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Windows 9 Already? Apparently, Yes.
Nerval's Lobster writes "A little over a year after Microsoft released Windows 8, and a mere three months after it pushed out a major update with Windows 8.1, rumors abound that Windows 9 is already on its way. According to Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows, Microsoft will begin discussing the next version of Windows (codenamed 'Threshold,' at least for the moment) at April's BUILD conference. 'Threshold is more important than any specific updates, he wrote. 'Windows 8 is tanking harder than Microsoft is comfortable discussing in public, and the latest release, Windows 8.1, which is a substantial and free upgrade with major improvements over the original release, is in use on less than 25 million PCs at the moment.' Microsoft intends Threshold to clean up at least a portion of Windows 8's mess. Development on the latest operating system will supposedly begin in late April, which means developers who attend BUILD won't have access to an early alpha release—in fact, it could be quite some time before Microsoft locks down any new features, although it might double down on Windows 8's controversial 'Modern' (previously known as 'Metro') design interface. Yet if Thurrott's reporting proves correct, Microsoft isn't abandoning the new Windows interface that earned such a lackluster response—it's betting that the format, once tweaked, will somehow revive the operating system's fortunes. With Ballmer leaving the company and a major reorganization underway, it'll be the next Microsoft CEO's task to make sure that Windows 9 is a hit; in fact, considering that rumored 2015 release date, shepherding the OS could become that executive's first major test."
Oddly enough, the bugs I can deal with. The horrid interface, the gradual removal of control, and attempts to mimic apple's walled garden is what I take issue with.
They should call it the "this is it" version. Make a grand video of the rehearse of its pre-release beta version. Hire a tech doctor to put it to sleep with anethesia. Have a great big media trial and debate. Then admit it's dead.
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They don't want that. What they want is that desktop gradually retreats to acting more like a guest OS / GUI on a Metro based system. Moreover that is really suboptimal even now. Far better is:
large screen = desktop
small touch screen = metro
They shouldn't have two GUI modes based on entirely different paradigms. It's absolute madness. Trying to make a desktop operating system behave like a smartphone operating system is just idiotic. I get the MS was trying to plant the psychological seeds to make the Surface and desktop offerings a unified target, but Surface and Surface RT just aren't selling and, in a time of shrinking PC sales, they've shot themselves in the foot. Whatever master plan they had with the Metro interface, it's been a failure on all fronts.
To show you how bad it is, I ordered some laptops from one of our main suppliers a few weeks ago. I didn't even have a chance to request downgrade rights to Windows 7 Pro when my rep simply said "And these come with Windows 7 Pro installed, but we can install the upgrade media if you want it." This is one of the biggest hardware and software providers for enterprise and government in Canada, and they're selling new hardware with Windows 7 out of the box simply because no one in enterprise or government wants anything to do with Windows 8.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So why is everyone acting so surprised when they keep following this trend?
Yes, but with or without Aero?
It fascinates me that they added Aero as eye candy that no one needed in Vista, then in Windows 8 they not only took it away but also took away the minimal, though longstanding, eye candy of rounded corners. So do we need eye candy or don't we?
Years ago, I read about a study in which researchers tried to determine what type of music would make cows produce the most milk. They tried all the common genres, from classical to hard rock, but didn't find any clear winner. However, they found that the cows produced slightly more milk when the type of music was changed.
Microsoft consistently has milked their users by changing the cosmetics of each major new version of Windows. I assume that's part of the plan to sell you the same thing again while pretending it's different - much as car makers do. But since Windows 8 is plain, Windows 9 seemingly would need to be fancy. But it can't be slightly fancy like XP, or really fancy like Aero. What's more, if they want to stick with their dogma of deploying the same look-and-feel across all devices, big and small, they're going to have to find a new form of plain (to run on lowest-common-denominator hardware) that's somehow different. Changing colors is about the only option I can think of. Hey, it works for the fashion industry.
I don't know where you get your scientific study from, but EVERY single person I personally know who has 8 or 8.1 likes it after the initial hours of adjustment
But are they using Metro on 8.1 or do they spend those initial hours of adjustment turning it off?
Even my Apple loving son and his wife (won't ever change) like it. It is called NEGATIVE publicity by all these supposedly techie sites and then the articles are picked-up on by mainline press.
It's not much of a recommendation to say that a user that primarily uses (and prefers) a different operating system likes Metro. It's not hard to like something that you rarely use.
I don't know where you get your scientific study from, but EVERY single person I personally know who has 8 or 8.1 likes it after the initial hours of adjustment
Me, I can't wait until I can get me a touch screen for the desktop and have 3 ways to input -keyboard, mouse and touch. I love that aspect about my Surface Rt-3 ways to input.
Will you really use a 27" monitor as a touch screen? The fingerprints alone would drive me crazy.
Strange, for me it's the opposite. I can find stuff much faster in Windows 7 because it is logically laid out and grouped, unlike XP which just evolved randomly over time. The search feature will get you to pretty much any random function or setting as fast as you can type. It's also a lot smoother and cleaner, snappier and more responsive.
Windows 7 is actually a damn good OS. Windows 8 is hardly a "nightmare" with a few tweaks, which any self-respecting techie should be able to apply. Metro was incredibly dumb but like MacOS if you ignore the crap parts there is a lot of good stuff and power under there.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I agree... I did switch to "classic shell," but then I don't use Windows much at all anyway; when I last bought a laptop I had the option of 7 or 8... and decided to see what the fuss was about. Turns out it was mostly much ado about nothing.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Sorry, Windows 8 is a nightmare. I have used every version of Windows since day one, and stand out sucks are 2.0, Windows Me, Windows Vista and Windows 8.
All others, including NT, WfW and the rest were much better than /.ers made them to be. Win 8 is every bit as bad as you've heard.
Windows 8 works in as much as you can make it not to be like it was supposed to.
I'm not the person you replied to but I like it on my HTPC for netflix, and the metro video player.
The large start menu, and automatically going full screen for movie playback is great on the big screen at 10 feet away.
I could see a few other metro apps being useful in that setup, although I haven't gotten around bothering to look for any myself. (A "file explorer" would be good for example; I'd probably even consider a metro browser... I hear firefox has one... I should look at that too. As both those activities are a bit painful from the couch using the desktop apps.)
As for my actual desktop on my actual desk...
I've also really got nothing against the new start screen for the desktop use case either. I rarely use the start menu; having pinned my apps to custom toolars. Right clicking on the start button brings up pretty much everything I ever used from the old start menu and more.
But yes, I have little to no use for metro apps there. However, I just don't launch them and they don't bother me.
I had to change the default picture viewer and video player away from the metro version to the desktop version, and then it was good. IMO those are bad defaults.
If they gave win+r the autocomplete+search functionality of the win7 start menu widget I'd really have no complaints about 8.
I don't use classic shells etc, they really aren't necessary at all, and just preserve a lot of the legacy mistakes that the win7 start menu has accumulated. Just because you are used to it, doesn't mean it was good.
My wife's grandmother was having computer trouble so I agreed to look over her PC. Unfortunately, it was running Windows 8 in Metro mode. Though I pride myself on my knowledge of computers, I couldn't figure out how to locate anything. It seemed like every step of the way, the computer was actively preventing me from finding tools that would have diagnosed the problem. It was like the OS was designed to be "so easy grandma can use it" to the point that they didn't even think that someone knowledgeable in computers would need to use it. Finally, I managed to escape from Metro-ville and fixed her problems. It turned a five minute job into about a two hour job, though.
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Early adopter here -- it came pre-installed on a notebook.
What I eventually realized is that MS is now supporting 3 separate UIs, all with quirks, and all with separate design philosophies.
The classic, window-based UI has been evolving over 15 years; it's straight-foraward, if cluttered. Start button; apps binned to the task bar; random crap on desktop; text-based menu bars; high contrast, colourful design elements.
Ribbons in Office. Similar to windows, but it replaced the menu bars with ribbons. More customizable than the menu bars, but my old eyes find the muted colours, grays on white, and small icons troublesome, especially in Outlook. Runs exclusively in classic UI.
Metro -- which actually comes in two flavours, touch and keyboard / mouse. The touch interface isn't bad, although I personally find it a pain to sort through open apps. But ... I find it hard to stay in Metro. Open up the calculator app, and you end up with a full screen calculator that looks STUPID on an 18" monitor (similar calculator on a 4" smartphone looks great, mind you). Open up Outlook? Back into classic. Further, the apps themselves feature scrolling vertically and horizontally which is ... disconcerting. If there's a pattern as to the reasoning behind H v. V scrolling, I don't get it. While the tiles themselves are colourful (a reference to the classic UI?), the apps are back to scroll bars that are grey on white (Office?). And the Music app is mostly black / grey / white. Weird choice, that, since it removes a design element that can highlight useful information. And, having a whole bunch of live tiles scrolling information on an 18" monitor is distracting, not illuminating.
But Metro with a keyboard and mouse? I know it can work ... but "put mouse in corner and pray" seems like a poor design choice. Further, I'm unaware of any helpful hints within the OS itself about how to use keyboard shortcuts. Seriously, MS made one of the most counter-intuitive UIs I've ever used with a keyboard and mouse, but did an outlandishly poor job of introducing it. First impressions last -- and if the first impression was "rage", good luck to you.
And, finally, my grousing aside, but if MS had released Win 8 with useful, clever, and outlandishly cool apps, we might not really be having this conversation. Instead, MS has my geographical location (Toronto, ON), but the installed apps gave me news, sports and weather for NYC (seriously, they got the country wrong?). Again, it's small -- but it would've been a nice touch if the apps tried to have a local flare because, frankly, I don't care about NYC. At all. The other apps? Music is interesting, especially since it includes free streaming (something of a big deal in Canada), but the interface blends local libraries with cloud streaming not-quite-seamlessly. The other apps, like mail and calendar, suck.
Win 8 is a deeply weird beast. It's fast. It's stable. And I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, especially if you're wedded to Office. The weird blending of multiple UIs is, plain and simple, goofy.
Looking back at my comments. What I think I would like is a small, tablet-sized second monitor for running Metro, connected to my desktop. I'd have whatever I'm doing on the classic desktop open, but could easily glance over and see Twitter updates, incoming e-mails -- a lot of things I use my iPhone for. Weird thing, that.