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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.'"
Nice objective summary
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
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.
Please people, the "elephant in the room" is right in front of your face.
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
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.
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?
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."
You left out one option: Windows 7.
Beware of the Leopard.
and replace it with what?
DOS 6.22 of course, with Windows 3.11 for workgroups. I suggest also installing Trumpet Winsock in order to be able dial in to what is known as "the internet. Obviously you'll need to buy a modem for that.
the growth of OSX showed that the usual linux trope about there being no possibility for a competing desktop OS to succeed was bollocks
You do realise that (a) MacOS is very old and already had a very well established software base, and (b) Microsoft Office which is at about the 99.9% monopoly level has supported MacOS (X and pre-X) too?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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"
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.
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.
It's done. If you want a Start menu, pay $5 to Stardock.
Why pay anybody anything? Classic Shell is free.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The main reason why Linux on the desktop hasn't been very succesful is largely a marketing problem in my opinion. Specifically, there is basically nobody who properly markets Linux, so a lot of people have never heard of it and even those that have largely think it's a command-line only hardcore-geek thing. Linux needs an image change and it is slowly happening - look at steam etc. I would also be very interested in your reasoning as to why GNU/Linux isn't very good.
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.
I suggest also installing Trumpet Winsock in order to be able dial in to what is known as "the internet"
Don't be silly. Use the AOL CD that arrives for free on your doorstep. Every day!
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
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".
> - OSX - anybody who tells you that this is somehow a better working environment than ms windows honestly is just lying.
Quit trolling. Do you even _use_ OSX on a daily basis?
I've been using computers since the early 80s and have used a ton of OSes: Apple DOS 3.3, Apple ProDos, DOS 2.x - 6.x, Win3.1 .. Win8 (inclusive), Irix, BeOS. For the past 2 years I've been using OSX as part of my day job.
My thoughts based on _experience_: As a power user OSX is pretty darn good. You can Alt-Tab into & out-of games all day long without _any_ hiccups. On Windows alt-tabbing back INTO the game almost always forces a 1 or 2 second hiccup. The way Windows manages devices & scheduler in Windows is wonky.
+ The UI is good. Clean and (mostly) well designed (although Apple appears to be making more and more bone-headed decisions lately.) The 4 hot-corners of the desktop (Expose) is fantastic. Borders are only 1 pixel thick in OSX in contrast to the fugly 8 pixel width on Win 8. OS also has the advantage that MS Office shows the menu bar ALONG with the stupid ribbon.
+ On the MBP the trackpad blows away any Windows laptop I've tried.
+ BSD under the hood which makes porting to Linux helluva a lot easier for command line apps. XCode is a decent IDE.
- OSX Virtual Memory still stinks (I've been able to completely hard-lock OSX once about every 6 months) on 10.6 and 10.7.
- GPUs have always sucked on the MacBook. TF2 with everything turned down and barely able to get 20+ fps on a 3 yr old 17" MBP.
= When needed the majority run Windows in a VM (Parallels) and we have a few dedicated Windows boxes. A lot of developers (~20) also run Linus inside a VM (VMWare or VirtualBox) (no Plus nor Neg, equal = tie)
We have an office of ~70 people who use OSX on a daily basis and would also basically agree you are completely talking out of your ass. So yes, OSX is _good_ enough for daily use.
Besides, Linux _already_ won on the mobile space.
http://techland.time.com/2013/04/16/ios-vs-android/
Lots of people, obviously. Probably millions. Why'd you ask this question about a statement that had a clear answer?
DOS 6.22 of course, with Windows 3.11 for workgroups.
Hmm, interestingly 3.11 x 2 = 6.22, I never noticed that before. :)
Does it mean, by induction, that Windows x-1 is better than Windows x?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
but it works realy well for tablets and touch-enabled devices.
How nice for you. But some of us need a desktop to actually get some work done. And there, it sucks.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
It doesn't matter to him, so why should anyone else care when the world revolves around him?
That is if you believe them
http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/microsofts-own-numbers-show-windows-8-sales-falling-rapidly-218050
Because of SEC rules, people at Microsoft go to jail if they publish incorrect numbers.
Because of advertising clicks, InfoWorld makes money when they they do.
Sort of like how Slashdot makes money when they whip the anti-MS zealots up.
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! ~~
According to this article they have sold 100 million copies so far: http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/windows-8-sells-100-million-230105134.html
Not at all bad, if you ask me.
How many of those licenses had the disk reformatted and a pirate copy of Windows 7 installed?
Vista had downgrade rights to XP and a lot of people used them but it still counted as a Vista sale in Microsoft's accounts. If Windows 8 had downgrade rights to Windows 7 then I bet a *lot more* people would use it than they did with Vista.
No sig today...
Paging out every single item from VRAM just because you have to draw the desktop is like dragging everything from your sitting room into the hallway because you want to put on your socks in there.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Does it mean, by induction, that Windows x-2 is better than Windows x?
FTFY.
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Windows 8 Pro has downgrade rights: http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/pages/downgrade_rights.aspx#fbid=6SVqgYVXJik
About 70% of licneses sold are Windows 8 Pro.
If by large percentage, you mean less than 10%, sure.
Very few of my clients have either boot camp or a VM set up, and the ones that do use it for one app. Most Mac users HATE having to deal with the GUI abomination that is a MS operating system.
[OT]
An American, an Australian and a German walk into a bar. The American greets the bartender and says "I'll have a Budweiser please." The Australian says "I'll have a pint of Fosters, mate." The German considers things for a moment and says "I think I will have a mint tea, if you have any." The American and the Australian question the German's judgement, and in reply he simply shrugs and says "well, it's not like you're having a beer".
What kind of crappy employer do you have that has already switched to Win8? Just about every larger company out there has passed it up.
"OSX isn't used by anybody except the fanboys"
Hmm, I just walked across my design company's open-plan office floor and saw a Mac Pro under every desk and not a single fanboi was found.
"Linux users use Windows exactly because our lives depend on it."
Can't decide whether to go with "Drama Queen" or "Pathetic 1st World Problem". I use Linux, OS X and Windows pretty much every day and couldn't care less. Ok, made up my mind, I've going with "Grow Up".
but it works realy well for tablets and touch-enabled devices.
How nice for you. But some of us need a desktop to actually get some work done. And there, it sucks.
I don't think it was the GP's decision for MS to (unwisely) try to unify desktop and touchscreen interfaces into one OS. He just pointed out that it worked well for him on a tablet. (And that he didn't like it on a desktop.) Why put the hate on him? You got the wrong guy. He didn't ruin your desktop.
BTW: Hey, Ubuntu team? You seem to be going in the same direction of merging tablet and desktop interfaces . . . I hope you're studying this debacle and learning from it.
I am not a crackpot.
I bet nobody thought they'd see the day when an OS comparison favoured Vista!
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.
"I wish there would be some minimal Windows that just shows the desktop where I can double click on the Game I want."
Um... Windows 8 has its issues, but this is actually a use case that it's almost perfect for. It boots quickly to a screen with 1 big square icon for each of your games, which will launch the game when clicked on. You'd need to remove a few icons initially, but then you'd be set and could organize your games into whatever order or groupings you want.
People said the same thing when File Manager was removed.
Except that File Manager was still available in Windows 95 if you wanted it.
People said
the same thing when the "gummy" themed buttons in Windows XP showed up (oh, its not professional!).
Except that classic mode was available in XP if you wanted it.
They said the same thing when Vista added UAC.
Except that UAC could be disabled if you wanted to.
And they're saying the same thing now.
Except that now we're stuck using third party utilities to undo Microsoft's changes.
Turns out, for Microsoft, people "saying the same thing" works out very well financially.
And it is this line of thinking that may get Microsoft into trouble in the none-too-distant future. In the Windows 3.x/95/XP days you speak of, "computing" and "desktop computing" were synonymous for home users. If you wanted to get online, you used a desktop/laptop. Now though, many people's needs can be adequately met by iPads, Transformer-like tablets, and Chromebooks. Even Linux Mint has all but gotten the Linux Desktop situation sorted out (though I personally was a fan of Xandros in its day). Microsoft's response has been the polar opposite of what it's been in the past: instead of including classic modes, Microsoft has actively worked to remove such functionality. The first public beta had a start menu that could be enabled by group policy, presumably more people were enabling it than Microsoft was happy about and as a result it was forcibly removed. How this will impact Microsoft over the next five years is anyone's guess.
No Windows 8 does not work great as several articles have pointed out. People who have actually used it have pointed out the flaws and short comings.
But feel free to think the problem is people don't know how to get to the desktop....moron.
I've recently been made to switch from a Win8 machine to a brand new OSX machine. The Win8 machine has three monitors, 256ssd, 16bg ram, i7. The OSX machine is a Macbook Pro Retina i7 256ssd, 16bg ram with two external monitors. There are some cool things about OSX but there are many stupid things about OSX. And they're not stupid like "this is different" stupid, they're stupid like "this shit is stupid". Because I'm feeling verbose I'll list the really stupid low hanging fruit. And at the end I'll list what I really enjoy about it.
OSX
Keyboard (external mac? keyboard)
OSX Windows
* Is this green control box maximize or what!? It seems like sometimes it wants to maximize height and width, and other times it will only maximize height. Be consistant. No, actually, always maximize both!
OSX Finder
Apple Magic Mouse
Have you even used Windows 8 on a desktop? Care to explain how the workflow is different in any meaningful way? Because I've been using Windows 8 exclusively for months at work and have found it to be 5% "different," 5% better, and 90% identical.
Nice, the "you're holding it wrong" defense.
Classic Shell makes Windows 8 tolerable, but it doesn't fix the OS's more serious flaws. Microsoft took Windows all the way back to 1.0 by eliminating overlapping windows with the modern interface. Even with classic shell installed, that flaw is not fixed.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
A properly configured XP system stripped of a bunch of crap will run circles around a W7 system.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Yeah, because that was my only complaint./s My point was there was a lot of unused keys and they've removed a lot of keys that are very useful (alt, scroll lock, insert, num lock). But you're free to try and spin my comments however you like.
I believe you'll find OEMs are buying Windows 8 licenses and 'downgrading' their machines to Windows 7 instead. Everyone I know who's bought a PC in the last few months has bought one with Windows 7 because Windows 8 is an utter disaster.
But there's nothing in Metro you need or want. Skip it entirely. All built-in metro apps are buggy or poorly designed (though will likely be refreshed in 8.1), and you can't even get free third party apps without first signing up for an official Microsoft Account (unsure if there are alternate ways to get apps like you can on OS X without going through apple's equally stupid store). Most everything you can do in metro you can already do better in a web browser or with a desktop application.
* I have to sign up for iTunes to keep my computer updated!? * I HAVE TO GIVE ITUNES MY CC# TO KEEP MY COMPUTER UPDATED!? * I have to restart my computer to keep it updated? I thought this was Unix?
As of Lion, you sign in with an Apple ID. That is not iTunes, but iTunes also uses this ID. You do not need a credit card number to update your OS. That is only required for purchases in the App Store. If the update involves a kernel, kernel extension, Aqua/Quartz or other core component modification then yes, you will need to reboot. You probably have to reboot for updates more often than in a modern Unix due to the GUI integration, but generally less so than in Windows.
Keyboard (external mac? keyboard) * Why is the keyboard all fucked up? Two keys labeled delete? Is there some aversion to calling a backspace key a backspace key? * Where the fuck did insert go!? You know some people actually use insert! * For that matter where is num lock and scroll lock? Again, I use those keys! * Why redesign the num pad into a Apple(TM) num pad and move all the keys around? * The behavior of the home and end key is stupid! They jump to the end and beginging of the document instead of the end and begining of the line! What gives them the right?! * They remove essential keys like insert but I have F1-F19!? And an eject key on a system that doesn't even have an optical drive? (not that they knew that about my system, so a small pass there.) * Seriously? No Alt key? WTF, I thought this was UNIX! How the fuck am I supposed to use EMACS!?
It sounds like you are using the mini bluetooth wireless keyboard. You would probably prefer the full-size keyboard which has many of the keys you are concerned about. The behavior of the home and end keys is the way they have historically always worked in computing. It was Microsoft that changed the behavior in Windows and got people used to the different behavior. It was also Microsoft that changed the behavior of the Control key from its original usage of sending actual control codes. Apple retains the original behavior and introduced the Command key which works like the Microsoft Control Key. To move to the Beginning / End of a line, use Command+Left or Right Arrow. As for Alt, this is actually more correctly referred to as the Meta key. The Option key on the Apple keyboard provides this functionality, and it's is conveniently in the exact same location as the Alt key on PC keyboards. Of course, if you hate the Apple keyboard so much, there's nothing stopping you from using any USB or Bluetooth keyboard with the Mac, they're all supported and OS X understands how to map PC-specific keys to their OS X equivalents.
OSX Windows * WIndows present resize mouse cursors on some windows edges that cannot be resized! Inexcusable! I should be able to resize the window from any edge. And for god sakes, if I can't resize it from that edge don't show me a fucking resize cursor and make me think I'm losing my mind.
As of Mountain Lion you can resize any resizable windows from any corner. If you're getting a resize cursor than you should be able to resize it. I'm not sure why you're having this experience but if you are indeed experiencing a bug related to this it might be worth bringing up to Apple Support so that they can be made aware of it.
* What the hell is up with this full screen arrow. Useless shit. It removes all the windows from my other screens and throws up a lame gray background. Lame.
When you full screen an application, a virtual desktop for that application window is created on the fly. Your other windows are still there on their original desktop. You can still Opt-Tab back to them or use Mission Control/Expose. I don't understand
You'd be amazed. It's fairly easy to cram a million sales when you're MS. Just demand huge volumes in the contract but defer the payment and make the sale returnable and POOF, you sold a million copies.
There are some serious ideas here. Putting start menu back is serious, even if some elitist power users think that no one on the planet needs it. Also combining all the control applets into a single control panel is a serious idea, unlike the divided world with Windows 8. Dumping charms bar is a serious idea as there's no real need for it to be a separate hard to find pop-out bar.
Things change sometimes, that is true. Sometimes for the better. However in Windows 8 case it is clearly a matter of things changing for the worse Windows 8 is a disaster. Catching the flu is change too but I don't hear flu fans gushing about how great it is. I don't mind that things look different in Windows 8 desktop (I never liked aero much anyway, and after hacking the registry the W8 style looks ok to me). But mandating the boot up to metro is a stupid change. Removing the start menu that millions of users make use of daily is a moronic and hostile change.
As an Australian, I would +5 funny that if I have any mod points. Fosters is crap.
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.