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A Serious Proposal To Fix Windows 8
GMGruman writes "Windows 8 is simply not selling, and everyone but Microsoft knows it's a mess of an OS. And the Windows 8.1 'Blue' that Microsoft revealed some details of late last week doesn't address the fundamental flaws. So a team at InfoWorld worked up a serious proposal to rework Windows 8 for both PCs and tablets that fixes those flaws and lets Microsoft's true innovations break free of today's Windows 8, complete with mockups of the proposed Windows 'Red.'"
American beer at the lab,
Produced results rather drab.
The report: "Suggest you shoot these
Horses; they've got diabetes."
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Nice objective summary
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
OK, Win8 is an abomination for desktops, but it works realy well for tablets and touch-enabled devices. It was a joy to use with my friend's Sony all-in-one thingy (basically, an iMac rip-off).
Then again, if you want to run desktop apps on your tablet say goodbye to battery life.
BTW, is it possible to slipstream Start8 with the Win8 installation?
I propose a simple and effective solution to virtually all Windows 8 problems: remove it.
I have now worked with Windows 8 now since last october, and it is working just fine for me. I have had no problem getting around the new interface.
The suggestions involved are klunky and the idea of splitting it into 3 OSes is going the wrong way. Windows RT is a disaster because it lacks app compatibility. MS needs to retire it and fully embrace x86 now that intel has fixed it with Haswell.
All that needs to be done to "fix" the start menu issue is make it so the task bar never goes away and the desktop background stays persistent but faded out. You click "START" and tada, the tiles appear right on top of your desktop. It is a simple solution, should be easy to present and works equally as well in mobile touchscreens as it does mice.
Windows is notr going to die soon but its days are numbered. Even in terms of desktop experiece they should simply learn from competitors. This company has myriads of ressources, they could hire the best designers and make a difference, they chose not to.
Please people, the "elephant in the room" is right in front of your face.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
Genius!
Seriously, this is obvious, as is a context-sensitive UI.
I do not want all apps to be full screen only on my 27" high-dpi monitor. I also do not want a start menu and title bar on my 7" tablet. This is only revolutionary if questioning the way MS does things is revolutionary.
then microsoft isn't interested.
the whole point is to get people to use metro apps. to pay for metro apps. to get a cut of metro apps sales.
thus the push towards the metro ecosystem. supposedly it would also fix problems with some malware and so forth, but the real dollar bills would be from getting a cut from everything that is run on the pc. that is a huge pie. unsurprisingly traditional sw makers are asking why the fuck should they bow to that and are moving to subscription models partially as a backup against ms possibly being so stubborn as to force sw to be downloaded from their market sometime in the next 5 years or so.
they could easily do that if metro apps would have started to gain a lot of traction, too bad people don't like metro enough.
the simple fix would be to ship it with possibility to multitask metro apps and to run them in windows as default features, but then people might start asking why bother with metro apps at all. it's not like it's impossible to make touch friendly apps - with esentially the same api's - that aren't constrained to running inside metro vm.
(written on a windows 8, it's so nice that it comes with a pdf reader. too bad you can only run the piece of shit fullscreen and view just one pdf at time! and the fuck does some fucking single player games need my windows account and facebook for? ??).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
where are the sales figures for Windows 8 compared to other OS?
If it is simply a shitty GUI on an improved kernel and stack then I will deal with it.
What little Windows development I do is at least 50% command line anyway. My GUI apps simply are wrappers (and quite ugly thank you).
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
how is it 10,000 Microsoft engineers and managers couldn't pour piss out of a boot if instructions were on the heal?
I was shocked to see an original article on Infoworld, but then realized they split up 15 paragraphs over 15 pages. You can lead me there all you want, but no way in hell I'm going to read that BS.
Between Windows 8 and trying to turn the Xbox into some sort of kludgy, half-assed DRM'ed TV tuner instead of a game console, I sometimes wonder wtf is going on in Redmond. Has Steve Balmer just checked out to lunch or something?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
I am still trying too figure my way through the changes in office. If you look at the Linux systems, people are choosing Mate desktop instead of gnome 3.
Microsoft should hire Infoword's writers as design consultants. Inforworld's staff doesn't have the luxury of being out of touch with users.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
InfoWorld reads like a woman's magazine you find at the checkout isles. Look today
"Don't trust anonymous
e-currencies like Bitcoin"
"Let's be clear: Cloud computing
will shrink the data center"
"Batten down the hatches -- it's
Microsoft reorg season"
"The right way to manage BYOD"
"Big Brother tech might be
America's last hope for health"
"Read me to learn how to suck a man"
I had it with Microsoft's strong-arming me anytime they feel like, and other tactics they can afford to use as a monopolist. Windows 8 has the chance to be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back.
So please Microsoft, don't listen to these proposals - push right ahead with Metro and a GUI that lacks discoverability. That way, maybe, you'll finally your journey into craphood, where you belong.
People that believe Windows 8 is broken wrongly assume that Windows 8 was a misguided attempt at refreshing the Windows user interface that went awry.
Microsoft's goal with Windows 8 is twofold:
1. Leverage their substantial marketshare in the desktop PC space to develop an app ecosystem for their tablets and mobile phones
2. Kill the relatively open Windows desktop application ecosystem and replace it with a walled garden with Microsoft as its gatekeeper
Microsoft isn't stupid--they understand that Windows 8 isn't popular, they just don't care. They know that consumers will flock to Windows PCs because they're cheap, and they know that businesses will stay with Windows PCs because Windows 7 is still available and they're locked into Microsoft's server products in any case. The only markets where Microsoft is struggling is the IaaS and mobile markets, and those are the markets where Microsoft is concentrating their resources.
Barring a sudden and titanic shift in the desktop computing market, Metro is here to stay. The people who find that unsettling should prepare to move away from Windows.
Kill it. Mercilessly.
A la Game of Thrones.
In "good design", motion is supposed to direct your eye to important interface elements.
Panes or "Tetris Elements" or whatever they fucking call the distracting moving, flipping visual mess in Metro has been designed solely for distraction. Every task in Windows 8 takes longer amongst the worthless visual clutter begging for your attention. Why is this box jumping and drawing my eye? I don't know, it's not showing me anything new, and meanwhile I need to flip through another six pages of Tetris to find my bloody app.
It is taking the rotting corpse of the dead horse out of its horse casket, standing it up so that some horse believers can still hope it is alive, and beating it.
It's done. If you want a Start menu, pay $5 to Stardock.
This is the only OS in the world that people complain about NOT having a menu to access applications. It's ok that OS X has never had a Start menu. And I thought Windows was dumb, Linux rules. But all these "expert" users who claim to run Linux or OS X as their primary OS sure seem distraught by something that shouldn't affect them often because, after all, they wouldn't use Windows if their life depended on it.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Posting as AC because I don't remember my password (last post was over a year ago).
I figured I'd give it a shot for two or three days and then blow it away and put my usual mix of Kubuntu and Win7 on it. I actually got used to it in two days for the most part. Of course there are some settings that have moved around (they seem to do that every version) but the start screen is quite handy once you get the hang of it.
There are things I really really like about it:
Speed. Boots fast, loads apps fast, searches are all fast. Very fast.
The giant icons are easy to click in a hurry, and the right click on them brings up the options I use all the time.
Wireless is super simple.
Desktop mode is great for 90% of what I do with the thing (coding, charting, etc). The basic mode is not super useful, but is nice for when I'm on the couch and want to check the weather or sports scores. It's also nice for my wife and daughter to use for their purposes.
Multi-monitor support! Obviously this has been around forever, but 8 is the first version that SEAMLESSLY detects my display state and configures itself accordingly without any work. I have a few scenarios: A) Just notebook screen B) Docking station with notebook screen and two extra monitors C) notebook screen with single monitor directly connected to notebook. Windows 8 identifies the situation and supports whatever setup in about 3 seconds.
Things I don't like:
It takes me forever to find the Shutdown/Restart option in the GUI. I typically hit Start Key and type "shutdown.exe -r -t 0" or "-s -t 0" to do so since I've been a CLI guy for years, so I just do that. I should devote myself to finding it in the UI but I'm too lazy and figure it should be easier.
The live bouncing tiles are not ADD friendly! I disabled all of those. I can see some being useful, but I had to shut those off.
The basic mode Email client was never able to send email for me. Might have been a configuration problem, but I've never had that problem with any other email client (IMAP config).
I understand why it must be the case, but the forced reboots for updates are unfortunate. I feel 8 does a better job of warning me than 7 did, but I still don't like it.
For some reason the logon screen's password box loses focus halfway through my password on first attempt. I thought I was perhaps hitting the touchpad, but even with the touchpad it still does it. Weird and annoying.
Sometimes after I disconnect from my VPN, all networking fails and I must reboot. This is likely due to my VPN client but this doesn't happen in Windows 7 (or Kubuntu) on my old machine.
That's probably enough. I guess I just wrote this to say, I've been a Windows and Linux power user for the last few decades and have found a decent amount of value in Win8, and would install it over Win7 for daily use. I'm not sure I would pay for an upgrade, but if I were replacing my machine or had MSDN or student discounts I'd definitely do it. It's a solid, fast OS.
From Win 7 to Win 8, the differences are simply too huge.
We've been using a desktop PC for about 20 yrs and basically, the core Win OS hasn't changed all that much. Start Button, Control Panel, etc..
I believe that as long as you have PCs operating with keyboard/mouse that you should be able to have the Win 7 experience. And then again, if possible, the Windows Classic experience without all the frills and thrills.
Well, that's my opinion anyways. It would make sense and it wouldn't be rattling user's cages so to speak.
Microsoft wants to get into the mobile world with their OS. Great, no problem, bring it on, but, maybe, they ought to make it a separate OS. It's going to be a while before a 'one solution' fits all approach will work when it comes to computing. For once, Microsoft should look at how Apple does it. It might LOOK all the same, but it isn't.
that hobbled POS Winblows 7 was terrible - glad i'll never use Windoze 8...
They just need to forget windows 8 and keep offering windows 7 for sales and adding features.
If MS is smart they will learn from this mistake and make different versions of windows. One version that is for laptops and desktops that plays to their strengths and version 2 that plays to the strengths of phones/tablets/smartphones. They can still integrate the ability for them to communicate with each other for easy interaction and such but still be modeled for their individual platform.
That's the only thing they messed up with windows is they tried to make one big umbrella for everyone to stand under instead of focusing on the platforms divided.
The only reason they are pushing windows 8 so hard now is because it is built into the Xbox One and they are trying to get people onboard with windows 8 before it launches. And the Xbox One is an obvious haymaker from MS.
Linux. BSD. Haiku. ALMOST ANY OTHER OS. you're damn proposal to make thing the way you like can actually be acted upon.
The best way to "fix" windows, is to say "fuck it" and not use the shit.
The solution presented in TFA of splitting the OS into 3 flavors is exactly the wrong approach. What's truly needed is a complete reworking of the pointer device stack so touch can be treated differently from a mouse click. For legacy support, a touch should be able to be converted to a mouse click action for older applications, but a mouse gesture shouldn't ever be required to emulate a touch/swipe.
Hell, make make touch support and all its UI additions be a Windows "feature" that can be enabled/disabled in the Features wizard.
This with the UI changes already proposed with 8.1 and should have an OS that people wouldn't fear using anymore than previous flavors of Windows.
The only way to fix Windows 8 is to delete it from your HD. Steam already works on Mac OS X and Linux anyway.
It links you in the third paragraph to "20 things you will love about Windows 8." Number 9 is the "Charms bar." On page 3 they suggest "The Charms bar is eliminated".
Does it come with a native PDF reader like Windows(R) Document Viewer (TM) (C) 2012-2013?
Or do you still have to install Adobe or Foxit crap?
What are the "true innovations"? All I use Windows is to start up my games, I wish there would be some minimal Windows that just shows the desktop where I can double click on the Game I want. For everything else I use Linux.
If I would compare Windows 7 with Fedora Linux with KDE the Windows would look pretty bad. It is missing almost everything I use in Linux. If my games would run on Linux I would happily nuke Windows 7 in favour to some GB of more space.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Windows Red looks like a good idea. However, I see Microsoft either taking all those ideas and renaming them and not quite getting close enough because their review process throws parts of it out or maybe using one or two and then claiming they were going to do that all along.
The start menu shown there is way too too small to work with touch. What microsoft isn't getting is that nobody gives a fuck.
It is telling that the same people who whine about any changes to a GUI are the same people who insist existing GUI's are boring, behind the times, dated, uninspired, and/or blah? If bashing Windows 8 is the only thing you can find to write about, perhaps you could branch out and whine about skeuomorphic icons in iOS. Both are vitally important to world peace, curing disease, and the betterment of humanity. lol.
Microsoft has a burning platform, perhaps they should bring back the guy who knows how to handle that situation: Stephen Elop
The easiest way to fix Windows RT is to make the desktop actually work, and allow running unsigned ARM code. Let developers recompile their programs for ARM, and they will do it.
Maybe throw in compatibility for Windows CE programs, or better yet, throw in an X86 emulator.
I think this looks like a good plan to improve the GUI of 8. However, I see a small chance of Microsoft actually using these ideas and in the chance they do they will rename almost everything and possibly just end up screwing it up...but that is just my inner cynic. The mostly likely thing to happen is they will cherry pick what they think users want and then come out with these great new ideas that they "thought up."
Windows 8 is selling extremely well.
New PCs are what isn't selling, and that has nothing to do with Windows 8, no matter what the Slashdrones like to believe. That has to do with Moore's Law finally outpacing the needs of software, the change to near universal consumption on computers.
Hardware vendors need to make upgrading hardware compelling. Microsoft can't do that -- they're selling plenty of upgrades, as it is.
right there = fail , soon as people with a desktop see that word its game over were not the retreds that buy tablets most times...therefore DONT try ok...gibe up game over DO NOT INSERT NEW COIN....wont work not happening go grab windows 7 and go forth
The fanboy bias in this article is almost palpable. The iPad revolutionized computing? Come on.
Over years, the general trend regarding Microsoft seems to be that you can't expect what kind of train wreck might be coming in next Windows. First they made it bloated (Win95), then they exposed it to security threats (pre-SP WinXP). At Win7 things looked really good, but the next time they decided to steamroll the UI into unusable state (Win8). So if we look things in the broad scale, part of Microsoft's nature is simply being an unpredictable company.
For comparison if we look at Apple, they have had their bad moments too, but at each OSX release you can roughly expect to get a quite usable OS. No surprising big disasters.
If Microsoft kept Metro on tablets and phones only they'd have a solid update for Windows Mobile. Instead they shoved it on the Desktop as well and it's generated a lot of annimosity. If they really want a solid desktop release they need to take Windows 7, apply under the hood updates, and leave the interface alone for the most part. If they really want to have their flat color Windows 8 desktop style then it can be added as an extra theme that is selectable in the release.
Given reality however I'm planning for a no Windows future after 7's support ends.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
My attempt to sift through the ads was to click on the slide show. Expected to be tortured with one slide per ad-laden screen. Was not expecting zero slides per ad-laden screen, until I turned on javascript. Anyway, went that approach, glanced at each slide until it got to Mobile, and I was done. Nothing to see, moved on, but even the "print" version of that article was unreadable -- had a box outline overlay thing on top of the text and it didn't go away as I scrolled. They need to work on their "print" mode...Still, I survived the article and am off to get the tattoo.
I come here for the love
Windows Desktop on a touch device is useless, period.
It doesn't work with finger touch.
It barely works with a Stylus
You really really want to plug in a mouse and keyboard to work with desktop apps on a tablet.
This after 10+ years of creating Tablet PC's, Surface Pro is an embarrassing product, period.
Microsoft needs to end the Duality of Windows and keep it separated. Without that then they can never have a successful hybrid product.
Microsoft did nothing for the desktop user in Windows 8. Metro skin aside, they ruined the desktop experience by going to a flat monochromatic UI. They broke almost every UI rule in the book and on a subconscious level you hate using Windows 8 on the desktop because it lacks any visual pizazz. Visual Studio 2012 and Office 13 exemplify how poorly Microsoft's decision to strip down the UI to a flat monochromatic palette, these are boring and uninspired applications and without any visual UI cues, are actually more difficult to use. Any real performance or stability improvements of Windows 8 over Windows 7 is lost compared to how bland they made Windows 8. I am not saying you have to bring back cheesy glassy buttons and panels, but you can do something a little more than battleship grey applications with bright primary color highlights.
The only real desktop customers left are in the corporate world, and so it makes no sense for Microsoft to try and force tablet like features on the corporate desktop. They should revert to a Windows 7 era of desktop design and just promote Windows 8.x as a fast, stable, mature desktop OS that helps to build up their enterprise portfolio.
Since the mainstream consumer is going mobile Microsoft should focus more on Tablet ONLY offerings, I think Microsoft has a decent tablet OS in WIndows 8 (sans desktop mode), I mean, compared to iOS and Android Windows 8 ( the Metro skin of it) is a great Tablet OS. It's touch friendly and innovative, and the Live Tiles are ahead of the curve when it comes to other mobile OS'es. The problem with a lack of Surface RT and Windows RT sales comes down to the same old problem with any alternative tablet OS...Applications. However I am at a loss here because Microsoft offers some of the best development tools out there and one of the most expansive development communities. Remember, if Apple counts a million apps in iPad, Microsoft can count hundreds of millions of applications designed for Windows OS over the years.
But the biggest issue with Windows tablets is trying to sell in the same price range as iPad's, and that is just not going to do it. Android tablets only took off when they are cheaper than iPad's. Microsoft has to change their pricing strategy for Windows RT tablets if they want them to survive, I think the Apps will come when their market share improves, but that will not change selling tablets that are the same or even more expensive than the iPad.
Until MIcrosoft realizes that hybrid devices don't work and don't sell, they will not be able to revive Windows 8 so they may as well save face and separate the Desktop from the Tablet and focus on bringing the best features to each individual platform rather than mashing a bunch of haphazard features that do not work well on either. Microsoft should kill Surface Pro and end any 3rd parties trying to promote hybrid touch/laptop hardware. There is a reason why Apple is refusing to offer touch on a Mac, because Apple realized that touch does not work on the desktop, period.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
From my experience in the real world and lab environment benchmarking Windows 8's GUI is incredibly fast, around 600% that of Windows 7 in rendering text, geometry, 2D images, etc thanks to the new integrated DirectX backbone. The entire OS is hardware accelerated, unlike any other on the market. The only changes from 7 to 8 on the visual side is making the Start Menu full screen and putting Settings/Power on a right hot corner. It takes all of 3 seconds to get antiquated with the hardly new or different superficial GUI and back to the desktop experience you know and love. I don't see what everyone is belly aching about.
I thought that's never been a consideration before.
Windows 8 is a great os with some UI improvements that arent perfect. Get over it. I'm happy with it. You're all fucking linux users anyway so who gives a fuck what you think. You enjoy a pain in the ass OS to work with, that has no fucking apps what so ever.
let Metro apps run in a window on the desktop + add back windows 7 start menu. With only 1 control plan is realty all they need to do.
So, M$ has the franchise for the most popular (not saying best or worst), but the most well known user interface. That is the key thing they have. So why do they change it into something that no one recognizes. The "upgrades" to the Office interface have made it unusable. Now they do the same to Windows... Looks like they are throwing their franchise away to me.
It's probably a good thing that we can all see this matter differently. The guys at Inforworld seem to want a very clear distinction between how a Desktop PC works and how "other devices" work, even imagining a hybrid operating system UI for the devices that today are not exactly desktops and are not exactly tablets. /. A few days after we saw multiple hybrid products and prototypes at Computex, many of them using Windows 8 on machines with varied configurations. Would the people at Infoworld adjust their OS everytime someone comes up with a valid hardware prototype? Or would they react to wherever the OEMs are doing and adjust Windows whenever some new OEM design becomes successful enough? In either case, they are not acknowledging that Microsoft has and wants to have a say in how their product is used.
This idea shows up on
It seems the people at Infoworld gathered the common gripes and made a mock-up of how things could stay the same as much as possible, disregarding any aspirations that MS may have to develop their products towards what will sell in the future.
By extending the idea of Personal Computer to include smartphones and tablets, within 10 years we will be looking at a PC market with a majority of devices without any MS product, unless Microsoft seriously increases sales of Windows Phone and Surface. It looks like people at Infoworld haven't noticed that these products do not have and do not need to show any familiarity with the old desktop and icons UI.
Windows blue is looking like a a gradual change to what feedback MS got from Windows 8, without detracting from those objectives of helping them get a stronger position on the tablet/mobile market. This Windows red mock-up would be 10 steps backwards on that route, leaving Windows in an shrinking island of "desktop" users, without a clear route for linking them with other devices, which is possibly the best thing about Windows 8.0
So Microsoft is following the Open Source projects in crowdsourcing the design process. They also seem to adopt "release early, release often".
The only missing bit seems to be github upload.; And maybe a public bug report system, with #1 bug along the lines of "Linux has a majority market share".
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just install Linux and run your Windows programs under Wine for the ultimate experience that will turn MS users green with envy, while you keep your green in your wallet.
Windows Red is seemingly reminiscent of KDE on any Distro
if you want a dumb tile GUI. Ubuntu was earlier, and it still is more functional. So why bother with Windows?
I like the idea of the tiles over the desktop. Kinda transparent so you can still see whats open.
It seems he forgot to mention he was the lead of "a team at InfoWorld" that wrote the flawed article.
Oh noes! Windows 8 is slightly different.
I hate thing that are slightly different. Kill it with fire!
Don't make me learn new things!
I mean for god's sake my wonderful Start menu is now an evil, awful Start *screen*.
This is *literally* the end of the world!
Hmm, then how is Apple the #1 laptop vendor?
Because they are the only vendor that can make hardware for their software whereas Android, Linux and Windows are just software that runs on non-prejudicial hardware built by countless vendors. Apple exists in a walled garden, if you want apple then you must buy an Apple product. If you want Linux or Windows then you can buy literally any modern hardware and run it legally. That Apple outsells Asus means nothing. The combined sales of Asus, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, and every other vendor that is not Apple is what you have to measure apple against if you want to point to Apple's market share as a hardware victory.
As for software, OS X barely beats out Windows Vista. and has only slightly less than double the adoption than Windows 8, despite advantages in both time on market and perceived quality
And the #1 tablet vendor?
Same answer. Apple dominates the mobile device market at 59%. However, Android since its inception has dominated Microsoft in the same way MS dominated Apple on the desktop. It will take a few more years, but eventually Apple will lose give most of its ground to Android. The only reason apple does not fall faster in mobile is because building your own mobile devices is generally out of reach for the majority of people. If mobile devices (and laptops) were as standardized as desktop PCs then you'd see a massive hobbyist market slapping free Android on their designs. The only thing Apple really excels at is superficial uniformity, giving the same appearance in all of its designs, making it uniquely suited for use in large institutions such as schools. Granted it helps if the school's administrators are themselves Apple fanboys.
And most tech conferences, the attendees all have MacBooks.
At most adult movie conventions the attendees all have erections, your point? Certain things cater to certain demographics. Perhaps tech conventions simply attract Apple fanboys more than other OS enthusiasts in the same way porn conventions attract men more than apes. The market segment using non-Apple products don't have the luxury of time to travel about, they're busy working.
So the parent post is right: why the hell are they doing this?
I RTFA, and all I could think about is BITCH BITCH BITCH BITCH.
The amusing thing is that it is a trend no one seems to admit to.
Vista comes out - Everyone says: "But it sucks and it breaks compatibility!" (Yes, it sucked initially, but it was decent enough [emphasis on decent] right before 7 came out.)
7 comes out - Everyone says: "But Vista sucked! Why would I leave the stability (editor's note: HAHAHAHAHA!) of XP for 7 when it is just an update to the terribleness of Vista? (7 was great on release and is still great to this day.)
8 comes out - Everyone says: "WTF, why would you change everything? Screw you MS!" (Not touching this. I like 8, that's my final comment on the subject.)
And meanwhile, there are still arguments from folks that people should stay on XP as opposed to moving up to at least 7.
So BITCH BITCH BITCHing is the standard OP regarding their releases from the past half decade. Which is probably a part of the reason they don't care too much about catering to every users' whim in terms of "improvements." They know people will bitch some more anyway.
First, remove all Democrat communist socialists from the government. Then,
Thanks for the link. And no need to enable JS to read it.
I come here for the love
Windows 8, ain't so bad....but it's a fairly big change. It has lots of little improvements and refinements that are rather cool. And while Windows 7 is my favorite OS ever, followed by OS X Jaguar for performance. I think Windows 8 has potential if they fix a few quarks. And perhaps 8.1 will do that.
A few simple things would allow W8 to (W-eight) to shine.
> The grid menu for apps etc is in fact really nice. EXCEPT, re-arranging and setting defaults kind of sucks. Let me simply "PIN" apps in specific squares. The whole tabbing of pages is awesome. I'd love to have menu grids for my different workflows. Fun. Development. Photography & Design.
> Metro, really hate the fields that have no really design designation give me borders or increased shade differences so I know WHERE the email, fields, etc are.
> Metro apps display full screen. And this gives the perception of a loss of control. Loss of desktop. I think if there was simply a narrow translucent border that gave the feel that Metro apps were merely an overlay being displayed on your screen. People would find it much more comfortable. If not as aesthetic.
That said, many of the settings and interfaces finally make sense. Questions are much better phrased.
Less of the ambigious statements like "This file already exists would you like to overwrite or keep the old version?" Ok/Cancel. [Seriously, how the !@#$ are you supposed to answer a question like that. You can't. And Microsoft has done a lot to eliminate those issues.]
If your requirement is meant to be "I must use Windows", then you've already decided the answer. However, what you've decided is that you'll only use Windows.
That is because you're not actually real, you're just trolling.
Strikes me as an assinine proposal, just like the submitter's statement "everyone but Microsoft knows it's a mess of an OS"
If you don't want to use Metro, don't. Its really easy Click the desktop icon. There, its gone! There are even ways to boot directly to desktop. Windows 8 works great - it is fast and more stable than even 7 was. But at least there wasn't excessive whining about a start button.
I run a network that is primarily windows servers (AD, DFS, Exchange, PPTP, etc) and I use a Latitude E6230 docked to 2 external monitors running Ubuntu 12.10 with the unity desktop. I'm the senior sysadmin here and I can do my entire job (more efficiently than on a Win7 desktop I might add) using the hybrid touch/desktop unity interface in Ubuntu.
So I see what MS was trying to do, and it is possible, they just failed. I think the key is to make the desktop and touch versions similar... not identical.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
"everyone but Microsoft knows it's a mess of an OS"
Huh?
You may not like the UI, but I'm not hearing that 8 is flaky or unreliable, any more than 7. The complaints are focused on the UI, and RT marketing.
And if there is a mess under the hood that I've managed to not pay attention to, Microsoft knows it better than you think. You can call them stupid for their decisions, but they are not oblivious to reality. Just trying to bend it to their will. Claiming "everyone but Microsoft knows it's a mess of an OS" is just stupid. Stick to the reality of the situation, that's bad enough.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
There are plenty of DE's for Linux that are pretty much functionally identical to WinXP. There are others functionally identical to Win98, others Dos, yet more Win7. There are ones like Win8 too.
So for those companies who have gotten their staff used to WinXP, they have an option in Linux. For those who have gotten their staff used to Vista or 7 have an option in Linux.
Neither of those have an option in Microsoft's OS.
It's simple just put an option in control panel to revert to "classic" windows 7 just like you can revert to Windows classic in Windows 7, Vista, and Xp .
It's not that they tried to innovate and missed the mark it's their my way or the highway attitude. They try the Apple thing of "We know better what you want" without the design chops of say a Jony Ive. That only works for Apple because often but not always they do know.
As someone who used to repair computers for a living, I have one thing to say to Microsoft:
UPDATE THE PACKAGE MANAGER
It's the elephant in the room that's been slowly crippling the Windows user-experience since Windows XP. I couldn't believe it when I noticed they still didn't implement this in Windows 8 in some sort of way.
When users are bombarded with individual update-notifiers from 20 different vendors every day, users:
- become numb to them and start to ignore them
- don't notice the included adware and bunled software that's pushed to them. (Gee, I wonder why Google Chrome's taking so much of the browser marketshare...)
This behavior is a big part of what's causing Average Joe's laptop to turn into an unusable turd, filled with adware and virusses. He concludes his computer is old and broken, Windows must be shit and takes out a loan for a Macbook. Goodbye customer.
Microsoft needs to centralize this process the same way Android did. Updating 3rd party software, changes in privacy and adware offers should all go through a unified interface from the package manager. Installing software through an official app store should become default with an easy opt-out, so Windows stays an open platform but at the same time the Average Joe is protected from taking too many risks.
What do you really need the start menu for?
Company here, and at home were upgraded to Windows 8; and after the frist week pretty much no-body misses the start-button menu.
Running an app is just "start > [start typing]"
Administration tools: "windows+x"
Windows 8 has some real usability issues for the average person but that's mostly cosmetic and having used Windows 8 with one of the many Start Button replacements I don't find it too difficult. However, my main complaint is that Microsoft has not done enough to fix the sluggish performance of Windows on machines that by the standards of ten years ago are practically super computers. When Windows XP on a 3.2Ghz Pentium 4 with 3.2GB of ram and a 500GB Western Digital Black Edition drive is much (much) more responsive than Windows 8 x64 running on a Socket 2011 system with an i7-3820 3.6Ghz cpu with 16GB of ram and a 2TB Western Digital Black Edition drive there's something seriously wrong under the hood.
There was an article here on Slashdot four or five years ago referencing a blog post by a Microsoft Kernel developer (I looked but couldn't find it in order to provide a link) but the blog post essentially said that the Windows kernel was just not written to take advantage of multi-core / hyper-threading enabled cpu's and that the kernel needed a complete overhaul to fix the problem. I also seem to remember that within days the blog post had been taken down, apparently Microsoft doesn't like it's employee's criticizing their products.
Metro is just a bunch of tiles much like the icons on the desktop, so basically the metro start menu is just another desktop that is used to launch programs. For years administrators have been looking at the clutter and the state of disaster that is most users desktop and told them it's bad. Now MS has come out and given users the clutter right out of the box. I know this has been said but I agree with it in total that Windows 7 was just a mature OS. Seeing where my IT lively-hood is going, I just want out. I expect to put up with dumb users, but the reroll that MS is doing every other Windows release is getting old.
The people that actually run companies like Microsoft are vicious psychopaths. Beneath them are a layer of ruthless managers forever waging power wars against one another. Lower down again and eventually you'll find the people who do the real useful work, but they are a submissive class of people driven by various introverted motivations.
For Microsoft, there is the problem that their 'temporary' OS, NT, became their 'perfect' operating system in its XP incarnation, as true useful innovation moved to external web technologies. While XP was imperfect in a million different ways under the hood, the rapidly growing CPU/GPU power of an ordinary PC, combined with massive RAM pools and very large HDD storage made XP's code deficiencies totally irrelevant for 99.9% of users.
The visible portion of an OS is simply a shell that can be trivially changed/improved without changing the underlying OS. As Linux has proven, when a shell offers flashy GPU accelerated options, it should also have fallback modes that support older hardware, or users who desire a plainer/simpler look.
The real question is why new applications should give up backward compatibility with older versions of any operating system. Surely there should be an incredibly good reason for this to be the case. Why should an application use anything but an absolute minimum of an OS code base. In these days of cheap memory/data transfer, an application can carry across all the code resources it needs, save for the final stage communication with key hardware like the screen composition engines that allow display of data.
The idea that your use of YOUR computer is held hostage by the OS version you are using is disgusting and ludicrous. And yet endless propaganda, especially on sites like Slashdot, attempt to brainwash betas that this is a good and necessary thing.
Microsoft wants all apps/games to be shell apps. This means that any future program running on Microsoft Windows makes massive use of CURRENT shell functions, so that the app has no backward compatibility, and is obsoleted when a future shell system introduces major changes. They want this for reasons of commerce alone, and seek to convince similar scumbag developers that forcing their customers to be in constant fear of compulsory software upgrades is a good thing. Betas are encouraged to become brain-dead bullies for this financial process. "You are STILL using XP, dribble, dribble? Don't you know how wrong/stupid/dangerous that is, dribble, dribble?".
The real question is this. Do we gain or do we lose more when an app knowingly integrates itself into the power functions of a shell? Did we gain or did we lose when Windows applications stopped living in their own, easily defined, directory, and started spreading their essential resources across an ever growing number of places on your computer, including the complex and easily damaged registry?
Anyway, Microsoft calculates that the plain, sane desktop windows environment is going to become 'free', and that's not a market they want any part of. Linux/Android should have the ambition to fully replace XP/Windows 7 with a free alternative, designed to offer conventional practical windows based computing forever, without all the "new version obsoletes the old" nonsense. This does not mean that all apps are backward compatible- just that sane apps can largely choose to be backward compatible when they so wish, without that being any kind of major penalty to the user. "It just works" needs to be the motto followed.
Reminds me a lot of the ol' Windows 3.11 Program Manager style interface.. just with a Win95 style start button/taskbar added. Maybe that's the way to go. I would prefer to group my deskop icons better into categories.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
If Microsoft 'fixes' Windows 8 by making it look and work exactly like Windows 7, what will be the difference between them ? Why would anyone except a Microserf or others who don't have a choice ( e.g. those who are buying a new p/c ) buy Windows 8 ?
With them as the cable company...comfortably raking in the dough without having to do a thing to earn it. All the while, locking out every competitor they can.
A friend of mine bought one. Then was so disgusted with it, he had to go back and purchase windows7. Nice for MS to get the extra pip. And sad for MS because he is doing his best to never ever purchase another MS product.
Anyone who has followed Windows knows every other incarnation sucks. Win7 was (is) a very nice piece of work. Win8 is doomed. No one will buy another Windows until Win9 comes out.
you can pretty much ignore metro just hit the "windows" key and go right to desktop
I find I'm more efficient without the traditional start menu.
1. I use the keyboard shortcuts more often
Windows right to desktop
Windows + x tools
Windows + c charms
Windows + r run
2. I also never had incentive to use custom toolbars on the task menu berfore
Create folders of shortcuts to applications that group together logically.
Create a new a new tool bar that points to the folder. Much faster than navigating through the entire start menu
I don't mean to offend anyone but I seriously think that lots of people are just plain retarded. Let me preface this before getting into what I believe is the 'fix' for Microsoft's epic blunder that is "Windows 8". The 'Desktop' is NOT legacy, nor will it EVER be! The desktop is not going away just because some corporation wants to 'reinvent' it into something that's locked down in Xbox like fashion so that they can have more control over it. With that in mind, here is the simple solution: Make any touch interface OPTIONAL, keep supporting the desktop and leave it OPEN. One thing that will keep me from ever warming up to any touch implementation from Microsoft is them marrying it to their app store. (Sorry Microsoft but I'm not going to tolerate that on my desktop). Hardware, base os's and 'app stores' all need to be kept separate. Just because you build a mall doesn't mean I have to shop there and if I do? I'll decide what store I want to shop from. In summary: Just make a good OS and if you want to implement a touch interface and an 'app store'? (I hate that word) fine.. go ahead but keep them separate and optional. Stop trying to force people into using something they don't want to use. Build it right and they will come on their own accord!
Nice try but this will not happen. There would be no incentive to write Metro apps for PC and without Metro apps, the dismal sales of windows tablets would become non existent. Why write Metro apps that would run in desktop window if you can write desktop app directly without asking Microsoft for permission to do so. Writing Metro apps for windows tablets makes no sense since their market share is ridiculous similar to Linux desktop.
let Metro apps run in a window on the desktop + add back windows 7 start menu. With only 1 control plan is realty all they need to do.
You can get the first two for $8 right now. I just did this for my parents who said, "Learning something new at this point just isn't a good idea."
I will not mourn that which I never had to lose. - Unknown
One feature is massively broken in some ways: The entire Windows Store and "metro" app feature; the core feature of Windows 8.
If you are running Windows 8, take a look in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps sometime. Notice anything? The *version* of each app is included in the directory name of the app.
So you get fun things like: - Multiple copies of the same application eating up disk space, because the Windows Store service doesn't uninstall the old version - Pinned shortcuts on the Start Screen don't (or don't always) update to the latest version of the metro app. It can still point to the older version
Other problems I have with it in general: - Metro apps are user profile specific (despite being installed in C:\Program Files) - The update process is a manual, GUI driven event by the end user; there is no way to manage it for several machines - Updates can just fail to install and the only recourse is to (again, manually) uninstall the app and re-install it from the Store - LOB or home made apps can only be installed with a 30 day temporary developer license. Installing the dev license requires running a PowerShell script with Admin rights (okay so far) that launches another GUI driven event that requires putting in your Live Account information with no way to automate it for easy install. - To side load a LOB app you have to pay for a separate license, which you can't do if you have an SPLA agreement (of any kind).
And don't get me started on how the Start Screen layout is actually stored and all the files you need to grab for it. To me its bad enough that, on a machine with 16 Store Apps installed, I have 1650+ MB (42888 files) in over 60+ directories, including at least two versions of most applications (Microsoft's official "Bing" apps and third party apps). Any uninstalled applications get put in a "Deleted" sub-directory and not removed from my computer, as far as I can tell.
Better still, there are two resources used by all apps: VCLibs and WinJS. Both of these also are in the C:\Program Files\WindowsApps directory and each time there's an updated version, it gets a new copy and the old one remains. On an x64 system, you get both the x86 and x64 versions as well!
And this is a sliver of the headache Windows 8 has been giving me professionally since it was released. I could write a 30+ page report on issues I've had and why and almost all of it is "by design".
Who's going to be the first to implement this "windows red"-mock-up as an X window manager plus whatever other apps are needed to glue "the user experience" together?
it should be built in and not some 3rd party tool that MS can mess up with an system update.
Windows 8 is doing incredibly well, about as well as Windows 7 did. The difference is that people are just upgrading their OS on their existing hardware instead of buying new hardware. That is possible because for the first time the new OS requires LESS resources that the previous one. Windows 8 is doing just fine.
It's selling about as well as Windows 7, the best-selling OS in history. The only thing that's not a success is the new hardware. Windows 8 requires fewer resources than Windows 7 so people are upgrading instead of buying new. That's not good for OEMs but it's great for Microsoft and for Windows overall.
Designers ARE mac fanbois. That's the demographic that buys Macs and skinny jeans.
all microsoft needs to do is take metro, and replace the desktop with it. no, i mean the actual -desktop-, the wallpaper and icons that sit underneath the taskbar and applications. keep metro as-is but use it as the bottom-level desktop.
different = exrtemely flawed.
I'm not a dev just an enthusiast but is it not possible to write an API that was backwards compatible with Win32 and offer new features that would allow for touch, gesture, scaling etc to be handled. Like Win32+
Couldn't the devs then package one binary with two interfaces? One for touch and one without? Then have Windows determine based on whether peripherals were attached which GUI to default to and switch automatically? Of course allow users to manually switch regardless via hotkey. Sounds simple to a simpleton but is it?
I look at Windows 8 and makes me miss Win7 GUI. This however is an improvement over Win7 and is by far the best UI mock-up for Windows 8 I've seen. Microsoft should just hire this guy.
Allow uninstalling metro completely.
Stick to your guns! Instead of just 'offering' to let people buy or upgrade, microsoft should 'press' customers buy or upgrade. Make people buy the software! Microsoft didn't get to where it is by being nice. Look at the BSA! They come second only to the Brownshirts which folded into the larger NAZI party in Germany (the Blackshirts became the Gestapo). They are both known for kicking in doors and making demands. They have been bankrolled by microsoft for years. Likewise, the team keeping OEM's from attempting to use any other operating system other than microsoft. Hint: Google the term 'Whack Dell'. They should take the approach they have for a long time "You will take this operating system and you will like it!"
I'm not an OSX user. Is this true?
And if it is, people put up with it?
Fascinating!
No. It isn't remotely true. Unless you've purchased one or more applications through the Mac App Store, in which case you would have had to set up a valid credit card to open an account and purchase the software in the first place.
At worst, if you have no purchased apps, Software Update will ask for a (free) valid AppleID in order to update some bundled apps like iPhoto (part of iLife which comes bundled with all new Macs). An AppleID is simply an email address and password that is registered with Apple. Setting up an AppleID does not require a credit card number.
If you just have a basic installation of OS X without the bundled apps, or if you choose to only install the system updates, the Software Update app won't ever ask for any kind of authorization, account or credit card numbers.
The GP is talking out his ass on this particular point, or severely misunderstanding something. The rest of his points are mostly correct though. Mostly.
Sorry, but infoworld's take on it is horrible apart from ModernMix idea. Windows 8.1 + if MS implemented ModernMix's resizable metro apps strategy would be perfect.
More than most version changes across OS vendors, MS seems to want to "revise the experience" entirely each time. Is there ever a voice in their meetings that states "it looks fine, let's massively revamp only the internals." ? IOW, can't they just release a new version that takes a healthy bite out of their massive bug/todo list? I'm repwatedly disgusted by their incessant need to move the market to a new platform to seem like the center of something new. This, more than most other things, keeps them constantly seeming like a V1.0 company
This is really pathetic.
If you want to help Microsoft, get a job there.
The fanboy mentality that causes so many of you to idolize the lumbering blind cyclops known as Microsoft baffles me to no end.
Microsoft is a bank that happens to sell software (usually bought at a significant discount or flat pirated and rebranded as INNOVATION).
Pick what is best for your customer for a change. This fawning allegiance to a failed and broken company defiess all reason.
SO, either stick with your XboxOne and cling to the sinking ship, or join the future.
your choice...
Arnold's line from the Terminator franchise "Come with me if you want to live" couldn't be more appropriate.
They (Microsoft) has thrown you under the bus yet again, move on.
It's fucked. Game over.
Onto Windows 9, or as Steve Balmer likes to say "Not nearly as fucked up as 8, but still a clusterfuck hole extravaganza of epic proportions".
Microsoft didn't make all those changes so they can let the consumer come out with fixes and ideas that would cost time and money for them to develop.
Hey,
I like windows 8 a lot. It isn't a mess at all. It has a nice clean interface. Problems are minimal. Crashes almost never.
Everyone points at minor issue for Windows 8:
1. Start button gone
2. Boots to Metro interface
3. Metro apps can't run in a window and open full screen
4. They should separate the Metro and Windows into two OSes
The first one isn't exactly accurate. Sure the start button is a popup that isn't always visible but unlike most claim, it is not "completely gone". Then when you click it you get a full screen view of your apps instead of the original start pop up.
The second one really doesn't matter. I can switch back and forth just fine.
The third one bugged me bad until I got MetroMix to fix it. So the whole massive change is just not needed. The only think I care about is I would like the third one fixed without buying a 3rd part plugin.
The fourth one I disagree with completely. I want to someday just dock my tablet and have it be exactly like my PC. I love that those two interfaces are together.
By the way, while Windows is mature, the Metro interface is 1.0 product. If Apple iOS or Google's Android got have the negative attention Microsoft is getting for their 1.0 products, there wouldn't have been a single positive article about them. Windows 1.0 metro is far better than either of the prior 1.0 OSes from their competitors. Sure now that iOS has passed version 6 you might forget.
Windows 8 has sold 100M copies (so I've read). That's a pretty good start.
For crying out loud. Just stick with the fuss free no bells and no whistles that is Windows 7 until Windows 9 is out.
Windows 8 is like what Vista was. A pile of crap piled on top of some other crap and sprayed in metallic paint.
Just put up or shut up. It's all progress.
Who Cares ? Apparently MS doesn’t.
the question is, can visual studio be fixed? metro is such a horrible interface and yet now applications are following suit by uglifying. It really gets bad when it affects your work flow: - bad icons, making stuff hard to find and use - pending checkins with absolutely attrocious "wizardizing" getting in the way Are Microsoft Programs going the QuickTime route. Nice (which is debatable) looking but unusable?
What a surprise. Just finished a three day workshop for a tablet app for a global, six billion dollar company. Guess what platform they picked to deploy to 45,000 employees? Yep, Windows 8. On Helix.
No I don't work for Microsoft, yes I run a stack of Ubuntu servers.
Seems that Corporate America isn't listening.... Why did they pick Windows 8? Metro. The tablet features. Active Directory integration. Ability to remotely wipe a device. Security. And, believe it or not, ease of use,
They evaluated iOS, Android, and Linux.
Murphy was an optimist