields.

- Some Metro apps, like a copy of IE. Those should be trashed as they are because they are horrible by design, and cannot be used by anyone (except maybe on a phone, since you don't have that much screen space there.)

That's the complete list. Take the old Start menu code (a part of Windows Explorer) and resurrect it in the version control system. This will finalize the changes.

Now, if you want to support Metro applications, fix the layer that runs them. But make sure to run them windowed by default. If the customer changes them to full screen, remember that choice on per-app basis.

All this work can be done in a week, and it can be pushed to Win8 sufferers as a service pack, if not as a single KB patch. I don't see a technical reason to not do it. Even politically this can be explained away as "serving their customers better." It's wiser to undo a bad decision than to double down and get slaughtered just because the man in charge didn't want to lose face.

Re:"boot to desktop" wont be enough.

[Cederic]

I want an OS that's usable no matter whose PC I'm using.

If I have to install third party software to make it usable then it's not usable.

Proposed solution

[Horshu]

Let Explorer run Metro apps (non-maximized, with chrome), and let Metro run Explorer apps (maximized, chromeless). Then let user choose the mode, default being based on form factor but overridable by user.

Timeline

[fredgiblet]

2012 - Microsoft introduces Metro to much wailing and gnashing of teeth
2013 - Microsoft retracts Metro
2014 - Google/Apple produce a new desktop/laptop interface that is functionally identical to Metro to the delight of everyone who uses it
2015 - Microsoft re-introduced Metro, is told they are copying

Re:Timeline

[Ironhandx]

2012 - Microsoft introduces Metro to much wailing and gnashing of teeth
2013 - Microsoft retracts Metro
2014 - Google/Apple produce a new desktop/laptop interface that is /nearly/ functionally identical to Metro, but better in every single aspect, and preserves a lot of old idioms and computer access schemes in the new format, to the delight of everyone who uses it
2015 - Microsoft re-introduces Metro, is told they are copying, and doing so poorly.

FTFY.

Re:Timeline

[fredgiblet]

"preserves a lot of old idioms and computer access schemes in the new format"

Just like Windows 8 then. Unless you're one of those people who believes it when you're told that the desktop doesn't exist on W8.

Re:Timeline

[roc97007]

> 2015 - Microsoft re-introduces Metro, is told they are copying, and doing so poorly. and it's true

FTFY.

Re:Timeline

[mjwx]

2012 - Microsoft introduces Metro to much wailing and gnashing of teeth
2013 - Microsoft retracts Metro
2014 - Google produce a new desktop/laptop interface that is /nearly/ functionally identical to Metro, but better in every single aspect, and preserves a lot of old idioms and computer access schemes in the new format, to the delight of everyone who uses it
2014 - Apple introduces a new user interface identical as Metro and fanboys declare it the best thing ever and no-one ever invented this before.
2015 - Microsoft re-introduces Metro, is told they are copying, and doing so poorly.

FTFY.

Fixed your FTFY.

Startmeup in Chicago!

[Thud457]

Microsoft has a fine tradition of bringing us the best in marketing-driving UI stupidity for more than 18 years.

flashback to 8/25/1995:

waaaaaiiiitt.... to stop the computer, you click the "Start" button? duuuuuuuddddeee, wtf?!!

Re:Startmeup in Chicago!

[epyT-R]

well it kinda makes sense.. the start menu was where the user would go to 'start' a procedure. One of those procedures was shutting down.

Re:Who said there is a Windows Exodus?

[fredgiblet]

Not according the majority of people who have never used it/stopped using it after a day. Who are you going to believe? Them, or your own lying eyes?

How bout

[Mister Liberty]

Boot to BSOD?
Saves everybody a lot of time.

Re:How bout

[jfdavis668]

How bout boot to command prompt. Then type "win" to bring up desktop.

No hope for the Windows 8 Brand name

[who_stole_my_kidneys]

Even If they made the best Windows OS ever, it is already tainted by the name alone. If Windows Vista came out with a Windows Vista 2.0, would any one have bought it? Fuck no! My suggestion to MS is to distance themselves from the Windows 8 brand, bury it in the back yard and don't look back. Make the Metro UI an add-on option but boot to a typical desktop and start menu out of the box.

Re:Or Too Much for Too Long

[Synerg1y]

It's not a theory it's a lame duck trend and has nothing to do with business or consumer. Every other MS OS is lame, this has been a trend from 90s.

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[DogDude]

You know that all you have to do is to click the lower left hand corner of the screen to bring up the desktop, right? It took you 20 minutes to figure that out?

Fun Thread

[Synerg1y]

If you can't customize your UI (as most people currently posting seem to be unable to do), you're not a nerd: discuss.

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[Faizdog]

You know that all you have to do is to click the lower left hand corner of the screen to bring up the desktop, right? It took you 20 minutes to figure that out?

Sure if that's all that was different. I wanted to see how different options were controlled (control panel issues), had weird things happen when moving around the mouse (hot corners etc) and other nuisances. Even after I got to the desktop, the easy list of everything in a start menu was missing.

Again, could've learned it, could've figured it out, there are workarounds, it's not rocket science. BUT WHY? Individually each thing is minor, but the cumulative effect is damned annoying. Why would a company unnecessarily aggravate so many of their users? If you wanted a single OS for tablets and other PCs, give each the interface best suited to it.

Deck chairs on the Titanic

[EmperorOfCanada]

What has MS done for me in years?

I hear Visual Studio is pretty good but I haven't touched since VS 2008. But what completely put me off from MS products was the relentless flogging of their other products. You would choose one product and they would try and shove their other products down your throat. Then there is the religious zealotry of MSDN shops. I have seen company after company where they have an MSDN certified IT head and that is it, Microsoft everything. Can't afford another SQL license then develop it in Access. And office is the worst; I sense within MS that they shove Office even down the throats of people there. If you develop something at MS it seems to be mandatory that somehow it will have some aspect that will exist to promote Office. XBox seems to be a huge exception to this rule and I suspect it was not due to lack of trying on the part of the Office mandarins.

But in the world of programming there are all kinds of tools that exist on their own. They have no agenda beyond being a good product. Python exists for people to make cool things. Boost exists to make C++ better. MySQL went a bit off the rails so MariaDB sprung into existence to serve up the data of zillions of people. Github exists for people to work on code together. This is where Visual Basic/Visual Studio were many eons ago. About the only product VB VS promoted was Windows which was fine at the time because the choices were DOS or Windows. But now we have many choices of Platform and OS. If MS doesn't want to become irrelevant they need to expand their horizons. Office needs to go on all the platforms. People will buy it. Visual Studio needs to allow development for all the platforms. People will love it.

But as it stands there is no product of MS that makes me go ooooh, got to get me some of that. Windows 8 just sounds more annoying than Windows 7. This whole PCs not booting anything but Windows sounds horrible.

I don't blame Windows 8. Windows 8 is just a clear sign that MS is so completely out of touch that they think that by taking the worst parts of iOS (locked up systems) that they can compete. I remember reading articles in early 2012 that about how MS was going to have 15% of the smart phone market. I saw the metro interface up close in product placements on TV and I said, BS. There is no reason for anyone to even try it. Then when the surface came out people even said that this would take a bite out of the iPad, Nope. These are examples of MS trying to buy reality. Buying reality is costly and doesn't change reality. So if they keep on this path of trying to bend everyone to their will instead of giving people compelling reasons to buy their products I just wonder if MS has one decade left, or less?

Re:Deck chairs on the Titanic

[sdreader]

Somehow I've managed to get away with the Eclipse + CDT + MinGW combination in Windows for ages and for the most part it's worked pretty well. The reason I do this is because not only does it mean I get to use GCC with a good IDE in Windows, it also means ensures that I can easily transfer the knowledge of using said IDE in Linux, as opposed to relying on Visual Studio which only exists for the one platform.

I've gotten real tired of investing skills in software that is Windows only as I want to break the cycle of being dependent on a single platform, which is where learning cross-platform tools which can still do the job are so very useful. I'm sure VS is a great IDE as well - I just haven't come across anything worth the investment yet, even for work.

Re:Deck chairs on the Titanic

[mjwx]

I have seen company after company where they have an MSDN certified IT head and that is it, Microsoft everything. Can't afford another SQL license then develop it in Access.

Whoever did this needs to be shot. Who ever believes this is retarded.

MS developer programs provide you with near unlimited server licenses for development purposes. MSDN packs give you some licenses for production too.

License restrictions is not an excuse for not having another development server if you've got the hardware. Now maintenance is an issue, 95% of developers couldn't look after a SQL server to save their lives. The number of times a dev has whinged until I gave him his own box is only exceeded by the number of times a dev has come into my office, tail between legs because he lost data on the box I gave him and magically expects me to get it back (and they never did any backups).

Re:Deck chairs on the Titanic

[EmperorOfCanada]

Doesn't matter if your development SQL is free if the deployment isn't. As opposed to the many completely free databases where licensing fees aren't a factor. Need to spool up 20 more servers? Easy peazy if you don't have to think about managing your licenses.

And what kind of place has the developers have to come begging to a non developer for a machine? That would be like the doctors having to grovel to the nurse for a scalpel.

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[Ironhandx]

Why do some fools think nested folders were a bad thing?

Some of the retarded lengths companies went to were bad, but nested folders, on the whole, are a VERY good thing. They allow me to organize everything into categories based on what I might want to do. I don't want to see every installed program thrown at me as soon as I open the start screen, and before you start telling me I can organize them the same way on the start screen: Yes, yes I can. Just in a less convenient, less efficient and tile-filled manner.

The dummies running MS could have avoided this...

[Angeret]

Simply by allowing Users the option to run the various newer UIs as an OPTION.

I'm still running XP Pro 32-bit, not because I'm one of those weird freaks of nature that loves running my 64-bit system in a 32-bit environment - it's because I fucking hate the way 7 wasted space and started the move towards turning Windows into a bad implementation tablet style OS. Now they've tried to turn 8 into a combination of tablet & Xbox, they can fuck right off.

Give the Users - you know, the paying customers (corporate or otherwise) and the people who pay your wages - the choice and you'll sell a lot more product. Christ - give me the XP/2K UI to work with and I'll happily use 7, or if it isn't too cut down, 8.

If they don't do something to sort this out soon, Steve B will be remembered for only 2 things - throwing chairs while making threats and fucking the PC industry so hard it died. And Steve - if you by the slightest chance happen to read this, is this really *all* you want to be remembered for?

Good start

[ErichTheRed]

Dear Microsoft,

I fully understand the reason for switching to the full-screen Start screen. You want a cut of the app revenue like Apple gets, and that only makes sense. I would even be happy with Win8.1 if you could just boot to the desktop and not have the Start button back (but I would REALLY like it back as a bonus...) Here's one thing I can't live with that needs to change:

Put Aero Glass back into the OS as a selectable theme, or even Aero without the glass.

I'm our company's desktop systems architect, and I'm still on Windows 7 for all my personal machines. The main reason is the flat, ugly, hard-to-navigate 2D user interface on the desktop. I really want the client-side improvements Windows has made, I want Client Hyper-V so I don't have to shell out for VMWare Workstation. I definitely want Windows to Go. But I can't use the new flat user interface. Office 2013, Visual Studio and Server Manager are acres and acres of monochrome text and icons with very little to guide your eyes around the screen. I know a lot of people complained about Aero wasting processor cycles, but even the non-transparent version had buttons, text and icons that were colorful, stood out on the screen so you knew where they were instinctively, etc.

I guess I should have left the Customer Experience Improvement Program opt-in checkbox checked all these years...but I can't be the only one who feels this way. So if you want me to upgrade, I need the following:
- Aero Glass available as a theme - you can even leave the 2D screen as the default.
- Start button as a bonus -- If I don't get that I'll be OK, but I'd be happy if I did.

If I upgrade, there's a very good chance 6000+ PCs will upgrade too.

Sincerely, Me

Re:Good start

[Twinbee]

Is Word 2013 really as ugly as this, with an all spartan white background? It looks like an early Mac prototype GUI - you can't distinguish the different elements easily:

http://tabtimes.com/ckfinder/userfiles/images/Screenshot%20(2).png

Can one change the menu bar/ribbon to at least have a darker/blue/grey background instead of just being white?

Acorn

[tepples]

A modern smart phone has an ARM processor, which is nothing at all like the more powerful CPUs used in desktop PCs.

I acknowledge fundamental architectural differences between ARM CPUs and x86 CPUs, as well as the fact that x86 CPUs (other than Atom and its competition) aren't trying to compete in the same space as ARM CPUs. But where I go with this depends on whether you'd call RiscPC products "desktop personal computers".

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? We all have a barrier to pain, and there is much modern technology that exceeds this threshhold. Win8 is one. Sony Liveview are another.
As techies, we love to play and learn, but, like in gaming, it has to get you to somewhere you want to be. Being told that "you just click here" does not help, if he didnt find it out himself. I played with Win8 in a store; i lasted 30s before giving up. We are used to windows, menus, and other hints on the screen. I am happy with my ipod/ipad/android - but a desktop that treats me like an idiot?

Not that Windows is the only bad game in town. iOS takes away your options. MacOS does that too. Linux - KDE or GNOME, where do we start? Tivo? Actually, tivo is by far the worst. I would accept Win8 over tivo any day.

Re:The dummies running MS could have avoided this.

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the point of Microsoft's strategy.

They don't care about the desktop any more. They care about phones. They believe that to be successful on phones, they need a lot of phone apps. To get a lot of phone apps they push desktop users into the phone interface and hope that app developers will then develop phone apps instead of desktop apps.

The problem is that no-one wants a phone interface on their desktop. If they want a phone interface they'll buy a phone, and that phone is unlikely to be using windows.

So they've ass-raped their desktop users in a vain attempt to get more than 1% of the phone market.

Mod Parent Up!

[Cassini2]

It took me a bit to try and figure out what that joke was about. However, once I did, I laughed, hard.

Re:The dummies running MS could have avoided this.

[Angeret]

Oh, I knew about that. I don't even count Windoze phone as a viable option (disclaimer: I had a WinMobile 6.5 semi-smart phone and it was okay, but getting old). I know a grand total of one person using a W7.something phone and, personally, I wouldn't sully a skeet mechanism using it in place of a clay pigeon. You only have to look at WinPhone 7-8's market share to see that they're flogging the dead horse so much it's no wonder European beef seems to be full of it. Bottom line from Microsoft seems to be "we want to sell you more stuff, so you WILL change how you do things". Bottom line from a large number of computer Users around the world seems to be "until you give us something usable, fuck off".

Re:The dummies running MS could have avoided this.

[Cro Magnon]

If they don't do something to sort this out soon, Steve B will be remembered for only 2 things - throwing chairs while making threats and fucking the PC industry so hard it died. And Steve - if you by the slightest chance happen to read this, is this really *all* you want to be remembered for?

He also did a good monkey dance.

Awesome, dwm, Ion, Ratpoison...

[tepples]

Who wants full screen / half screen non-overlapped windows on an actual computer?

Ask any user of a tiling window manager.

Re:Awesome, dwm, Ion, Ratpoison...

[tftp]

Do those users even exist? I heard about one or two, a decade ago. Myself, I think I tried it exactly once... and discontinued. There is a lot of power in being able to tailor your windows to your needs. An overlapping window manager can do tiling, but not the other way around. So why to limit yourself? It's not like one WM costs more than the other.

As a personal anecdote, I have now these windows on screen:

• * A video camera feed
• * A piece of PuTTY window that shows me some changing numbers that I keep an eye on
• * A large clock window
• * A weather forecast window
• * Home automation control window
• * Outlook (visible as an icon, no new mail in it)
• * An RDP session to another box
• * This Firefox window
• * A bunch of other stuff that is minimized, but if restored it will be exactly where I left it, and at the proper size

If I use a tiling WM it would be a challenge to arrange all that - and then to rearrange as my needs suddenly change.

Re:Awesome, dwm, Ion, Ratpoison...

[Murdoch5]

The tiling community is really small. Don't get me wrong, I love a good tiling WM and I think they have a place and a time to be used, but I don't think the everyday computer system is one of them. I love them on server's when I want a small WM to just allow easier editing of multiple terminals. I also don't mind them when programming as I can view multiple editors / debuggers and compilers at the same time. Overall I think the desktop computer is the wrong place for the tiled Window Manager.

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[AmiMoJo]

I bought a new laptop last month that came with Windows 8. I wiped it and installed fresh from an OEM copy to get rid of the crapware, but basically I am happy with Windows 8. It boots fast and with Classic Start Menu installed is pretty similar to Windows 7. There are a few nice improvements like the way multiple input languages are handled and the new flat UI theme actually works quite well.

While not exactly intuitive I didn't find the Metro stuff or whatever it is now called to be particularly hard to use or confounding. When you start the computer for the first time it explains how the hot corners work and you are pretty much sorted from there. People complain that they can't turn their computer off but the power button seems to work just fine for me. Anyway, that stuff is all disabled now, I boot directly to the desktop.

Windows 8 isn't nearly as bad as people make out. It certainly isn't Vista bad. I have a spare Windows 7 license but I see no reason to use it. Then again I'm weird, I actually like the Office 2010 ribbon.

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[Tarlus]

I really hope that 8.1 or another future update simplifies the process of adding installed application icons to the start screen. For now it has to be done individually and it can be tedious if you're trying to add a lot of them. If I set up a brand new machine and install, say, the MS Office suite, it automatically creates icons in my personal start screen and that's great. However, the next person to sign on with their own profile will only have the bare minimum default start screen. Office is there, but it's not even straightforward to get into the 'All Apps' screen to find it. Even if I could just ctrl+click multiple application tiles and add them to the start screen en masse, it would really simplify the whole process.

Noooo!!!!

[elabs]

Microsoft finally becomes an innovator and a leader in creating beautiful, intuitive, clean interfaces and the luddites pull us back to 1995. Just stick with Windows 7 if you can't adjust to the new world. If they end up adding the Start button it will be the first thing I disable. It's ugly, clunky, takes up space and is totally useless..

Re:Noooo!!!!

[Sponge Bath]

Microsoft finally becomes an innovator and a leader in creating beautiful, intuitive, clean interfaces...

You might find in life, that your every thought is not universally accepted as fact.

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[QuietLagoon]

For starters, nested folders are gone. In All Apps, shortcuts are grouped based on a single folder, and everything is in one view.

That everything in one view aspect is not an advancement, but a step backwards.

The stupid Company Name > Program Name > Program hierarchy is gone.

If you don't want nested folders, then don't use them.

But why take the ability to use them from people who want to use them?

Australia..

[backslashdot]

And what about cars in Australia that drive upside down?

Re:Australia..

[jasontheking]

I'll let you in on a secret.

It's not just all the objects that are upside down, its gravity too! We're being pushed against the ceiling, upside down... seriously, its horrible.
Even the Coriolis force is the wrong way round

Re:Australia..

[TapeCutter]

Nope, we drive on the left, everyone else is upside down..

Re:Australia..

[mjwx]

And what about cars in Australia that drive upside down?

Pedals are on the same orientation, we've just mounted them on the roof.

Convertables suck here.

Re:Australia..

[q.kontinuum]

Is this cause or consequence of the attraction between Americans and Australians?

Re:Australia..

[rpstrong]

That is how I use the clutch up here in the U.S.

If true, I'll buy windows 8.

[DL117]

If this is true, I'll buy Windows 8. Also, if MS PR reads the comments, I'm 19, and I like having a PC.

Re:What's so bad about the start screen?

[Captain Hook]

I want to use that application... you know the one... lets you draw stuff, I used it to make those Christmas cards last year... I know it's installed on here somewhere... if only there was a nice hierarchical list of applications where things are laid out logically rather than based on most recent use then I could find it.

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[UneducatedSixpack]

It worked great in 1995. Somewhere around 2000 folders started to suck. When MS introduced start menu search I abandoned my futile attempts to categorize software into folders. Manual categorization just does not work if you are really working. Install 3 versions of Visual Studio, 3 SDKs, office, few third party dev apps and start menu becomes an unmanageable mess.

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[Sir Holo]

You are lucky that you didn't buy a new machine with the intention of wiping Win 8 and installing 7.

My department accidentally bought two lab computers with Win 8. My TA must have spent days trying to get 7 to install. I don't know the particulars, but MS made it extremely difficult to downgrade.

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[NJRoadfan]

Keep in mind that Windows 8 Pro includes downgrade rights to Windows 7. Yes, its a PITA to do the activation, but you'll still be legal. Drivers shouldn't be an issue for everything except for perhaps the touch screen if the computer has one. I haven't looked at any Windows 8 machines, but I suspect that the touch screens likely use USB HID class drivers.

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[narcc]

Manual categorization just does not work if you are really working. Install 3 versions of Visual Studio, 3 SDKs, office, few third party dev apps and start menu becomes an unmanageable mess.

You can't manage 20 or 30 applications with a simple hierarchy?

Maybe you're not just that great at organizing things?

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[Hatta]

For starters, nested folders are gone.

It worked so well on the start menu, I hear Microsoft is bringing this to the file system too.

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[Hatta]

Manual categorization is essential if you are really working. The start menu only becomes unmanagable if you rely on installation utilities to set it up for you. The only way to be sure you can access what you need when you need it is to put it where you want it.

Wow

[Stargoat]

That's some really negative feedback.

Nevertheless, I am correct. I have a couple of smartphones that I am responsible for. One is a Nexus 4. Quadcore Snapdragon, 2 gigs of ram. That is approximately equivalent to an out of box Dell or HP from about 5 years ago. The other is a Galaxy S2. Not as good, but still decent enough to get the job done. Maybe equivalent to a second generation P4 like I used to run about 7 years ago.

"Now Stargoat," you'll say to me, "Those are really outdated and cannot run modern applications. Also, you're a horse deer."

Yes. They are outdated - kind of. I, and most users, have no need to run advanced photo imaging, or modern games. I can get a PC or Playstation for that. What I need to do is run some software in a business environment, including putty, Windows emulator, MS office, Youtube, Outlook Web Access (or some sort of slim Outlook), etc. My Nexus 4 can do all of that quite easily.

"But Stargoat, that still is not good enough for the home gamer, which is why most people buy home PCs."

Correct. But Microsoft's core business model is B2B. They seem licenses for PCs for Fortune 500 Companies. That's where their bread and butter is. And those companies, when they figure out they can eliminate buying hardware AND at the same time make their users' lives easier, are going to jump all over that bandwagon.

"Ah Ha, you did not think of security, Stargoat."

Yes, I did not. A PC is much stronger in this regard. It's large and difficult to take out of an office. However, laptops have this same problem, and it has been easily overcome. Smartphones can (and should) be encrypted. Even today, applications exist that apply GPO style forced permissions to smartphones. These will grow in ubiquitousness. I find I am unconcerned about security as it is an easily overcome problem.

"Stargoat, I need a large hard drive to store my files. And I need to be able to create DVDs and other stuff."

Servers can do this now. As can attached USB drives. This is not in any way something that is a detriment my phone dock concept. The phone dock could even contain a separate GPU to improve output.

"I see, Stargoat. You're right. I was posting before thinking. You're not a horse deer."

That's OK. Let's all do our best together and be friends.

Re:Wow

[Anomalyst]

Am I the only one who read the epithet as "horse's derrier"?

Re:Or Too Much for Too Long

[MetalBoar]

I hear this a lot and it's a poor model that shows an ignorance of the products or perhaps a lack of historical context.

A more accurate model:

Consumer Line

• Win 3.x (kind of crappy, but whatever a first attempt)
• Win 95 (Much better)
• Win 98 and 98SE (incremental improvement)
• Win Me (a crappy OS pushed out the door after OEMS balked at the idea of selling an OS that required the 3 finger salute to log in -- We were supposed to see Win 2k Pro or some variant as the unification of the consumer and professional code)
• Win XP The realization of the aforementioned consumer/professional OS unification. Most people loved it, I thought it was kind of a step back from Win 2k, but it (eventually) added wireless network support and a couple of other need to have features.

Professional Line

• NT 3.x Server and Workstation - fine for what it was.
• NT 4 Server and Workstation - Pretty solid for small/mid sized businesses maybe not quite robust enough for enterprise application, lacked some features that you'd really want to see in a consumer desktop.
• Win 2k Server and Professional - MS builds a server for the enterprise, it's not bad. Professional works great as a consumer desktop OS, but is never marketed as such. Big improvement over NT 4 for a business client OS.
• Win XP See above.

At this point, MS has moved to the NT code base for both the business and consumer markets and dropped the old DOS/Win95 product line entirely. They now split the client and server OS's into different product lines.

Client

• Win Vista - Ok, this one blows. There are some areas of improvement, but some obvious botches...
• Win 7 Seems to be generally well regarded. The best client OS MS has ever made in my opinion, but then I always disliked XP.
• Win 8 - Seems to be a looser. I've not used it enough to have a real opinion, but the consensus seems to be that it's another Vista...

Server

• Win 2003 - Solid improvement over Win 2k.
• Win 2008 and 2008 R2 Another solid improvement (or 2 in a row depending on whether you count R2 as a separate release).
• Win 2012 I've not used it much yet. Seems to suck down a lot more resources than '08, but computers are a lot more powerful. Time will tell.

So, to sum up...Win 3.x - consumer line, bad. Win ME - consumer line, living abortion, bad. Win Vista, client line, bad. Win 8, client line, bad? At most the pattern can be said to work for Vista,7,8 looking at only the client line of OS's.

I'm using it on my laptop

[whois]

I'm typing this on my windows 8 laptop right now. I will say that metro occasionally does something pretty but is largely useless. I usually get into it by accident and not by choice. I consider it kind of like the media center interface for windows 7. Something you might engage by accident and marvel at for a moment, then try your best to turn off (at least if you're using XBMC or some other media center replacement).

Reasons for using it: It really is faster than windows 7 at several tasks. Booting for one. My laptop has an EFI bios and I installed a solid state drive. It boots in 2 seconds. It also updates far less frequently than win7 and has to reboot less, but that may be just because they haven't found all the bugs yet.

Way to use it: Get classic shell and configure it to skip metro

Things I hate about it: The windows 7 search functionality is broken from the start button. I think this is a classic shell limitation. I believe if you actually use metro and type a search it will be like win7. Basically it doesn't properly search for programs and other things so if you're used to hitting windows key and begin typing name until completion happens, that doesn't work right.

Mac OS X *not* migrating to iOS

[perpenso]

Apple has chosen to migrate to an all iOS world slowly, subtly. Give them time, it's in the grand plan. The walled garden with all of it's ways of providing a continuing revenue stream after the initial purchase will eventually be the way of all Apple systems.

No. Apple is not doing that.

They have an optional simplified user interface that resembles iOS a little, but they have always had an alternative simplified user interface. Only this simplified alternative has changed, the default standard interface is pretty much the same as it has been for many years.

They have a Mac App Store but no one is required to use it, neither developers not users. You can get Mac OS X apps directly from a publisher and install it yourself as you always have been able to.

Re:Mac OS X *not* migrating to iOS

[Master Moose]

Apple has chosen to migrate to an all iOS world slowly, subtly. Give them time, it's in the grand plan.

They have a Mac App Store but no one is required to use it,

...Yet

Re:Mac OS X *not* migrating to iOS

[perpenso]

Apple has chosen to migrate to an all iOS world slowly, subtly. Give them time, it's in the grand plan.

They have a Mac App Store but no one is required to use it,

...Yet

It aint gonna happen. The Mac App Store is fine for small and/or "not well known" vendors. However for the "big guys" who have the resource to have their own stores and digital download infrastructure the Mac App Store has little advantage, certainly nothing worth losing a 30% cut. These big well known vendors don't need to be discovered via the Mac App Store's listings and search capabilities, their potential customers know off the vendor and their products. Not letting these vendors sell direct will just cause them to drop the Mac OS X platform. Good bye Blizzard games, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, etc. It aint gonna happen.

Re:Mac OS X *not* migrating to iOS

[Voyager529]

Apple has chosen to migrate to an all iOS world slowly, subtly. Give them time, it's in the grand plan.

They have a Mac App Store but no one is required to use it,

...Yet

It aint gonna happen. The Mac App Store is fine for small and/or "not well known" vendors. However for the "big guys" who have the resource to have their own stores and digital download infrastructure the Mac App Store has little advantage, certainly nothing worth losing a 30% cut. These big well known vendors don't need to be discovered via the Mac App Store's listings and search capabilities, their potential customers know off the vendor and their products. Not letting these vendors sell direct will just cause them to drop the Mac OS X platform. Good bye Blizzard games, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, etc. It aint gonna happen.

I disagree: I believe that, given time, it will end up being a Mac App Store Only model. I do agree, however, that it will be the last possible straw at a point when it won't matter anyway.

Adobe wants to sell everyone on a subscription model. You have to go so far out of your way to get Photoshop on a plastic disc anymore that you have to either buy it on Amazon or spend enough time digging on their site to find it that most who aren't bent on having their plastic disc will cave long before and just get The Cloud. Adobe can probably strong-arm Apple into allowing them to have a "stub installer" in the App Store that allows the subscription model to work despite the store. Alternatively, Adobe may do a dongle situation where all their software is free on the App Store, but use a USB license key to determine what you do and don't have. This is how Serato works - everyone here at Slashdot can download Scratch Live for free...but if you want to be able to use multiple decks or use timecode media, you're forking over $500-$3,000 for an official audio interface for the purpose. Apple may continue allowing "sideloading" of software, but soon enough it'll limit the ability of the Geniuses in the Apple store to troubleshoot software installations based on something akin to Samsung's "Modified" status on their Android phones. Once that happens, users will be weary of enabling sideloading. This will enable competitors to seep in. "Logic Pro is available in the Mac App Store and ProTools isn't? I'm not risking my shiny new hardware. Besides, Apple knows best..." Avid will be forced to either play ball and eat the 30% Apple Tax, or lose 35% of sales. Lather, rinse, repeat for everyone else. Those married to the software rather than the platforms *may* begrudgingly migrate to Windows or Linux, assuming Microsoft doesn't keep trying to shove their own App Market down everyone's throat and Linux manages to get a bit more commercial software developed for the platform. As an aside, I think Microsoft is less likely to disable sideloading as it's a 100% guaranteed way to lose their corporate market entirely AND give all the antitrust lawyers bulging dollar-sign eyes AND make things really messy in the EU. Apple has a minimal corporate market, no antitrust issues to deal with, and the EU seems to be fairly lenient on Apple thus far. Thus, Windows is less likely to prevent desktop software from being installed no matter how much they want to steer everyone toward Metro.

By time Apple removes the ability to sideload entirely, all the software developers will have figured out the least objectionable way to play ball with the App Store model, or replaced by developers who have done so. It will be like the removal of Rosetta - something mourned by a minority of hardcore users and given hoopla by tech journalists, but unable to gain sufficient traction with the mass market of users that even if every single person who complained about the removal of sideloading were to go to Windows, Apple would be able to easily consider it "acceptable losses" to watch 5% of users defect to Windows or Linux in light of the fact that they now are getting 30% of every $500 Ableton sale when they used to get nothing.

Re:Or Too Much for Too Long

[Omestes]

Win 8 - Seems to be a looser. I've not used it enough to have a real opinion, but the consensus seems to be that it's another Vista...

I can't attest to how loose it is, but the actual OS is very solid (a bit of an improvement on Win7), most of the complaints are about the UI changes. Ignoring Metro (or whatever the hell it is called now) it is a very good OS.

I don't mind Metro, it isn't perfect, and feels tacked on, but it hasn't been the end of the world for me. If the changes in TFA are true, then I'd be pretty happy, though I probably wouldn't turn on the Start button if I had a chance. I barely used it in Win 7 (beyond search; i.e. [Win]-"pho"-[Enter] = Photoshop.), and would barely use it in 8.5.

Every other version of windows is bad.

[Karmashock]

Windows 98 was okay.
Windows ME (Mistake Edition) was terrible.
Windows XP was okay. ... Many years pass...
Windows Vista was terrible.
Windows 7 was okay.
Windows 8 is a joke.

Basically I think MS only pays attention when they're afraid AND listening to the people that ACTUALLY "BUY" their software.

People that buy new computers and get MS windows thrown in effectively buy the OS through some licensing fees. But who actually picks ups up at a store/pays to download a microsoft product and intentionally installs it into a machine?

THOSE people are the first people you need to satisfy.

It's the old 80/20 rule. That is, about 80 percent of your business is coming from about 20 percent of your customers. Every effective business makes sure they make that group happy first. THEN focus on the remaining 20 percent of their income stream which might well be 80 percent or more of their customers.

Who am I talking about? Corporate clients that buy site licenses and install your software on all their workstations. Small businesses that have been buying and installing MS software for decades. And the legions of power users that make up the core MS's ACTUAL biggest fans.

Take away these groups and MS has NOTHING. Windows 8 gives nothing to their core market and it was all sacrificed in an idiotic ploy to lure Apple owners in... Why? Apple in the desktop world remains a market share irrelevance especially in MS's core markets. Leave it alone. Enjoy what you have and stop reinventing yourself to no purpose.

Re:Start button sucks!

[tftp]

I really hate start button. Who really needs it? There is one on the keyboard already.

Millions upon millions of Windows users operate their computers with mouse alone. They discover existence of the keyboard only when they need to type something. There are good reasons for that.

Booting to the desktop seems nice but what is the point? I always want to launch something and go to the start menu anyway.

It's just you. Most people, however, work with more than one application at a time. Business computers are known to launch ten or twenty applications on startup. This box, at home, launches about five automatically (Outlook, OneNote, BPM, Skype, Bria, a sidebar with 6 gadgets, and a few more.) What would I do with just one? Do I have to choose between receiving my calls over Skype vs. over SIP? Booting into the desktop prepares the computer for its intended use. Booting into the start screen requires you to make the same repetitive choices every single time. Desktop makes them all visible and available instantly. Metro doesn't do that. What posessed MS to give up on their own invention of windowed GUI? Is this how large companies go senile?

If I do not want to run any apps in metro mode I do not want to see them in start menu

Good that you mentioned that. Doesn't *everyone* appreciates the disastrous UI that you have to use to control your Start screen? R-Click on each item separately, and then in some bottom row select an option. For each item individually! A typical install of a s/w package dumps ten to twenty new items into the flat Start screen, and you have to fix them all manually! What kind of an idiot came up with that? At least a hierarchy, like in the Start menu, would make sense. I use Start menu all the time - but I customize it to make it into a launcher of applications that *I* want (I disable the automatic pinning of recent stuff.) This is better than the desktop because Start menu is always available with a Windows button or a key, and it only takes one click to launch what I need (not two, like on the desktop, provided that you can get to it without minimizing your work.)

What about Windows Update icon?

[BUL2294]

One of my complaints (and yet another 3rd party utility to get around Win8's shortcomings) is that the Windows Update icon no longer shows in Desktop. In fact, if you have Windows Update set to inform but not download updates automatically, and you use an automatic logon, Win8 doesn't show you any warning that updates are available in either Desktop or Metro...

And what are Metro apps doing anyway?

[BUL2294]

Since I'm using "Start Is Back" to give me a Start menu and not go into Metro directly, what are all those apps sending to others about me, my PC, and what I'm doing???

Chris Hoffman's reasonings...

[SternisheFan]

An informative point by point breakdown (by HowToGeek's Chris Hoffman) of why he still is using Windows 7...

http://www.howtogeek.com/145984/why-i-still-use-windows-7-after-a-year-of-trying-to-like-windows-8/

Business needed Windows to interoperate

[kawabago]

Business no longer needs Windows to interoperate, there are countless ways to exchange information today besides an excel spreadsheet or Word document. The iPhone, iPad and Android all contributed to making the Windows desktop and Office applications unnecessary. Microsoft's market has evaporated.

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[gmueckl]

Well, a tap on the Win key and the first few letters of the program I want beat your clicking through hierarchies every time. KDE introduced their sort-of equivalent minicli about a decade ago and I think that it's a terrific idea. I use these features regularly. And don't tell me they're slower than your mouse navigation. They aren't.

the dissenting opinion

[verbatim]

I actually like the start screen:

Good:
- pressing [START] brings it up, I can start typing, and it filters like the start menu of old
- when filtering, the categories always appear in the same place
- meta options are big and appear in the same place (makes a difference at 2560x1440 with standard DPI)
- It doesn't overlap or clutter the desktop -- I press [START] and see a new screen with bigger options that are easier to navigate
- to me, the general windows desktop theme (flat, pastel, simple) is a huge improvement (reminds me of 3.x a little in that regard)

Bad
- It's not intuitive or obvious, I guess, that the [START] search functionality exists at all
- It's not obvious how to do meta actions (open with, for example)
- at first blush, if you make it to the desktop, it's not obvious how you get back to the start screen
- the hidden menus are obnoxious if you're trying to remember where they are hidden
- the "docked" apps or whatever, where the fullscreen app can take a portion of the screen, are worthless
- the hand icon, used to "discard/close" apps, is kind of weird on the desktop (I can discard my desktop? lol).

I dunno. Overall I am indifferent. I actually applaud Microsoft for giving something a go, I just hope that they keep working on it to make it more intuitive and less "post-pc"-ish (which is pretty insulting when I'm running it on a PC). I don't really use the tiles, and I'm on the desktop 99% of the time... so. Yeah. From a ui perspective alone, I don't really find it that abrasive.

game on

[taj]

Not more to say. But thats a good thing

Re:What "Windows Exodus"

[roc97007]

Um, actually it's, "something is different, and it sucks". Different and useable is fine.

Re:Start button sucks!

[UneducatedSixpack]

I do not think you have used windows 8 much. It is pretty good system that needs a few tweaks. Other than that it is not that difficult to get used to. The big deal about start button just surprises me. If people cannot handle simple change like this then are they even able to learn anything new? What if their favorite grocery store closes or bread is no longer available? Are they going to starve to death?

Re:Start button sucks!

[tftp]

I do not think you have used windows 8 much.

As matter of fact, I have it installed onto my laptop. The laptop came with Vista, and Win8 is technically better, without a doubt. By "technically" I mean "under the hood" - there are many good changes made by people who never deal with even a single pixel of UI in their work. The blame is on the GUI people, on the management to be exact.

It is pretty good system that needs a few tweaks.

I know. I tweaked it to resemble WinXP. I'd wish it had Aero, though, because it's nice to the eye. I hate the squarish looking decorations. I understand why they did it - to run the thing on a tablet - but this is NOT a tablet, #%$#%$ !!! I'm running ClassicShell, it killed most of the stupidities, and I don't venture into places where the rest lives.

Other than that it is not that difficult to get used to.

Sure, it's not difficult to live in North Korea, except that there is no food, no electricity, and you have to work as a slave every day in bitter cold. The question is, why would a normal person, not a masochist by any means, choose to live like that if he has choice? It might be tough to escape NK, but nobody can say that you don't have a choice in your OS. This desktop runs Win7, and it will never be downgraded to Win8.

The big deal about start button just surprises me. If people cannot handle simple change like this then are they even able to learn anything new?

The problem is not with "new" or like that. People don't want change in general. A regular man, or even many geeks, don't worship computers. They use them as tools to get some other work done. Imagine that a man got used, after 18 years of training ("Start something!" - 1995) to clicking on the leftmost icon in the toolbar to open a handy launcher where he keeps his usual shortcuts. Imagine that man who enters a Win8 desktop and clicks on that same icon! What will happen? I can tell you, IE starts! I clicked that myself like a hundred times, until I realized that I cannot retrain myself - and I moved a file manager window there to reduce the wasted time. Shortly after I installed ClassicShell, and the problem was gone.

I do not know even how to use Windows without the start menu. I use search only rarely. In part because I still have a lot of XP boxes around that don't do search like that at all. But also because it is too wasteful to move my hands from the mouse to the keyboard and type something. Type what??? I do not associate a specific name with a specific program. How do you type uTorrent, for example? Do you look for the greek 'u' (Alt-0181) ??? No. That won't work. You have to search for "torrent" instead. What kind of a common user would know that ahead of time? This is negative discoverability because you cannot use this search even if you *see* the shortcut on the desktop.

Can I learn all these new tricks? Yes, certainly. But WHY SHOULD I? What would you say if you are forced one day to walk only backward in your office? Can you do it? I bet you can, everyone can walk backward. But will you? It is totally unreasonable, short of some massive zombie invasion where you must walk back to back with a partner to watch each other's six. Same here. I can do all these stupid wiggles with mouse, but I don't want to, and I refuse to do it because it does not benefit me in any way. If the change is good and useful, you have a decent chance of convincing me to give it a try. But these changes are anything but good or useful. There is no incentive to learn the new stuff, especially because after you learn it you also learn that it's not helping you. The only person who it does help is Steve Ballmer.

What if their favorite grocery store closes or bread is no longer available? Are they going to starve to death?

We always adapt. However in choosing the best adaptation strategy we look around and evaluate what is available - what alternative products are out there; what happened to the supplies of that bread

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[Curunir_wolf]

I can't believe that developers at Microsoft are really using Win8 + Metro on regular desktops, or do they?

No, they all use Macs.

Why Not Have Both?

[WheezyJoe]

The KEY point is:

Mobile = great for consuming content, Desktop = great for creating content.

Will Mobile catch up to the Desktop? Yes, I agree the gap will significantly decrease but I seriously doubt it will even come close within 10 years.

OK, so when mobile processors and memory get really up to snuff, how about a phone with a socket (or wireless interface) for a keyboard, mouse, and 2 or more really high-res monitors? When hooked up to desktop devices, the phone switches to using a desktop GUI; the mobile of the future is a pocket-sized desktop PC that presents whatever GUI is appropriate for the screen and controllers you use to operate it.

Would anyone want that? Too easy to lose leave behind on the bus?

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[epyT-R]

No one is saying it's impossible to use. They're saying it's a pain in the ass compared to previous versions. Obviously, you agree because you hacked around metro with 'classic start menu' in order to make that mess useful. What I don't get is why you didn't install windows 7 in the first place.

Re:What's so bad about the start screen?

[FunkeyMonk]

Fair enough.

Re:Or Too Much for Too Long

[jones_supa]

Win 3.x (kind of crappy, but whatever a first attempt)

Windows 3.x was not crappy, really. For people coming from DOS world and having slow 286/386 hardware, It provided a nice base for running some graphical applications. It was also a big improvement from 2.0.

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[cameloid]

Is it not a case of simply repartitioning and re-installing on the now blank disk anymore?

Or in other words,

[aussersterne]

Ballmer continues to drive Microsoft into a ditch.

But you are absolutely correct; this is the fundamental issue. Microsoft doesn't understand the value proposition behind Windows products and hasn't done since BillG left; they're chasing value that they see at other companies, but starting from scratch, even as they throw away the tremendous and once industry-leading value that they'd already built.

It's idiocy, of a special sort that affects only the most badly run companies.

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[Your.Master]

I don't think that folders are really that wonderful in comparison to filters. Right now we start with nothing in one view, and then use folders. You can optimize the "first filter" / "first folder" to make the approaches seem very similar at first glance. Hierarchies break down when something fits two logically classifications that are generally distinct, and soft/hard links are a bit of a hack to make that work.

Other than filter vs. folder, the main difference between the filesystem hierarchy and the start screen is the filesystem hierarchy organizes based on explicitly defined metadata (location in the filesystem) whereas the start screen uses mostly implicit metadata (filename string matching on search queries), although if you know what you're doing you can get it to use a whole pile of metadata.

I overall don't like the start screen not because of clutter reasons, but because it's effectively modal. I want this menu small and off in a corner so I don't have to context switch, and can send my parents email instructions like "press start, type in blah blah blah, etc., now your printer works". Because dear god, they will never learn copy/paste.

Sigh, clutch.

[mjwx]

But what about all those European cars with the gas on the left and brake on the right so they can drive on the other side of the road?

Does anyone else think it's sad that this post has no mention of the Clutch position.

Re:Sigh, clutch.

[Anomalyst]

Does anyone else think it's sad that this post has no mention of the Clutch position.

Indeed, it appears that Spinner and Paddlefoot's positions were also deliberately omitted.
Nuts, now I'm gonna have that theme running thru my head all day.

Classic shell

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed Classic shell (www.classicshell.net/) on my Windows 8 ultrabook
and now I see practically no difference to Windows 7.

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[AmiMoJo]

As I already said there are some advantages to Windows 8. It starts quickly, runs smoothly, has some nice new features (the file copy dialogue is much improved, for example) and no real disadvantages. For what it's worth I installed Classic Start Menu on Windows 7 as well because I like an "all programs" menu rather than the panel thing that was introduced with Vista.

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[jawtheshark]

SecureBoot is enable by default on Win8 machines. It might have complicated things, as I don't think 7 truly supports it. Of course, any tech worth is salt should know about these things.

Working Title

[ThatsNotPudding]

LOL.1

Re:Convert windows 8 UI to Mac OS Lion UI with ski

[Decker-Mage]

Actually, I tend to do the reverse, and I don't mean making Mac look like a PC. I mean making an Amiga, IBM-PC compatible, Mac, or anything else that doesn't run quickly away soon enough, look like a NeXT. Where did you *think* OS/X got its look, hmmm? The only thing I'm missing here is my damned tear-off menus. Give me a few. Otherwise, my Windows 8/Server 2012 (on my workstation) is like a big-ass dock with all kinds of goodness hiding around the hot-spots (also lifted wholesale from the NeXT).

Trivia question. Do you happen to know who ran NeXT? .

What a bunch of idiots

[Murdoch5]

So everyone said that Metro sucked, they went ahead anyway thinking they would reinvent the desktop OS for all time. They got there asses handed to them and now are finally listening to everyone who said Metro and removing the start button was a BIG mistake.

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[xdor]

Actually you can just tap the Windows Key to swap between desktop and Metro.

What gets me about Windows 8 is how stupid it is. I put in a DVD and a little fly-out hint asks what I would like to do with DVDs in the future. If you don't happen to notice in time, or don't quick click exactly and it goes away THERE'S NO WAY TO START THE DVD without launching a seperate program directly! You can't even do it through Windows Explorer (Windows + E)! And there's no way to get back to the hint, without ejecting the DVD and putting it back in again.

So once you do catch the fly-out hint and manage to save what you want to do with DVDs in the future, you will grateful to know that there are "enhanced DVDs" out there and Windows 8 knows the difference! Now you have to catch the fly-out again. Only this time, Windows doesn't actually save that preference. That's right, for "enhanced DVDs" you have to do it every time.

Stupid. Just stupid.

Use a 3rd party program to get the start button

[colfer]

Works great. I like the Win8 machine I occasionally use better than the Win7 one. Not sure why, it may be as simple as the ugly folder icons in Win7. The 3rd party app (not an "app") I found for Win8 makes it boot to desktop, restores the start menu, turns off the weird mouse actions at the edge of the screen. It's Classic Shell or StartMenu8, forget which.

Re:The dummies running MS could have avoided this.

[thejynxed]

You want the XP/2K UI in Win 7? Easily done. Slect Classic under Themes, enable. Then turn off the Themes service, and voila. Looks and behaves almost identically to the 2k interface, only with the awesomeness of pinning your stuff to the taskbar still intact.

Re:The dummies running MS could have avoided this.

[thejynxed]

*Select not Slect. Derp derp me.

Re:I think this was it...

[Cro Magnon]

Windows 95 was a 32bit extension to a 16bit application that ran on an 8bit operating system that ran on a processor worth 2 bits.

And made by a company that couldn't stand 1 bit of competition. :)

Re:Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot he

[spockman]

Not only does it pop out which is not a problem, it says "Tap here to decide what to do with this". I am on a laptop with no touch screen. Would it have been so hard to recognize your hardware and put the approriate verbage? I have had people call me and ask how do they use that since they have tapped the screen with their fingers but it did not work. They really need to do away with "touch" stuff if it is not a touch screen device!

Re:Or Too Much for Too Long

[Synerg1y]

Some would say they stabilized what they were trying to do in 95 in 98. 95 is where the term BSOD gained ground. The sever line really doesn't apply to this trend, just consumer OS. The servers have improved steadily in less frequent release cycles. Reason people say what I said in the scope of consumer OS is because your opinion of 95 seems to be a ways heightened.

Re:The dummies running MS could have avoided this.

[KevReedUK]

The problem is that no-one wants a phone interface on their desktop. If they want a phone interface they'll buy a phone, and that phone is unlikely to be using windows.

That's not the only problem...

Unless I've missed something pretty damn fundamental, Apps developed for Metro on the Desktop won't be finding their way onto Tablets or Phones without having to be recompiled. Last time I checked, the x86 presence in the Phone/Tablet world was pathetically low.

I may, however, have completely misunderstood something here... It is worth noting that I'm not a programmer, so I'm not really clear on how much extra effort is involved in getting a coded for x86 app working on ARM-based devices.

Re:Seriously, are MS devs really using Win8?

[rastos1]

The windows disk partitioning tool is "diskmgmt.msc". On Windows 7 if I open the start menu and type "diskmgmt.ms" it still does not offer "diskmgmt.msc" in the search results. It can't get more broken than that.