Windows 8.1 RTM Trickling Out, With Start Menu and Boot-to-Desktop

poofmeisterp writes "It's about time. Windows 8.1 will be released to end users in October, and RTM is being released now: 'Windows 8.1, codenamed "Blue," is introducing a number of changes designed to make the new operating system more palatable to current Windows users. Windows 8.1 is adding a Start Button, a boot-straight-to-desktop option; the ability to unpin all Metro apps; built-in tutorials; an improved Windows Store and a host of other consumer- and business-focused features. Microsoft launched its one and only Windows 8.1 consumer preview test build in late June.'"

Comments

Too little too late

[Teresita]

The start button takes you from the Desktop right back to the Metro screen, which is what pisses everyone off in the first place.

Re:Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

True, you can - if you choose one and go install it. You cannot have an old school start menu direct from Microsoft though. There are certainly 3rd party implementations that are pretty good.

Re:Too little too late

[J. J. Ramsey]

You can fix it yourself if you administer the machine. However, at work, people often can't do that because they are--rightfully--not given the access rights to do so.

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

> If you know, I don't sit on my ass and whine like a spoiled brat who can't take any initiative.

You don't get it. (1) Yes I can fix it. But why should I buy something that I need to beat into submission, when what I have works fine? (2) Yes I can fix it, but the 10,000+ users in my company, most of whom have other jobs than being a computer geek, would struggle with it, and I'd lose my job if I foisted that off on them.

Re:Too little too late

[bryanbrunton]

The old menu allows quick access to the majority of system functions. It did this with a minimum of clicks, mouse movement and extraneous information.

If I am working, I don't want to see weather information, stock quotes and baseball scores. Sure, you can remove those tiles from the start screen, but then that defeats the purpose of having that information available when I am not working.

I actually might enjoy the start screen when I am not working, but that goes back to the core malfunction of the start screen: it is mixing core functional areas:

(1) Program/System/Settings Launcher
(2) Information Provider

Why is so freaking difficult for the so-called User Interface experts at Microsoft to understand that this is a colossal fuck up to jam these two key functional areas onto the Start Screen?

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

Thanks to Penny Arcade I thought the same thing - however its not true. I did download the community release and you can indeed have an old school start menu again.

Only for certain rather bizarre values of "old school start menu". The icon takes you back to the start screen, which is precisely, absolutely, not the point of having a start button. You cannot change this without third party software, which, given that choice, makes Win8 a corporate non-player. Win7 will have to last us until Microsoft gets a clue.

Re:Too little too late

[AmiMoJo]

Name one OS that is just right out of the box and needs no tweaks. Linux always needs fiddling with (that's why you love it) and MacOS's two-finger scroll scrolls the wrong way by default.

At least with Windows 8 you can use AD to roll out suitable settings for everyone in one hit. I'm sure you can do the same thing with Linux/MacOS somehow too.

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

Whatever products Microsoft craps out, there are always a handful of people somewhere who against all reason like it. There were a handful of people who liked Microsoft Bob. A company I used to work for actually started rolling out Windows ME, based on user trials, although they realized their mistake and pulled it back a month later. I have a friend who still has a laptop running Vista, and she's fine with it, although whenever something goes wrong or needs to change, (which is annoyingly often) she always brings it to me.

So yes, I'm sure there are one or two people out there who like the retro-8bit-arcade look-and-feel that is the Metro interface. Maybe it reminds them of when they were playing Space Invaders on the cocktail table machine while sipping their wine spritzers and listening to a bad cover of "Shadow Dancing". People like a lot of things, for a lot of reasons. But to have a successful business, you need a large enough number of people liking the product to meet investor expectations. Doesn't seem likely.

Re:Too little too late

[hedwards]

Maybe with Ballmer on his way out, there's hope for MS to actually start producing decent products again. Win 7 was pretty mediocre, but after XP and Vista that was a serious step in the right direction. Then they came out with Win 8 which through all of that progress in the trash because they wanted the same interface to work on tablets, forgetting that few desktops have a touch interface.

OTOH, Ballmer deserves an award from Linus for doing more than anybody else to popularize Linux. Without his dedication to incompetent software design, many people wouldn't have known that Linux existed and that it's actually a viable desktop for most purposes.

Re:Too little too late

[hedwards]

How much is MS paying you to shill for them?

The point here is that this is supposed to be a user setting that individual users can change to suit their preferred method of interacting with the computer. Not all settings should be locked down, some settings should be available to change by the user.

Re:Too little too late

[hedwards]

Vista wasn't particularly bad. It mostly had serious bugs on launch and poor driver support. But, the system itself mainly suffered from the way the UAC worked.

That being said, it wasn't a particularly good OS, Win 7 is quite a bit better, and it wasn't particularly competitive with what *BSD and Linux were doing at the same time, apart from having better vendor support. In terms of the merits though, like all other MS OSes of the last decade, it's markedly behind the competition without any compelling reason for existing other than people target it for their software development.

Re:Too little too late

[J. J. Ramsey]

I'd say that the point is more that Microsoft took an interface that worked fine, namely the Start Menu, and replaced it with something that, for the most part, did not work as well. Third-party tools to customize an interface should be niceties, not a cure for someone else's screw-up.

Re:Too little too late

[Truekaiser]

It is actually worse than that.
It's a third party program, not intended for corporate use, put on over 10k computers.
That is several dozen if not more different hardware configurations. The program is bound to malfunction on some of them.
This is on top of the fact you still have to somehow 'train' all those 10k+ people on how to use it too.

Re:Too little too late

[GrumpySteen]

I'd like you to replace your computer with this laptop. The case is an ugly mix of blocky colors and they keyboard is a 5x4 array of keys the size of business cards, but there's a pair of left right buttons that lets you scroll through the list of keys you're used to having. Trust me... it's a much better way of accessing the keys on the keyboard than the previous way which put them all in front of you at once.

If you aren't happy with it not working quite the way your old one worked, you can always go find a new keyboard and install it to make it work the way you want it to.

And if you're complain about paying for product that doesn't do what you want it to do and is demonstrably worse than the one it replaced until you spend the time and effort to fix the problems we designed into it, it's purely because you're sitting on your ass and whining about it like a spoiled brat who can't take any initiative, RIGHT?

Re:Too little too late

[EdZ]

The 'minimum effort' way to access programs, control panel snap-ins, etc hasn't changed since Vista: press the start key on your keyboard, type the first, occasionally second (and possibly third, for lesser-used programs) characters of the name, then hit enter. If you using the hunt-around-some-menus technique you might experience a slight speed-up or slow-down when going from start menu to start screen, depending on how organised you are (or how resistant to change you are), but for anyone using windows in a sane manner the difference is nonexistant.

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

Name one OS that is just right out of the box and needs no tweaks. Linux always needs fiddling with (that's why you love it) and MacOS's two-finger scroll scrolls the wrong way by default.

At least with Windows 8 you can use AD to roll out suitable settings for everyone in one hit. I'm sure you can do the same thing with Linux/MacOS somehow too.

This is more than tweaks. You don't understand what "lack of control, conveyance, continuity, and context" means to people who are not computer geeks, don't have a job even remotely close to the computer industry, and only need computers to do certain business related tasks. When you're not a computer geek or Microsoft employee, you don't necessarily touch computers every day, and trying to remember which hot corner to touch or where your application is, or how to get out of a full screen Metro app, is not something they're going to remember or even want to try to figure out. This can't be fixed by using A/D to roll out settings.

However, there is a solution. And that is, to stick with Windows 7 until Microsoft abandons this crap. (Actually, we're still largely on XP, but are starting to roll out 7 on new hardware.)

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

Downloading and double clicking the installer for Classic Shell hardly constitutes beating into submission. Yes, it really is that easy.

There has never been a single operating system that I didn't have to spend some amount of time configuring to my liking. This is no different.

No, it really isn't. This still leaves you with charms, hot corners, and sliding icons. We'll stick with 7, thanks.

Re:Too little too late

[Lumpy]

Hi Steve!

I see you are having problems getting used to not working for Microsoft anymore...

Re:Too little too late

[SScorpio]

If you want to modify system settings windows key+x or right clicking the bottom left or start button if you are on 8.1 will give you a menu that blows away at 7 let you immediately access.

Someone clicking the start menu or using the windows key may have pinned favorites they access all the time. The start screen allows you to pin a lot more on it. And 8.1 gives you a small item size so you can fit even more.

The way I used to use the Vista/7 start menu was just pressing the windows key and then typing the name of the program I want. The start screen works the same way without you needing to bring up the search charm. Just press open the start screen and start typing.

Where I thing Microsoft messed up was forcing all of the metro apps on desktop users. The default PDF and image handlers are horrible. Thankfully the desktop version for the picture viewer is still included. A simple option to allow a user to use all of the new metro or fall back to the desktop mode of apps would have kept away a lot of confusion. Especially when the metro apps act as a walled garden and don't give you easy access to your files.

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

> Vista wasn't particularly bad. It mostly had serious bugs on launch and poor driver support. But, the system itself mainly suffered from the way the UAC worked.

Like they say, you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. By the time the initial problems were fixed, we had already decided not to deploy it. I suspect the same thing will be true of Windows 8 -- even if they fix it now, the damage has already been done.

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

> Never used it, huh?

I don't intend to. The convertible on which we have Win8 has been a complete bust. As a touch interface 8 sucks, and going back to 7 makes the touch screen worthless. We'll be giving the device away, and looking into the Samsung Note for a touch device. My workstation is running 7, and will continue to do so. Why would I buy a new OS that has a bunch of stuff I don't want and then have to disable it? What REASON is there for me to upgrade?

Re:Too little too late

[EXTomar]

It can be done with Linux where it involves initial settings in install image, "company repo", and the software packages alter whatever is needed. When something changes you update the "company-settings" packages and it gets updated.

The issue in my mind is that in my experience the value of this isn't that high in Linux environments. What are the enterprise settings that need to be set on 100 workstations post install? Outside of a few server changes, most changes can be handled and managed by service settings rather than workstation changes. If some software package goes from 1.x to 2.0 that requires a complete wipe/reset of settings that can be done at the package level and put on the "company repo".

I'm sure Windows Admin love using AD to roll out changes but I have so far failed to figure out what that would be that falls outside of "roll up package" scenario.

Re:Too little too late

[mcgrew]

Microsoft: removing features and calling it an upgrade.

Re:Too little too late

[mcgrew]

Win 7 was pretty mediocre

Well, yes, when you compare it to Linux and probably Apple as well (I don't have an Apple, but I have W7 and kubuntu and XP). Compared to Microsoft's other OSes it's the best they've done.

Re:Too little too late

[bryanbrunton]

No, the 'minimum effort' way to access programs is to put a Quick Launch Bar into the Windows task bar. One mouse flick, one click. I have 20 programs with icons there that I launch without the back-assward, 20th century methodology of typing in program names.

Re:Too little too late

[bryanbrunton]

No, no and no.

To all the Microsoft Shills who insist on listing 100 different windows key combinations to replicate what was available from the old start menu, or if you are going to advise me to start typing in program names to launch programs on my mouse operated graphical user interface:

YOU ARE FUCKING WRONG, AND STUPID IN THE HEAD.

Re:Too little too late

[bryanbrunton]

Sorry, I got the email monitoring covered elsewhere. I got a web browser open, I got Outlook alerts in the lower right of the screen.

When I open the open the start menu to run some old program (the name of which I have probably forgotten because I installed in 2 year ago), I don't want to learn about my inbox, my facebook, the price of MSFT.

Combining these functional areas is brain damage.

Re:Too little too late

[mcgrew]

press the start key on your keyboard, type the first, occasionally second (and possibly third, for lesser-used programs) characters of the name, then hit enter.

Yet you Windows enthusiasts have been ragging the Linux community for years about needing to use a command line (which you don't unless you're running a server).

My main tower runs kubuntu using the TV as a monitor and an infrared keyboard and mouse. I seldom touch the keyboard on it, it's almost always on a shelf across the room.

Re: Too little too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. Just stop. Whatever they're paying you, is it worth your dignity?

Re:Too little too late

[0123456]

The Start Menu is not back. All they've done is added a Start button which takes you back to the crappy Metro screen where you can't find any of the apps you want to run.

Putting the Start Menu back would have been trivial, it's what users wanted, but Microsoft crapped in their face by making the Start button go to the Metro screen that users hate.

Re:Too little too late

[Man On Pink Corner]

Correct, there's no reason to downgrade to Windows 7 if you install Windows 8 plus ClassicShell.

But the Start Menu hasn't been restored in Windows 8.1. It's just another raised middle finger from Ballmer to the rest of us, and hopefully the last.

Re:Too little too late

[Man On Pink Corner]

The 'minimum effort' way to access programs, control panel snap-ins, etc hasn't changed since Vista: press the start key on your keyboard, type the first, occasionally second (and possibly third, for lesser-used programs) characters of the name, then hit enter

I liked this feature better when it was called "MS-DOS."

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

> Correct, there's no reason to downgrade to Windows 7 if you install Windows 8 plus ClassicShell.

There are many reasons. Win8 starts out ugly, and then the more you dig into it the more annoying it becomes.

Rather, there is no reason to "upgrade" to Windows 8 plus any free (and not corporate supported) addon, if you're already using Windows 7.

Re:Too little too late

[jones_supa]

It is a big deal if you have to replace a core component of an OS with a third party solution to make it usable.

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

Windows 7 was mediocre? Sure, its not as good as Linux, but its by far the best OS Microsoft has ever made

I think what he means is that 7 was only an incremental improvement over XP. I upgraded to 7 for the superior memory management (and went to 64 bit at the same time so I could install more than 4 gigs) but in day to day usage, it's not much different from XP, and some of the differences (like going full screen if your pointer gets near the top, and the pointless rearrangement of the control panel) are annoying.

Re:Too little too late

[J. J. Ramsey]

Why are you so adamantly frenetic over something you could fix easily yourself, when that's torn down, the response is about an administratively locked down machine ...

Guess where I use Windows? At work, on an administratively locked down machine.

Re:Too little too late

[jones_supa]

On the other hand, it would not be impossible to make a third party Start Menu which is stable and deployable enough for corporate environments. If it looked like Windows 7 Start Menu, there would not be any training costs to speak of. It would just be a bit embarrassing for Microsoft... :)

Re:Too little too late

[icebike]

It is a big deal if you have to replace a core component of an OS with a third party solution to make it usable.

For some of us, that is the normal course of events.
Linux without some form of X based desktop is fine for servers, but really less than appealing in user land. We are use to trying out several totally different UIs before settling on one.

The problem is in the windows world, people are so use to the "take it or leave it" approach they never understood you could replace key parts or even the entire UI if you wanted to.

Microsoft did a good job at suppressing information about replacements or add-ons that virtually nobody knew they existed. But if you go looking for them you will find them.

This release signals the great experiment is finally OVER, and both methods will again be available. Windows 8.1 may actually survive for a while with this feature if they can Just Fix The Security Flaws they designed into it.

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

> I think a lot of corporations will simply slipstream classic shell into their custom win8 installs, and save a small fortune on retraining costs and endless support calls.

I think a lot of corporations will simply reimage new hardware with Windows 7 and save a small fortune on retraining costs and endless support calls.

Re:Too little too late

[icebike]

Compared to Microsoft's other OSes it's the best they've done.

Agreed, Win7 is pretty darned good, in fact its probably the first version that is better than Windows 2000.

I suspect it will be hard for Windows 8 to dislodge win 7 from the work place, even with the 8.1 changes. Microsoft has this habit of one horrible version followed by one reasonably good version.

Unfortunately, unlike the Linux world where you can totally step away from a botched UI, windows pretty much locks you into the struggle till a totally new version comes out, or you get so fed up you nuke it and install Linux, (which gets you fired from most companies).

Re:Too little too late

[hedwards]

Because, unlike Linux, Windows costs me money.

Why on Earth should I buy a copy of Windows if I have to waste hours of my time trying to figure out how to make it work appropriately? They had a UI that worked well, and they threw it in the trash to give us this garbage. Same goes for that Ribbon monstrosity. Sure, it does make the most commonly used functions easily accessible, but it makes the things I also use extremely hard to find as they're hidden because they're not used every day.

And BTW, I'm not paid for this criticism. Usability is usability, there are some variations, and that's why users should be able to make minor tweaks to their set up.

Re: Too little too late

[David Gould]

"Win7 is mediocre."
"Win7 is by far the best OS Microsoft has ever made."

A prime example of how two different statements can be true simultaneously.

Re:Too little too late

[Teresita]

Microsoft: removing features and calling it an upgrade.

Another name for Microsoft removing features is debugging.

Re:Too little too late

[0123456]

You do know about RIGHT-CLICKING in the lower-left corner (or on the new start button in 8.1), right? Windows-X brings up the same power-users menu.

How the fsck is my grandmother supposed to figure that out?

I had the misfortune to use a Windows 8 machine a few days ago and it's a completely uninuititive piece of crap. I didn't realise just how badly the lack of a start menu hurt the OS until I had to try to run a program from the desktop. If I didn't know I could press the Windows key I'd have been completely stumped, and, even then, I had to give up on scrolling through a crazy number of worthless Metro apps to try to find the desktop app I was looking for.

How did this POS actually get shipped?

Re:Too little too late

[vlueboy]

I'm afraid you missed the larger point. This is NOT a setting and cannot just silently be sent out on a whim to your enterprise image like you can send "Hide the shut down button"

Getting the old behavior back requires
+ researching a list of untrusted third party programs with potential licenses and costs
+ confirming they don't cause incompatibilities
+ getting approved by your apathetic managers
Not all software can be packaged and distributed as self-installing MSIs, especially if they do shell modifications. Miming a menu whose code was NEVER checked into windows 8 counts as such a risky endeavor. So this naturally leads to:
Then you have to go back and rebuild various default images with it and test again.

Now, all of this is moot when you're not in an enterprise. The real annoyance we're being trolled with is that admin access or not, there are thousands of computers out there that you will have to sit at. How many of them is it practical to update when they belong to our friends, kids, girlfriends, coworkers, relatives, managers? what about people who barely trust us to sit at their computer and want us off their desk with as few clicks as possible? It's a losing battle. Just 2 years ago, Mozilla removed the File menu from Firefox, threw out the status bar, merged the Stop and Reload buttons and put the tabs on top. This has NOT all come out at once, so you need to track down a myriad of fix packs and move them as you migrate machines and visit other friends whose computers you use. The challenge is this: find people you visit who installed extensions to fix every one of those throughout all their machines, partitions and login profiles. The point is that we lose in the long run, even if it's not a problem to make the change on a single OS

Re:Too little too late

[Mashiki]

There's already one, it's called Start8 and it's done by Stardock and has corporate deployment support.

Re: Too little too late

[budgenator]

Actually windows 8 start screen is a lot like using file manager in windows 3.1

Re:Too little too late

[0123456]

If you need a video to explain how to use your GUI... it's a fscking awful GUI.

Seriously, just admit that it's a disaster, and move on. If Microsoft don't do that, they'll be selling themselves at a cut price to Google or Apple in a few years.

Re:Too little too late

[MachineShedFred]

And for Microsoft's core customer base, 3rd party shell extensions are non-starters.

Can you say with certainty that a non-supported shell add-on is going to work properly on 60,000+ machines with an unbelievable amount of application combinations? Neither can I, or anyone else. Thus, business stays with Win7 until it isn't a issue anymore.

Re:Too little too late

[dbIII]

I suspect it will be hard for Windows 8 to dislodge XP from the workplace!

Re: Too little too late

[bored]

complete with the 4-bit color palette. I've been saying for a while now that windows 8 is windows 386, missing the 3,6 and extended to 64-bits...
  Complete with lack of overlapping windows/etc.

Re:Too little too late

[bored]

Discoverability, 20 years of UI/GUI research out the window. It started around the XP timeframe when someone decided it was a good idea to hide the keyboard shortcut hints if the alt key wasn't pressed. 8 is just the latest version of that, where even a computer literate person has to get out the manual (???) to discover how to close a metro app, or 3/4 of the tasks a user is going to have to do in the first 5 minutes of using the OS. Plus, tons of functionality is buried behind a really poor "search" feature. If you don't know its there or you don't know what its called its never going to get used even if its a really useful function.

Frankly, without google I often find myself lost... And I'm like the local windows guru for a number of fairly technical people.

Re:Too little too late

[roc97007]

Not to mention, 7 had XP compatibility mode, which worked really well and solved three or four migration issues I had. (Eventually the software in question either was upgraded to be compatible with 7, or I migrated to a different application. But for OS migration, XP compatibility was essential.) They really went out of their way to make the upgrade to 7 issue free. Turn Aero off, and it even looks like XP.

So, what the hell happened with 8? With all they had learned with Vista and 7, (the first being how not to do a release, the second how to do a successful release) why the hell would they pick the technique that did not work? That must have been an interesting board meeting.

Re: Too little too late

[roc97007]

"Win7 is mediocre."
"Win7 is by far the best OS Microsoft has ever made."

A prime example of how two different statements can be true simultaneously.

Enh. I wouldn't say that. I think what was said was that Windows 7 was an incremental improvement over Windows XP. Now, XP, as far as Windows goes, was a pretty successful, stable, useful OS. Test by, it's been with us for 13 years, and many users still don't want to part with it. 7 had some annoyances (would Microsoft PLEASE the HELL stop rearranging the control panel? PLEASE?) but is pretty decent. It even looks like the classic desktop if you turn Aero off. About like XP looks like when you turn the "fischer-price" desktop off. Hm, I'm seeing a trend here. Windows 8 might be decent if you could TURN METRO OFF. Just sayin'.

The point continues to be, Windows with 7 is probably as good as Windows is ever going to get. In the old days there were reasons to make radical changes because the current version sucked so bad, or because new types of hardware had to be supported. There is very little need for that in the desktop world anymore, and change for the sake of change is not a good sell.

Re:Too little too late

[simonbp]

It's *meant* to hold whatever I damn well want it to hold. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyone who says otherwise is a fascist pig.

Come the revolution, "User Interface Designers" will first against the wall, I tell you...

Its dead Jim!

[sinij]

Start working on Windows 9, you won't redeem this one so late in the game.

Re:Its dead Jim!

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're done GNU/Linux is here for you to upgrade to.

Re:Its dead Jim!

[sixsixtysix]

obviously, it would depend on the gender of the unicorn

Jim, he's dead.

[flyingfsck]

Sometimes, the doctor turned the words around and with Windows, adding a start button that turns the desktop around back to the Metro zombie screen isn't going to help.

Re:Still missing an option..

[Teresita]

Opening the same jpeg in Paint versus Metro takes about 1/10th the time.

Yeah, but all you can do in Paint is draw Hitler mustaches on supermodels and junk.

TPM

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh... Windows 8.1. The one requiring a "Trusted Computing" TPM in the PC to get a Window certification.

Thanks Microsoft - I really want a hardware dongle in the machine to enforce DRM and ensure that I never really own the machine as I don't have the keys to it. Cheers.

P.S. How's that arrangement with the NSA coming BTW?

Re:TPM

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh... Windows 8.1. The one requiring a "Trusted Computing" TPM in the PC to get a Window certification.

Thanks Microsoft - I really want a hardware dongle in the machine to enforce DRM and ensure that I never really own the machine as I don't have the keys to it. Cheers.

P.S. How's that arrangement with the NSA coming BTW?

Windows 8.1 does not in any way require a TPM chip. You can verify this yourself by downloading the leaked RTM build (or think about all the PCs out there it wouldn't work on).

Microsoft has announced that 18 months from now, new systems that want to advertise being certified should have TPM2.0. It isn't really related to Windows 8.1 at all (and at the time there is likely Windows 8.2 that is the current version).

We can criticize Microsoft for announcing such a certification requirement coming up in the future, but as a tech site we should be precise about what it is and isn't.

Also, I too support criticizing Microsoft for their relationship with NSA, but it is interesting how many shy away from recognizing Google, Apple and others having the exact same relationship.

Propaganda

[tuppe666]

That is not a start menu. That is a start screen. Who do they think is falling for this nonsense. The reality is, it was never about the start button. It was about taking a usable productive and powerful desktop environment using precision pointing and fast text input, and swapping it out for the weakest of the tablet OS's. In the hope in creating what they call an ecosystem, and moving the computer into an locked down electronic device running Micro$oft Store (The $ stands for money grabbing Monopolist), Rather than compete on price that 70% gross margins still too thin.

The real question is is it iOS, Android, Chrome or GNU/Linux

Start BUTTON minus Start MENU = FAIL (again)

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Bottom line? Don't make me learn new interface stuff. I hate it. If it takes a non-zero amount of time for me to think about it, it's not a value, add; it's a value-subtract.

FYI, this goes for ALL software AND programming languages. Adding a few things incrementally to use new features is fine. Changing interfaces or behaviors wholesale isn't.

This should fall into the "common sense" category - something the software industry isn't exactly famous for being able to perceive or implement.

Disclaimer: I write software for a living. Please don't hate me.

Misleading headline

[onyxruby]

Please rewrite headline, it is misleading. There is a world of difference between the Start "Menu" and the Start "Button". 8.1 forces you back into metro through the Start Button and doesn't resolve people issues in the slightest. Metro is still forced on you and it is still wholly unsuitable to the enterprise. While Microsoft at least listened to people about boot to desktop, they showed continued contempt for their customer base by refusing to replace the Start Menu.

Fix the headline and stop propagating Microsoft's spin, this is a band-aid on sucking chest wound and nothing more.

Re:Still missing an option..

[jfdavis668]

Sorry, but Windows 8 looks more like Windows 1 than 3.1. Windows 1 was useless, since there were no applications. Sound familiar?

Start button != Start menu!

[roc97007]

Let's not confuse the two -- an icon in the lower left corner that takes one to the "start screen" was not what was asked for. What was asked for was an actual start menu, not a button that takes you to a page full of icons. It's extremely annoying that Microsoft would deliberately choose to misunderstand this. (They couldn't be stupid enough to think that's what we really wanted.)

Missing feature enterprises waiting for....

[jkrise]

"Boot straight to XP" mode.... with the memory and disk requirements of Windows 8; better thing would've been to bundle an XP inside of Windows 8; and provide an option to Boot Straight To XP mode; there's still metric tons worth software that will run only on XP; not even Vista nor 7.

People who truly need or want the Metro stuff can boot to that junk if they want to; and they'd probably get what they deserve.

That way MS can keep legacy code and legacy depending customers happy; and still provide them a path to run so-called modern apps which are a pain in the desktop.

Responding...what a word

[tuppe666]

It appears that Microsoft are responding to the needs of their customers

The response was "fuck you"

Re:A step in the right direction!

[roc97007]

> It appears that Microsoft are responding to the needs of their customers.

...and that's exactly what they were after -- an appearance of responding to the needs of the customers, without actually doing so.

New Start menu is not so bad - Metro apps are

[hsa]

Once you get used to it, the new Start menu is ok. You don't spend much time in there anyway.

The real pain in the ass are the stupid full screen Metro apps. Yeah, they just pop up with brightly colored interface that is optimized for touch. They completely disrupt your workflow, there is no visible Exit-button, and they do that for one screen only (if you have multimonitor system, you will totally hate this).

This happens more every now and then and I have to go through some trouble to replace them with better OSS alternatives. If you are watching a video, default app might pop up, and maybe nag about codec or not being up to date - when you really just want to see the video now, with clear controls. PDF reader pops up with no clear navigation and ofcourse fullscreen, and these ofcourse always go to the same monitor, even if you would like to read the PDF on screen #2, while coding. Shit like this happens also with images and music, and the interface is just .. horrible.

I don't even care anymore, if they fixed this. I've been downloading OSS replacements for just about every program and I am curretly ok with my Windows. But instead of fixing the Start menu, which is only a minor nuisance, they could make WINDOWED and USABLE default apps.

They should also shoot the guy, who designed all their new software (Office, Visual Studio..) USING ONLY CAPS FOR TITLES, patch them back to normal and make my eyes hurt less.

GNU/Linux forced on XP users

[tuppe666]

When you're done GNU/Linux is here for you to upgrade to.

It has been marked flamebait, which is kind of strange considering users are migrating on the Desktop to GNU/Linux(For want of a name) Chrome and Android (seriously!?), the trend is small, but noticeable. Apple is having its own problem on the Desktop.

The bottom line is this version Metro is going to be Microsoft's OS offering those hostages of XP, end of Line only months away. I have to say the timing of Balmers departure looks almost as convenient as Bill (Fuck your charity) Gates (I don't need to pay taxes I have a charity) exit.

Re:GNU/Linux forced on XP users

[mcgrew]

It has been marked flamebait, which is kind of strange considering users are migrating on the Desktop to GNU/Linux(For want of a name) Chrome and Android (seriously!?), the trend is small, but noticeable.

Microsoft fans (or are they all shills? Doubtful...) get mod points, too. More honest moderators have fixed it, he's sitting at 2 as I write this.

Oh, and to keep the MS fans/shills/stockholders/employees with mod points from modding other insightful comments down I'll get them to waste them on me.

Micro$oft SuXXorz!!!"

Shouldn't take long to hit -1.

Re:A step in the right direction!

[Noughmad]

It appears that Microsoft are responding to the needs of their customers. This is a good start.

Not always, no. There are famous quotes by people from Henry Ford to Gene Roddenberry that all come down to "people don't know what they want". And it's true, if MS asked what people wanted, 90% would say XP, solely because they're used to it.

Part of the reason Apple is so successful is that they followed a vision despite all naysayers. As seen in both Windows 8 and X-Box One, Microsoft tends to backpedal on their vision. Not being sure about your own products can hardly lead to market success.

Hey Microsoft, want $30/year from me?

[istartedi]

Patch XP past its EOL, and charge $30/yr for the patch subscriptions. I'll buy it.

What I will NEVER do is use a locked-down phone platform as my primary device.

Re:Still missing an option..

[PCM2]

I know it's not exactly what you want, but you can still specify a default app for files, same as you always could.

Actually, it's not quite the same as you always could. Unless you explicitly right-click a file and choose "Open with...", double-clicking an unregistered file type gets you a new, Metro-ized "Choose a program" menu that doesn't fit with the rest of the desktop look and feel and it requires more clicks to get the job done.

Re:A step in the right direction!

[PCM2]

Not always, no. There are famous quotes by people from Henry Ford to Gene Roddenberry that all come down to "people don't know what they want". And it's true, if MS asked what people wanted, 90% would say XP, solely because they're used to it.

This is actually something I think about often. Steve Jobs' "genius" was that he always told people what they wanted, then gave it to them.

Microsoft, on the other hand, always CLAIMS to make changes because "that's what people want." They do endless research to see what buttons people click after they click this or that button, and then they make those buttons bigger so they're easier to click. They arrange the Office Ribbon based on what they see people doing. Everything, EVERYTHING is based on research, both through direct surveys and blind feedback from their software running in the wild... ...and yet, when they make the changes, most people seem to respond negatively. But Microsoft won't revise its changes -- or allow a smart, Steve Jobs-like human to make the decisions -- because they have all this research, so they "know" what people want. "You say you hate this? Well you're wrong, you don't hate it, and I can prove it."

TL;DR Microsoft actually seems hamstrung by its own design methodology. It designs by committee, vote, and statistical study, rather than by inspiration -- and its slavish adherence to those methods means it has a hard time recovering from its own mistakes.

Re:This Start Button thing is such a side-show

[PCM2]

poor CLI integration (please just build-in Bash)

Windows PowerShell is arguably a superior CLI to Bash.

Re:Still missing an option..

[GrumpySteen]

This actually isn't redundant. Windows 2.0 introduced overlapping windows as a part of the OS and those have been present in every version up until Windows 8 and Metro. Microsoft has quite literally brought back a limitation of Windows 1.0 and is new calling it a feature.

Microsoft Account

[jones_supa]

One of the crappy features of Win8 is that they try their best to shove a Microsoft Account down your throat and use it to log into your OWN computer. I'm betting that their intentions include using that account to increasingly more datamine various things about your and your computer usage. That's not cool at all.

Re:Microsoft Account

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

I'll call out FUD whenever I see it.

You can happily use Windows 8 without being tied to a windows account. But how is having a windows account different from your iTunes or Google or Yahoo or Facebook or Slashdot, or countless other social services, or how about that fact that any phone and tablet these days are tied to a walled garden and your credit card? A Windows account just sets up 5gb of free skydrive services and an outlook email, both which you never have to use.

I don't love Windows 8 for a lot of reasons, but I mean if you are going to say ignorant things then expect to be called out for it.

Re:Microsoft Account

[jones_supa]

But how is having a windows account different from your iTunes or Google or Yahoo or Facebook or Slashdot, or countless other social services

Because it's my personal computer that I'm logging into!

Counting the cash

[tuppe666]

I bet Micro$oft is tired of supporting XP

Bless them maybe they should spend a little of that 70% Gross Margin. Customers measure support from time of purchase as does consumer law. The bottom line is XP users had no viable upgrade option till Windows 7, and then that is unlikely to support XP machines and peripherals.

Re:This Start Button thing is such a side-show

[benjymouse]

Powershell isn't built-in....

Yes it is. Since Windows 7 and Server 2008 PowerShell is considered part of the operating system. Several OS features such as the troubleshooting packs rely on PowerShell. The OS comes with PowerShell and you cannot even uninstall it (you can uninstall the ISE but the console remains).

Re:A step in the right direction!

[PsychoSlashDot]

Not always, no. There are famous quotes by people from Henry Ford to Gene Roddenberry that all come down to "people don't know what they want". And it's true, if MS asked what people wanted, 90% would say XP, solely because they're used to it.

Part of the reason Apple is so successful is that they followed a vision despite all naysayers. As seen in both Windows 8 and X-Box One, Microsoft tends to backpedal on their vision. Not being sure about your own products can hardly lead to market success.

Sure. And part of the reason why The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-RIM is on the brink of implosion is that they followed a vision despite all naysayers.

See how that works? Dip-shit decisions are dip-shit decisions regardless of how stubborn you are.

Only time will reveal if Microsoft's stubborn unwillingness to budge on recent UI moves will turn out to be brilliant or not. For now all we (the users) know is that we don't like it, which isn't a great sign.

I'll take what I can get

[rsilvergun]

I do a lot of remote IT support, and it's a nightmare getting that damn thing to pop up in an RDP or logmein session.

Re:It would help

[Cederic]

I just tried that. I was offered a choice: 'Paint', the MS provided basic image editor, or 'Paint.NET', the full featured system I installed.

Oddly enough, I knew the name of that one. I also know the names of Lightroom and GIMP, so I can type those too.

If you don't know what you're looking for, use the clumsy visual search capabilities, but don't go knocking the quick simple way for people that are familiar with the system to interact with it.

Undervalued currencies

[tepples]

unlike Linux, Windows costs me money.

I'd wager a good amount that you dick around for hours making linux 'work appropriately'

This sounds like the old saw "Linux is free iff your time is worth nothing." But in practice, the time/money tradeoff isn't the same in all situations. Someone might be learning to operate a computer on the meager amount that a minor is allowed to earn under child labor laws. Building a nettop out of a Raspberry Pi with GNU/Linux is cheaper than building a PC with Windows. Or the Balassa-Samuelson model demonstrates how countries without a mature export industry tend to have undervalued currencies. People in such countries have to buy Windows in US dollars, which are worth more hours of their labor than would be the case for someone in a G8 country buying Windows.

Stickers

[tepples]

When you're not a computer geek or Microsoft employee, you don't necessarily touch computers every day, and trying to remember which hot corner to touch or where your application is, or how to get out of a full screen Metro app, is not something they're going to remember or even want to try to figure out.

Then put stickers on the four corners of the monitor: "<- Start Screen" at the bottom left, "<- Switch App" at the top left, and "-> Charms" at the top right. It'd be like the cardboard overlays on the F keys back in the DOS days.

Re:Stickers

[dbIII]

Mod this up to five guys as actually a pretty good idea and then link it every time somebody complains about a linux, mac, gimp or whatever interface being unintuitive (eg. yes it sucks, but not like win8).

Take note interface designers of the future - if the interface is so broken that putting stickers on the screen to tell people how to use it is a good idea it's time to improve it or put someone else in charge of setting it up.