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Mozilla Planning Firefox Metro For Windows 8 On December 10
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla is finally getting close to releasing a Metro version of its Firefox browser that will run on Windows RT as well as the tablet-side of Windows 8. The touch flavor of the app will arrive on December 10 along with Firefox 26. That's assuming, of course, that there won't be more delays. Given what we've seen so far, we wouldn't be surprised to see a final Metro version arrive in 2014."
Fuck FireFox, they jack around with it every version, adding or removing features based on crack logic, and breaking shit for the hell of it. They even made it block Youtube just to fuck with us with their "mixed mode" https paranoia lies. Jerkasses!
Win8.1 will be released soon, before this will release I think.
Summary is incorrect.
Yes because clearly punishing innocent consumers is the right way to go about ethical corporate behaviors
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
>Unless it's just a static JPG inside of a program window that says "WHY ARE YOU USING WINDOWS 8, IDIOT?!"
Well, if you leave your mom's basement for awhile (mentally and maybe even physically), you might notice Windows 8 still has a fairly good cut of desktop OS market. Mozilla minds, because they want in on that cut as well.
> It's enabling/encouraging Microsoft.
Enabling to do what? To be the #1 company in providing desktop OS systems? They have been "enabled" in that department for 20 years.
> It's right up there with Google releasing a new maps app for iOS5 right when people were getting mad.
I would say your head is right up there, if you think people were "getting mad". Maybe you should just read also other "news" sources than Slashdot.
Gee the poor saps suffered enough with Windows RT and now you want them to use Internet Explorer too!
http://saveie6.com/
yea and its 0.1% less suck, whats your point
I can't wait to see if they can finish it before RT is canceled.
Wouldn't be the first time they denied and denied and then summarily canceled a project with no explaination.
Usually it starts with a section leadership change , or a Spring re-org.. then suddenly.. "We've decided to go in another direction.."
As for Metro.. what if like "SIlverlight" they decide to support that as an alternative user interface to the year 2133.. but no further updates will be forth coming.
um no, ever since that thing has been unleashed the pc market has been killing itself, and 8 doesnt even hold a fraction to 7 let alone XP
maybe if you look at "windows 8 has a good cut of brand new PC's", but otherwise MAC has a better cut of the desktop market than that garbage
but they really should focus on making a browser for the desktop that doesn't run like utter shat.
no survivors.. film at 11.
When is Windows 9 coming out?
Microsoft customers are not innocent. They've chosen to fund a destructive monopolist.
And that's why we will holocaust all Windows users. Heil Stallman!
Lets just end this already. It's not even worth talking about.
Hummm, who actually wants this? I mean "Microsoft", "Metro" ... And then apparently assuming one of the very few people who own one of those coulourful tily things also want to replace the already MS Browser (t/m) with Firefox? I just don't see it happening much.
So there's a new term for surfing the web? It's almost like surfing the streets with boards at the suburbs with skates. Bleh. Could they do something like, add a parameter to the icon or something? This will be touchy for a desktop.
So what? Window 8.1 will have a start button that... still does not open start menu, but brings you back to shitty start screen. And will have option to run desktop by default, but NOTHING other will change about usability and start screen enforcement. And 8.1 will be even slower, but they will hide it behind hibernation (which sucks too). Really, what's the point in supporting such crap by making apps for it?
with boot to desktop and the start button back it's getting pretty hard to tell 8.1 from 7. Also the pc market has been killing itself; i don't need a new computer, you probably don't need a new computer, and all the sheeple are going after tablets because the think they will solve every problem they will ever have; we have more electronics around us than ever before, so they have to do something damn special to get our attention.
The obvious reason is that over time vendor support for all previous versions of Windows will cease, leaving Windows 8.1 and above as your only option.
Well, frankly one of my BIG issues with Windows 8 was the lack of popular software availability for the Metro GUI. It's actually one of the main reasons why I don't have it installed.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
If only it took less than a minute to install Start8 or ClassicShell or something.
Yes, with Win8 they've crippled the shell to make it almost as featureless as stock OS X (this is the bit where people who like Macs jump for the (-1, Disagree) mod option), but - just like OS X and unlike iOS/RT/assorted crippleware - you can install a third party launcher.
This is getting old, but why exactly do you need the Start menu? Ever since Windows 7 came out, I've pinned my daily-use applications to the taskbar and that works 99% of the time. The remaining 1% of the time (when I need to find an app by name), I hit the Win key and start typing, and you can still do that in Windows 8. I agree they should have had boot-to-desktop right when Win8 was released, but anyway that's coming in 8.1 now.
Either you haven't used Windows 8 or you're trolling. Win8 has been noticeably faster than Win7 from the very first preview release, both on cold boot and resume from sleep (and no, sleep is not the same as hibernate).
Sure, Microsoft may have failed with their grand vision to unify tablets and desktops, but with boot-to-desktop, Win8 is flexible enough to make most people happy. Tablets can just use the Metro UI, desktop fanatics can just boot to desktop, and some others like me are perfectly happy staying in desktop mode most of the time yet switching to Metro occasionally.
yea and its 0.1% less suck, whats your point
How is adding a mocking "Start" button that takes you to metro and sending your local searches over the internet less suck?
Think RDP.
You are full of crap. It's like those people who complain about anything just for the sake of complaining. Face it, Windows 7 was looking stale in a world of osx, Android and iOS. Sure it has a very productive interface, but so does OSX while looking way better. Those interfaces might not be perfect, but you can bet your ass that if there was any desktop environment even remotely similar to osx for linux (and I mean in terms of everything just works TM and really good graphics), Linux users would be flocking to it. And in a way Ubuntu is like a well done hybrid and Cinammon is what Windows Vista/7 should have been.
So really, just step down from that pedestal and just enjoy whatever platform, because each has its own strenghts and weaknesses
You lost us as soon as you said XP is better than 7.
It isn't.
The trouble with Windows 8 is it's Vista - enough small things are annoying that it adds up to a great big annoyance. If they'd just finish it off (clue: listen to customers), it could be great.
No sig today...
Ever since Windows 7 came out, I've pinned my daily-use applications to the taskbar and that works 99% of the time.
If you only use three or four apps, sure...
No sig today...
Lol so fucking up the OS and making it malware is the solution to looking stale? There's at least 10 different solutions to that starting with VECTOR graphics for window rendering.
Windows 8 is a piece of crap it has no excuses. Its ok to be a piece of crap but its nice when those pieces of shits admit it instead of mocking you and pretending to be the most elite leadership material known to mankind.
Windows 8 deserves whatever flack it gets. We have the right to bitch about it and flame it into oblivion.
Though I doubt it will do any good.
Though I don't blame windows 8 for being generally featureless piece of crap missing a command line and any useful IT utilities out of the box. Thats a windows problem in general.
Nah but a fucking shell with an obvious files system and configuration would be great. Its also insecure as fuck... on my moms tablet you have to log the fuck out to power down with NO user credentials... thats like disabled by default in Xf86 since like 1990. No it doesn't replace physical security. But IMO its a big no no. Also wtf it takes 10 mins to find the shut down prompt cause its on the last menu you'd look for it?
Nah windows 8 is a dictatorial piece of crap. And not even designed well with many solid features. I wouldn't mind if it was layed out like a real OS. But it suffers the same issues vista did. Disorganized and obscured to kingdom come.
My mom thinks its a piece of shit too. And she rarely steps foot in my basement.
The obvious reason is that over time vendor support for all previous versions of Windows will cease, leaving Windows 8.1 and above as your only option
With less and less people buying hardware which is bundled with win8, you think the vendors will keep on giving support to it ?
but they really should focus on making a browser for the desktop that doesn't run like utter shat.
I know reality doesn't sink in easily in nerd's minds but the firefox team doesn't give a flying fuck about tech savy users and ranting about it won't have any effect at all. The only viable routes at this point are :
1 - use a different browser (and no Chrome is not the answer)
2 - take the firefox source code and fork it. Forget about chasing the latest useless shiny and start fixing serious bugs and revamp the UI so that it caters to the tech savy user first (and by restriction to the lambda user as well). In other terms revamp Firefox so that it gives back the browser experience to the user.
For christ's sake, people forked Gnome, is there nobody at all that can fork Firefox and fix it ?
This. Fork Fx at 3.6, patch in the security patches, and ship it.
I can feel your pain. I Do find this technique of replying to yourself quite exciting, While attaching the product, without providing any substance. Here is http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chrome-27-firefox-21-opera-next,3534-12.html a comprehensive comparison' Fastest Browser is Firefox.
Looking at what has happened since the new releases. I am personally enjoying the fact that features get delivered to me sooner like Isolated Plug-ins; WebM playback; Hardware Acceleration; Do Not Track...The List really does go on and on. The reality is though the UI has actually changed very little...and power users get advanced features like about:config; bout:memory; about:cache, as well as a whole plethora of plugins to play with. Its the reasons why I prefer it to Chrome...A none too shabby browser itself (http://gs.statcounter.com/ wow look at its adoption in spite of Internet Explorer monopolistic bundling)
The bottom line is Internet Explorer is behind, they are doing their customers a disservice by including it at all, as alternative browsers continue to provide a faster; safer; experience.
Well, every major version of Windows going back to 1.0 has come out around 3-4 years apart (except XP->Vista, which took 6+ years). So it's likely that Windows 9 would come out in in the beginning of 2016 or 2017
http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/28/3693368/windows-blue-update-low-cost I thought the plan was to keep the Windows 8 Numbering for now, and then push towards yearly updates for Microsoft’s OS. In fact I thought that is what 8.1 was. I thought it was a great idea.
If Microsoft does the following few things by the time Windows 9 is released (same applies to Windows 8 if they do it as service packs/8.x versions), it'll be an instant buy:
- Allow a pure desktop experience. This means no stupid metro network connections dialog and a less animated, more responsive start menu alternative
- Allow for everything (ok, stuff like disk management can stay Desktop/CLI-only) to be done from metro, not just a small subset of the desktop's options
- Properly expose the filesystem in metro (Windows explorer for metro, essentially)
- Fix their own metro apps
It's all very easy. 8.1 is a step in the right direction, but it's not enough.
1. fuck you
2. didn't buy win8 because i WANTED TO, got it because the new box i got had it and i had no choice...
3. until i put stardock start8 on it (all of $5), was going NUTS trying to figure out WHERE stuff *was*: WHY was that continuity of common windows usage BROKEN for NO perceived benefit ? (AND DO NOT GIVE ME YOUR CLUELESS NERD bullshit of 'oh, you only have to do this keyboard combo to get what you want', again, fuck you: WHY won't it work similar to the EVERY generation of windoze to come before has worked and we are at least used to using in that manner ?)
4. it is SO-O-O-O obvious that this bullshit metro crap was IMPOSED on us stupid users FOR NO GOOD REASON other than their continuing efforts to control our choices and usage patterns...
5. will give them minor credit that the boot up and shutdown times are much shorter (but that has nothing to do with the metro crap layered on); but that was never really a huge issue for me: once a day i only have to wait 30 seconds instead of 2-3 minutes, big whoop...
6. in general, i am hating on ALL programs which are using the idiotic ribbon model, as well as the metro-looking crap where i have to smoosh 2-3 times to accomplish what used to be one click away; HOW is that MORE efficient ? ? ?
(if you tell me 'you can do this or that keyboard combo...', i will take away your computer and leave you your precious keyboard and see how much you can get done... dick)
You lost us as soon as you said XP is better than 7.
It isn't
Actually there are a few ways that XP is better than 7, Hardware requirements being a major one (It was sold on netbooks for years after it had been replaced...and never ran with 7). It is part of the reason why http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0 for Windows XP is still around 40%.
Microsoft has changed UI name, seemingly due to trademark clash. It was even on /.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/08/03/1221242/microsoft-drops-metro-name-for-windows-8-ui
Here's another reason why Microsoft should have retained the Win 7 interface in Win 8:
-> the torrent of complaints of people (read: consumers) wishing for this
I include myself in that pool.
Come January 2015, when mainstream support of Win 7 ends, I will give serious consideration to making Linux the host, and Windows the guest. (It's currently the other way around.)
Microsoft is deliberately shooting themselves in the foot; they deserve the consequences.
> I hit the Win key and start typing
If you know the names of your seldom-used programs, sure... (Also, really, so searching by typing is the new big thing instead of menus? Like the UNIX command line in the 90's...)
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
I hit the Win key and start typing
Yeah, great...and if you don't know the name of the thing you're looking for?
And providing the traditional UI as an option would have blown Microsoft's multi-billion dollar Windows budget ?
Just a heads up; nobody reads your whole story because you sound like a retard,
Agreed. I'd upgrade in a heart-beat.
But as long as they break what used to work they're wishful if they think I'll be "upgrading".
And from the sounds of it, they've alienated a lot of techies out there.
Heh heh; I love the contrast between points (5) and (6) in terms of saving time: Microsoft giveth, and Microsoft taketh.
Windows 8 has a command line.
For many, if not most people it is. While seven fixed most of vista's epic failures to tolerable levels, it still contains quite a few.
Now you can in fact nullify most of the failures that are retained, largely using same software that helps nullify much of win8's fails, namely classicshell. But it's still worse, and personally I'd still be happily running XP if not for lack of proper 64-bit support (specifically lack of hardware drivers for 64-bit version of XP) and lack of DX11 ('m a gamer).
Other than those two features, XP is clearly better in my experience. I don't even mind EOL. I had a workstation in personal use that ran vanilla unpatched XP until well past XP SP2 age because windows update borked itself so hard on the system, it couldn't be updated. I just kept the infection vectors secure and it was fine. I.e. solid firewall, solid anti-virus software, up to date 3rd party software that could be used as infection vectors, no suspicious flash drives and so on.
Not a single virus. Hilariously, when I got myself an XP2 slipstreamed disk I forgot to unplug internet connection before installing. That machine got owned before I could install firewall software. I had to format and reinstall. But vanilla version with up to date firewall etc? No problems whatsoever.
What's the problem with shutting down a TABLET with no user credentials ? It's not like it's a server... Being able to shutdown a tablet, especially when you obviously have physical access to it, seems hardly insecure to me.
Fuck Microsoft and fuck Stallamn. Two sides of a completely worthless coin.
I never understood the attachment to the button, but the claims defaulting to Metro are misleading. It displays tiles on the primary monitor, but not the second monitor on each boot. Pressing escape makes them go away. They doesn't come back until I press the Windows key on my keyboard to bring them back. The metro screen is the start menu so many people seem to think disappeared. It searches installed programs, and if the search doesn't find what you want, press escape and all shortcuts will be displayed in the same folder groupings the old start menu used.
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
"Face it, Windows 7 was looking stale in a world of osx, Android and iOS."
There are several valid reasons to change an interface. "It was looking stale" is not one of them.
Users reject this logic violently. I see it every day. Someone needs to make a GNU OS with a solid Windows 7 theme and market it towards people that hate their new Win8 computers, you would grab a decent chunk of market share with almost no effort at all.
No one will do that though. They are all busy trying to mimic the system that customers hate instead.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
How is adding a mocking "Start" button that takes you to metro and sending your local searches over the internet less suck?
AFAIK Windows 8 does not send your local searches over the Internet. Did this change in 8.1?
Though I don't blame windows 8 for being generally featureless piece of crap missing a command line and any useful IT utilities out of the box. Thats a windows problem in general.
They call it PowerShell.
Yes. And nobody remembers the new name because it's completely unmemorable. "Windows 8 style UI"? Please. That isn't specific enough to refer to the tiled portion of the interface. It could be anything in the UI. Hence, when people describe what they (mostly) hate about the Windows 8 UI, it's still "Metro" as far as anybody but Microsoft is concerned.
Yes, everybody please refer to it as TIFKAM (The Interface Formerly Known As Metro).
Windows 8 is fully functional over RDP right now. In full screen, it works seamlessly; in windowed mode you have to use keyboard or title bar shortcuts.
If you know the names of your seldom-used programs, sure... (Also, really, so searching by typing is the new big thing instead of menus? Like the UNIX command line in the 90's...)
Heh, I never considered it like that - The people who most hate Windows 8 actually end up the least impacted by it.
Hell, I already run most of my "2nd tier" programs (anything not right on my desktop) by hitting win-R and typing the program name. It takes noticeably less time than click-move-click-scanthelist-move-click, possibly with a few more layers of those last three steps. Remote Desktop makes a great example of that - I always used to forget if it lived under applications or accessories or admin tools or whatever (and on a Win7 machine right now, I can't even find it without using the search bar on the start menu). But good ol' win-R mstsc has it open faster than I could even get to the start->all_programs with the mouse.
And typical users dont, many only use 2 apps on a regular basis, and are happy to have a menu to hunt through for other stuff once in a blue moon.
Power users just hit win and start typing. Power users dont care about win8, they still just hit win and start typing. But the more typical users get very frustrated with win8.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The metro screen is the start menu so many people seem to think disappeared.
Don't miss the forest hidden behind all those trees - The start button simply serves as a convenient proxy for a hard-to-articulate sense of generalized annoyance.
Yes, Win8's interface has some serious shortcomings, particularly for power users. Yes, it still works more-or-less okay as a GUI, and if forced to use it for a few weeks, most of us would just get used to it. But the entire Metro interface slaps us with Microsoft's sheer arrogance in randomly deciding to make change for its own sake rather than because people asked for it.
As another example that makes the point in a less "wow so much I don't know where to start" way, the "ribbons" in MS office. I liked menus and toolbars, and aesthetically dislike ribbons. But I will admit that they don't take any longer (or shorter!) to use once you get used to them - Once you get used to them. But why the hell should anyone need to get used to them? Okay, they do offer a few enhancements (in-place font and chart previews as obvious examples) over toolbars...Not out of any inherent quality of ribbons themselves, however, but simple because MS added new features that they didn't backport to toolbars. Change for change's sake.
It does by default in 8.1 but you can turn it off. I don't have win8 but there was a bit of a fuss when this was revealed by MS.
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
Huh?
I currently use an operating system other than Windows on the PC that I use most often. This makes me an edge case. Would IE 10 still be better than Firefox in your opinion even if one would have to buy a copy of Windows and run it in VirtualBox in order to use it?
But it's still worse, and personally I'd still be happily running XP if not for lack of proper 64-bit support (specifically lack of hardware drivers for 64-bit version of XP)
XP64 is a compatibility nightmare even if you DO have full drivers. That's not better.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Source code is useful for porting an application without having to run an entire operating system in a virtual machine. A port of Internet Explorer to OS X or X11/Linux would have to start with the source code. Unlike IE, Firefox is already ported.
You could try to get people onto Xubuntu. Its Xfce panel resembles the familiar versions of the Windows operating system enough that people can learn it within a day.
The remaining 1% of the time (when I need to find an app by name), I hit the Win key and start typing
The problem here is that while you're typing, the context of the currently open applications' windows disappears. It's like the effect of amnesia while going through a doorway. It'd be fine if the Start Screen were semi-transparent, but because it's opaque and full-screen, it forces a subconscious context switch. And that's why I still install Classic Shell, so that the search-by-name box doesn't distract me by covering everything.
But the point is, why is it so very, very important for Microsoft and Mozilla and the like to remove functionality? Why can't we have both a start menu *and* search?
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
But IMO its a big no no. Also wtf it takes 10 mins to find the shut down prompt cause its on the last menu you'd look for it?
Here's how it works in my Surface Pro -
Step 1: Find power button (optional if you've ever actually turned the computer off before)
Step 2: Press power button
Yep, no good alternative has taken hold, so let's just call it Metro and be done with it.
I'm old enough to remember that when Windows 95 came out there was all this ranting on the newsgroups against this new 'start menu' and people used various hacks to get the Windows 3.1 Program Manager (basically a screen full of icons) to display in Windows 95.
(Now get off my lawn, etc.)
The metro screen is the start menu so many people seem to think disappeared.
The problem is that it covers the whole screen, including the task you were working on when you wanted to start an additional application for the task. Rapid switching in and out of a full screen application lead to forgetting what you were doing, as I pointed out before.
"Windows 7 was looking stale in a world of osx, Android and iOS. Sure it has a very productive interface"
I'll take productive thank you, changing something to avoid 'being stale' at the cost of productivity is outright lame.
The real reason for metro is Microsoft's cut% of the metro marketplace.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Citation?
Win-p-u starts ultra edit.
Win-d starts my custom app
Win+d- I enter starts Ida pro
I have plenty of programs that start with 3 keys or less, and I like it that way. Fast access goes in start menu, infrequent usage that needs to be findable goes on desktop.
I am not typing an application name and getting 15 documents and emails in the list, because that is not helpful
I am a keyboard jockey, I can get things done quickly. And I do not need a touch interface between me and my goals.
The entire metro UI is merging Xbox and mobile onto the desktop. For most users, once you get past the learning curve It's fine. But the people who do serious work need a place to get that work done.
But the point is, why is it so very, very important for Microsoft and Mozilla and the like to remove functionality? Why can't we have both a start menu *and* search?
...MS wants to send you to the start screen(instead of menu) beause that's the first step of training you to fetch your programs from the metro app store and not with whatever you want from wherever you want.
anyhow, windows rt version can't be distributed in a fashion that would enable you to tweak it and install the tweaked version without paying MS 100 bucks(legally and in the long run anyways even if there's some sideload hack now).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
And ie runs on wine
Since when? I see "garbage" ratings for IE 9 in Wine AppDB. Besides, how should a user of OS X or Linux obtain a copy of Internet Explorer? As I see it, the only lawful way is to rip it out of a genuine copy of Windows.
When is this, 2002?
Derp.
That's you.
So everyone that uses alt-tab forgets what they are doing?
Use of application switching shortcuts, such as Alt+Tab, does not imply full-screen operation. On PCs that I use, I often overlap windows somewhat and use Alt+Tab to raise and focus a particular window.
Looks stale? Sorry Picasso, but real people don't base their usage on look. It is based on functionality.
And your opinion of the OSX interface is just that. IMNSHO the OSX interface wastes too much space and is spare and overly situational in how their application features are exposed.
And as someone who has been fighting with OSX for the last few years, I can state, unequivocally, "It just works" IS BULLSHIT! First to last.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Since then "Metro" has taken on a slightly derogatory connotation for this user interface. Some who refer to it as Metro do so to be mildly insulting.
You know, Microsoft also tried to call it "Modern UI" for a while, which was very ironic since much of this design of full screen, typing commands in to a box, and memorizing key combinations is a major throwback to the DOS/Windows 1.x days.
Reached by Slashdot staff reporters, one user who liked the Metro interface said, "This is exciting! I'd really like an opportunity to use a different browser."
The other user who likes Metro couldn't be reached.
Here
In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/03/microsoft-bing-ads-windows-8-1-smart-search/
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Congratulations, you just rediscovered the command line.
I see. Thanks for letting me know.
You lost us as soon as you said XP is better than 7.
It isn't.
The trouble with Windows 8 is it's Vista - enough small things are annoying that it adds up to a great big annoyance. If they'd just finish it off (clue: listen to customers), it could be great.
Oh?
Why don't you tell that to the users leaving comments article from zdnet then? In only 48 hours +300 angry responses with "MS YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY XP AWAY!!!"
There is even an IT director who is fighting tooth and nail to not upgrade to Windows 7 on that page of comments I linked and FYI I linked a technology site too. Imagine responses from a more not so computer oriented site with the news of XP eradication?
Users prefer XP if you asked most users on the street.
I prefer Windows 7 but I am in the minority who like aero snap, instant search, and the extra security, and I am a visual learning. Contextual learners need text not pictures on the task bar. A pic of Firefox has no meaning to them as it requires mental effort to decode. If you are visual you do not look for text but for Mozilla icon as an example. ... now lets extend that learning to the ribbon. If you need text and visuals do not ring in a bell your brain the same way then the ribbon is fucking torture! These users prefer Office 2003 and the new interface is a regression and change for the sake of change.
More UI regressions are listed here including the ability to sort pictures, cut and paste from the address bar in the window on a corporate network, quick launch apps on the task bar (no jumplists are not the same thing), and other things users for over 12 years are used too and feel comfortable as that is all they know at this point in time in terms of getting used to it.
Windows 7 is a big improvement over Vista which is another reason I like it as I used Vista. However, if you skipped it then it is not really an improvement is it then?
But, it still has vista issues with file copying and buggy networking. I have one user who has to do a restore every Monday as his network connections forget the proxy to the internet. He misses XP greatly as it just worked in comparison. At home Windows 7 can not copy more than 1.5 megs a second while XP can do far more over the same connection when copying to network shares.
Also, if you move a user from an OU twice and leave an old ARP entry the user will see an endless welcome screen. XP would launch right up and a trust relationship errors happen less over XP as well.
However
It is time to move on in my opinion and stop hating change. But do not look at the XP holdouts as cheapsakes and those who are terrified of change. Windows 7 internally is supperior and it does have its benefits if you are willing to learn them over XP too, but man it changes many things unecessary and ruins the compatibility of apps.
That is why XP users do not want and many will not upgrade after 2014. MS will need to do something like disable internet access through a patch by that time as 37% of all internet users still fucking use that and have no plans to change until MS makes something compelling.
Windows 9 has to look and act exactly like XP before they will change.
http://saveie6.com/
I have 10 apps pinned on my taskbar, and there's still room for LOTS more. On a 1920x1080 screen, there's space for around 30 pinned apps.
Yes, because it's certainly easier than digging through 5 levels of sub-menus in the labyrinth that is the Start menu.
I hope they don't force this on Windows 8 users. My folks would hate it. Currently they live most of their lives on the desktop, save for card games and starting applications with the Metro menu. But if they were forced to live in the single-application-full-screen "vision" of Metro for Firefox, they'd be *pissed*.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What a monumental waste of resources by Mozilla and the Firefox devs.
It has the same network issues that Vista had, as well as problems with accessing shares and shared devices in mixed environments. It also has lousy support of not so old printers, and it slows down even worse than XP after a few months of patches. I know of one small office that recently replaced their very old, but well maintained XP PCs for Win7 PCs, and there were serious misgivings to the point that it was felt it was a mistake not to have gotten Macs, even if it meant running Win7 in a VM for certain programs.
And there is very little difference in outwards appearance between Windows 7 and OS X. OS X is a very traditional UI.
Yes one can search by typing, but it's so clumsy much of the time. Instead very often I want to browse; you can't browse the apps and shortcuts in win8 by typing. The "all apps" is annoying to use as well and a distinct drawback from start menu.
Sure, I can understand if some users dislike the old start menu but I am baffled why they have suddenly come out of the wood work to tell everyone who doesn't hate it that they're wrong. Why can't people have a choice? Was start menu so completely awful that it needed to be scrubbed from the code base and replaced with something worse?
And because you like win-r plus typing you feel that it's appropriate to forbid the use of the start menu? I can understand if microsoft never got around to implementing a feature, in which case missing it would seem normal. However taking the active step of removing a feature that most customers used, then hiring a bunch of fans to run around telling all these customers how they were holding the menu wrong, is just bad for relations.
How do you browse that way? You can't. Instead you have to head to either All Apps with its clumsy interface (even MORE mouse movement than the old menu), or else use the file browser. Many applications will also install utilities and documentation in the start menu so you won't automatically know what everything is called so that you can't just use Win+R to find them.
It's great that you love the power user way of doing things. But does that justify removing a tool that most customers were using? Why are so many people defending microsoft here, that's what is confusing me.
This makes me an edge case
And makes your needs entirely unimportant and irrelevant.
I'm sort of disappointed at the pro-tyranny-of-the-majority vibe that I've seen lately on Slashdot. When IE had 90% market share, was the need for other web browsers in the first place "entirely unimportant and irrelevant"?
In my experience, Win+R works only if I list each application's individual directory in the PATH environment variable. It's useful on Linux, where almost all applications install to /usr/bin, less so on Windows, where applications tend to install to folders within Program Files or Program Files (x86). So it works with utilities that ship as part of Windows (Win+R cmd or Win+R mstsc) but not much else. When did this change?
And because you like win-r plus typing you feel that it's appropriate to forbid the use of the start menu?
Hmm? No, I loathe Windows 8 and in no way meant my post as a defense of the abomination called "Metro".
I more meant my post as pointing out the absurdity - Microsoft managed to effectively kill the CLI world with their nice shiny GUI. Now, they have reverted Windows to a state where, by dumbing-down the GUI to a Fischer-Price level of functionality, those of us still proficient in using a command line have more of an edge in using it than ever.
You are clearly blind.
Also "traditional UI" would appear to be a phrase lacking referent.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
So what? Window 8.1 will have a start button that... still does not open start menu, but brings you back to shitty start screen.
How damn institutionalized are you people these days?! You cant even function without a start menu! If you put the desktop tile in the top left then all you need to do is login, press enter and then you're in the desktop and you never need to deal with the start screen. If you really need a start menu then you can install a 3rd party start menu application, this is trivial to do. Not so long ago many of us geeks who did use Windows rather than MacOS or Linux used to replace the entire shell with alternative shells like litestep, nowadays if something works slightly differently to the way it previously did there is an uproar over how it is suddenly unusable!
This is a geek/nerd site, it is supposed to be about adapting to new technologies and finding workarounds for deficiencies where they exist, not complaining that a product is unusable because the out-of-the-box experience is different, that is what befuddled end users do and the people they turn to for help are the geeks, which often on this site these days are seemingly no different to the befuddled end users.
If you only use three or four apps, sure...
Why? It's the same thing I do with the OSX dock, there's no 'three or four app' limit.
If most customers were indeed using it then you'd make a killing with a start menu replacement utility for Windows 8.
The outward differences between the UIs, are the borders, menu on window versus on top, and the dock vs taskbar on bottom. And OS X has looked like that for a long time, and many Unix distributions have looked similar for longer than that.
There are plenty of differences beyond what you mention. Behaviour of the menus is different, as is their layout, not just their gross positioning. The dock abstraction has changed greatly just over different versions of OSX, and at no point was it even a rough equivalent of the windows taskbar. (Also, btw, neither the OSX dock nor the Windows task bar is fixed at the bottom of the screen. Big mistake.)
OSX has looked somewhat similar over releases, but there have still been great changes in behavior. And OSX was a drastic break from its predecessors, OS9 and NeXT/OpenStep.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Get this: sometimes, people have different workflows to other people!
I hit the Win key and start typing
Yeah, great...and if you don't know the name of the thing you're looking for?
Why install something you don't know the name of? That's like ordering a pizza and refusing to select the toppings, then complaining you got anchovies.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
XP64 will basically run most of the server 2003 drivers. And, server 2003 is pretty damn well supported. In fact if you just have to have a 64-bit XP its probably a much better choice. The only gocha is that a fair number of programs (mostly virus checkers, backup utilities, etc) will detect your running a "server" OS and require the "server" version of their product. That can be worked around with a copy of the microsoft app compatibility toolkit.
The issue with the app compatibility toolkit, is that MS really only wants you running it on the latest and greatest hardware and using it to lie to applications that want older versions of the OS. So, it won't out of the box let you create a windows 7 profile for windows 2003, even though most applications that want a specific version of windows really are only using one or two API's that aren't common since w2k. If you have any programming skill at all, its often pretty easy to make something mostly work with very little effort. Frankly most application vendors are cuting off older windows versions not for technical reasons but mostly testing/support statements.
If M$ hadn't decided to remove classic from 7, i'm sure a lot more people would have jumped on the 7 bandwagon. In that regard vista is actually better than 7. If you hate the aero glass look, then your stuck with and even uglier look. The non aero styles on windows 7 were obviously a 30 second hack job, its even worse in 8 where the ability to tweak the UI color scheme is basically limited to setting the windows border color. The high contrast color choices no longer have 30+ individual parameters you can tweak, rather its like 3-4.
Too many apps are coming out now that parrot the "Metro" look and it's damn ugly. I just fired up Foxit Reader the other day and it had updated itself automatically with the new "Metro" look to match Win8 and I was like "Damn, what is this - Windows 3.1?!?" Because it looks like shit!
It's all flat and everything is square with an outline. Just like Windows 3.1
It's a giant leap backwards
No you won't. If you really were going to, you'd do it now. Not wait for some magical date to make your ultimatum go into place.
People like you have been making this empty threat since DOS every time there's a major change.
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What's taking them so long to offer up a Metro style version of Chrome? Fear of cannibalizing laptops running ChromeOS is a lame excuse, and as nice as Google's current Metro style app is, it's just a mini browser on crack and steroids.
You mean you actually have this problem
Yes, and I'm not the only one who thinks it's "a cognitive burden".