Microsoft "undoing" Windows 8 changes

[Avilan the Grey]

...So this (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/330c8b8e-b66b-11e2-93ba-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2SgdQzjSe) is happening...

Apparently Microsoft will remove / redesign parts of Windows 8 to better suit customer desires.

[TSGames]

And yet all they needed to do was have it boot to desktop by default and keep a start menu and nobody would have ever complained.

[Avilan the Grey]

And yet all they needed to do was have it boot to desktop by default and keep a start menu and nobody would have ever complained.

Hey I always wondered why MS didn't use the Plug and Play hardware detection and autobooted the OS depending on if it detected a touchscreen or not.

[TSGames]

Hey I always wondered why MS didn't use the Plug and Play hardware detection and autobooted the OS depending on if it detected a touchscreen or not.

Exactly. It seems pretty common sense. This is the kind of stuff that happens when you let Steve Ballmer run a company...

[Heliomance]

Personally, I don't have a problem with Windows 8. Sure, a start button would be nice, but it works fine as is. But then, I am comfortable with keyboard shortcuts. I rather like the Start screen, actually - hitting Win immediately brings up a screen of my most-used programs, and if I want anything else I can just start typing the name of the program and it'll find it for me straight away.

I don't, however, like any of the full-screen apps, because of how hard they make multitasking. The beauty of the desktop is that you can have as many programs as you like open at the same time, resize them however you like, and switch between them really easily. The full-screen apps remove all of those advantages. On the other hand, it's not exactly hard to just never use them.

[factotum]

...So this (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/330c8b8e-b66b-11e2-93ba-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2SgdQzjSe) is happening...

Apparently Microsoft will remove / redesign parts of Windows 8 to better suit customer desires.

I wouldn't get too excited about it--chances are all they'll do is put a button on the desktop that takes you back to the Happy Toy Land rather than, say, re-introducing an actual Start menu.

[Avilan the Grey]

I wouldn't get too excited about it--chances are all they'll do is put a button on the desktop that takes you back to the Happy Toy Land rather than, say, re-introducing an actual Start menu.

Not excited, but curious. :smallsmile:

[Castaras]

Curious indeed. But still, is it too much to ask to just allow it to boot automatically into the desktop rather than going into the metro interface? Then both the people who like metro and those who like desktop can be happy. They've made both so isn't much work for them, surely. :smallconfused:

[Avilan the Grey]

The thing is that W8, under the shell, is the best thing they have done so far. Amazingly stable. Very VERY low on resources (for not being Linux, at least). Boots amazingly quick.

[valadil]

Hey I always wondered why MS didn't use the Plug and Play hardware detection and autobooted the OS depending on if it detected a touchscreen or not.

Packaging Windows with a ton of different modes and options wouldn't be very Applesque, and if they're tapping into Apple's one size fits all approach (like the article suggests since they're competing with iPad) the it just wouldn't work.

[factotum]

Curious indeed. But still, is it too much to ask to just allow it to boot automatically into the desktop rather than going into the metro interface? Then both the people who like metro and those who like desktop can be happy. They've made both so isn't much work for them, surely. :smallconfused:

The problem is that, as shipped, the Windows 8 desktop is largely useless. No Start Menu and no easy means of putting shortcuts on the desktop means you have to switch back to the touchscreen bit in order to launch any application, and you can almost feel the gears grinding as you do so. So, just booting into the desktop won't be enough--they'll need to reintroduce stuff like a working Start menu to make it work.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I've gotten used to tabbing over the Metro to launch apps, it's not actually all that bad for me. Mostly because my browser doesn't like starting from shortcuts for some reason. No, my main issues mostly have to do with little things that take motions I used to do all the time on laptops and make them open something strange. Like if I swipe in from the right side of the mousepad thing, it'll bring up system options and such-like. I JUST WANTED TO MOVE THE MOUSE TO THE LEFT.

Used to be that resting my finger on the top-right corner of the mouse-pad would bring up a little helper video thing too, which I hated because if I was on Tumblr or Twitter or anything that was infinite-scrolling, or at least lots of scrolling down, I would rest my finger there in between scrolling, but my dad fixed that I believe.

[pendell]

So it's still the same operating system under the hood but they're rolling back large parts of the metro interface?

An excellent idea. Metro was too far, too fast. Also, I don't think it's all that suitable for a windows/mouse/keyboard setup on a PC.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Now, my dad's work laptop has a touchscreen, and while I haven't used it, I imagine that a lot of Windows 8 cross-platform functionality makes a LOT more sense on that kind of mixed hardware...

[SaintRidley]

The thing is that W8, under the shell, is the best thing they have done so far. Amazingly stable. Very VERY low on resources (for not being Linux, at least). Boots amazingly quick.

Surely they could have done all that without prioritizing a touch-screen based interface, which still seems completely asinine on any non-touch-screen machine. Right? I'm with whoever suggested system based booting - if it's a touchscreen, you get the touch interface. If not, you get desktop (and not whatever they're calling desktop in 8, but actual desktop).

[Heliomance]

Curious indeed. But still, is it too much to ask to just allow it to boot automatically into the desktop rather than going into the metro interface? Then both the people who like metro and those who like desktop can be happy. They've made both so isn't much work for them, surely. :smallconfused:

Surely that's just putting the people that like metro in the same position the people that don't are in now. Also, Win+D switches to desktop instantly, it's not that hard.

[Avilan the Grey]

Surely that's just putting the people that like metro in the same position the people that don't are in now. Also, Win+D switches to desktop instantly, it's not that hard.

Of course it's not hard. But it's wrong. Just the fact that Microsoft calls the Desktop an "app" shows that they had their priorities completely out of whack.

A comparison: Imagine you bought a TV that by default only was operated by touch, and you had to tell it, every single time, that you wanted to use the remote?

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Surely that's just putting the people that like metro in the same position the people that don't are in now. Also, Win+D switches to desktop instantly, it's not that hard.

I was thinking more like allowing a switch on set up that allows you to pick which it'll automatically boot to. So some people can boot to Metro, some to Desktop.

[Weezer]

I've gotten used to tabbing over the Metro to launch apps, it's not actually all that bad for me. Mostly because my browser doesn't like starting from shortcuts for some reason. No, my main issues mostly have to do with little things that take motions I used to do all the time on laptops and make them open something strange. Like if I swipe in from the right side of the mousepad thing, it'll bring up system options and such-like. I JUST WANTED TO MOVE THE MOUSE TO THE LEFT.

Used to be that resting my finger on the top-right corner of the mouse-pad would bring up a little helper video thing too, which I hated because if I was on Tumblr or Twitter or anything that was infinite-scrolling, or at least lots of scrolling down, I would rest my finger there in between scrolling, but my dad fixed that I believe.

Odd, that must be a specific thing for your laptop, I recently got a new Lenovo with windows 8 and it doesn't have any of those gesture-based commands. Interesting. What brand of computer?

[thubby]

it's a rule with windows. their releases alternate between crap and good.
windows xp was good, vista sucked, 7 is good, so now 8 sucks.

[Flickerdart]

Why do you need a start button? Everyone knows where the start menu is. It's been in the same place for twenty years. I also much prefer the new start screen to the old menu - hunting for the program you want from a huge list of one-line names is awful, and the larger icon view makes finding stuff a lot faster (plus simply typing in the name of the program you want works a lot faster than it did in 7 for me). The only thing I miss is the little arrow that shows you the files you've opened recently.

If you don't want to launch stuff from the Start screen, you can use Search from the right menu panel, or put shortcuts on your desktop/use Explorer like you always could.

[Soras Teva Gee]

So Microsoft finally checked their email for the two memos that if "If it ain't broke don't fix it" and "PCs are not tablets" because honestly here I was about to switch to Mac if I was going to have to learn a new OS anyways.

[Aedilred]

it's a rule with windows. their releases alternate between crap and good.
windows xp was good, vista sucked, 7 is good, so now 8 sucks.
That pattern only seems to have set in after 98, though. 3.1, 95 and 98 were all respectable OSs, and then ME was an abomination against whatever god you serve.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Why do you need a start button? Everyone knows where the start menu is. It's been in the same place for twenty years. I also much prefer the new start screen to the old menu - hunting for the program you want from a huge list of one-line names is awful, and the larger icon view makes finding stuff a lot faster (plus simply typing in the name of the program you want works a lot faster than it did in 7 for me). The only thing I miss is the little arrow that shows you the files you've opened recently.

Lots of reasons, some of which are "I actually want to see what's on the screen while I'm using the Start menu" and "I'm used to the way it is and the new way offers very little in terms of added functionality with significant drawbacks, such as way more mouse movements required and difficulty using the keyboard. So why change it?"

[Flickerdart]

Lots of reasons, some of which are "I actually want to see what's on the screen while I'm using the Start menu" and "I'm used to the way it is and the new way offers very little in terms of added functionality with significant drawbacks, such as way more mouse movements required and difficulty using the keyboard. So why change it?"
Neither of these things require the presence of a start button on the desktop interface.

[Heliomance]

Of course it's not hard. But it's wrong. Just the fact that Microsoft calls the Desktop an "app" shows that they had their priorities completely out of whack.

A comparison: Imagine you bought a TV that by default only was operated by touch, and you had to tell it, every single time, that you wanted to use the remote?If it didn't require me to get up from my seat and took me under half a second to tell it that, I'd be fine with it. Which is the situation Windows 8 is in.


Lots of reasons, some of which are "I actually want to see what's on the screen while I'm using the Start menu" and "I'm used to the way it is and the new way offers very little in terms of added functionality with significant drawbacks, such as way more mouse movements required and difficulty using the keyboard. So why change it?"
What mouse movements? How I navigate to programs I use frequently: Hit Win key, icon is right there in front of me, click icon. How I navigate to programs I use infrequently: Hit Win key, type name of program, hit enter. Under five seconds total time either way. Not seeing the problem.

Oh yes: How I navigate to programs I use very frequently: Pin them to the task bar.

[Soras Teva Gee]

What mouse movements? How I navigate to programs I use frequently: Hit Win key, icon is right there in front of me, click icon. How I navigate to programs I use infrequently: Hit Win key, type name of program, hit enter. Under five seconds total time either way. Not seeing the problem.

Oh yes: How I navigate to programs I use very frequently: Pin them to the task bar.

You know the flicking the iWin screen from one page of icons to the next.

Reasonable if you are actually on a tablet, terrible experience for me on a mouse or worse yet a laptop touchpad.

You positing a third solution however plenty of more casual users are not going to want that.

[Sylthia]

Will this be a simple download update, or will I have to send in my computer and lose all the data I have on it right now?

[Flickerdart]

You know the flicking the iWin screen from one page of icons to the next.
It doesn't have pages, it's a continuous scroll that you can go through using the mouse wheel or touchpad gestures just as easily as, if not more easily than, you would with a touch screen. I should know, I use all three inputs and have encountered no unbecoming slowdown in my workflow.

[Ashtagon]

That pattern only seems to have set in after 98, though. 3.1, 95 and 98 were all respectable OSs, and then ME was an abomination against whatever god you serve.

95 was actually quite wobbly. 98 was a major bugfix for 95, but because the interfaces were near-identical, the two merge in people's memories.

[Ravens_cry]

And yet all they needed to do was have it boot to desktop by default and keep a start menu and nobody would have ever complained.
Oh, people would still have complained. That's what people do.
Windows 2000 Pro is still my favourite. XP's interface aesthetic really bugged the heck out of me, though it had some good features once patched. Thankfully, I was able to change ut.

[factotum]

That pattern only seems to have set in after 98, though. 3.1, 95 and 98 were all respectable OSs, and then ME was an abomination against whatever god you serve.

You're missing 3.11 (aka Windows for Workgroups), 98SE, and Windows 2000 from that list...all of which were rather good. (And Vista isn't actually bad once you've got it patched up with the latest service pack and provided you have halfway decent hardware--still use it on my machine at home).

[Heliomance]

You know the flicking the iWin screen from one page of icons to the next.

Reasonable if you are actually on a tablet, terrible experience for me on a mouse or worse yet a laptop touchpad.

You positing a third solution however plenty of more casual users are not going to want that.

I barely ever scroll it. If it's not on the first page, I type the name. Scrolling is unnecessary.

...damn, I sound like a complete Windows 8 fangirl. I'm not, I just don't think it's anywhere near as bad as people make out.

[TSGames]

Oh, people would still have complained. That's what people do.
Windows 2000 Pro is still my favourite. XP's interface aesthetic really bugged the heck out of me, though it had some good features once patched. Thankfully, I was able to change ut.

This is true, but they would have bought it and then complained less.

It is a shame to see the best operating system that Microsoft has turned out since its inception get a profoundly bad reputation just because they couldn't use a little common sense and implement a very simple idea. That's Steve Ballmer, if it can be ****ed up, he will find a way to **** it up.

[Aedilred]

You're missing 3.11 (aka Windows for Workgroups), 98SE, and Windows 2000 from that list...all of which were rather good. (And Vista isn't actually bad once you've got it patched up with the latest service pack and provided you have halfway decent hardware--still use it on my machine at home).
I was focussing on the home systems rather than business-side, although 2000 seemed to be ok; 3.11 and 98SE I considered to be included under the general headings of 3.1 and 98... And while 95 did have stability issues, it was a reasonable OS in other respects (after all, 98 was near-identical from a user perspective).

I gather that Vista was eventually patched into an OS that didn't reduce unsuspecting customers' computers to a heap of burning slag within moments of installation, but my experience with it (up to 2010) was entirely negative and I haven't felt the need to go anywhere near it since. Frankly, I don't think I would have liked it even had it worked properly - I just didn't get on with the interface, and the backwards compatibility was really poor.

[lesser_minion]

Windows 8 is nowhere near as bad as most people make it out to be. Yes, there are teething issues. It's a new system, what did you expect?

And there are a lot of changes -- there is going to be backlash whether those changes are good or not.

In any event, Metro is not difficult or painful to use with a mouse, that's a myth, and the people espousing it are really showing themselves up as having neither used Metro nor even thought about what they're saying. The mouse and the touchscreen are both pointing devices: many of the things you can do for one also benefit the other. The only touchscreen optimisations that don't also benefit mouse users simply have no effect on mouse users -- or they're complemented by mouse equivalents -- the mouse equivalent of "swipe in from the ..." is moving your mouse to a corner of the screen, which is far and away one of the easiest operations to perform with a mouse, for example. And as for the time spent, Microsoft have spent decades designing user interfaces that work well with the mouse. They aren't throwing away any of that.

In reality, Metro is not about touch vs. mouse, and it's not meant to be a replacement for the desktop. There are many things that aren't easy to do from Metro simply because that isn't what Metro is for. Metro is about presenting information cleanly and efficiently. It's there for when you just want to read a book, or watch a film, without distractions. If you're using it for tasks it wasn't designed for, you have only yourself to blame when you're crying from frustration.

[SMEE]

Well, I tried it and I loved it.
Can't wait to get a new laptop with Windows 8 running.
I love Seven, but Win 8 is really stable and works like a charm once you get used to it.

Sure, these new changes they will be bringing to the table might make it better, but right now there isn't much wrong with it.

[Aedilred]

In reality, Metro is not about touch vs. mouse, and it's not meant to be a replacement for the desktop. There are many things that aren't easy to do from Metro simply because that isn't what Metro is for. Metro is about presenting information cleanly and efficiently. It's there for when you just want to read a book, or watch a film, without distractions.

If you're doing something complicated, that needs you to use information from three or four different apps -- e.g., writing an essay -- then Metro will leave you crying from frustration. There's nothing wrong with it -- it's just totally the wrong tool for that kind of job.
I haven't used Windows 8, although I harbour a deep suspicion of the tablet computer and all its works, and the above sounds like exactly the sort of thing that would drive me crazy.

It's representative of the insidious and now almost complete repackaging of the home computer as primarily an interactive entertainment system. The time was that if you wanted to read a book without distractions, you just read a book. If you wanted to watch a film, you stuck the video or DVD in the player and watched it on a television set. If you wanted to listen to music, you went to the hi-fi, etc.. The computer could do all these things, more or less, but I have always found it to be an inferior option, and somewhere between a bonus and a last resort, rather than the primary purpose of the machine.

There are still a large number of people who use home computers for more than media-based entertainment, and as far as I'm concerned that's basically what Windows is for. Routinely, at this computer, I'll be running a browser window, a word processor, spreadsheet and/or additional program like image manipulation simultaneously and moving between them every few minutes, or even every few seconds. I might have a video or music running at the same time, but that's just gravy; I can do that another way. What I need the computer for is all the stuff that isn't videos and media, and are, in my (albeit limited) experience, much harder to use on tablet-based OSs.

[valadil]

It's representative of the insidious and now almost complete repackaging of the home computer as primarily an interactive entertainment system.

I've felt like that's been the case for Windows and Mac for the last 10 years. Both just feel like appliances to me. They play music, browse the web, and send email. I'm aware you can do more with them, but they feel like they're catering to the media appliance crowd.

[lesser_minion]

There are still a large number of people who use home computers for more than media-based entertainment, and as far as I'm concerned that's basically what Windows is for. Routinely, at this computer, I'll be running a browser window, a word processor, spreadsheet and/or additional program like image manipulation simultaneously and moving between them every few minutes, or even every few seconds. I might have a video or music running at the same time, but that's just gravy; I can do that another way. What I need the computer for is all the stuff that isn't videos and media, and are, in my (albeit limited) experience, much harder to use on tablet-based OSs.

Windows 8 is no more "tablet-based" than any other version of Windows released in well over a decade. And if you want to have six or seven things open and switch between them constantly, then you can easily do that in Windows 8.

Of course, there's a lot of room for opinions here. For example, someone complained about not being able to see what was on the desktop while the start menu is open. Most people don't actually need that -- I certainly don't, and clearly nobody got hung up in testing because it wasn't there, but not having it is still going to smart.

I'm pretty sure there's at least one five-thousand word blog post out there claiming that Windows sucks forever because it doesn't support focus-follows-mouse. Likewise, if that's a feature you use frequently, you're not going to like a system that doesn't offer it (of course, it helps to fact-check these things before posting a long rant about them (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2011/06/02/10170483.aspx#10170976)).

[Soras Teva Gee]

What I need the computer for is all the stuff that isn't videos and media, and are, in my (albeit limited) experience, much harder to use on tablet-based OSs.

It would seem pertinent to mention that the iPad was not intended to replace larger scale computers.

Otherwise Jobs would have axed the Macs or left instructions to do so as soon as possible, because he didn't believe in redundant products. Its why you can find a jillion spec PCs even from single companies and only what half a dozen Macs. It was intended to fill a percieved gap between your smartphone and your laptop. For when you want something a little more robust then a tiny phone but don't want to lug around a full machine.

The iPad is for coffee shops or watching a movie on the train to work in the morning. Its for the casual use stuff, not serious buckle down work. I've yet to see a tablet I could say put in my lap and still type on traditionally. All the keyboards and rests look too flimsy even for a table. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough... but I don't need to look harder when I'm already a devoted laptop user more then used to lugging one around. I took two looks at the iPad when it came out said "nice toy, not for me I've got that covered" and haven't been dissuaded since. If I wasn't already a laptop user it might have tempted me to get into the mobile game more then any smartphone... but already using a more robust platform and satisfied with it I never felt the urge to step down.

Microsoft didn't get that memo and has apparently now paid the price for it.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Odd, that must be a specific thing for your laptop, I recently got a new Lenovo with windows 8 and it doesn't have any of those gesture-based commands. Interesting. What brand of computer?

ASUS model of some kind, can't find model name anywhere on it, if it has one. I dunno, I'm not much of a computer guy. It's my dad's computer anyhow.


I haven't used Windows 8, although I harbour a deep suspicion of the tablet computer and all its works, and the above sounds like exactly the sort of thing that would drive me crazy.

It's representative of the insidious and now almost complete repackaging of the home computer as primarily an interactive entertainment system.



I've felt like that's been the case for Windows and Mac for the last 10 years. Both just feel like appliances to me. They play music, browse the web, and send email. I'm aware you can do more with them, but they feel like they're catering to the media appliance crowd.

Welcome to the 21st century. Computers are for everything from watching movies and tv shows (I know TONS of people who use them as their ONLY way of accessing these media), to listening to music (again, tons of people who don't have other stereo systems, and also playing digital music over a stereo system can get complicated), to all those various communication things, to playing games, to anything more you can think of.

This is a fact of the modern age. Complaining about it is just opposing change because it's something you're not familiar with, because you wish that the role of that technology had stagnated arbitrarily at a point which you're more comfortable with. For people of my generation, its perfectly normal to curl up in bed and watch a movie on your laptop. It makes SENSE. We can't afford TVs or stereo systems or anything like that. Why would you need that when you can have all of it in one, much cheaper package?

[Heliomance]

I haven't used Windows 8, although I harbour a deep suspicion of the tablet computer and all its works, and the above sounds like exactly the sort of thing that would drive me crazy.

It's representative of the insidious and now almost complete repackaging of the home computer as primarily an interactive entertainment system. The time was that if you wanted to read a book without distractions, you just read a book. If you wanted to watch a film, you stuck the video or DVD in the player and watched it on a television set. If you wanted to listen to music, you went to the hi-fi, etc.. The computer could do all these things, more or less, but I have always found it to be an inferior option, and somewhere between a bonus and a last resort, rather than the primary purpose of the machine.

There are still a large number of people who use home computers for more than media-based entertainment, and as far as I'm concerned that's basically what Windows is for. Routinely, at this computer, I'll be running a browser window, a word processor, spreadsheet and/or additional program like image manipulation simultaneously and moving between them every few minutes, or even every few seconds. I might have a video or music running at the same time, but that's just gravy; I can do that another way. What I need the computer for is all the stuff that isn't videos and media, and are, in my (albeit limited) experience, much harder to use on tablet-based OSs.
The thing is though, beyond the start screen, there is no obligation to use Metro. The desktop is still there, it works exactly the same as it always has. I also regularly have those same programs open on Windows 8, and it works just fine. You're right, I loathe the full screen tablet style apps for it, they make multitasking near impossible. But theres a very simple solution to that: I don't use them. I use desktop programs instead, and aside from a (very) few computer settings that for some reason aren't in the control panel, I haven't needed to do a single thing that I can't do perfectly well from the desktop.

[lesser_minion]

ASUS model of some kind, can't find model name anywhere on it, if it has one. I dunno, I'm not much of a computer guy. It's my dad's computer anyhow.

Right, that's actually because of some crapware that your laptop manufacturer installed on your machine to "help" you use it. There should be a control panel applet that lets you disable it -- if you can't find it directly by browsing the control panel (right-click on the start corner) or searching for it, try opening the mouse settings, picking the "trackpad" tab, and then clicking on "options..." in there.

[Flickerdart]

Microsoft didn't get that memo and has apparently now paid the price for it.
Windows 8 doesn't replace laptops. You can get traditional clamshell no-touch laptops with 8 on them and work the same way you always have. You can also get a tablet or one of those kooky transforming models such as the Surface if that's what you want, and get much better portability without sacrificing very much productivity (like you would with an iPad). The iPad is a bigger phone, and Windows 8 tablets are smaller laptops, but neither is a replacement for the thing that it came from.

[Ashtagon]

Given the choice between a windows 8 machine and a very nice notepad, I'd pick the notepad (http://www.staples.co.uk/paper-notebooks-cards/notebooks-pads/notebooks/shortie-notepad?price=incvat&campaign=campaign_google&utm_source=utm_source_google&utm_medium=utm_medium_google&utm_content=348086&utm_campaign=utm_campaign_google&gclid=CJLF9rTAibcCFVMftAodUSUAUA).

[Avilan the Grey]

Will this be a simple download update, or will I have to send in my computer and lose all the data I have on it right now?

Service Pack 1, most likely.

Regarding Windows versions: First of all, Windows 2000 was not for businesses. It was at first marketed as such during the 2 days or so Microsoft tried to push Windows ME. After that blew up in their face, they quietly forgot about ME and started market 2000 for home computers.

Anyway, my take on Windows versions:

Win 3.1 - Eh
Win 3.11 - a slightly better version of 3.11
Win 95 - Unstable mess
Win 95 - Second release / Major updated version (unlike Win95SE it didn't have an official name) fairly stable.
Win 98 - A slightly better mess than Win 95
Win 98 SE - a VERY stable operating system
Win ME - the worst thing ever made for a computer, anywhere. Not even a complete operating system (a large minority could never get it to start without bluescreening)
Win 2000 - Very stable, very good. Especially after SP 2
Win XP - Well, after SP 1 it was REALLY good. Before that, a lot of people had better luck with Win2k SP 4.
Win Vista - Not really bad. Actually much better than people claim. Uses a lot of resources, but that's about it. Especially good after SP 1.
Win 7 - Basically the modern equivalent of XP SP2. Works great.
Win 8 - Very... weird. Many things right, small resources, very very stable, quick to boot. And other things that are blatant stupid design decisions.

So basically
Bad
Good
Bad
Good
Bad
Very Good
Horrible
Very Good
Very Good
Good
Very Good
Good

[valadil]

This is a fact of the modern age. Complaining about it is just opposing change because it's something you're not familiar with, because you wish that the role of that technology had stagnated arbitrarily at a point which you're more comfortable with.

Who said I'm complaining? I'm observing that computers have been getting more like appliances for the last decade. That's all. I actually agree with this change even if it doesn't fit my use case.

[OracleofWuffing]

I'm just glad this went down without a Mojave 2 preview.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Windows 8 doesn't replace laptops. You can get traditional clamshell no-touch laptops with 8 on them and work the same way you always have. You can also get a tablet or one of those kooky transforming models such as the Surface if that's what you want, and get much better portability without sacrificing very much productivity (like you would with an iPad). The iPad is a bigger phone, and Windows 8 tablets are smaller laptops, but neither is a replacement for the thing that it came from.

"Can"

Is not the same as making that both simplistic and straightforward for consumers. First impressions matter when I'm buying something, and 8 not only failed to impress me but actively irritated me. I tried it and did not like it.

It was like I was being locked out of my own computer to be app'ed to death in cloyingly colorful boxes. And was manually awkward to control because a traditional laptop lacks the tools to properly manipulate a touch screen. Might have been better with a mouse, but I don't even own one.

Oh I don't have to do that you say? Well I may be a long time user but I'm no computer pro. Why should I need to go take any extra steps to simulate the not-broken not-problematic experience I have now? My answer: I shouldn't.

I'm a lazy consumer, I don't care how efficient and great the engine of the car is under the hood when the seats aren't comfortable and you've for some reason put the pedal under my left foot not my right. I simply won't buy your unnecessarily weird product and take my business elsewhere. Its my money, your product is not entitled to it.

[Avilan the Grey]

Regarding W8 "not being padified". The fact that they have made turning the computer off an act many people have to google (it is quite well hidden when it should be, at worst, directly on the menu screen), because they assume you run the OS on a platform you never turn off (like a phone or a pad) and not a computer shows that yes, it is.

Almost 100% of all design decisions are made to accomodate a pad interface.

[Aedilred]

I've felt like that's been the case for Windows and Mac for the last 10 years. Both just feel like appliances to me. They play music, browse the web, and send email. I'm aware you can do more with them, but they feel like they're catering to the media appliance crowd.
That's why I still run WinXP. :smallwink:


Welcome to the 21st century. Computers are for everything from watching movies and tv shows (I know TONS of people who use them as their ONLY way of accessing these media), to listening to music (again, tons of people who don't have other stereo systems, and also playing digital music over a stereo system can get complicated), to all those various communication things, to playing games, to anything more you can think of.

This is a fact of the modern age. Complaining about it is just opposing change because it's something you're not familiar with, because you wish that the role of that technology had stagnated arbitrarily at a point which you're more comfortable with. For people of my generation, its perfectly normal to curl up in bed and watch a movie on your laptop. It makes SENSE. We can't afford TVs or stereo systems or anything like that. Why would you need that when you can have all of it in one, much cheaper package
I'm not complaining because computers can now do all these things. I'm glad they can. I'm complaining about the way they seem to be increasingly designed around doing these things primarily, because I already have things capable of doing those perfectly well, and usually better. What I need the computer for is everything else, and all the media-centre focus is getting in the way of that.

I am slightly suspicious of the actual long-term effects of packaging everything together on a single device, because it's inherently distracting. I've noticed (or think I've noticed) a decrease in my attention span in the last ten years when I've had my own computer and used it all the time (whereas prior to that I used to use one occasionally), whereas supposedly attention spans are supposed to increase with age. However, that's a separate issue from what annoys me day-to-day.

[factotum]

Regarding Windows versions: First of all, Windows 2000 was not for businesses. It was at first marketed as such during the 2 days or so Microsoft tried to push Windows ME. After that blew up in their face, they quietly forgot about ME and started market 2000 for home computers.


Actually, I think it was entirely the other way round. Windows 2000 was supposed to be the NT-kernel OS that would unify the two Windows product lines around at the time (9x kernel being the other) and greatly simplify Microsoft's product line. However, driver support for Windows 2000 was poor, its hardware requirements were higher than expected, and backward compatibility with Windows 9x not all it could be, so Microsoft hastily repositioned 2000 as the successor to NT 4 in the business market and released ME to provide the next gen home OS. (Note that ME came out around 6 months *after* 2000 did). It wasn't until the launch of Windows XP a year later that Microsoft managed to finally standardise Windows on the NT kernel and thus produce a single OS for both business and home users.

[Avilan the Grey]

Actually, I think it was entirely the other way round. Windows 2000 was supposed to be the NT-kernel OS that would unify the two Windows product lines around at the time (9x kernel being the other) and greatly simplify Microsoft's product line. However, driver support for Windows 2000 was poor, its hardware requirements were higher than expected, and backward compatibility with Windows 9x not all it could be, so Microsoft hastily repositioned 2000 as the successor to NT 4 in the business market and released ME to provide the next gen home OS. (Note that ME came out around 6 months *after* 2000 did). It wasn't until the launch of Windows XP a year later that Microsoft managed to finally standardise Windows on the NT kernel and thus produce a single OS for both business and home users.

You are right, except that the driver support for W2k was far better than for Win ME... especially after the first service pack.

[Remmirath]

What I mainly look for in a new version of Windows is two things: a reasonable level of stability, and enough backwards compatibility that I can play all of my games, even if that means some tweaking and emulators. So long as it does both these things, and so long as I can't manage to get all of my favourite games to run decently on other operating systems, I'll continue to use Windows.

I am, however, glad that they are backtracking. I find the Metro interface to be, if nothing else, a terrible eyesore, and while I don't find them hard to use I am personally annoyed by the trend towards super slick and brightly coloured interfaces. I'm not as informed about Windows 8 as I could be, because I decided that it was just going to be one of those versions of Windows that I was going to avoid when I saw screenshots of it.

If the next versions were going to keep going in that direction, I was going to just keep using Windows 7 until it was no longer feasible to do so, and then was going to jump ship to some other operating system.


In reality, Metro is not about touch vs. mouse, and it's not meant to be a replacement for the desktop. There are many things that aren't easy to do from Metro simply because that isn't what Metro is for. Metro is about presenting information cleanly and efficiently. It's there for when you just want to read a book, or watch a film, without distractions. If you're using it for tasks it wasn't designed for, you have only yourself to blame when you're crying from frustration.

Those are the kinds of things that a computer is mainly for, however, and what I would very much assume the majority of computer users are going to be using one for. Any application that can go to full screen mode can be used without distractions anyhow, so what's the point of having a special kind of interface that then doesn't work for the other things?


Welcome to the 21st century. Computers are for everything from watching movies and tv shows (I know TONS of people who use them as their ONLY way of accessing these media), to listening to music (again, tons of people who don't have other stereo systems, and also playing digital music over a stereo system can get complicated), to all those various communication things, to playing games, to anything more you can think of.

I have no problem with them being capable of it, or with people using them for it -- but I fail to see how a silly looking tiled interface actually helps that. I certainly enjoy that my computer is capable of playing music, as I like to listen to music while I do some things on the computer, and I don't have a stereo system in the same room as the computer. I find it nice in a vague way that one can watch TV or movies on a computer, but I'd never do it; much more comfortable to sit out on the couch and use the TV.

I primarily use my computer for playing games. I have no other gaming consoles and never have had them; that's a large part of what a computer is for, to me. Then there's word processing, digital art creation, photo processing, website creation and management, e-mail and using the internet.


This is a fact of the modern age. Complaining about it is just opposing change because it's something you're not familiar with, because you wish that the role of that technology had stagnated arbitrarily at a point which you're more comfortable with. For people of my generation, its perfectly normal to curl up in bed and watch a movie on your laptop. It makes SENSE. We can't afford TVs or stereo systems or anything like that. Why would you need that when you can have all of it in one, much cheaper package?

Not necessarily. It could be that you actually don't like the direction the technology is taking, and are not sure that it's a good thing in general. Being cautious about or opposing change does not always (or I would say, usually) happen because it is change, rather because there is something about it that is little to the liking of the person in question.

I like advances in technology, for useful and interesting things; I'm always excited about new advances in science, in robotics, in medicine, in space exploration and travel, and so forth. I question that the "combine everything into one device" thing is a good way to go forward, because typically specialised devices are better at doing the thing that they are specialised to do. I very much question that "link everything to the internet" is a good idea, because it is far easier to secure things if they are not connected to the internet, and not everybody has a good and fast internet connection, which can make internet-required programs a real bother to use. I've a few other complaints with things less related to the current topic, which I won't go into here (but they mostly have to do with the whole "mobile everything" thing).

Also, I would like to point out that I very much expect that we fall into the same generation, and I've never done that. I read books when I want to read, I use the TV when I want to watch a movie. Age is not an indicator of whether or not you like a technology. I know people sixty years older than me who are very fond of tablets and iPhones and all, and then myself and people a little younger than me who are very much not fond of them.

[Heliomance]

Regarding W8 "not being padified". The fact that they have made turning the computer off an act many people have to google (it is quite well hidden when it should be, at worst, directly on the menu screen), because they assume you run the OS on a platform you never turn off (like a phone or a pad) and not a computer shows that yes, it is.

Almost 100% of all design decisions are made to accomodate a pad interface.

How to turn off your desktop/laptop: press the power button on the case.

[Avilan the Grey]

Any application that can go to full screen mode can be used without distractions anyhow, so what's the point of having a special kind of interface that then doesn't work for the other things?

---

I have no problem with them being capable of it, or with people using them for it -- but I fail to see how a silly looking tiled interface actually helps that.

Indeed. The first thing to do as a computer user is to uninstall every. single. "app". from windows 8 (except the desktop "app", of course :smallannoyed:) since they are in the way and are extremely subpar to the desktop applications that are designed to do the same job. The Pad-optimized interface is a distraction and a hindrance on a laptop or desktop computer, and 95% of users (at least) will be using Win 8 on such machines, something that Microsoft failed to notice in their urgent quest to conquer the pad market (it's basically Internet Explorer 4.0 all over again).


How to turn off your desktop/laptop: press the power button on the case.

Uh-huh. The problem is that 99% of Windows users haven't done that since Windows 3.11. We have all gone "Start Menu - Turn off computer" since late summer 1995.

[Heliomance]

Uh-huh. The problem is that 99% of Windows users haven't done that since Windows 3.11. We have all gone "Start Menu - Turn off computer" since late summer 1995.

Really? Why? The power button's been able to shut down the computer properly since at least XP, possibly even 2000.

[Avilan the Grey]

Really? Why? The power button's been able to shut down the computer properly since at least XP, possibly even 2000.

Because we got trained to do it by Windows 95 and 98 (and ME). And back then computers still had a simple physical off-switch, that could severely damage your windows installation if you used it. Even when XP first arrived there was a huge chance you ran it on a computer that wasn't new enough to have an electronic off button (that logged you out of windows and shut it down properly).

So I guess it's because we are old, but habits are habits, and we have all been conditioned, by Microsoft no less, to NEVER USE THAT BUTTON.

Edit: Besides, on a Desktop it is less work to turn it off by the start menu than to bend down and switch it off manually.

[lesser_minion]

Those are the kinds of things that a computer is mainly for, however, and what I would very much assume the majority of computer users are going to be using one for. Any application that can go to full screen mode can be used without distractions anyhow, so what's the point of having a special kind of interface that then doesn't work for the other things?

Consistency. There's no real standard for how a desktop application running in full-screen mode should behave -- sometimes menus remain on-screen, sometimes you mouse-over a particular part of the screen, and sometimes, they don't appear at all and you have to exit out of fullscreen in order to do anything.

In contrast, every Metro app has a consistent interface (for the most part): as soon as you can use one, you can apply most of what you've learned to any other.

[Avilan the Grey]

Consistency. There's no real standard for how a desktop application running in full-screen mode should behave -- sometimes menus remain on-screen, sometimes you mouse-over a particular part of the screen, and sometimes, they don't appear at all and you have to exit out of fullscreen in order to do anything.

In contrast, every Metro app has a consistent interface (for the most part): as soon as you can use one, you can apply most of what you've learned to any other.

Of course. Unfortunately they are designed for anything but an actual computer, which means a few problems:

1. the interface is REALLY BIG, while most computer users would like it to be really small. Yes, the app version of Google and IE are "consistent". But they are consistent in a very very unoptimized way. I do not want three mile high letters. I am running on 1600 x 900 and have good eyesight. Many computers run on far higher resolution still. Also, ugly. And optimized, again, for a frakking touch screen interface I. Don't. Have.

2. They, so far, lack functionality.

3. They HAVE to run in full screen.

4. The desktop interface is far superior for work productivity as well as for anything that requires multitasking.

5. The differences in design and interface between applications can also be viewed as a plus. Many of us find the non-microsoft applications to have a superior interface.

6. Microsoft is trying to do an Apple on us and lock us into a design choice.

[Don Julio Anejo]

For the record, I bought Windows 8 like a week after it came out (they had a really good upgrade deal for $15 if you bought a Windows 7 computer recently), and used it as a secondary boot for about a month.

Here's the thing: I actually like about 75% of improvements they did (especially to the desktop, Windows explorer and utilities like task manager).

However, I hated two things: "in your face" metro and complete lack of intuitivity.

The thing about change, just because it's different, does not necessarily mean it's better. There is a reason program interfaces are typically designed in a very similar way: to minimaze the learning curve. Photoshop CS5 has much the same interface as Photoshop 4.0 from 12 years ago, despite a vastly improved feature set. Photoshop 6 is the first time they changed it (by the way, to something much less user-friendly for the sake of being shinier and freeing up some screen real estate). Even then, it's worth it to most people who do serious work, as it's now designed for super-high-res monitors (i.e. 2560x1440) and to maximize available space.

Microsoft... Doesn't get it. If there is no real reason to change something (like, improved productivity), then why change it? It's not a case of new technology being better. It's a case of "you should stop wearing boots because loafers are the new thing, so we're not going to make boots anymore, so screw you hikers." Word 2007 interface is worse than Word 2003 (or earlier) one simply because now unless you know exactly where to look, it takes a lot longer to find often used features. But it's probably a gold mine to people who do corporate end-user training.

Many people here went over to many downsides of metro. Me? I'm really lazy. I like to do something with a minimum number of clicks and mouse movements. Selecting something from a small rectangle on bottom left of my screen is a lot faster than having an entire desktop-size menu that also hides what's on the screen (such as, when I need to type in a Windows tool with a weird, complicated name, which is all of them). In short, the interface is too big which offers me no advantages and lots of disadvantages. Full-screen apps are just a waste of effort and almost seem like Microsoft is trying to tell me I'm dumber than I really am. A PC, especially a desktop, is not a cell phone. Inability to lock myself into the desktop (so I don't see metro beyond its use as a start menu) is just as annoying; I don't want to have to click on "desktop" any time a program quits and takes me to metro.

Finally, "shut down". Yes, I'm one of the people who had to google it.

[Avilan the Grey]

(Stuff)

And all of these arguments as well (including the positive ones. I like almost everything they did outside the padification).

For anyone that missed it, Windows 8 is listed as one of the main reasons sales of new computers fell drastically after it's introduction (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9238326/Windows_8_takes_blame_for_brutal_PC_sales_slide). Microsoft has publicly stated they forsaw an increase because people would love the new UI. Didn't happen.

Yes, many people buy pads, but most of these people already have a computer that is high-end enough that they do not need a new one yet. Very few people actually buys a pad instead of a computer, you just don't buy one the same year.

Edit: "Windows Blue" as it is called internally, is a major update, basically Windows 98 Second Edition all over again. It is not officially stated that it will be free for Win 8 users, but they would be crazy otherwise...

Also, Start Button and Autoboot to Desktop are 99,9% confirmed. Official sources stops short of saying it outright, but "sources close to these sources" say that yes, these features will definitely be included, as well as better help and walkthrough functions for those that wants to use the Metro interface.

[pendell]

So I guess it's because we are old, but habits are habits, and we have all been conditioned, by Microsoft no less, to NEVER USE THAT BUTTON.


Agree. I have a variety of old and new computers in my house, and for safety's sake I do not use the power button on the box unless I absolutely must. While there are such a thing as electronic switches I don't necessarily know that the particular computer I'm sitting at actually has one. Whereas Start->Shutdown works correctly every time.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[pendell]

Looks like Linux took the International Space Station from Windows (http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155392-international-space-station-switches-from-windows-to-linux-for-improved-reliability). When mankind conquers the stars, the penguin will be right next to him.

:)

ETA : The same reviewer was realy not impressed with windows 8 (http://www.extremetech.com/computing/121015-windows-8-may-drive-me-to-linux). Eloquently so.

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Agree. I have a variety of old and new computers in my house, and for safety's sake I do not use the power button on the box unless I absolutely must. While there are such a thing as electronic switches I don't necessarily know that the particular computer I'm sitting at actually has one. Whereas Start->Shutdown works correctly every time.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Same with me. While I have on occaison used the manual button (mostly because of the occaisonal lock up) nobody ever bothered to tell me that I wouldn't be potentially damaging my computer by doing so. Even if not in a 'omg u fried it nowz' kinda way.

Even hearing that of its "safe" I don't really believe that or trust it entirely.

Heck even besides that without that fifteen year old ritual I feel like I'll forget to save and shut down an open program before I shut down my computer.

[thubby]

the primary thing at risk from a hard shutdown is the harddrive. home computers are almost always doing something. if any of that is writing to disk, or even planning to, hard shutdowns can leave problems with areas of the disk, the registry, etc. some remote fraction of your un-defrag-able files are made up of that.

of course, most home OS's have enough training wheels that the average user need only be concerned on (un)installs, defrags, and during dedicated virus scans

[Heliomance]

Hell, the number of times I've force powered off a computer because it had frozen or whatever, and it's never given me any problems. Yeah, it's not a good idea to just switch it off without shutting it down regularly, but computers these days are robust enough that they can take it.

[Aotrs Commander]

I am not surprised they've had to do that. I am really not. (After all, they'e done this sort of thing before with Vista, when half of industry turned round and said "not bloody likely, mate".) I had already sworn I am never going to touch Win 8 with a barge pole, though so I still don't care much, aside to laugh at MS's massive blunder. (My Dad works at Rolls-Royce, and they have a policy that flat-out says no touch-screen desktops because it's not ergonomic to have to have your arms up there all day; and the general concensus of techies of both his and my personal aquintances was unflattering, to say the least...)

This is unlikely to be a problem. I am, as we speak, working on XP, and before that I used 98 until I had to do a hard-drve replacement. As of (hopefully) next weekend, I will be (among other things) be adding a second HDD with Win 7 so I can duel-boot, which I bought at great expense earlier in the year, so that should last me plenty enough to get to the next OS, which might be better (or someone's anyway).

(Heck, the only reason I'm even doing that is because I have about used up all the HDD space my on XP drive and there are now some games I can't run on XP - the 7 drive will mostly be more backup (because the amount of stuff on my HDD amounts to about thirty man-years - and yes, we do even have the occasional off-site backup!) as well as to put new games on. My XP will continue to be to OS of choice for day-to-day usage until it finally fails (and then we may well get a raid drive, because I simply can't be having with the endless hours it would take me to re-install everything...))

So I avoided 2000 and Vista completely, I don't foresee any problems skipping Win 8 either.




Agree. I have a variety of old and new computers in my house, and for safety's sake I do not use the power button on the box unless I absolutely must. While there are such a thing as electronic switches I don't necessarily know that the particular computer I'm sitting at actually has one. Whereas Start->Shutdown works correctly every time.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Ditto. If I actually have to use the power button, it's usually a sign that there has been a critical systems failure somewhere...

[pendell]

Confirmed: The new system will be Windows 8.1 (http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57584370-75/windows-blue-gets-official-name-windows-8.1/).

Dvorak reviews Windows 8 again. The sarcasm is strong with this one (http://www.itproportal.com/2013/05/14/dear-microsoft-windows-8-is-fantastic/).

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Finlam]

Confirmed: The new system will be Windows 8.1 (http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57584370-75/windows-blue-gets-official-name-windows-8.1/).

Respectfully,

Brian P.

And the only change will be that it boots straight to desktop and has a start menu.

Reviewers already quick to call it "much better than crappy Windows 8"

/toungueincheek

[Salbazier]

Heh, I'm still on Windows 7. And I only use it starting this year after almost a decade of insisting on using XP. If not because compatibility issue I would be happy to keep using XP. Save me from the need to rage at least (which would almost assuredly happen in regard to the shut down issue).

Maybe I'll update to 8 or 9 by next decade. Depending which one end up having saner design.

[SteveMB]

Packaging Windows with a ton of different modes and options wouldn't be very Applesque, and if they're tapping into Apple's one size fits all approach (like the article suggests since they're competing with iPad) the it just wouldn't work.

That's precisely the problem -- trying to squeeze keyboard-and-mouse systems and touchscreen tablet systems into one interface is like trying to create and market a "shlove" that can be worn as either a shoe or a glove.

[bluewind95]

I actually bought a new laptop recently and my biggest FEAR was that it would have Windows 8. I do not like the metro interface. It is too cluttered, too colorful and it shoves icons I don't even use into my face and it doesn't even let me customize. I don't want HUGE icons for one thing. Thank you, I'm not blind. I want tiny icons. But you can't change that. I want to pick only a few colors that work for me, also. But again, you can't change that, really. I want immediate access to ALL my programs and documents, not just a few. I can do this via the start menu by opening it and starting to type the name of what I'm looking for. The metro interface doesn't let me do this. I like to customize the look of my windows. The ones in Win8 look ugly. They look much like the ones on my old, old PDA with Windows CE. Win8 looks like a downgrade, visually, and I think that's part of why people may not like it.

As for its stability, during the time I've seen Win7, I have seen few frozen laptops on display. I have seen no less than 10 Win8 laptops on display that have been frozen on errors they can't recover from. This does not give me any assurance as a potential customer as to the stability of the system. Worse still, they replaced the BSoD with a sad face that says your computer is sick or something. That's indirectly calling me too stupid to deal with the other. I have had the error screen on the original BSoD being useful to me in diagnosing a problem. I understand not all users do this, but to force this sad face on people rather than make it an option alienates, I think, the "advanced" user.

So in the end, I don't like Microsoft shoving a "dumbed-down" interface on me. Part of what I have liked about Windows till now is how versatile it is when it comes to configuration. To remove this seems to me to be counter-intuitive. As for my laptop... I asked the salespeople to sell me a copy of Win7 to clean-install on my laptop. I was prepared to pay extra just to have Win7 instead of Win8. Fortunately, they did have ONE laptop which was the same model as the one they had on display, but it had Win7. It still cost me more, but I am not regretting it one bit.

[Mono Vertigo]

Worse still, they replaced the BSoD with a sad face that says your computer is sick or something. That's indirectly calling me too stupid to deal with the other. I have had the error screen on the original BSoD being useful to me in diagnosing a problem. I understand not all users do this, but to force this sad face on people rather than make it an option alienates, I think, the "advanced" user.


... what, it does that? For real?
That's going to sound stupid, but that's the biggest turn-off for me yet. That, and the instability. Although I once had Windows ME, and though it was a pile of garbage, it at least was not programmed with the express purpose of mocking me with sad faces.

[lesser_minion]

I actually bought a new laptop recently and my biggest FEAR was that it would have Windows 8. I do not like the metro interface. It is too cluttered, too colorful and it shoves icons I don't even use into my face and it doesn't even let me customize. I don't want HUGE icons for one thing. Thank you, I'm not blind ... I want tiny icons. But you can't change that. I want to pick only a few colors that work for me, also. But again, you can't change that, really. I want immediate access to ALL my programs and documents, not just a few.

That's a matter of taste.


I can do this via the start menu by opening it and starting to type the name of what I'm looking for. The metro interface doesn't let me do this.

You're welcome not to like things, but this is misinformation. Typing directly into the start menu still works perfectly well.


I like to customize the look of my windows. The ones in Win8 look ugly. They look much like the ones on my old, old PDA with Windows CE. Win8 looks like a downgrade, visually, and I think that's part of why people may not like it.

That's a matter of taste.


As for its stability, during the time I've seen Win7, I have seen few frozen laptops on display. I have seen no less than 10 Win8 laptops on display that have been frozen on errors they can't recover from. This does not give me any assurance as a potential customer as to the stability of the system.

Counting bluescreens in shops is not a good way to estimate how good or bad any given OS is for stability -- it's hardly a representative sample, for a start. And if this is all in one shop, well... whose fault do you think it really is?


Worse still, they replaced the BSoD with a sad face that says your computer is sick or something. That's indirectly calling me too stupid to deal with the other. I have had the error screen on the original BSoD being useful to me in diagnosing a problem. I understand not all users do this, but to force this sad face on people rather than make it an option alienates, I think, the "advanced" user.

The name of the error still appears on the bluescreen. And in any event, a real "advanced" user wouldn't mind, because they already know where to go for detailed error information once they've restarted.

[bluewind95]

That's a matter of taste.

Yeah, I know that. Thing is "a matter of taste" was never an issue to me before as I could easily customize everything I needed/wanted. Besides, part of the reason I dislike the colors and clutter is that they make it VERY hard for me to read anything on the screen. Windows has always been very accommodating with style choice, and I don't like that they remove this.




You're welcome not to like things, but this is misinformation. Typing directly into the start menu still works perfectly well.
Really? Oh GOOD. I haven't found exactly where I'm supposed to type that up, though, on my trying out Win8.



Counting bluescreens in shops is not a good way to estimate how good or bad any given OS is for stability -- it's hardly a representative sample, for a start. And if this is all in one shop, well... whose fault do you think it really is?

It's actually on EVERY shop I've been to. And yeah, I know it's not a representative sample, but if I see SO many computers frozen on errors they're not recovering from, this doesn't speak well and does not give me the confidence to buy that OS.


The name of the error still appears on the bluescreen. And in any event, a real "advanced" user wouldn't mind, because they already know where to go for detailed error information once they've restarted.
Screenshots I've seen of it do not show the error name.

Also, the detailed error information is not always available on a computer after the restart.

[lesser_minion]

Yeah, I know that. Thing is "a matter of taste" was never an issue to me before as I could easily customize everything I needed/wanted.

QA costs increase exponentially with the number of choices provided. There's really only so much customisation you can reasonably ask for, and even then, there is a lot you can tweak.

In fact, there's probably more than could be reasonably asked for -- XMouse is still around, for example.


Besides, part of the reason I dislike the colors and clutter is that they make it VERY hard for me to read anything on the screen. Windows has always been very accommodating with style choice, and I don't like that they remove this.

I'm still trying to figure out where you've encountered this 'clutter', to be honest. You don't have to have anything on the start screen besides your account picture and the word 'Start' if you don't want it.


Really? Oh GOOD. I haven't found exactly where I'm supposed to type that up, though, on my trying out Win8.

You just start typing, and it switches to the search screen.


It's actually on EVERY shop I've been to. And yeah, I know it's not a representative sample, but if I see SO many computers frozen on errors they're not recovering from, this doesn't speak well and does not give me the confidence to buy that OS.

It's no more Windows 8's fault when it bluescreens than it is Windows 7's when it does. You should already know that shops on the high street don't show computers off at their best.


Screenshots I've seen of it do not show the error name.

The one on the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death) page is up-to-date. Have a look at the bottom paragraph.

[Avilan the Grey]

Another question: Many people, including Microsoft, are convinced that touch-screen laptops are the future. The problem I have is one I haven't seen mentioned anywhere, for some reason:

The mere idea of a touch-screen on a laptop or desktop makes my back and shoulders hurt. It is a HORRIBLE design choice, from an ergonomic point of view.A large touchpad that mimics a touchscreen really isn't better, it, too, is far worse than mouse and keyboard from an ergonomic point of view.

[lesser_minion]

Another question: Many people, including Microsoft, are convinced that touch-screen laptops are the future.

[citation needed]

Every example of a "touchscreen laptop" I've seen has been a convertible tablet -- i.e. a regular tablet with a physical keyboard for situations where that's useful.

[Elder Tsofu]

I've got one. Acer S7.
Really nice to use with the touchscreen although a bit bad on the battery life.

[Heliomance]

I actually bought a new laptop recently and my biggest FEAR was that it would have Windows 8. I do not like the metro interface. It is too cluttered, too colorful and it shoves icons I don't even use into my face and it doesn't even let me customize. I don't want HUGE icons for one thing. Thank you, I'm not blind. I want tiny icons. But you can't change that. I want to pick only a few colors that work for me, also. But again, you can't change that, really. I want immediate access to ALL my programs and documents, not just a few. I can do this via the start menu by opening it and starting to type the name of what I'm looking for. The metro interface doesn't let me do this. I like to customize the look of my windows. The ones in Win8 look ugly. They look much like the ones on my old, old PDA with Windows CE. Win8 looks like a downgrade, visually, and I think that's part of why people may not like it.


lesser_minion's already given most of the points I was going to raise, I'll just mention two: First, it is very possible to customise the colour scheme of the start screen. There are a bunch of different options to choose from.

Second, what exactly do you mean about windows looking ugly? Do you mean the fullscreen Metro apps? Yes, they're disgusting and awful. But you never have to use them. Ever. No, not even then. Desktop programs work just as well as they ever did, and look pretty much identical to in Windows 7.

[Avilan the Grey]

Second, what exactly do you mean about windows looking ugly? Do you mean the fullscreen Metro apps? Yes, they're disgusting and awful. But you never have to use them. Ever. No, not even then. Desktop programs work just as well as they ever did, and look pretty much identical to in Windows 7.

It is also (even in desktop mode) a huge difference in look between 8 and XP / Vista / 7, Microsoft has choosen to emulate Metro in the look, with the task bar and window borders all flat and without the 3D effects and shine that started in XP and continued though Glass. Also, not a single rounded corner anymore.

Basically MS went back to a modernized Windows 3.1 look.

I don't mind the look, but I have heard many many people describe it as much uglier.


I've got one. Acer S7.
Really nice to use with the touchscreen although a bit bad on the battery life.

How the heck do you use it for more than 10 seconds without tiring your arm?
(Googling) Ah okay, you can bend the hinges back enough to put it completely flat on the table. Not really better, at all. It just became a really heavy Pad with a non-removable keyboard attached to it. It is good looking, and very thin (which means it can't handle much stress or overheat) but it all looks like a gimmick to me.

[Flickerdart]

I've got a touchscreen on my laptop. It's super handy when the laptop is actually on your lap. Obviously, when you've got a desk to work with, you should be using an actual mouse.

[Elder Tsofu]

As Flickerdart says, it is perfect when your in the sofa or lying on a bed taking it easy. I don't regularly do detail-work with the touchscreen, I use it when it is more convenient than using a mouse.

And I don't agree with that it is just an "heavy ipad", it is a fully functional laptop, or ultrabook as intel likes to call it. You can ignore the touch-screen and work with mouse* and keyboard and you wouldn't notice a difference from other laptops - except that it is in this particular case, thinner. But I can say that after I've used it for 4 months I have to stop myself from time to time from trying to use ordinary screens as touchscreens, when it would have been more convenient. A new thing for me since I've never been "in" to all these smartphones.
This model is really thin, but doesn't overheat easily and is quite sturdy - so no need to worry there. The fans tend to become a bit noisy if you try to overheat it though.

*or trackpad, although I've never been a friend with it.

[Larkas]

First of all, I must open by saying that I'm not a tech expert, which doesn't mean that I don't know my game. I know exactly what's going on in my PC, and I've been able to pull off everything I ever reasonably wanted from pretty much any Windows machine (and from DOS machines before that).

With that in mind, I must say: the back-bones of Windows 8 are AWESOME. It is one of the most robust operating systems I've ever worked/played with, and its new and enhanced features are a throwback at Windows 98SE, Windows XP SP2 and Windows 7. It is a really great operating system, one that offers a new and stable experience (the simultaneity is important here), and would, all things equal, be worth the upgrade. The ease of installing the OS and the fast boot are just icing on the cake.

That said, however, I must also add: Windows 8 has really got on my nerves. For the first time since I was a boy back in the DOS days, I had to do some research in order to use a system properly. I was startled when I first booted the thing. I was presented with a dumbed down screen, and couldn't make heads or toes out of it. It wasn't "gah, where's my start menu?" or "ack, where's my desktop", it was something more along the lines of "what the heck is this thing? And where do I go from here?" Luckily, the weird screen had both a Bing and an Internet Explorer button. I was able to search the string "'Windows 8' starter guide", and found this informative article (http://www.pcworld.com/article/2023340/ultimate-windows-8-starter-guide-must-know-tips-apps-and-utilities.html). It isn't the ultimate guide to the system, but it's a good enough starting point. I could at least make out what was on my screen, and how to access stuff that mattered, not to mention find a list of all the keyboard shortcuts usable with Win8. I soon found out that it isn't the monster it first seemed, but while it did offer many neat improvements, the system was lacking two very important, though intangible, features; features that had been present from the very first real Windows OS (i.e.: 95): usability and intuitiveness. I had to actively research how to do stuff in this new OS, while in the old ones I would just figure out how to do things on my own. It's not that things are extremely difficult to find out, mind you, it's just that its just hard to, erm, find out how to find out stuff! I would've taken forever to find out how to access the Control Panel if a kind internet soul hadn't given me the tip that it can be found in the right-side menu (Charms, I believe is the name. Cute. :smallsigh:) of the Desktop. Worse, I wouldn't have found out where the Shut Down button was if I hadn't seen it clicked by another person some days prior. I would never have guessed that typing in the Start Screen actually start a search (that is, unless I accidentally typed anything while on that screen).

After some time testing the waters, things started to flow better. I now can use the system mostly fine. It has its quirks, but I've learned how to deal with them, or how to circumvent them entirely (on the subject of booting to the desktop and having a Start Menu, I strongly suggest this nifty little program (http://www.classicshell.net/); I also recommend using this skin (http://winaero.com/blog/introducing-winaeros-exclusive-special-skin-pack-for-classic-shell/)). The main problem is that, by ditching the tried-and-tested Windows 7/Vista/XP/ME/98/95 shell, they introduced a real, palpable learning curve to potential users; a relatively short one, to be sure, but a very, very steep one. Enough to scare both newbies and old timers like myself. I can now understand and appreciate the Start Screen, but I can't understand why I should need it, specially in its current incarnation. It would make a very interesting and responsive Start Menu option (if it opened when I pressed the Start Menu button, and if it worked as a menu, that is, taking a small portion of the desktop's screen). The key word, however, is option. I'd appreciate also having access to a Windows XP/7 style Start Menu, and a Windows 95/98 style for corporate stuff. I can understand having the option of using it as it is, but not needing to use it as such.

The problem with Windows 8 is that, while the engineers behind the bulk of the system did their homework masterfully, the usability designers really dropped the ball. Windows 8 shoehorns you into using it in a set way. Customization was thrown out the window (pun definitely intended). Windows was always about a customizable experience out of the box, but now you have to rely on using external aid just to use your computer the way you feel more comfortable with.

What's worse, while touchscreen support felt tacked on in Windows 7, in Windows 8 they went the direct opposite direction, and it is keyboard/mouse interface that feels like a last minute thought. They couldn't find a middle ground; a middle ground which would be very easily achievable if only they hadn't taken out the aforementioned customization options.

Another simple (but nevertheless important from the regular customer's POV) thing about the system that bothers me is how they ditched that beautiful Aero theme and replaced it with this... Thing. They wanted to do something sleek to match the Metro/Modern interface and ended up with something worse than Win98's theme. Indeed, it is worse than many poorly made themes for Linux's Gnome. And I'm not even talking about transparency here, I'm talking about refinement. It doesn't look simple, it looks simplistic, and that's never good. I actually couldn't feel comfortable with the system until I extracted the Release Preview theme and copied it over to the full system. Yep, the Release Preview theme looks MUCH better than what you have in the final version of the OS. This just adds insult to injury in my book, since they ditched something that looked better for something positively bad. Thankfully, it was just a matter of copying the files over, as the system accepted the theme without any modifications. Compare this (http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/install-custom-themes-on-windows-8.png) to this (http://winaero.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/rptheme2-600x490.png). Anyways, THIS is sillyness bordering on nitpicking, but it did affect me a little. :smalltongue:

Bottomline, it is about time they realized how hard they failed. I'm glad they acknowledged the situation and are moving to patch it. And I sincerely hope this 8.1 patch does remedy the situation. Like I said, Windows 8 is a nifty little OS. It just needs a responsive and intuitive (and, if it's not much to ask, beautiful) shell to accompany it. I'd hate to see all the effort those great engineers put into the system go to waste just because the guys calling the shots on the interface didn't have a clue on what they were doing.

EDIT: I had forgotten about this one: being able to access the Safe Mode only through a menu in the regular system is just plain stupid. If you need the Safe Mode, it most probably means you screwed something up good and can't boot the system normally. Gladly, there are workarounds, but they are just that: workarounds.

[Heliomance]

It would make a very interesting and responsive Start Menu option (if it opened when I pressed the Start Menu button It does.


Another simple (but nevertheless important from the regular customer's POV) thing about the system that bothers me is how they ditched that beautiful Aero theme and replaced it with this... Thing. They wanted to do something sleek to match the Metro/Modern interface and ended up with something worse than Win98's theme. Indeed, it is worse than many poorly made themes for Linux's Gnome. And I'm not even talking about transparency here, I'm talking about refinement. It doesn't look simple, it looks simplistic, and that's never good. I actually couldn't feel comfortable with the system until I extracted the Release Preview theme and copied it over to the full system. Yep, the Release Preview theme looks MUCH better than what you have in the final version of the OS. This just adds insult to injury in my book, since they ditched something that looked better for something positively bad. Thankfully, it was just a matter of copying the files over, as the system accepted the theme without any modifications. Compare this (http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/install-custom-themes-on-windows-8.png) to this (http://winaero.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/rptheme2-600x490.png). Anyways, THIS is sillyness bordering on nitpicking, but it did affect me a little. :smalltongue:
Meh, they look much of a muchness to me.

[Larkas]

It does.

Hey, if you're quoting me, might as well quote the whole phrase, right? :smallwink:


(if it opened when I pressed the Start Menu button, and if it worked as a menu, that is, taking a small portion of the desktop's screen)

The way it works now, you are taken to a whole new screen, where you can't interact directly with the desktop, to pick what you want. And all you wanted was to fire up the Notepad...

Regardless, the "button" is, at the moment, invisible and confined to just a few pixels at the lower left corner of the screen, taking much less space than the old Start button. That is anything but intuitive.


Meh, they look much of a muchness to me.

Like I said, pure sillyness. :smalltongue:

[Heliomance]

Hey, if you're quoting me, might as well quote the whole phrase, right? :smallwink:

Those were two different if functions and as such were logically separate statements. Quoting the one of them that was incorrect is perfectly valid.

As it is, the speed and optimisation of Windows 8, the start screen, and the search function is such that I can boot notepad far faster than I ever could in Windows 7/XP. Start key -> "notep" -> return takes a lot less time than start->All Programs->Accessories->Notepad. And the start screen appears and disappears fast enough that I don't see its full screen nature as a drawback - especially as it makes it a lot faster to click on the dozen or so programs you decide you want to pin to the first page.



Regardless, the "button" is, at the moment, invisible and confined to just a few pixels at the lower left corner of the screen, taking much less space than the old Start button. That is anything but intuitive.

Granted, and I do think that's silly. OTOH, I'm entirely happy to just hit the windows key - especially as I can then just start typing if I want to search.

[Larkas]

Those were two different if functions and as such were logically separate statements. Quoting the one of them that was incorrect is perfectly valid.

Let me try clarifying this point. I meant that I would be okay if the screen was a menu instead, and calling it involved pressing the Start Menu button. That was a "if, and only if" statement. :smallwink:


As it is, the speed and optimisation of Windows 8, the start screen, and the search function is such that I can boot notepad far faster than I ever could in Windows 7/XP. Start key -> "notep" -> return takes a lot less time than start->All Programs->Accessories->Notepad. And the start screen appears and disappears fast enough that I don't see its full screen nature as a drawback - especially as it makes it a lot faster to click on the dozen or so programs you decide you want to pin to the first page.

You do realize that was a thing in Windows 7 already, right? Windows -> "notep" -> Enter was fast enough that I would barely even see the Start Menu coming up. It had the upside of not messing the screen during the split second I was typing that. Still, valid point.


Granted, and I do think that's silly. OTOH, I'm entirely happy to just hit the windows key - especially as I can then just start typing if I want to search.

Then we at least agree in something! :smallsmile:

[bluewind95]

I know options can be more expensive. However, the options were already there. So to remove them also adds expense. I'm not asking for new things to be added. I'm asking for old things to be kept.

The visual clutter is, for me, all the huge icons and colors. Makes it nigh-impossible to read the screen.

I don't see why I need huge icons and whatnot. For the programs I use, I always have been able to either put shortcuts on the desktop, pin them to the taskbar, or pin them to the start menu. The desktop interface already does all that the Metro one does, and it looks far more proper.

I know computers are not shown at their best. But that applies to Win7 and older computers as well. And back then, I still didn't see the amount of errors I see now. I don't think the computers are really being treated much differently.

For the rest of the visual stuff... what Larkas said.

[lesser_minion]

I know options can be more expensive. However, the options were already there. So to remove them also adds expense. I'm not asking for new things to be added. I'm asking for old things to be kept.

It isn't free or even cheap to keep a customisation option available. As long as it exists, it's imposing a cost to future releases, because every single one of those releases has to go through QA. Removing a feature might not be cheap either, but it's a cost that only has to be paid once.

[Heliomance]

You do realize that was a thing in Windows 7 already, right? Windows -> "notep" -> Enter was fast enough that I would barely even see the Start Menu coming up. It had the upside of not messing the screen during the split second I was typing that. Still, valid point.

I'm aware it was a thing, but they've optimised it a lot in Win8. I'm sure it was much slower to search for what you were typing in Win7.

[factotum]

It isn't free or even cheap to keep a customisation option available.

Then how come relatively tinpot little outfits like Canonical and Red Hat can provide huge amounts of customisation on Linux, while the largest software company in the world can't manage it for Windows?

[Larkas]

I'm aware it was a thing, but they've optimised it a lot in Win8. I'm sure it was much slower to search for what you were typing in Win7.

Hmmm, it certainly wasn't for me (not saying Win8 is slower, just that it isn't faster). That isn't representative of anything in and of itself, however, it could have as much to do with my computer's specs than with the system itself.


Then how come relatively tinpot little outfits like Canonical and Red Hat can provide huge amounts of customisation on Linux, while the largest software company in the world can't manage it for Windows?

Quoted for absolute truth. And forget Red Hat, the people that take care of most of the shells in Linux are usually able to provide very nifty customization options. Something is slightly wrong when Windows' shell has less customization options than xfce.

[bluewind95]

It isn't free or even cheap to keep a customisation option available. As long as it exists, it's imposing a cost to future releases, because every single one of those releases has to go through QA. Removing a feature might not be cheap either, but it's a cost that only has to be paid once.

The costs of these decisions are not just the direct monetary costs. The indirect costs of customer preference and trust can't be ignored, either. Removing features that are important to the customer may be far more expensive than leaving them there.

[Larkas]

I don't know about you, but I found this Microsoft blog post (http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/05/14/windows-keeps-getting-better.aspx) borderline offensive to desktop and laptop users.


Windows 8 was built for a world that blends our work and our personal lives, a world where we expect high quality touch experiences everywhere, and a world that is always on the go and always connected. Windows 8 redefines our market from PCs to mobile computing.

Nice. So you're saying that I was led to believe that Windows 8 was an OS suitable for desktops and laptops, when it really isn't? You're actively ditching the one market where you've been the leader for the past 18 years? Ack. :smallyuk:

This doesn't really have anything to do with Windows 8 per se, but with the company behind it. They have shown that they literally don't have any idea about the potential of their new OS. I fear for the future of the OS as a whole. Hope my fears are baseless, however.

[Flickerdart]

Newsflash: laptops? Still mobile.

[Elder Tsofu]

To be fair, there are desktops that are more mobile than quite a few laptops I've seen. :smalltongue:

[137beth]

To be fair, there are desktops that are more mobile than quite a few laptops I've seen. :smalltongue:

Yea...

I switched from a desktop to a laptop when I started needing to take planes more frequently, and a laptop can fit into my one free carry-on bag. Other than the plane ride every couple of months, though, I'm not seeing much improvements over desktops other than
1. More expensive
2. Less parallel processing available
3....nope

Oh, wait, those weren't really improvements:smalltongue:
I can't really picture many circumstances when I would have room for a tablet but not a laptop...
Also, now that Microsoft is expecting us to get a bunch of their devices, and Apple's been doing that for awhile, I've made sure to avoid it. I'll just keep using an iphone, windows computers, and open source software:smallsmile:

Well, hopefully, they'll either fix windows 8, or do something better for their next operating system. Otherwise, I guess I'd have to switch to Macs once Windows 7 gets too outdated for my needs......

[Ellye]

Another question: Many people, including Microsoft, are convinced that touch-screen laptops are the future. The problem I have is one I haven't seen mentioned anywhere, for some reason:

The mere idea of a touch-screen on a laptop or desktop makes my back and shoulders hurt. It is a HORRIBLE design choice, from an ergonomic point of view.A large touchpad that mimics a touchscreen really isn't better, it, too, is far worse than mouse and keyboard from an ergonomic point of view.I honestly don't know why people even like touchscreens anyway.

Sure, I use a touchscreen cellphone, and it's fine for it, since I only use it for a few seconds at a time. I absolutely hate using touchscreen for any sort of serious work, and I can't even begin to imagine how impractical a touchscreen laptop would be for actually getting things done.

But "getting things done" doesn't seem to be a priority nowadays, I guess.

I believe my first shock regarding the new Microsoft mentality happened when I was going to download Visual Studio 2012 - there, in Microsoft's own site, I saw a few options, including: "Visual Studio 2012 for Windows 8" and "Visual Studio 2012 for Desktop" - wait, what? So Windows 8 isn't a desktop OS? Oh well.

[thubby]

well, do keep in mind that typical home computers are used like glorified netbooks.
most of the limitations of laptops are things they're never going to have to deal with.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I honestly don't know why people even like touchscreens anyway.

Sure, I use a touchscreen cellphone, and it's fine for it, since I only use it for a few seconds at a time. I absolutely hate using touchscreen for any sort of serious work, and I can't even begin to imagine how impractical a touchscreen laptop would be for actually getting things done.
This, but as soon as you say it, someone comes out with "but I have a touchscreen and it's so awesome! I use it all the time," failing to mention it's usually for something inane like pausing a video by tapping the screen instead of the keyboard.

[Larkas]

Newsflash: laptops? Still mobile.

Newsflash: laptops? Still PCs. :smallwink:

I think that Microsoft is seriously lacking in direction. They literally have no idea of which is their relevant market. They are shifting their resources to a market that has already been pretty much conquered from a market they controlled, opening space for competition to creep in. What the hell? :smallconfused:

[Ashtagon]

I don't know about you, but I found this Microsoft blog post (http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/05/14/windows-keeps-getting-better.aspx) borderline offensive to desktop and laptop users.

Windows 8 was built for a world that blends our work and our personal lives, a world where we expect high quality touch experiences everywhere, and a world that is always on the go and always connected. Windows 8 redefines our market from PCs to mobile computing.


So what Mocrosoft is saying is that they are no longer interested in selling an operating system to me? Good to know I'm not their target market any more.

[Avilan the Grey]

I have an Asus gaming laptop. 17 inch, 8 kernels, 64 Gb Ram, looks, and sounds, like a stealth bomber. I use it instead of a desktop, because we do not have room for an office. I need to be able to put the computer away when we eat, or have guests. It is mobile, but not easily.

However I have never, even before I got this monster, had a laptop in my actual lap, or on a sofa kushion or whatever. Primary reason is that I don't want the air intakes to be blocked, but secondary is that my back would start hurting within minutes in such a position.

Regarding touchscreens in general; I fully agree: The interface is the second worse (after voice control) ever. On larger screens. On a phone, or maybe up to an iPad Mini, it works, because you can basically do everything without moving your finger more than an inch or so. On large pads it works for a few minutes, but it gets really frustrating. On even bigger screens? Then it starts to feel like you are doing an art piece or some kind of workout rather than trying to control your machine.

I also think Larkas hit the nail; Microsoft is simply unable to find a middle ground. They also seem to have lost their ability to pull focus groups... Or they would not have been taken by surprise when real users, in the real world, didn't like what they were being told to be "Awzum and just what you ever wanted".

Oh and Ashtagon: No, they are very interested. This is why they have now paid attention to their wallet customers and changed their hyped product to what real customers in the real world actually want. But yes, the original idea for W8 was basically "if you don't want this product there is something wrong with you and we don't want to sell anything to you anymore".

[Heliomance]

Regarding touchscreens in general; I fully agree: The interface is the second worse (after voice control) ever.

Eh... voice control has the potential to be very useful for a lot of applications. It's just not good enough yet, and the average person's PC is not the right place for it. I realise it's sci-fi, but the computer systems in the Iron Man films demonstrate how useful voice control has the potential to be.

It's not a terrible idea, it's just been misapplied, and so has got a reputation as a useless gimmick.

[Avilan the Grey]

Eh... voice control has the potential to be very useful for a lot of applications. It's just not good enough yet, and the average person's PC is not the right place for it. I realise it's sci-fi, but the computer systems in the Iron Man films demonstrate how useful voice control has the potential to be.

It's not a terrible idea, it's just been misapplied, and so has got a reputation as a useless gimmick.

The problems are several.

1. Make an interface that understands thick / heavy dialects. We have at least one dialect in Swedish that is impossible for computers to understand at the moment. This leads to nagging. I already have enough problems making the computer do what I want quickly enough. I don't want to have to nag it, as well.

2. Can't really be used for anything but simple tasks. By the time you have instructed a computer to do something, a guy with a mouse has already done it. Because talking takes time. Also how do you edit documents, browse the web etc with voice command? I mean in an effective way.

3. Disturbing people around you.

Of course on occasion it works very well. Like telling my GPS where I want to drive (providing it understands my hypothetical dialect, of course). Or maybe saying "pause!" or "Start" to your TV.

[Heliomance]

The problems are several.

1. Make an interface that understands thick / heavy dialects. We have at least one dialect in Swedish that is impossible for computers to understand at the moment. This leads to nagging. I already have enough problems making the computer do what I want quickly enough. I don't want to have to nag it, as well.

2. Can't really be used for anything but simple tasks. By the time you have instructed a computer to do something, a guy with a mouse has already done it. Because talking takes time. Also how do you edit documents, browse the web etc with voice command? I mean in an effective way.

3. Disturbing people around you.

Of course on occasion it works very well. Like telling my GPS where I want to drive (providing it understands my hypothetical dialect, of course). Or maybe saying "pause!" or "Start" to your TV.

Oh, I agree, it should never be the sole interface. But (assuming the accent/dialect problem is fixed) it has the potential to vastly speed up common and simple tasks. Point 3 is my main problem with it, and is harder to solve, but that's a reason it's only suitable for certain applications, not a reason why it's useless.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Voice-controlled TV? Sure, why not, sounds like a neat idea, especially when you lost the remote again. "TV, mute." "TV, channel 48."

Star-Trek like "Computer, run a level 3 diagnostic looking for something." Sorry, but mouse + command line will beat it any day.

And finally, "Firefox, look for Asian porn" is just embarassing.

[Ashtagon]

Voice-controlled TV? Sure, why not, sounds like a neat idea, especially when you lost the remote again. "TV, mute." "TV, channel 48."

Star-Trek like "Computer, run a level 3 diagnostic looking for something." Sorry, but mouse + command line will beat it any day.

And finally, "Firefox, look for Asian porn" is just embarassing.

Voice-control TV sounds like a bad idea if it picks up the sound of the TV show and treats that as voice commands.

Touch screen interfaces will require you to have the screen close to you, thanks to the limits of arm length. Unless you have really strong arms, this will almost certainly be closer than what most opticians would recommend for screen distance from eyes.

[factotum]

Voice-control TV sounds like a bad idea if it picks up the sound of the TV show and treats that as voice commands.

Which is why you'd need some sort of word or phrase to indicate you were talking to the computer. Larry Niven used one of these in "The Integral Trees" and "The Smoke Ring"--you had to preface every command with the word "Prykazyvat" (apparently Russian for "command" and thus very unlikely to pop up in casual conversation among the people of the novels!).

[137beth]

Which is why you'd need some sort of word or phrase to indicate you were talking to the computer. Larry Niven used one of these in "The Integral Trees" and "The Smoke Ring"--you had to preface every command with the word "Prykazyvat" (apparently Russian for "command" and thus very unlikely to pop up in casual conversation among the people of the novels!).

What if someone is using a TV in the TV show?

[Elder Tsofu]

This, but as soon as you say it, someone comes out with "but I have a touchscreen and it's so awesome! I use it all the time," failing to mention it's usually for something inane like pausing a video by tapping the screen instead of the keyboard.

And what is wrong with that if I may ask? If they use it more than the keyboard command then obviously they prefer it or find it more intuitive so they didn't even consider the keyboard option in the first place.
---
When you get a touchscreen Microsoft doesn't confiscate your mouse and keyboard in the process, unless you buy a tablet, in which case you'll have to attach your own set. I mainly use touch for surfing, reading pdf:s and occasionally playing AoE since I found that it worked quite well with touch input (at my level of playing that is). If it had been significantly better or more convenient to use a mouse in those situations I'd do it. I like my mouse - that's why I carry it around everywhere.

An all or nothing approach to touch use is quite a strange stance to take, use it where it is more convenient and don't where it is not. A keyboard can control a computer by hotkeys, but that doesn't mean that the mouse is some sort of forbidden magic unless you pledge to forgo the keyboard...

[Ellye]

An all or nothing approach to touch use is quite a strange stance to takeYes, and that's exactly our issue, because Microsoft is or was inching close to that stance.

Windows 8 was designed to use with a touchscreen, and apparently they didn't seem to care about people that didn't want to use one.

[Seerow]

Yes, and that's exactly our issue, because Microsoft is or was inching close to that stance.

Windows 8 was designed to use with a touchscreen, and apparently they didn't seem to care about people that didn't want to use one.

Funny anecdote about that.

Last semester I was taking a class about interface analysis/design. We had a group project, and one of the group members was referencing windows 8 for his idea. None of the rest of us had used it. This led to a discussion of why we weren't using Windows 8, the common response was "We don't have touch screens, and it's made to work with those".

So this person insists to us "No, Windows 8 works just fine without a touch screen, come on I'll show you", at which point we head over to the computer store on campus to check out their Windows 8 machines. We get there, go over to the computer, and the person who was talking up Windows 8 spends about 5 minutes fiddling with it and then says "Man I can't use this without a touch screen, do they have a setup with a touchscreen here so I can show you this?"

So yeah the proof of how Win8 works without a touch screen apparently lies within using a touch screen. I don't think that person actually even realized what he had said or why we all started laughing right then.

[Don Julio Anejo]

And what is wrong with that if I may ask? If they use it more than the keyboard command then obviously they prefer it or find it more intuitive so they didn't even consider the keyboard option in the first place.
Two reasons for that. First, just because someone prefers it, does not immediately make it more ergonomic or better for productivity. And two, other people may not prefer it while Microsoft seems intent on making touchscreens the future at the expense of mice and keyboards. But not all ideas you see in sci-fi are good, a lot of the time they're less convenient and/or more annoying (to yourself or others) than ways we have now.

[lesser_minion]

Then how come relatively tinpot little outfits like Canonical and Red Hat can provide huge amounts of customisation on Linux, while the largest software company in the world can't manage it for Windows?

Because being a "relatively tinpot little outfit" as opposed to "the largest software company in the world" makes it far easier to get away with cutting corners on QA.


So this person insists to us "No, Windows 8 works just fine without a touch screen, come on I'll show you"

I don't know what that person's problem was, but Windows 8 really does work fine without a touchscreen, and I have been using it as such for months now.

And I believe I've already explained why the whole "it's touch-optimised so that means it's bad for mouse-and-keyboard users" thing is crap.

[Avilan the Grey]

And I believe I've already explained why the whole "it's touch-optimised so that means it's bad for mouse-and-keyboard users" thing is crap.

Not any more than we have proven the opposite.

Win 8 WORKS without a touchscreen. It is clearly designed for a small screen hardware with touchscreen, or it would not try to coarse you into using ugly, oversized full screen "apps", having removed the start menu and instead opted for a touch-optimized full screen (again) interface, and other similar issues.

In short, just because you have told us (and we already knew this, btw) that you can use a lawnmower to ride to Walmart, doesn't mean it is the best tool for doing that.

[Ellye]

I don't know what that person's problem was, but Windows 8 really does work fine without a touchscreen, and I have been using it as such for months now.You're an exception then.
It's not just us here, it's a common criticism of Windows 8. It's extremely counter-intuitive for use with a mouse. All those side menus and such feel natural with a touchscreen, but quite clunky with a mouse.

[Larkas]

It is clearly designed for a small screen hardware with touchscreen, or it would not try to coarse you into using ugly, oversized full screen "apps", having removed the start menu and instead opted for a touch-optimized full screen (again) interface, and other similar issues.

Know what else gets on my nerves when using those Metro apps? The lack of a taskbar. Not just to switch programs, as you can still do that with Alt+Tab, but because I actually have use for that clock on the corner of the screen. :smallyuk: A small problem at first, to be sure, but that wrecks my productivity. Another reason for me to keep using the so-called Desktop apps.

Oh, and things look extremely funky in my 1920x1200 screen. Those full screen apps were clearly designed with small screens and resolutions in mind.

[Heliomance]

I also have no issues using Win8 without a touchscreen. Everything that isn't intuitive to do with the mouse is intuitive to do on the keyboard. All you have to do is not use the full screen apps - no hardship at all.

[Larkas]

A little tangent: I just realized something! Here in Brazil, Microsoft is using this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFJd5km2KKo) on TV to advertise for Windows 8 (and apparently for the rest of Latin America too, since in this specific video the menus are in Spanish). Now, the catchy BGM's lyrics (also in Spanish) are as follows:


Si no me escuchás
No me comprendes
Si no me comprendés
No me conoces
Si no me conocés no valgo nada
Para ti

Translating that to English, it means:


If you don't hear me
You can't understand me
If you don't understand me
You can't know me
If you don't know me, I'm worth nothing
For you

OH, THE IRONY! Is the tune's persona supposed to be Microsoft's desktop consumer? :smalltongue:

[Elder Tsofu]

Two reasons for that. First, just because someone prefers it, does not immediately make it more ergonomic or better for productivity. And two, other people may not prefer it while Microsoft seems intent on making touchscreens the future at the expense of mice and keyboards. But not all ideas you see in sci-fi are good, a lot of the time they're less convenient and/or more annoying (to yourself or others) than ways we have now.

Why would it be less ergonomic? Remember all computer-related injuries that come from using mouse and keyboard before answering please. :smalltongue:
To use "other people may not prefer it" as an argument is quite empty, have you tested it yourself? Or know someone who has? Or know of someone who has? I might have missed it so it would be enlightening to know.
---
Personally I don't really see what makes you think Microsoft will go all touch, the system works fine now even without it, I still use it on my desktop and the start screen is mainly an shortcut collection for it. And what makes you think that they would ditch the huge market of office PC:s by removing mouse and keyboards?
What I would be afraid of would be that Microsoft makes the OS less open, I'm not a fan that they want to dictate what and how I can do things on my start-screen as an example. A big reason I tolerate many of the changes are that I still mostly have my old options easily reachable under the hood...

[Larkas]

Why would it be less ergonomic? Remember all computer-related injuries that come from using mouse and keyboard before answering please. :smalltongue:

To use "other people may not prefer it" as an argument is quite empty, have you tested it yourself? Or know someone who has? Or know of someone who has? I might have missed it so it would be enlightening to know.

Ehm, have you tried using a touch screen set up like a regular desktop screen for more than 2 minutes? I have. And let me tell you, the pain in my arm took some 3 days to go away. The ergonomy for non-portable touchscreens is simply terrible! I can use a portable one just fine. Even if it's big, I will only tire myself faster. But for anything that you're not supposed to use like an iPad (yes, even transformer laptops in, erm, laptop mode), the pain you'll feel is very real.


Personally I don't really see what makes you think Microsoft will go all touch, the system works fine now even without it, I still use it on my desktop and the start screen is mainly an shortcut collection for it. And what makes you think that they would ditch the huge market of office PC:s by removing mouse and keyboards?
What I would be afraid of would be that Microsoft makes the OS less open, I'm not a fan that they want to dictate what and how I can do things on my start-screen as an example. A big reason I tolerate many of the changes are that I still mostly have my old options easily reachable under the hood...

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15249161&postcount=97) might be enlightening. And while you fears are reasonable (I share them with you), I'm more afraid of Microsoft simply neglecting the way most of us use computers everyday. That would be a devastating miscalculation. Make no mistake, I like Windows OSes. Except for ME and, in a smaller part, Vista, I always have. But Microsoft is messing with parts of the interface that, if not addressed fast enough, will translate in a large loss of its market share. Whats worse: they actively dumped something they had already gotten right since, I don't know, Windows 95?

Anyways: hence, Windows 8.1.

[Avilan the Grey]

Know what else gets on my nerves when using those Metro apps? The lack of a taskbar. Not just to switch programs, as you can still do that with Alt+Tab, but because I actually have use for that clock on the corner of the screen. :smallyuk: A small problem at first, to be sure, but that wrecks my productivity. Another reason for me to keep using the so-called Desktop apps.

Oh, and things look extremely funky in my 1920x1200 screen. Those full screen apps were clearly designed with small screens and resolutions in mind.

(last paragraph first) indeed. It looks equally funky on 1600x900 on an 17" screen. It is clearly mean to be used on a screen size 12" or smaller.

And yes I agree, although I don't think it is a separate issue. The lack of a taskbar comes automatically with "true fullscreen" (no borders at all).


Why would it be less ergonomic? Remember all computer-related injuries that come from using mouse and keyboard before answering please. :smalltongue:


Because you have to hold your hand up, over your keyboard and stretch forward to use it? It is HORRIBLE from an ergonomic point of view. You will get real damage in your shoulder very quickly.

[pendell]

Because being a "relatively tinpot little outfit" as opposed to "the largest software company in the world" makes it far easier to get away with cutting corners on QA.


*Cough Hack Choke*

EXCUSE ME BUT W---

*gets a grip* .

Ahem.

I don't believe that's quite true. I say this because I'm senior software engineer at one such "relatively tinpot little outfit." And I came to it after 14 years of working for a Fortune 1000 company (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/snapshots/11184.html).

So I've been on both sides of the fence.

And my experience is that it is far more dangerous to cut corners in a small shop than a big one. The reason being is that you are literally betting the entire company on the next release of the software. You only get ONE chance at a first impression for your software, and if the public throws it back, you're done.

By contrast, I worked on a number of failed projects back when I was working for CACI, and things were exceptionally tough when we were paired with another contractor. Our projects were --- not my company but one we had to work with -- under-resourced and underfunded. The other contractor underbid to get the contract, then put in the bare minimum on the contract while pocketing as much of the money for their bottom line as they thought they could get away with.

They could get away with this because they had lots of other high-dollar contracts out there, and a heap-high "cushion" in case something went wrong.

When my old division folded, the managers all went to other positions within the company.

If my current company screws up, ALL of us go into the unemployment line together. All. From the CEO down to the intern we hired three months ago. All.

So there is a much stronger incentive in a small company to succeed and to get it right the first time than in a large one. Unless you've got someone like Neutron Jack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Welch) ruthlessly enforcing the price of failure, middle management at the large companies find ways to protect themselves from the price of failure. That's paid by the line techs. :smallannoyed:

Also in my experience, large companies also tend to have a lot of wedding-cake procedures and bureaucracy that small companies don't have. If I need tech support, I know just where the office is and who runs it. Fighting my way through SAIC's network for tech support when the responsible party was located in Kentucky -- and NOT ONE of them had any Linux expertise -- is one of the less happy memories of my life.

Ahem.

In any way, I believe it's just the reverse .There is far more incentive to get things right in a small company than in a large one, because in a small one the execs are no more insulated from failure than the line workers are.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[lesser_minion]

Not any more than we have proven the opposite.

Wrong. I actually supported my point with reasoning: you supplied neither reasoning nor evidence to refute it.


Win 8 WORKS without a touchscreen. It is clearly designed for a small screen hardware with touchscreen, or it would not try to coarse you into using ugly, oversized full screen "apps", having removed the start menu and instead opted for a touch-optimized full screen (again) interface, and other similar issues.

None of this follows. And while it's true that Metro was designed to be "touch first", it doesn't follow that that implies any penalty for things that aren't touch, just a lack of gain at worst.

As for the full-screen start menu in particular, it isn't optimised for any particular kind of device. In fact, what it's clearly optimised for is doing its job -- that is, allowing you access to your programs --as well as possible. Using the whole screen allows it to be better at that job than the Windows 7 Start menu was, because it can present more information and do so more cleanly and more readably (the all apps list is actually a fumble here, but anyone with half a brain should be able to recognise it as a teething issue, not evidence of some weird plot to screw over mouse and keyboard users).

And as for looking funky, I'm only on 1600 x 900, but I'm definitely not seeing any such thing. And I suspect that none of the people on Surfaces (1920 x 1080) are either, or they'd have returned them.


-- snip --

By "relatively tin-pot little outfits", I was referring specifically to Red Hat and Canonical, neither of which is even close to being one mistake from folding. And both have a lot of things that make it easier for them to cut corners. I didn't mean to imply that this was about size of outfit.

[Avilan the Grey]

Wrong. I actually supported my point with reasoning: you supplied neither reasoning nor evidence to refute it.

No you didn't. You haven't supplied any reasons better than mine.


None of this follows. And while it's true that Metro was designed to be "touch first", it doesn't follow that that implies any penalty for things that aren't touch, just a lack of gain at worst.

1. Yes it does imply that

2. And even if it didn't, what is "implied" is irrelevant, since it isn't a matter of "implying"; it is a FACT that the non-touch users gets a less optimized product.


As for the full-screen start menu in particular, it isn't optimised for any particular kind of device. In fact, what it's clearly optimised for is doing its job -- that is, allowing you access to your programs --as well as possible. Using the whole screen allows it to be better at that job than the Windows 7 Start menu was, because it can present more information and do so more cleanly and more readably (the all apps list is actually a fumble here, but anyone with half a brain should be able to recognise it as a teething issue, not evidence of some weird plot to screw over mouse and keyboard users).

I am sorry, but you are simply wrong.

1. it IS optimized for a small touchscreen. It's a FACT.

2. I don't know what Windows version you use, but the sentence "Allowing access to your programs as easy as possible" a matter of opinion at best and a lie at worst. Especially the part about doing the job better than the classical Start Menu. It's blatantly false. It CANNOT present even HALF AS MUCH information as the classical start menu.


And as for looking funky, I'm only on 1600 x 900, but I'm definitely not seeing any such thing. And I suspect that none of the people on Surfaces (1920 x 1080) are either, or they'd have returned them.

No, that is not what we mean. We mean that the "start screen" looks funky, by being FRAKKING HUGE and NOT SHOWING ENOUGH INFORMATION. It's just Desktop-shortcut sized squares, that just don't look right, because the icons do not scale correctly either, especially older programs.

[Castaras]

Honestly, I don't care if there's a metro system on it. I just want backwards compatibility, like they have with all the aero stuff and shiny things they added in XP and onwards.

I'm still using the 95/98 style taskbar and theme because it's what I'm used to and if I could still use that in Windows 8 I'd be happy. 'tis all I want, and I'm disappointed with Windows 8 not providing that.

And all you guys arguing are just going round in circles of "It's AWESOME and you can USE IT FINE." "It's NOT AWESOME and MEAN and NASTY and I DON'T LIKE IT." It's getting rather boring and no new opinions / information is appearing with regards windows 8, which is what I was hoping there'd be. Just the same old "It's FINE!" "NO IT'S NOT."

[Heliomance]

2. I don't know what Windows version you use, but the sentence "Allowing access to your programs as easy as possible" a matter of opinion at best and a lie at worst. Especially the part about doing the job better than the classical Start Menu. It's blatantly false. It CANNOT present even HALF AS MUCH information as the classical start menu.

Now I'm used to it, I actually prefer it to the old start menu, for reasons I don't feel the need to rehash yet again.

As Castaras said though, this is going nowhere. Neither side is going to change the others' opinion, so how about we all shut up about it before the mods come along and lock the thread, hmm?

[Larkas]

Up until now, the discussion has been pretty civil. No flaming, no disrespecting, just people presenting their own opinion on why they like or dislike Windows 8, with new information on 8.1 sprouting up here and there. There hasn't even been people flaming Microsoft here, something I'd half-expect in such a thread. There's literally no reason to lock the thread.

That you guys think this is going nowhere is another issue entirely. It's your opinion and you're entitled to it, but it doesn't automatically translate into truth. You're also free to not participate if you think that such a discussion is futile. But please note that discussions are more about presenting one's opinion and less about swaying other's. We don't want to prove that Windows 8 is objectively perfect or flawed, we're just relating our experiences with it, and even suggesting ways to improve it. I think this is very worthy of a thread.

[lesser_minion]

No you didn't. You haven't supplied any reasons better than mine.

OK, here's is the argument to which I am referring (with bonus footnotes):


The mouse and the touchscreen are both pointing devices: many of the things you can do for one also benefit the other*. The only touchscreen optimisations that don't also benefit mouse users simply have no effect on mouse users** -- or they're complemented by mouse equivalents -- the mouse equivalent of "swipe in from the ..." is moving your mouse to a corner of the screen, which is far and away one of the easiest operations to perform with a mouse***, for example. And as for the time spent, Microsoft have spent decades designing user interfaces that work well with the mouse. They aren't throwing away any of that.

* For example, a larger icon is obviously helpful on a touchscreen, but such an icon is also easier to point to with a mouse.

** You never swipe in from the right with a mouse and keyboard, so the fact that that's a thing on touchscreen is irrelevant to you if that's what you're using.

*** A widget that extends to the edge of the screen effectively extends to infinity in that direction -- such widgets are thus far larger (and far easier to point to) than widgets that don't.

1

Now, this argument attacks a basic premise on which many of your other arguments rely: that "touch first" means "screw everything else". The ball's been in your court for a while now: I'm sure you have an answer to this, but if this is to be a debate, I need to see it. I have no interest in continuing to participate in a crappy knock-off of a Monty Python sketch.

[Larkas]

Now, this argument attacks a basic premise on which many of your other arguments rely: that "touch first" means "screw everything else". The ball's been in your court for a while now: I'm sure you have an answer to this, but if this is to be a debate, I need to see it. I have no interest in continuing to participate in a crappy knock-off of a Monty Python sketch.

Okay, no need to be so aggressive. You apparently missed what we said a few pages back: even though prioritizing touch doesn't mean, in and of itself, neglecting mouse/keyboard, Microsoft has very much done so in Windows 8. How, you ask? Simple, really: they removed very important parts of the Windows interface, parts that were very tried and true. Again, that isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. But it's the case here: you have to actively learn things in order to use the system now. Quite a few things, in fact. Contrast that to the passive learning in previous Windows installments, were you built upon a base you carried over from the last Windows OS. They introduced a palpable learning curve where there was no need for one. After learning your way around, you can pretty much use 8 as you always had 7 and prior installments (save for a few things here and there). The problem is, lots of people are thrown off by such a steep, if short, learning curve. And you never want to do that in a system that is meant for both tech experts and your 80 years old granny. At least, that's my assessment of the situation.

EFIT: As I'm typing from my phone, I think I might have gotten lost in thought and not presented what I meant clearly enough. What I meant is: Microsoft has made it actively harder to access some core functions on a desktop/laptop running 8 by prioritizing touch and neglecting mouse/keyboard.

[Elder Tsofu]

(Because you have to hold your hand up, over your keyboard and stretch forward to use it? It is HORRIBLE from an ergonomic point of view. You will get real damage in your shoulder very quickly.

Any facts on the matter? A study or something similar? Because I see no real difference from when I use my arm every day - if anything it would be a more natural and less static move for the shoulder than using a mouse and keyboard.
And just a question for you too, have you ever used a touchscreen PC? Or know of someone who has? Just so I know who I'm discussing with.:smalltongue:

---

But again, touch is not an all or nothing thing - it is a complement to current user interfaces unless you throw your keyboard and mouse out to prove a point. It is less precise than a mouse but not all activities on a PC needs pinpoint precision - and at the moment I think it works well on laptops. From my own experience that is.
A standard setup for desktop is probably less useful unless you move the screen closer to yourself and perhaps adjust the angle, but it might work.

[Avilan the Grey]

* For example, a larger icon is obviously helpful on a touchscreen, but such an icon is also easier to point to with a mouse.

** You never swipe in from the right with a mouse and keyboard, so the fact that that's a thing on touchscreen is irrelevant to you if that's what you're using.

*** A widget that extends to the edge of the screen effectively extends to infinity in that direction -- such widgets are thus far larger (and far easier to point to) than widgets that don't.

1

Now, this argument attacks a basic premise on which many of your other arguments rely: that "touch first" means "screw everything else". The ball's been in your court for a while now: I'm sure you have an answer to this, but if this is to be a debate, I need to see it. I have no interest in continuing to participate in a crappy knock-off of a Monty Python sketch.

1. A larger icon being better for a mouse user is a fallacy, at least if it is bigger than the icons on the taskbar (unless your eyesight is impared, of course). Most people tend to have their windows displaying the "Details" list anyway, which is very small icons.

2. Not sure what this has to do with anything?

3. Exactly. In other words it is not good for a non-touchscreen since "full fullscreen" (no borders, or access to taskbar etc) is far less effective in a working environment.

"We" have presented our case. Over and over. You do not aknowledge them, which is your right of course.


Any facts on the matter? A study or something similar? Because I see no real difference from when I use my arm every day - if anything it would be a more natural and less static move for the shoulder than using a mouse and keyboard.
And just a question for you too, have you ever used a touchscreen PC? Or know of someone who has? Just so I know who I'm discussing with.:smalltongue:

Yes: Lifting your arm, and holding it, is far more work for the joints and muscles than to rest the lower arm on the desk, hence not forcing the muscles and joints to carry the full weight of the entire arm for an extended period of time. Compare any other work, where efforts have been made for the last 30 years to minimize such movements, like cash register people, nurses, etc etc.

Basically the two movements are entirely different. With a mouse, if you are doing it it right, you rest your lower arm on the table and can use minimal movements. With a touchscreen, especially one attached across a keyboard (but even if you use a pad your shoulder and or elbow starts tiring very quickly) your shoulder has to carry the entire weight of your arm.

[lesser_minion]

1. A larger icon being better for a mouse user is a fallacy, at least if it is bigger than the icons on the taskbar (unless your eyesight is impared, of course). Most people tend to have their windows displaying the "Details" list anyway, which is very small icons.

No, it isn't. It is not a "fallacy", and it is not untrue -- in fact, it's widely acknowledged as being one of the most fundamental laws of user interface design.

Larger icons are also easier to use when you've plugged your laptop into a 40" TV and started using it with a wireless mouse and keyboard from the other end of the room, which is further evidence that disproves your repeated claim that every design decision was made to favour touchscreen at the expense of everything else.

As for the details list, "most people" do not necessarily do the same things you do. Microsoft has access to data collected by telemetry on the matter; you do not.


2. Not sure what this has to do with anything?

It's an example: the existence of a touch gesture does nothing to harm someone using a mouse instead. There are things that could be counter-examples if done wrongly (e.g. drag-and-drop could conflict with the touchscreen idiom of drag-to-scroll), but all of the examples I know of are ones that Microsoft has side-stepped -- Metro actually does support both drag-drop and drag-scroll, for example.


3. Exactly. In other words it is not good for a non-touchscreen since "full fullscreen" (no borders, or access to taskbar etc) is far less effective in a working environment.

A "working environment" often requires you to multi-task, so yes, you want a taskbar, the ability to have more than one application visible at once, and so on. But as any delivery driver or retail worker will attest, "non-touchscreen" is not what characterises a "working environment", so it does not follow that "less useful in a working environment" means "not good for non-touchscreen". Nor is it bad in and of itself. Windows 8 is a consumer OS. It's designed to be used by students and families, possibly as their sole multimedia device. It is not intended for exclusively "working environments", so it does not make sense to prioritise working environments exclusively.

A full-screen app can be easier to use than a non full-screen app. This is because it can present more information; do so more readably; present fewer distractions; and use the edges of the screen for its own purposes. This applies to mouse-and-keyboard, pen, touch, and those who control their computers with accelerometers implanted in their tongues.

And note that even if you think that the current crop of Metro apps doesn't live up to any of those points, that's irrelevant. In order to show that the entire concept behind Windows 8 and Metro was broken, you must identify something significant that clearly isn't a teething issue.


"We" have presented our case. Over and over. You do not aknowledge them, which is your right of course.

If you believe that there is something I've failed to address, then you need to point me to it, rather than just asserting that it exists. In the meantime, were any of these examples of 'you' presenting your case?


Surely they could have done all that without prioritizing a touch-screen based interface, which still seems completely asinine on any non-touch-screen machine. Right? I'm with whoever suggested system based booting - if it's a touchscreen, you get the touch interface. If not, you get desktop (and not whatever they're calling desktop in 8, but actual desktop).

This is something I have addressed already. I'd like to add that anything in an internet discussion purporting to be "common sense" with no other reasoning to support it is just as likely to be "neat, plausible, and wrong".


Of course it's not hard. But it's wrong. Just the fact that Microsoft calls the Desktop an "app" shows that they had their priorities completely out of whack.

That's an implementation detail that's actually neither here nor there.

Although all the people with dual screen setups probably appreciate the option to have the desktop on one screen and a Metro app on the other.


Lots of reasons, some of which are "I actually want to see what's on the screen while I'm using the Start menu" and "I'm used to the way it is and the new way offers very little in terms of added functionality with significant drawbacks, such as way more mouse movements required and difficulty using the keyboard. So why change it?"

I'm not aware of any use case for looking at what's on the desktop while the start menu is open; and I'm pretty sure Microsoft have empirical evidence on hand showing that nobody actually got hung up on the interface as a result. They do test these things.


Is not the same as making that both simplistic and straightforward for consumers. First impressions matter when I'm buying something, and 8 not only failed to impress me but actively irritated me. I tried it and did not like it.

First impressions matter, sure. If you have a bad first impression, you're not likely to get over it.

That said, if you go in expecting to have a bad first impression because certain segments of the internet have told you that you're some kind of abnormal freak if you don't, then you're going to have a bad first impression. And if you don't like change, you're going to have a bad impression throughout.

Personally, I like to at least try to take my personal biases and preconceptions into account when evaluating things.


Regarding W8 "not being padified". The fact that they have made turning the computer off an act many people have to google (it is quite well hidden when it should be, at worst, directly on the menu screen), because they assume you run the OS on a platform you never turn off (like a phone or a pad) and not a computer shows that yes, it is.

This does not follow.

Microsoft have expected users to treat both desktops and laptops as platforms you never turn off since 2006, if not earlier. That's why the default for Windows Vista was to put your computer to sleep when you clicked the 'power' button on the start menu.


That said, however, I must also add: Windows 8 has really got on my nerves. For the first time since I was a boy back in the DOS days, I had to do some research in order to use a system properly. I was startled when I first booted the thing.

When you first log in to a Windows 8 machine, you get a short animation showing you how to do the one thing you need to know about: that the corners of the screen are hot. That doesn't take long to learn, and everything else you need to know builds on that one piece of information, in exactly the same way as you say it did on every previous version of Windows.

It isn't something you can bring over from older versions of Windows (although the exact same action has been significant in the past), but it's not unintuitive -- no more so than clicking on anything at all, which is still basically the foundation of the interface.



Contrast that to the passive learning in previous Windows installments, were you built upon a base you carried over from the last Windows OS. They introduced a palpable learning curve where there was no need for one.

Whereas on Windows 8, you bring one tiny bit of knowledge from a short animation shown to you at the start, and then learn everything else in exactly the same way you always have done.

There is nothing that you cannot find on your own once you know that the corners are 'hot', and it isn't hard to access anything behind a hot corner.

So this isn't actually a usability failure. And even if it was, it wouldn't be evidence of neglect for mouse and keyboard users -- how do you think touchscreen guys learn about "swipe in from the right", "swipe in from the left", and "swipe in from the top"?

[obryn]

I don't know what that person's problem was, but Windows 8 really does work fine without a touchscreen, and I have been using it as such for months now.
Yeah, I was terrified of getting Win 8 when I bought my new PC. And it took a day to get used to it, but now I love it.

I've also grown to love the Start screen; it's very helpful and better organized than a regular start menu.

However. Some stuff could be done a lot better. The metro apps, the counterintuitive hot corners with no indicators of what they're used for, and the segregated functions dependent on whether you're on the desktop or on the start screen. And yes, shutting down should be way easier.

Even with all this, it's still a vast improvement over Win 7, especially under the hood. Rebooting is insanely fast. It's been rock-solid stable. I understand it's got tighter security, though it hasn't been an issue. Really, I'm content.

EDIT: regarding Touchscreen interfaces. I wouldn't want it for my main PC; it's limited in ways that a two-button mouse or a 101-key keyboard aren't. But I have to say - it's a more intuitive and direct way of making stuff work. My three year old can use my Nexus 7 just great; he took to it immediately. Still can't get the hang of mouse or touchpad, though; he keeps poking at my laptop and desktop screen.:smallmad:

-O

[lesser_minion]

Fun fact: The word "intuitive" is actually verboten in HCI circles, simply because it's overused in internet debates as a weasel word.


However. Some stuff could be done a lot better. The metro apps, the counterintuitive hot corners with no indicators of what they're used for, and the segregated functions dependent on whether you're on the desktop or on the start screen. And yes, shutting down should be way easier.

I'm going to take issue with one of the things you point out here:

The hot corners aren't discoverable on their own, sure -- if you go grab a coffee while the animation telling you about them is playing the first time you log in, then you might be in trouble.

But once you know they exist, everything they can do is naturally discoverable. And they aren't mystery meat -- pointing to the same hot corner, on any Windows 8 machine, will always reveal the same thing.

They aren't actually any less 'intuitive' than an icon or a button: you learned about those long ago, but somebody still had to tell you about them first. And they're comparable in most other respects: it's a similar amount of information to learn and take on board.

Otherwise, yes. The split in responsibilities between the PC Settings app (and some other things) and the Control Panel is completely bizarre. That said, as I said above, these are teething issues, not evidence of some kind of broken paradigm or flagrant disregard for people not using touch-screens and tablets.

[Aedilred]

As for the details list, "most people" do not necessarily do the same things you do. Microsoft has access to data collected by telemetry on the matter; you do not.
Ah, I wondered when we'd see this argument advanced. "Microsoft has access to more data and expertise on the subject than you or anyone else, so their judgment is better-informed and therefore more valid. Essentially, what Microsoft have done must be the right thing to do, because they have done it." Doctor Pangloss, from the dark side of rhetoric I know thee, and bid thee return there!

[Larkas]

However. Some stuff could be done a lot better. The metro apps, the counterintuitive hot corners with no indicators of what they're used for, and the segregated functions dependent on whether you're on the desktop or on the start screen. And yes, shutting down should be way easier.

This. They could have at least left some textual indication on what each of them do, or something like that. Save for the Start corner at the desktop, things aren't exactly clear in and of themselves. A "shut down" button wouldn't be out of place directly under the Charms bar, instead of hidden under settings. And a Control Panel option wouldn't be out of place hidden under any Charm bar's settings. :smalltongue:

Regardless, for less tech-savvy people, it might be hard to even figure out the active corners' existance. The person installing the OS won't always be the one using it. That's specially true in a corporate environment, and there is a Windows 8 Professional edition (been using it myself).

Be it as it may, I think that most of the opinions I could present have been presented already, regardless of what I said in a previous post. I won't keep pushing the same point over and over again. I'll just endorse what Aedilred already said: just because Microsoft collect data, it doesn't mean their opinion is better or worse than the complaining consumers'. It might actually be a faulty sample, a faulty research, or, you know, a faulty premise. They were very clear when they said that they were re-positioning themselves away from the PC market. Only time will tell if that was an intelligent decision or, you know, if this is New Coke all over again.

[lesser_minion]

Ah, I wondered when we'd see this argument advanced. "Microsoft has access to more data and expertise on the subject than you or anyone else, so their judgment is better-informed and therefore more valid. Essentially, what Microsoft have done must be the right thing to do, because they have done it." Doctor Pangloss, from the dark side of rhetoric I know thee, and bid thee return there!

That's not actually the argument I made. There is a difference between bringing up a fact -- that Microsoft have better access to data and expertise on the subject of user interface design than anyone on this thread; which is true -- and actually drawing any conclusion from it.

"Microsoft have better access to data and expertise on the subject of user interface design than anyone on this thread" is not something that can be ignored.

It does not automatically mean that they are right -- "...what Microsoft have done must be the right thing to do, because they have done it..." is not my argument, never has been my argument, and never will be my argument.

However, a conclusion that can correctly be drawn from this is that "Microsoft royally ****ed up the design of Windows 8" is an extraordinary claim, and in order to be taken seriously, it must be backed up by extraordinary evidence.

[factotum]

That's funny, because that's not actually the argument I made. There is a difference between bringing up a data point -- that Microsoft have better access to data and expertise on the subject of user interface design than anyone on this thread; which is true -- and actually drawing any conclusion from that.

If you weren't drawing conclusions from it, or expecting your readers to draw conclusions for you, why did you bring it up, then? You might as well have mentioned what the price of coffee is in Uganda, or something equally irrelevant to the subject of the thread.

If, in fact, you *did* intend conclusions to be drawn from your statement--which I think is fairly likely--then you have to expect people to post counterarguments to it. For instance, if Microsoft have all this information about UI design and did such a bang-up job with the Windows 8 interface, then *why are they changing it for 8.1*? Is that not an admission they got it wrong in the first place?

[lesser_minion]

If you weren't drawing conclusions from it, or expecting your readers to draw conclusions for you, why did you bring it up, then? You might as well have mentioned what the price of coffee is in Uganda, or something equally irrelevant to the subject of the thread.

Look at the context. I simply brought it up in contrast to a hasty generalisation.

I did not intend for anyone to take away any sort of reasoning along the lines of "if it was the wrong thing to do, Microsoft wouldn't have done it, because Microsoft have mystical always-right gonad powers".


For instance, if Microsoft have all this information about UI design and did such a bang-up job with the Windows 8 interface, then *why are they changing it for 8.1*? Is that not an admission they got it wrong in the first place?

Fundamentally, no. It means nothing.

It's quite easy to end up in the situation of having to fix something that isn't actually broken, due to simple politics. Microsoft have received a lot of negative feedback, and that means they have to do something (or at least be seen to be doing something) about it. But that holds no matter how much of the feedback is justified.

[obryn]

That said, as I said above, these are teething issues, not evidence of some kind of broken paradigm or flagrant disregard for people not using touch-screens and tablets.
No, having used it, I agree 100%.

As for the hot corners - I dunno, I'm used to them now, but I'm still not sold on invisible "buttons". :smallsmile:

[Aedilred]

That's not actually the argument I made. There is a difference between bringing up a fact -- that Microsoft have better access to data and expertise on the subject of user interface design than anyone on this thread; which is true -- and actually drawing any conclusion from it.
It's not exactly what you said, but it was heavily implied, and a further implication is that...

However, a conclusion that can correctly be drawn from this is that "Microsoft royally ****ed up the design of Windows 8" is an extraordinary claim, and in order to be taken seriously, it must be backed up by extraordinary evidence.
... this evidence is probably going to be unavailable from a third party, since Microsoft can be assumed to have better evidence in all available scenarios. That this assumption will be and is being made is apparent from the fact that virtually all evidence so far advanced in the thread suggesting that Windows 8 is not in fact the bee's knees, up to and including the very fact of Microsoft's major patching of the OS mere months after its release, has been ignored.

It's not just techies, weirdos and grognards complaining either, mind. The Financial Times called the Win 8.1 development "one of the most prominent admissions of failure for a new mass-market consumer product since Coca-Cola's New Coke fiasco nearly 20 years ago". The Economist ventured that "the comparison with New Coke actually understates Microsoft's problem". Even MS themselves have conceded that the "learning curve is definitely real" which, when translated out of corporate understatement, is pretty damning about the intuitiveness and ease of use of the thing.

[Heliomance]

It's not exactly what you said, but it was heavily implied, and a further implication is that...

... this evidence is probably going to be unavailable from a third party, since Microsoft can be assumed to have better evidence in all available scenarios. That this assumption will be and is being made is apparent from the fact that virtually all evidence so far advanced in the thread suggesting that Windows 8 is not in fact the bee's knees, up to and including the very fact of Microsoft's major patching of the OS mere months after its release, has been ignored.


I for one have never claimed it's the bees knees. I freely admit it has flaws, I just don't think it's the worst thing ever either. I have a tendency towards playing devil's advocate though, and stubbornly defending any position that's being unfairly attacked, even if I don't think it's that great myself. It's drawn me into arguing positions I don't actually support multiple times.

Overall though, I think Windows 8 is a perfectly good operating system. Yes, there's a learning curve, and yes there are teething problems. But overall, it's solid.

[lesser_minion]

... this evidence is probably going to be unavailable from a third party, since Microsoft can be assumed to have better evidence in all available scenarios.

I didn't say that, and contrary to your claims, I have not been holding that view. Why attack an argument when you can attack a strawman?


That this assumption will be and is being made is apparent from the fact that virtually all evidence so far advanced in the thread suggesting that Windows 8 is not in fact the bee's knees, up to and including the very fact of Microsoft's major patching of the OS mere months after its release, has been ignored.

Firstly, the claim you are making is not "Windows 8 is not the bees knees". Nobody is saying that it is. The claim you are making and trying to support is "Windows 8 is a monumental ****-up".

Secondly, for "virtually all evidence so far advanced in the thread" that disagrees with my views, I have actually read it, evaluated it, and explained why I find it unconvincing (check the spoiler). I did not 'ignore' it, nor did I assume that Microsoft had 'better' evidence on hand.

[Aedilred]

I didn't say that, and contrary to your claims, I have not been holding that view. Why attack an argument when you can attack a strawman?
It's a logical extrapolation from the "Microsoft have better data than you" argument, which you did make. Moreover, while it's certainly true you haven't gone so far as to make the more outlandish suggestions I attribute to the line of argument, if the initial premise were accepted, it would open the door for any such suggestions to be made: I thought it was best to insulate against them.


Firstly, the claim you are making is not "Windows 8 is not the bees knees". Nobody is saying that it is. The claim you are making and trying to support is "Windows 8 is a monumental ****-up".
Well, now who's putting words into whose mouth? :smalltongue: I've never said it's a cockup, whether I think it or no (I do, as it happens, and it appears Microsoft agree on at least some level). A monumental one? Well, time will tell.

Secondly, for "virtually all evidence so far advanced in the thread" that disagrees with my views, I have actually read it, evaluated it, and explained why I find it unconvincing (check the spoiler). I did not 'ignore' it, nor did I assume that Microsoft had 'better' evidence on hand.
Yeah, I should have gone with "dismissed" there; my terminology was poor. My apologies.

[factotum]

Overall though, I think Windows 8 is a perfectly good operating system. Yes, there's a learning curve, and yes there are teething problems. But overall, it's solid.

I don't think anyone has ever criticised Windows 8's solidity--from everything I've heard, I'd love to be using it, and I hope this 8.1 UI update does enough that I feel I'm able to. I've had plenty enough of having to re-learn how to use software with the Office Ribbon, though, I really don't want to have to do it with the OS itself!

[lesser_minion]

It's a logical extrapolation from the "Microsoft have better data than you" argument, which you did make.

Only in response to assertions that were based solely on personal experience and hasty generalisations from personal experience.

[Avilan the Grey]

I don't think anyone has ever criticised Windows 8's solidity--from everything I've heard, I'd love to be using it, and I hope this 8.1 UI update does enough that I feel I'm able to. I've had plenty enough of having to re-learn how to use software with the Office Ribbon, though, I really don't want to have to do it with the OS itself!

Exactly: The desktop, when you are in it, is just as good as ever. Windows 8 uses less resources than both 7 and Vista. And it appears to be very stable.

As for your second comments... Ribbon... :smallfurious::smallsigh:
Good that you brough it up. Could it be so that there is nobody employed at Microsoft that actually know how to improve an UI? Ribbon is, quite frankly, horrible. Illogical. In the way. All the things you don't want an UI to be. And it forced users to relearn their tried and trusted applications from scratch.

...Exactly like Windows 8.


Only in response to assertions that were based solely on personal experience and hasty generalisations from personal experience.

The thing though is that the whole POINT with this is that Microsoft have all the data, and concluded they needed to change their product because what they had done didn't work for a majority of users.

[pendell]

Disclaimer: I have not yet used the Windows 8 interface. And if the articles above are anything to go by, it appears I will be spared the necessity.

I think a lot of the issue is that Windows 8 was, for the PC, a bold experiment in changing the UI.

The problem, I think, is that for the PC the WIMP system set up by Steve Jobs and then leveraged by Microsoft into Windows is still more than adequate for most people.

I remember the pre-Windows days. I remember working in DOS 3.1 on a monochrome monitor. My dad sprang for a CGA monitor and I was thrilled. It meant unparalleled gaming in those days.

Most of us could work with DOS. But most people hated it. It was what I was used to, so I didn't mind it.

Then Apple introduced the Macintosh.

And. It. Was. AWESOME. As soon as the technology was available, everybody went to WIMP and got away from the command line as fast as they could because the previous user interface was TERRIBLE. I daresay switching to WIMP is part of what made the personal computer an everyman tool rather than something for specialists.

And therein lies the problem with Windows 8.

Windows 7 was not terrible. It's still adequate, and more than adequate for most people who grew up with it.

So the new interface doesn't actually answer anyone's need. Well, it answers Microsoft's need for a universal interface on all systems, but it doesn't answer the average user's need. The average user isn't staring at a C:> prompt and loathing it every minute. The average user is working in a WIMP environment and more than happy with it.

So instead of switching from something they hate to something which is demonstrably better in every way, people are being forced to abandon something which they love for something which is, on the face of it, ugly.

Sure, with the right workarounds and if you put in the time you can learn to be as or more efficient in the new system as in the old one. But I think most users aren't interested in spending their time learning to use a new system, not when they were happy with what they had. They'd rather just sit on Windows 7 until Microsoft comes to its senses, or go to Apple.

Get enough people doing that, and you have a massive decline in PC sales far exceeding the most pessimistic expectations. Because this change isn't for the benefit of the consumer. The consumer gains no obvious benefit but does require a significant learning curve. No, this change is for the benefit of Microsoft. I think most consumers sense that intuitively, and hate Microsoft all the more because of it.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Don Julio Anejo]

So instead of switching from something they hate to something which is demonstrably better in every way, people are being forced to abandon something which they love for something which is, on the face of it, ugly.

Sure, with the right workarounds and if you put in the time you can learn to be as or more efficient in the new system as in the old one. But I think most users aren't interested in spending their time learning to use a new system, not when they were happy with what they had. They'd rather just sit on Windows 7 until Microsoft comes to its senses, or go to Apple.
Basically, you just summarized the entire thread. Two people learned how Windows 8 works and like it, everyone else including me hasn't and isn't interested in doing so because Windows 7 works just fine.

[Flickerdart]

The problem, I think, is that for the PC the WIMP system set up by Steve Jobs and then leveraged by Microsoft into Windows is still more than adequate for most people.
Xerox developed the WIMP system 11 years before the first Macintosh.

[Avilan the Grey]

Basically, you just summarized the entire thread. Two people learned how Windows 8 works and like it, everyone else including me hasn't and isn't interested in doing so because Windows 7 works just fine.

Indeed. Pendell has won an Interwebz.


Xerox developed the WIMP system 11 years before the first Macintosh.

Their problem was that they never understood what they sat on. They allowed anyone that wanted to to get the source code. Individuals inside the company tried to convince them not to, but they happily gave demonstrations and code to whoever asked.

[Flickerdart]

Their problem was that they never understood what they sat on. They allowed anyone that wanted to to get the source code. Individuals inside the company tried to convince them not to, but they happily gave demonstrations and code to whoever asked.
I'm not really sure that's a problem - if they didn't let people look at it, then it would never have gotten anywhere. I'm merely pointing out that crediting Jobs for it is wrong.

[Aotrs Commander]

So instead of switching from something they hate to something which is demonstrably better in every way, people are being forced to abandon something which they love for something which is, on the face of it, ugly.

Sure, with the right workarounds and if you put in the time you can learn to be as or more efficient in the new system as in the old one. But I think most users aren't interested in spending their time learning to use a new system, not when they were happy with what they had. They'd rather just sit on Windows 7 until Microsoft comes to its senses, or go to Apple.


Basically, you just summarized the entire thread. Two people learned how Windows 8 works and like it, everyone else including me hasn't and isn't interested in doing so because Windows 7 works just fine.

And one of us is even begrudging having to look at moving away from XP, which also works fine for everything except some of the very latest games, so Win 8 hasn't even got a look-in at that point...!

[137beth]

Basically, you just summarized the entire thread. Two people learned how Windows 8 works and like it, everyone else including me hasn't and isn't interested in doing so because Windows 7 works just fine.
Yep, Pendell wins.

I'm not really sure that's a problem - if they didn't let people look at it, then it would never have gotten anywhere. I'm merely pointing out that crediting Jobs for it is wrong.
Crows are black. While accurate, replacing "Jobs" with "Xerox" in Pendell's summary of the thread, and the entire market, would change exactly nothing about the content or conclusion. You're just grasping at irrelevant straws.

[Flickerdart]

Crows are black. While accurate, replacing "Jobs" with "Xerox" in Pendell's summary of the thread, and the entire market, would change exactly nothing about the content or conclusion. You're just grasping at irrelevant straws.
Please tell me where I said "Pendell credited the wrong guy and therefore that means Windows 8 is the best thing since sliced bread." Go on. I'll be right here, waiting. Got my chair and my popcorn with me, cause I'll be waiting a long time, but do give it a go.

[137beth]

Please tell me where I said "Pendell credited the wrong guy and therefore that means Windows 8 is the best thing since sliced bread." Go on. I'll be right here, waiting. Got my chair and my popcorn with me, cause I'll be waiting a long time, but do give it a go.

Please tell me where I said you said that. If you're gonna bash strawmen, at least try to make them look real:smallsigh:

[Flickerdart]

Please tell me where I said you said that. If you're gonna bash strawmen, at least try to make them look real:smallsigh:
If you don't think I was arguing with Pendell, then your entire post makes no sense, which frankly wouldn't surprise me. Yeesh, can't even give credit where credit is due without getting pounced on.

[137beth]

If you don't think I was arguing with Pendell, then your entire post makes no sense, which frankly wouldn't surprise me. Yeesh, can't even give credit where credit is due, can I?

My post said that you were bringing up an irrelevant point. I still think you were bringing up an irrelevant point. I fail to see how that has anything to do with who you were or were not arguing with.

[Flickerdart]

My post said that you were bringing up an irrelevant point. I still think you were bringing up an irrelevant point. I fail to see how that has anything to do with who you were or were not arguing with.
If you hate irrelevant tangents so much, what do you call this?

[137beth]

If you hate irrelevant tangents so much, what do you call this?

Where exactly did I say that I hate irrelevant tangents:smallconfused:

[Flickerdart]

Where exactly did I say that I hate irrelevant tangents:smallconfused:
You didn't say those precise words, but to quote someone, "you're just grasping at irrelevant straws".

[137beth]

You didn't say those precise words, but to quote someone, "you're just grasping at irrelevant straws".

That is an observation.

Pointing something out is not the same as hating it. It is making an observation. You brought up an irrelevant tangent. That is not a statement about whether or not I liked it, it is a fact. I pointed out that you were going on an irrelevant tangent, which, in it of itself, is an irrelevant tangent. I like going off on tangents, otherwise I wouldn't be engaging you in this one:smalltongue:

[Flickerdart]

I'm going to quote your post again, just for reference.


Crows are black. While accurate, replacing "Jobs" with "Xerox" in Pendell's summary of the thread, and the entire market, would change exactly nothing about the content or conclusion. You're just grasping at irrelevant straws.

If you were not saying that I disagree with Pendell, why accuse me of grasping at straws and saying that it doesn't change anything about the conclusion? I never referenced his conclusion in any way. How could I be grasping at straws?

I apologize, naturally, if English is not your first language and turns of phrase are foreign to you, but "grasping at straws" implies that one party is in dire straits vis a vis a situation, which in this case is the argument in this thread, an argument my post did not address even a little bit (rather, it was correcting a previous poster - indeed, the post you quoted was a post in which I was actually clarifying what I'd meant earlier). Thus, by misusing that expression, you appeared to imply that I was somehow using that post as a last-ditch argument in the debate of which I was not, at the moment, a part of. When I called you on it, you quickly changed the subject, which is rather adroit but not really helpful, as it only further served to muddle the conversation.

In conclusion, your observation was incorrect, and the sooner you stop going on about it, the sooner we can get back to arguing whether coloured tiles are better than lines of text.

[Avilan the Grey]

Yep, Pendell wins.

To be fair, I have learned how W8 works, but just like with Ribbon (shouldn't they redo the Office menu system to match W8 btw...? *trollface*) I find it a worse option than what it replaced.

[Lord Seth]

Exactly: The desktop, when you are in it, is just as good as ever. Windows 8 uses less resources than both 7 and Vista. And it appears to be very stable.

As for your second comments... Ribbon... :smallfurious::smallsigh:
Good that you brough it up. Could it be so that there is nobody employed at Microsoft that actually know how to improve an UI? Ribbon is, quite frankly, horrible. Illogical. In the way. All the things you don't want an UI to be. And it forced users to relearn their tried and trusted applications from scratch.

...Exactly like Windows 8.Bleh, the Ribbon. I have no idea why so many companies seem to have the attitude "hey, you know this interface we've had for years and years that has worked perfectly fine and everyone is used to? How about we totally change it for no real reason?"

[Avilan the Grey]

Bleh, the Ribbon. I have no idea why so many companies seem to have the attitude "hey, you know this interface we've had for years and years that has worked perfectly fine and everyone is used to? How about we totally change it for no real reason?"

As I see it there are two possible reasons:

1. Microsoft is trolling us.
2. They have lost their competence when it comes to interface design.

[Ashtagon]

Bleh, the Ribbon. I have no idea why so many companies seem to have the attitude "hey, you know this interface we've had for years and years that has worked perfectly fine and everyone is used to? How about we totally change it for no real reason?"

This.

Between the ribbon and Windows 8, I am fairly confident that I will be skipping new MS products until they get someone sane in charge of their user interface teams. For me, that means staying with Windows 7 until it is no longer viable, then switching to a linux build, and using open office (or a fork of it) for "office" applications. I tend to use a private wiki for most of my personal "word-processing" needs these days.

[Flickerdart]

Microsoft is in an awkward position - yes, they rule the market, but RIM was synonymous with smartphones before falling from grace in the span of about a year. Rather than hold the course and lose for sure (it's hard to argue against the numbers - fewer and fewer people are buying traditional desktops and laptops), they have elected to throw out a bunch of new ideas, both to appear as the market innovator and to see what sticks, so they can get us used to something better while everyone else is only starting to put out new things. Microsoft supports its software for a long time, so there's nothing wrong with staying on Windows 7 and Office 2003 until this whole thing blows over. I'm sure Microsoft is aware that this is the case, and it gives them the freedom to do exactly what they've been doing. Yes, many people aren't buying new Windows and new Office. But they're still Windows users and Office users, and once MS sands down the rough patches and drops the next Windows 7, they're going to get that Windows.

Granted, they may have over-extended themselves a bit on that front (what with Steam, for instance, moving to Linux) but I'm sure someone's run the numbers and figured that losing a larger portion of customers now is preferable to losing small chunks of customers due to stagnation until they're all gone.

Personally, I think that the venerable WIMP needed a shake-up. Someone had to do it first, it was Microsoft of all people, they didn't get it perfect the first time, it'll get better.

Ultimately, it's a very interesting scenario from a UX perspective. When designing an interface, it's very important to remember user mental maps - the assumptions they've become accustomed to, such as "X means close" or "click the logo to go to the home page". Over the years, this approach has self-reinforced itself, and now everyone's trying to claw their way out of it in various ways (new Apple mice, for instance, have a touch pad thingy instead of a wheel, and so scroll direction has been reversed, which is really disorienting at first). Strictly in the interest of breaking the vicious cycle, a bit of experimentation is always a good thing. Using your flagship product as a testing ground? Maybe not the greatest move, but it's really not as bad as many (dare I say, most) people make it out to be.

In some ways Windows 8 is the Chromebook Pixel or Project Glass of OSes - a tentative foray into what's to come.

tl;dr Windows 8 is very important as an event and a design decision, but far from perfect as a product.

[Heliomance]

Bleh, the Ribbon. I have no idea why so many companies seem to have the attitude "hey, you know this interface we've had for years and years that has worked perfectly fine and everyone is used to? How about we totally change it for no real reason?"

Because if everyone had the attitude of "if it ain't broke don't fix it", then nothing would ever change. In order to get better, you need to not be satisfied with good enough. Innovation means trying new things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But if you never try anything new, you'll just get stagnancy. You don't get improvements without risking mistakes.

I'm less sold on the ribbon than I am on Win8, but again once you're used to it it's perfectly serviceable. Do I think the old menus were better? Probably. It's been long enough since I used them that I don't really remember though. Do I think the ribbon is awful and impossible to use? Not at all. Do I think that having to use the ribbon is an acceptable price for having access to all the other massive improvements new versions of Office have presented? Hell yes.

[Ashtagon]

Because if everyone had the attitude of "if it ain't broke don't fix it", then nothing would ever change. In order to get better, you need to not be satisfied with good enough. Innovation means trying new things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But if you never try anything new, you'll just get stagnancy. You don't get improvements without risking mistakes.

I'm less sold on the ribbon than I am on Win8, but again once you're used to it it's perfectly serviceable. Do I think the old menus were better? Probably. It's been long enough since I used them that I don't really remember though. Do I think the ribbon is awful and impossible to use? Not at all. Do I think that having to use the ribbon is an acceptable price for having access to all the other massive improvements new versions of Office have presented? Hell yes.

When I compare office 2010 (2010) and open office (oo), I found the following:

Word 2010 grinds when you have lots of sidebars and text callouts. That can be fixed by using tables for layout instead, but that leads to its own issues, and it is generally considered bad design practice to use tables for layout purposes anyway.

oo has native support for pdf export out of the box. 2010 caught up with that quickly, but 2010's pdf export doesn't support many of the fonts available on free font websites, while oo does.

2010 has a learning curve for the gui.

Word 2010 has better support for colours and font/text effects in documents.

Excel 2010 is a far superior product to the oo spreadsheet product.

[Avilan the Grey]

Because if everyone had the attitude of "if it ain't broke don't fix it", then nothing would ever change. In order to get better, you need to not be satisfied with good enough. Innovation means trying new things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But if you never try anything new, you'll just get stagnancy. You don't get improvements without risking mistakes.

However, you have to balance this with what Flickerdart points out:

Just like with say the controls of a car, we are used to, and have been downright trained to, certain truths about a computer interface (this is why some applications that goes too wild also have problems):

X means close. _ means minimize. Double-click means "start", single click means "mark", right click brings up a relevant menu and rolling the scroll wheel on the mouse towards you means scrolling the page downwards.

Imagine if you sat down in a car, and found out that the steering wheel is replaced by a bike handlebar (because a steering wheel would be too large fora bike, and more people own bikes than cars), the blinkers are no longer controlled by a handle to the left of the (non-existing) steering wheel but by your left foot, and the gear shift is also replaced by a gearshift for a bike (for the same reason as the steering wheel has been replaced).
In theory it would work, but nobody would buy it.

Innovation is fine, but if you risk it getting in the way of progress instead of causing it, it is a bad thing. Virtually zero companies have bought Windows 8. Most of them just upgraded from XP to 7. Not only is 8 too soon for a major shift, but a company will not buy an operating system that requiers 100% of it's personel to spend a week in training to ensure productivity.
And to be fair I think this thing is what has MS worried the most. Not the private users, but the fact that virtually no businesses even CONSIDER moving to 8 because of the learning curve is what really pushes this change.

[Aotrs Commander]

However, you have to balance this with what Flickerdart points out:And to be fair I think this thing is what has MS worried the most. Not the private users, but the fact that virtually no businesses even CONSIDER moving to 8 because of the learning curve is what really pushes this change.

And this is what happened with Vista, as well; a lot of industry turned around and told MS to get knotted and that they were sticking with XP (and why MSwere forced to work much harder on making 7 much more backward compatible).

And businesses are not interested in spending a fortune on touch-screens - for one, as I mentioned before, Rolls-Royce flat out don't allow their use as a primary workstation becuase it's not ergomonic. Most big computer using industries are not using lap-tops for the serious jobs (like, as at the aforementioned RR, stuff like finite elemental analysis and proper modelling; for one, data is sufficiently important that they all use raid drives now; and multiple HDDs and laptops do not a portable combination make.

My Dad said that from what he's read/spoken to techies/etc, people who use a lot of phones or similar applications heavily tend to find they get along with Win 8 much better than those - like me - don't. (Hell, I don't even OWN a mobile; I technically have one for emergancy purposes for when out in the car which is there for the one exact use of phoning the RAC in case of a breakdown). So that is likely an aspect of it as well.

[pendell]

Post deleted for insufficient content by the author.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Lord Seth]

Because if everyone had the attitude of "if it ain't broke don't fix it", then nothing would ever change. In order to get better, you need to not be satisfied with good enough. Innovation means trying new things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But if you never try anything new, you'll just get stagnancy. You don't get improvements without risking mistakes.This is a nonsensical argument. There is no reason you can't improve things without changing them for no reason.

Change that's a definite improvement is fine. Change apparently just for the sake of change, as the ribbon seemed to be, is not. See Avilan the Grey's example on cars.


I'm less sold on the ribbon than I am on Win8, but again once you're used to it it's perfectly serviceable. Do I think the old menus were better? Probably. It's been long enough since I used them that I don't really remember though. Do I think the ribbon is awful and impossible to use? Not at all. Do I think that having to use the ribbon is an acceptable price for having access to all the other massive improvements new versions of Office have presented? Hell yes.Or, you know...they could have included all the massive improvements without deleting a perfectly fine interface.

[obryn]

Excel 2010 is a far superior product to the oo spreadsheet product.
Excel 2010 is also far superior to previous versions of Excel. In all the ways that matter for me at work, it's simply improved around the board. So yes, it's well worth the Ribbon. (Which is kind of neutral for me, frankly. It had a much steeper learning curve than Win 8, but I like some of the things that can happen on the Ribbon, which wouldn't fit in the old UI.)

As for Win 8... I think the Start screen is far superior to the Start menu.

-O

[Ashtagon]

Excel 2010 is also far superior to previous versions of Excel. In all the ways that matter for me at work, it's simply improved around the board. So yes, it's well worth the Ribbon. (Which is kind of neutral for me, frankly. It had a much steeper learning curve than Win 8, but I like some of the things that can happen on the Ribbon, which wouldn't fit in the old UI.)

As for Win 8... I think the Start screen is far superior to the Start menu.

-O

The main thing I miss about older versions of Office is the ability to absolutely customise the various menus. Literally nothing was locked down (as a design experiment, I once completely rewrote every Office menu into Japanese). This meant that those commands I used more frequently could get custom menus, or custom buttons, or get a space in a context menu, and that menu or button with be the the exact location that would be fastest and most ergonomic for me. Office 2007 removed customisability completely. 2010 allowed you to add buttons to the title bar, restoring some of that functionality, but the 2007 version was, for me, unusable.

I suspect corporate trainers hated the extreme customisability of the wimp structure.

[Heliomance]

This is a nonsensical argument. There is no reason you can't improve things without changing them for no reason.


Uh... what? Improving things requires changing them, by definition. Humans are fallible, almost by definition. Thus, sometimes when a designer thinks he's improved something, he's going to be wrong. The ribbon and the Start screen aren't changing things for no reason, they're changing things in an attempt to improve them.

[Ashtagon]

Uh... what? Improving things requires changing them, by definition. Humans are fallible, almost by definition. Thus, sometimes when a designer thinks he's improved something, he's going to be wrong. The ribbon and the Start screen aren't changing things for no reason, they're changing things in an attempt to improve them.

re. Excel:

Improvements from 2003 to 2010:
* More efficient/compact file storage/save algorithms
* Larger size of tables (rows and columns) possible.
* New calculation functions.
* Full colour support.
* More advanced options for conditional formatting.

Anti-Features from 2003 to 2010:
* The ribbon
* Unable to customise toolbar buttons, menus, and so on.
* Excel ignores the colour scheme chosen within the Windows themes.

It is possible to improve a product in some areas while making it worse in others. It is also possible to improve a product in some areas without making it worse in others. MS chose to make it worse in some areas where it did not have to. Regardless of what people think of the ribbon, the lack of interface customisability and the way it ignores the main Windows theme is a big "screw you" to people with disabilities.

[Heliomance]

It is possible to improve a product in some areas while making it worse in others. It is also possible to improve a product in some areas without making it worse in others. MS chose to make it worse in some areas where it did not have to. Regardless of what people think of the ribbon, the lack of interface customisability and the way it ignores the main Windows theme is a big "screw you" to people with disabilities.

Microsoft definitely did not choose to make it worse in any areas. More people should be aware of Hanlon's Razor. Microsoft attempted to improve everything, and got some of it wrong.

[Aedilred]

Microsoft definitely did not choose to make it worse in any areas. More people should be aware of Hanlon's Razor. Microsoft attempted to improve everything, and got some of it wrong.
Surely they should have learned their lesson there from the Vista debacle, though? What constitutes an improvement is often subjective when what's already there is perfectly adequate - this is the essence of the "if it ain't broke..." principle.

That isn't to say improvement is impossible even on something that's working perfectly well: you can improve the aesthetics, the efficiency, the user-end customisability, you can add additional options. But you have to make sure that none of what you change is at the expense of its original features and utility. That's where Microsoft have fallen down.

It's not like they couldn't have seen this coming, either. Why do people hate Facebook? Yes, there are lingering complaints about privacy issues, but the principal reason is that they keep changing their interface without consultation or warning. Like I mentioned above, Microsoft have been through this exact process before not ten years ago. To make exactly the same mistake again is - regardless of the inherent quality of Windows 8 - just shockingly incompetent.

[Avilan the Grey]

Uh... what? Improving things requires changing them, by definition.

so you never change wallpaper, or buy a different coach for the living room? You rebuild the entire house instead? :smallwink::smallbiggrin:

Seriously though, tons of things has been improved withouy drastic change.
Again with cars as an example: Compare a 2013 model of a Porche 911 with say 1993's version. Virtually nothing is the same. Every. Single. Piece. of the car is different, improved, stronger, lighter etc etc not to mention all the computer power that are in modern cars. And yet... It looks similar, feels similar, sounds similar...?


Microsoft definitely did not choose to make it worse in any areas. More people should be aware of Hanlon's Razor. Microsoft attempted to improve everything, and got some of it wrong.

This is why I call them incompetent (the designers. Or the ones polling focus groups, providing they have such people). They did not redesign W8 with malice in mind. They just were clueless and had completely wrong expectations on the customers as well as on the market.

[Ashtagon]

Microsoft definitely did not choose to make it worse in any areas. More people should be aware of Hanlon's Razor. Microsoft attempted to improve everything, and got some of it wrong.

Given that some of their customers are disabled, and actually need the UI customisation and colour schema that was available in previous products, how does removing those options make it an improvement by any standard at all?

[supermonkeyjoe]

This is why I call them incompetent (the designers. Or the ones polling focus groups, providing they have such people). They did not redesign W8 with malice in mind. They just were clueless and had completely wrong expectations on the customers as well as on the market.

I think the people who actually designed the windows 8 interface have done a very good job, I was able to pick it up and intuitively figure out how most of it worked within a few minutes... on a touch screen.

I agree that whoever decided that the interface needed to be geared towards touch devices first really dropped the ball. The annoying thing is that the fix for desktops is so simple in my eyes; Add back in the classic start menu, or something analogous to it.

That's all that I could find wrong with the actual Operating System, simple tasks like running a program or rebooting the computer had been hidden behind a garish multicoloured chequerboard or an inaccessible swipe gesture.

Boot to desktop option, classic start menu, jobs a good'un and I'll upgrade to windows 8 on my desktop tomorrow. Saying all that, I am looking at buying a Surface Pro when it's released in the UK as the windows 8 interface seems specifically designed for that kind of device.

[Heliomance]

Surely they should have learned their lesson there from the Vista debacle, though? What constitutes an improvement is often subjective when what's already there is perfectly adequate - this is the essence of the "if it ain't broke..." principle.

That isn't to say improvement is impossible even on something that's working perfectly well: you can improve the aesthetics, the efficiency, the user-end customisability, you can add additional options. But you have to make sure that none of what you change is at the expense of its original features and utility. That's where Microsoft have fallen down.

It's not like they couldn't have seen this coming, either. Why do people hate Facebook? Yes, there are lingering complaints about privacy issues, but the principal reason is that they keep changing their interface without consultation or warning. Like I mentioned above, Microsoft have been through this exact process before not ten years ago. To make exactly the same mistake again is - regardless of the inherent quality of Windows 8 - just shockingly incompetent.
Again, stagnancy is bad. The only difference between genius and madness is success. If they'd made these changes, and everyone had gone "Wow, that actually works really well!" you wouldn't be complaining that they changed things without need, would you?

Yes, change does not necessarily bring about improvement. However, a lack of change absolutely prohibits improvement. If you don't want to stagnate, you need to keep changing things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Yes, you should be prepared to deal with the consequences if your changes don't work - which they apparently are - but you should never be blamed for trying new things in the first place.


so you never change wallpaper, or buy a different coach for the living room? You rebuild the entire house instead? :smallwink::smallbiggrin:
I... seriously have no idea what you're talking about. How is changing wallpaper or buying a different couch not change? Could you explain your point here, because it's completely passed me by.


Given that some of their customers are disabled, and actually need the UI customisation and colour schema that was available in previous products, how does removing those options make it an improvement by any standard at all?

It doesn't. But that doesn't mean someone at Microsoft went "bwahaha, let's alienate all our disabled customers by putting out a non-accessible UI!", it means someone dropped the ball.

...you know, I don't even know which side I'm arguing anymore. This is the problem with going debating to try and counter logical fallacies - there's so many of them, you lose track of your original position. I think I'm simultaneously trying to argue Hanlon's Razor against people claiming malice behind bad UI design, arguing for the necessity of change against people going "MS is incompetent and should never change what already works", and arguing against the invalid claims of objectively worse design with the people that just don't like Windows 8. My head hurts.

[Aedilred]

Again, stagnancy is bad. The only difference between genius and madness is success. If they'd made these changes, and everyone had gone "Wow, that actually works really well!" you wouldn't be complaining that they changed things without need, would you?

Yes, change does not necessarily bring about improvement. However, a lack of change absolutely prohibits improvement. If you don't want to stagnate, you need to keep changing things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Yes, you should be prepared to deal with the consequences if your changes don't work - which they apparently are -
I think you're putting the cart before the horse. Improvement isn't - or shouldn't be - a random byproduct of changing things for the heck of it. Rather, the desire for improvement should drive specific changes. I'm not saying that change is bad (although I am by nature pretty conservative), but change for the sake of it usually is bad.

Randomly changing everything and seeing what works is the way that natural evolution operates, and that's worked well enough over a period of hundreds of millions of years, but it's a terrible way to run a business or anything that's actually a directed process, because we don't have hundreds of millions of years, and if you attempt to run a business that way, an awful lot of time, energy and money gets squandered for usually no appreciable gain.

but you should never be blamed for trying new things in the first place.
I think you absolutely should, if it's not a good idea to try. For instance, I could try to write an important job application using the severed stump of my own finger rather than with a pen. It's a new thing; should I be lauded for it? No, because it's idiotic, and doesn't serve the intended purpose nearly as well as the normal method of using a pen. Moreover, anyone I'd asked about this plan before executing it would have told me so.

I... seriously have no idea what you're talking about. How is changing wallpaper or buying a different couch not change? Could you explain your point here, because it's completely passed me by.
Again, I don't think anyone here is saying "never change anything!" The point is that in order to improve a small element of the whole, you don't need to demolish everything and start from scratch every time; indeed, doing so is usually a terrible idea unless what you're starting with is fundamentally flawed.

It doesn't. But that doesn't mean someone at Microsoft went "bwahaha, let's alienate all our disabled customers by putting out a non-accessible UI!", it means someone dropped the ball.
That's an explanation, but it doesn't let them off the hook. Like Robert Webb said, in the real world sincerity is no excuse for failure. Microsoft really, really should have known better, especially since they've done it before and it was a disaster then.

[bluewind95]

It is possible to improve a product in some areas while making it worse in others. It is also possible to improve a product in some areas without making it worse in others. MS chose to make it worse in some areas where it did not have to. Regardless of what people think of the ribbon, the lack of interface customisability and the way it ignores the main Windows theme is a big "screw you" to people with disabilities.

Yes, exactly this. One of the first customizations I make to a new computer is changing the color scheme. I have issues reading with certain contrasts and colors (black letters on white included). So I set my theme so that it works for me. If excel goes and ignores it, welp. Yeah, that gives me trouble. The ribbon presents too much stuff at once and with colors and images and whatnot. This causes me issues too.

... So I stopped using Office. Now I use LibreOffice, which doesn't have those problems.

The Metro interface gives me similar issues, but since it's so colorful, they're even WORSE. Only color scheme I can half-tolerate on that thing is the high-contrast one where everything is black and the letters are white. Everything else gives me a headache(and it can be within only a few seconds). The lack of customization is a really big problem.

[Avilan the Grey]

I... seriously have no idea what you're talking about. How is changing wallpaper or buying a different couch not change? Could you explain your point here, because it's completely passed me by.

You keep arguing that change and improvement requires large overhauls, regardless of the quality of the thing being subject of the change. In essence, you argue for always tearing down the house and rebuild it, while we consider just replacing the wallpaper, buying a quality couch and maybe, if the improvement will be large enough, redo the pipes in the bathroom is sufficient.

[Don Julio Anejo]

A better analogy: you have a cart. Going all the way from Mesopotamian donkey-drawn war buggies, and all the way to modern 4-by-4 off-road jeeps and lunar rovers.

Suppose you have a medieval horse-drawn cart you use to move around straw or vegetables or whatever. You want to improve it because you're not satisfied with how it works.

Option A: axles break too often on the crappy dirt roads. You decide to add another axle inbetween the front and the rear one to take some load off; bringing the total number of wheels to six. It doesn't quite work as intended on rougher roads - the middle axle destabilizes the cart on rocks/pits because it pushes the cart up at its center of weight. You do some more tuning and find out it works much better if the middle axle can pivot along the vertical in the middle and follow terrain contour. However, it still takes some weight off the other two axles. In the end you create something similar to a modern APC or an ATV rover.

Option B: you want to improve the same cart because it's had a design that remained essentially the same for 3,000 years. You make the wheels square. You also install cushy seats and a stereo. Your horse kicks you in the face after having to drag it for 5 minutes. You sit there and wonder why - after all, it's actually more comfortable for you to use.

Both situations involve significant change to the basic configuration of something that's more or less remained stagnant in its design philosophy for thousands of years. However, the first involves directed change with a specific goal. The second? Useless change for the sake of change with a few bells and whistles. Adding nice seats and a stereo might be a good idea in itself, but not at the expense of having square wheels.

Stagnancy is not necessarily bad - it's simply possible that the optimum configuration has been achieved. Most vehicles have the basic "rectangle with 4 round wheels" because it works. Can you have 3, 5, 12 or 18 wheels? Sure, but for most needs 4 is sufficient? Can you use an airplane instead of a car(t)? Sure, but only for some things, and very inefficiently for some other things (like going to a farm/grocery store 2 miles down the road).

[Aotrs Commander]

For instance, I could try to write an important job application using the severed stump of my own finger rather than with a pen.

Now that's just being silly.

You'd write it with the severed stump of someone else's finger and make a point of mentioning it. Possibly including the finger with your application and a note that you thought it would be helpful for when they sign your employment contract because they won't have to go searching for a pen or something, especially as you've got nine more spare where that came from.

That would totally work.

...

Uh, what we were talking about again?

[Larkas]

Voice-control TV sounds like a bad idea if it picks up the sound of the TV show and treats that as voice commands.

Touch screen interfaces will require you to have the screen close to you, thanks to the limits of arm length. Unless you have really strong arms, this will almost certainly be closer than what most opticians would recommend for screen distance from eyes.


Voice-controlled TV? Sure, why not, sounds like a neat idea, especially when you lost the remote again. "TV, mute." "TV, channel 48."

Star-Trek like "Computer, run a level 3 diagnostic looking for something." Sorry, but mouse + command line will beat it any day.

And finally, "Firefox, look for Asian porn" is just embarassing.


Oh, I agree, it should never be the sole interface. But (assuming the accent/dialect problem is fixed) it has the potential to vastly speed up common and simple tasks. Point 3 is my main problem with it, and is harder to solve, but that's a reason it's only suitable for certain applications, not a reason why it's useless.


The problems are several.

1. Make an interface that understands thick / heavy dialects. We have at least one dialect in Swedish that is impossible for computers to understand at the moment. This leads to nagging. I already have enough problems making the computer do what I want quickly enough. I don't want to have to nag it, as well.

2. Can't really be used for anything but simple tasks. By the time you have instructed a computer to do something, a guy with a mouse has already done it. Because talking takes time. Also how do you edit documents, browse the web etc with voice command? I mean in an effective way.

3. Disturbing people around you.

Of course on occasion it works very well. Like telling my GPS where I want to drive (providing it understands my hypothetical dialect, of course). Or maybe saying "pause!" or "Start" to your TV.

Did you see today's Xbox One presentation? It seems like you're seeing the fuuuuuture guys!

[Ashtagon]

Did you see today's Xbox One presentation? It seems like you're seeing the fuuuuuture guys!

Was that on one of those new-fangled "tweevee" things?

[Larkas]

Was that on one of those new-fangled "tweevee" things?

This new Xbox will pretty much be voice activated. And it's supposed to play open television. You don't want to watch an Xbox ad in it. Or any video showing its usage. I don't know if it can be turned off. It can also be controlled by waving your hands in front of the screen, though.

[Heliomance]

You keep arguing that change and improvement requires large overhauls, regardless of the quality of the thing being subject of the change. In essence, you argue for always tearing down the house and rebuild it, while we consider just replacing the wallpaper, buying a quality couch and maybe, if the improvement will be large enough, redo the pipes in the bathroom is sufficient.

I never argued that. You keep arguing that if something works well enough, you shouldn't touch it in case you break something. I'm arguing for new couch and wallpaper, while you're claiming that the current couch has served well enough for the last 50 years, why should you replace it?

[bluewind95]

I never argued that. You keep arguing that if something works well enough, you shouldn't touch it in case you break something. I'm arguing for new couch and wallpaper, while you're claiming that the current couch has served well enough for the last 50 years, why should you replace it?

I think the problem is that Microsoft hadn't been using the same couch for the past years. They kept replacing the couch with a newer, shinier couch. Now they tossed a bed in there and put it up against the wall and put cushions on the wall to accommodate people's backs. And they're telling you "this is your new couch". Sure, it may be comfy for some people, especially the long-legged ones. But... that's just not a couch.

[Avilan the Grey]

I think the problem is that Microsoft hadn't been using the same couch for the past years. They kept replacing the couch with a newer, shinier couch. Now they tossed a bed in there and put it up against the wall and put cushions on the wall to accommodate people's backs. And they're telling you "this is your new couch". Sure, it may be comfy for some people, especially the long-legged ones. But... that's just not a couch.

No, it's the opposite:

We used to have a reasonably comfortable bed (95 and 98).

Then we got a slightly better one, with better back support and more pillows (W2k).

Then we got the opportunity to trade that in for a new shiny queen sized one. (XP).

After that, we got an offer for a really good-looking one but it lacked a few screws but it wasn't half bad and if you managed to put it together right it WAS very good (Vista).

Then they took it back, fixed all the issues for us, and somehow made it king size in the process (W7).

Then they come back and and say "sorry, your neighbour is having a smaller appartment than you do, and since he can't fit a king sized bed in his appartment you are not allowed to have one either". And then they replaced our shiny new king-sized bed with a futon couch. (W8)

And then they were very surprised when we called their customer hotline and complained because they stole our king sized bed.


I never argued that. You keep arguing that if something works well enough, you shouldn't touch it in case you break something. I'm arguing for new couch and wallpaper, while you're claiming that the current couch has served well enough for the last 50 years, why should you replace it?

Yes you did. Upgrading from W2k to XP is a brand new, fancy and comfortable couch. It has the same basic functionality but is far better designed, comfortable and better put together. My point is that the couch HAS been replaced, and fairly often. You want to remove it and replace it with something else.

Or again, my comparisson with a new 2013 Porche. Not a single piece is identical, and not even a single line; it is completely redesigned, compared to a 1993 model. Yet, if you look at it, you immediately say "That is a Porche 911". This is what the couch analogy is all about.

[pendell]

Now that's just being silly.

You'd write it with the severed stump of someone else's finger and make a point of mentioning it. Possibly including the finger with your application and a note that you thought it would be helpful for when they sign your employment contract because they won't have to go searching for a pen or something, especially as you've got nine more spare where that came from.

That would totally work.

...

Uh, what we were talking about again?

Aotrs Commander wins. Flawless Victory!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[AMX]

Microsoft just announced two new mice.
They have a Windows button.

So they removed the Start button from the OS, and put it on the mouse instead.

I don't know what to say about that.

[lesser_minion]

This is a nonsensical argument. There is no reason you can't improve things without changing them for no reason.

Change that's a definite improvement is fine. Change apparently just for the sake of change, as the ribbon seemed to be, is not. See Avilan the Grey's example on cars.

However, a person who's used to something, and who likes it, is already going to be biased against any changes. They won't necessarily accept -- or even notice -- any improvements, whether there are any or not.

If you don't believe me, a few minutes with Google should dredge up several people who think that anyone who prefers GUIs to using the command line should be taken outside and shot.

[Don Julio Anejo]

However, a person who's used to something, and who likes it, is already going to be biased against any changes. They won't necessarily accept -- or even notice -- any improvements, whether there are any or not.

If you don't believe me, a few minutes with Google should dredge up several people who think that anyone who prefers GUIs to using the command line should be taken outside and shot.
Because there are uses (CAD, hacking tools, complex data analysis) where a command line is much quicker and more efficient than any GUI can ever be.

[Flickerdart]

Microsoft just announced two new mice.
They have a Windows button.

So they removed the Start button from the OS, and put it on the mouse instead.

I don't know what to say about that.
The button is still there. Put your mouse in that corner, a little preview pops up, click and boom, start screen. Plus it's also on your keyboard. So it's not like evil big bad Microsoft kidnapped your Start button and are holding it hostage for the princely sum of however much a mouse costs these days.

[Heliomance]

Because there are uses (CAD, hacking tools, complex data analysis) where a command line is much quicker and more efficient than any GUI can ever be.

And there are far, FAR more uses where a GUI is much quicker and more efficient than a command line can ever be.

[Ashtagon]

And there are far, FAR more uses where a GUI is much quicker and more efficient than a command line can ever be.

I think you just demonstrated amply that people should use the best tool for the job.

Sometimes a command line is the best. Sometimes, yes, touch screen are best. And sometimes, the wimp interface is the best.

[Rockphed]

Honestly, I don't care if there's a metro system on it. I just want backwards compatibility, like they have with all the aero stuff and shiny things they added in XP and onwards.

I'm not alone in my disgust at the shiny? Huzzah! Everyone at work commented when they saw that I was using the windows 95 theme. Most of them just thought I was given a really old computer because I am new. Then I pulled up snipping tool and they realized their folly.


Now that's just being silly.

You'd write it with the severed stump of [I]someone else's finger and make a point of mentioning it. Possibly including the finger with your application and a note that you thought it would be helpful for when they sign your employment contract because they won't have to go searching for a pen or something, especially as you've got nine more spare where that came from.

That would totally work.

...

Uh, what we were talking about again?

I think the denizens of this forum need therapy. I really do. Now if only I could find someone willing to accept just how much therapy we all need we could make progress. Yes beautiful progress. There would be blood flowing in the streets and the bones of our enemies would dance to the song of our flutes.

...

I think that is enough weirdness for one night.

[AMX]

The button is still there. Put your mouse in that corner, a little preview pops up, click and boom, start screen.

A hot corner is not the same as a button.

Plus it's also on your keyboard. So it's not like evil big bad Microsoft kidnapped your Start button and are holding it hostage for the princely sum of however much a mouse costs these days.

I know, it just seems so bizarre...

[lesser_minion]

Because there are uses (CAD, hacking tools, complex data analysis) where a command line is much quicker and more efficient than any GUI can ever be.

I'm pretty sure you're wrong:

Let us start by assuming that we are dealing with a task that can be performed most efficiently with typed commands; and that our user interface design is not constrained by factors such as availability of resources like memory, CPU time, and disk space.

For a command line interface, the available commands will include commands to retrieve the state of the things being worked on -- commands like 'ls' and 'pwd' in Unix shells, for example. These will have to be employed in order to accomplish most tasks -- you cannot do anything without knowing what you are setting out to do.

For any such interface, we can create a GUI that accepts typed commands, but that eliminates the need for some of those commands by retrieving some or all of the information you need about the state of the system automatically.

Since such a GUI will always permit tasks to be accomplished in the same number of, or fewer operations, and since operations can be performed as quickly as they can using a command line interface, we have shown that for any possible CLI, a quicker and more efficient GUI is possible.

Therefore, there is no use where a command line is much quicker and more efficient than "any" GUI can ever be.

CAD is actually a pretty good example of this argument in action -- things like Autocad actually use a hybrid interface -- i.e., a GUI that accepts typed commands.


However, this is besides the point -- I was not talking about people who are trying to reason about the command line vs. any other option, I was talking about people who think that the command line is the One True Way and anyone not using it is an idiot and a crybaby who needs to learn how to use a computer for real.

[Aedilred]

However, a person who's used to something, and who likes it, is already going to be biased against any changes. They won't necessarily accept -- or even notice -- any improvements, whether there are any or not.
Another rhetorical masterpiece! Anyone who's satisfied with something will automatically be biased against any change to it. Therefore, when determining whether a change is for the better, their opinion should be disregarded. Therefore change is never bad, because the people who don't like it don't count.

[Aotrs Commander]

I never argued that. You keep arguing that if something works well enough, you shouldn't touch it in case you break something. I'm arguing for new couch and wallpaper, while you're claiming that the current couch has served well enough for the last 50 years, why should you replace it?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If the couch is in servicable condition and does the important job of comfortably supporting your arse, why would you replace it?

(Hell, in the case of furniture a 50-year old couch is likely to still be good, since it would have actually been designed at a time when it was made to last; a modern one is not likely to even survive that long...! S'why people still have antique wooden furniture, largely 'cos it's often better than the cheap modern alternative. But I digress.)

Change for the sake of change is never a good idea.

Change for the sake of improving something is okay, provided you make sure it is a net improvement (Windows over DOS interface, 3.x over AD&D, MLP:FiM over MLP G3.5 etc etc).

(Aethetics can "new and interesting bells and whistles" can take a running jump off a short pier as far as I'm concerned when comapred to actually doing the job at hand. FAR to much emphasis is placed on prettifying stuff these days, from graphics in games to UIs to everything instead of actually the actual functionality of the Thing in hand. I would much rather have a Thing that looks abominable but does exactly the job I want it to, reliably and efficently than a Thing that does the same job not very efficiently but much prettier.)



By the by, I semi-professionally use a CAD package and I almost never use any keyboard controls aside from tab to skip fields. I think some of it depends on how good your user interface is. TurboCAD's amazing, at least compared to the very early versions of AutoCAD I last looked at...! (Mind you, the last time I had opportunity to use AutoCAD was about ten years ago, so I assume they've improved since then...)




Aotrs Commander wins. Flawless Victory!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

*tips helmet*


I think the denizens of this forum need therapy. I really do. Now if only I could find someone willing to accept just how much therapy we all need we could make progress. Yes beautiful progress. There would be blood flowing in the streets and the bones of our enemies would dance to the song of our flutes.

...

I think that is enough weirdness for one night.

Well, in the words of my last therapist: "Aaaargh! Aaaaargh! My spleen! Aaaarghurrrrrrkkkkmmphburble *thud*" (I least I think that's how you spell it...)

Wise man.

[Ashtagon]

Most graphic design applications have to resort to text input in a great many areas. Point and click is great when you want "somewhere over there". But when you need to identify a specific point in 3d space, there's no real substitute for typing in the coordinates.

[Aotrs Commander]

Most graphic design applications have to resort to text input in a great many areas. Point and click is great when you want "somewhere over there". But when you need to identify a specific point in 3d space, there's no real substitute for typing in the coordinates.

Sometimes, yes; though as often as not it can be quicker to draw a contruction that gets you in the right place, or locating things off other things.

Not that I'm saying you could run a CADs package without a keyboard, mind, anymore than you could a word processor. It's just I find that aside from entering numbers in the right field and hitting delete occasionally (and, okay, Undo and redo, fair point), I mostly find I'm switching tools and doing most of the work with the mouse.

[lesser_minion]

Another rhetorical masterpiece! Anyone who's satisfied with something will automatically be biased against any change to it. Therefore, when determining whether a change is for the better, their opinion should be disregarded. Therefore change is never bad, because the people who don't like it don't count.

Properly evaluating change requires you to be able to recognise whatever biases you have and account for them. There is no way out of that.

My position here isn't that Windows 8 is good or bad, it's that many (not all) of its detractors never gave it a fair hearing -- which is implied by the sheer number of potential sources of bias out there. Windows 8 also had a staggering amount of anti-hype directed at it before its release, and as I've already brought up, a lot of people are intolerant of changes to things that they like.

[pendell]

Properly evaluating change requires you to be able to recognise whatever biases you have and account for them. There is no way out of that.

My position here isn't that Windows 8 is good or bad, it's that many (not all) of its detractors never gave it a fair hearing -- which is implied by the sheer number of potential sources of bias out there. Windows 8 also had a staggering amount of anti-hype directed at it before its release, and as I've already brought up, a lot of people are intolerant of changes to things that they like.

I agree with you. However, there is a point I would make.
The market is not fair. Consumers are under no obligation to give ANY product a "fair hearing".

IME the market is like a spoiled baby toddler whom you're offering a new toy. Maybe they'll like it and coo over it for completely irrelevant reasons. Maybe they'll throw it out of the pram because it's the wrong color, or it doesn't jingle quite the way they like it. Doesn't matter how much effort you put into it or how many studies you can produce showing that it's better than what came before. This is about immediate, intuitive like or dislike. Then they tell all their friends and relatives, that initial impression picks up steam, and before you know it your product has either been a terrific hit or a total flop. And that decision is made on maybe 5-15% of a total product and all the rest of it can be discarded.

Sometimes those decisions work in your favor. The original iPad for example , wasn't really that much better than the Table PC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC), but Steve Jobs made tablets cool. Now all the action is in tablets and phones and not in PCs. And I'll wager if you ask the average purchaser why they bought one they won't give you a reasoned discourse as to why an iPad meets their needs in the way that a laptop doesn't. No, it's because iPads are cool.

Other times the decision is disastrous. We still talk about the New Coke fiasco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke), but if you read the notes you'll see that New Coke actually beat both original coke and pepsi in blind taste tests. But it wasn't what people were used to, despite being objectively better. So the market through it out of the pram. Not for any other reason than people had grown used to the old one and made it part of their psychological identity. You couldn't change it without changing their own self-image, and for most people it was a step too far.

Windows 8 really is the New Coke of the 2013. It is a fine system under the hood, but A) from what I've seen, Metro is NOT something I would want on a desktop and B) most people don't have the time or patience to learn how to get to the desktop. No, they have their instinctive reaction and communicate it to all their friends. Result: Epic market fail.

So: No, Windows 8 was not given a fair hearing. But that's irrelevant. The hearing Windows 8 got is no more or less fair than any other product in business received. Which is why if you want "fair" , it's better to go into law than into business. Because we don't sell to saints or to Vulcans or to supercomputer, but to emotional, irrational, rather silly human beings.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Avilan the Grey]

I agree with you. However, there is a point I would make. (Really intelligent stuff)

You already won one Internet. Why are you aiming for two? :smallbiggrin:

[lesser_minion]

I agree with you. However, there is a point I would make.
The market is not fair. Consumers are under no obligation to give ANY product a "fair hearing".

An obligation is an obligation whether or not someone accepts it as one.

The fact that consumers don't give products a fair hearing -- and that we can't expect or depend on them doing so -- does not mean that they shouldn't.

You can look to politics if you want an analogy.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Change for the sake of improving something is okay, provided you make sure it is a net improvement (Windows over DOS interface, 3.x over AD&D, MLP:FiM over MLP G3.5 etc etc).

An interesting example...

I was starting in IT not long before the Apple Mac and Windows 3.1 first came out. When I first used the Mac I was amazed at how simple it was to do everything, and Windows was almost as easy. And remember, this was on a primative one-button mouse with no such thing as a context menu...

On the other hand, MSDOS was the single most useless command line environment I had ever used. The basic commands weren't too bad, but the scripting facilities were next to useless. Even back then, other operating systems had far more advanced command line facilities. Even in the late '90s, scripting anything in MSDOS was a painful process.

But at the end of the day it is horses for courses. For most people I expect a decent GUI is pretty much all they need to do everything, but to do anything at the OS level you need a good command line. Nearly everything I do on a server is command-line based (with a little bit of cut and paste here and there), but I will quite often dump data into a file using a command line script and then manipulate it in something like Excel.

...Where was I? Oh yes...

The "Windows 8 change for change's sake" problems are not just problems with Windows 8. Microsoft have been doing this for as long as I can remember. Every release of a product had options shifted around (for no readily apparant reason), hidden or otherwise messed around. There were true improvements, but far too many times the changes have been for changes sake.

(Oddly MSDOS didn't suffer from this - by and large the path from MSDOS 3.x to MSDOS 6.x was largely improvement, provided we forget about MSDOS 4...)

One little thing: When I used to install Windows 95, you had the option to use the old 3.1 look-and-feel, or use the new Windows desktop. Given the option, over time people drifted on to the new platform without too much fuss. It's a shame that Microsoft have allowed themselves to get so much flack over a simple choice of GUI, when they have already done similar changes the "right" way...

[Aedilred]

An obligation is an obligation whether or not someone accepts it as one.

The fact that consumers don't give products a fair hearing -- and that we can't expect or depend on them doing so -- does not mean that they shouldn't.

You can look to politics if you want an analogy.
I think this is cart before horse again, though. Inasmuch as anyone is obliged to do anything in a business relationship, the obligations all lie with the vendor, not the purchaser. The customer is never under either a moral or legal obligation to buy, or even to consider buying. They're always perfectly within their rights to walk away even from something that will improve their lives immeasurably. Once they've made a purchase, they're under no obligation to give a product a "fair hearing" before deciding whether or not they want to persist with it.

Rather, the (economic, and often legal) obligation lies with the vendor to give customers what they want. If they don't put something on the shelves that customers will buy, they'll go out of business. If they sell someone something that doesn't do what they told the customer it would, then they might face legal action, and at the very least they'll have an annoyed customer.

The vendor can address the issue through marketing and try to change peoples' minds about what they should want. But if they don't do a good enough job of this, and the customer rejects the product because they still don't want it, the vendor only has itself to blame.

And, of course, Microsoft knows this. Or at least it should. It's the way things have always worked, and getting the hang of it is one of the main reasons the company became so successful in the first place. History is replete with examples of companies which offered superior products but still went under because they didn't get one critical element of the sale process right, and no matter how much they might protest that actually it's the customer that's in the wrong, it was the company's mistake in the first place.

[Avilan the Grey]

An obligation is an obligation whether or not someone accepts it as one.

The fact that consumers don't give products a fair hearing -- and that we can't expect or depend on them doing so -- does not mean that they shouldn't.

You can look to politics if you want an analogy.

No you can't. It's not even remotely a fitting analogy.

The Market, as you so nicely call it, is based on one thing: To make us pay as much as possible for as little as possible. Preferably tons of money on something worthless.

We, as consumers, have no obligation whatsoever towards the market. Period. To argue that we do is a very VERY weird mindset indeed.

[factotum]

I'm with Avilan and Aedilred here. The company is obliged to give the customers what they want, or the customers will stop buying their product and go to someone who *does* do that. The problem, of course, is that Microsoft has a near monopoly in the desktop PC marketplace, and so the customers don't really have the option to go elsewhere--yes, they could possibly pay the Apple tax and go OSX, or install Linux on their PCs, but there are still too many things the customer might want to run that simply won't work, or will work badly, on those platforms.

This, I fear, has bred a certain arrogance in Microsoft which leads to them blithely ignoring bad customer feedback (and believe me, there was plenty of that around as soon as the first previews of Windows 8 were out) on the assumption the good sheeple will queue up to buy the product anyway. I'm rather happy they've been proved wrong in this case, as they were in the case of Vista, but they need to learn the lesson properly this time.

[137beth]

I'm with Avilan and Aedilred here. The company is obliged to give the customers what they want, or the customers will stop buying their product and go to someone who *does* do that. The problem, of course, is that Microsoft has a near monopoly in the desktop PC marketplace, and so the customers don't really have the option to go elsewhere--yes, they could possibly pay the Apple tax and go OSX, or install Linux on their PCs, but there are still too many things the customer might want to run that simply won't work, or will work badly, on those platforms.

This, I fear, has bred a certain arrogance in Microsoft which leads to them blithely ignoring bad customer feedback (and believe me, there was plenty of that around as soon as the first previews of Windows 8 were out) on the assumption the good sheeple will queue up to buy the product anyway. I'm rather happy they've been proved wrong in this case, as they were in the case of Vista, but they need to learn the lesson properly this time.

A real shame IMO: Apple doesn't have enough customizability or security for my needs, while Linux doesn't have anywhere near the level of stability or software support that I need. So I'm stuck with windows.

[Flickerdart]

The problem for Microsoft isn't that people will stop buying Windows. It's that they'll stop buying computers. PC and laptop growth is slowing, and mobile growth is skyrocketing. This was evident long before Windows 8 was even a preview.

[Aedilred]

The problem for Microsoft isn't that people will stop buying Windows. It's that they'll stop buying computers. PC and laptop growth is slowing, and mobile growth is skyrocketing. This was evident long before Windows 8 was even a preview.
This is what Microsoft seem to fear, but I think they've addressed it in completely the wrong way. I don't think people will ever lose the need for a PC-equivalent entirely, barring a paradigm shift in the whole way that computers function and people interact with them. There are some things that tablets and mobile computers just can't and probably won't ever do as well as a PC, or in some cases at all, and (some) people will still need those things. So while the PC market might shrink, it's not going to disappear entirely - or to the point that MS becomes existentially threatened - any time soon.

However, tablets are a huge new market that have supplanted some parts of the PC market as a whole... but the tablet market is already dominated by Apple and Google, so for MS to enter it is always going to be a risk. To enter the tablet market while simultaneously throwing its PC market to the wolves is extremely dangerous, and has backfired badly. Imagine if, in 2001, Microsoft had decided that the future of home computer use was in consoles, and while launching the XBox had also designed the Windows XP interface to handle primarily like a console. The XBox hasn't failed by any means, but putting all their chips on it as a company would have been disastrous, because it's never captured anything like the market share in consoles that MS have in home computing. Windows 8 was described at the time by MS as a "bet the company" moment, but there was no need for them to take such a risk.

[Grinner]

Another rhetorical masterpiece! Anyone who's satisfied with something will automatically be biased against any change to it. Therefore, when determining whether a change is for the better, their opinion should be disregarded. Therefore change is never bad, because the people who don't like it don't count.

I'm a bit late on this, but the tendency of consumers to revolt in the face of change has been noted before (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks).

[Avilan the Grey]

I'm a bit late on this, but the tendency of consumers to revolt in the face of change has been noted before (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks).

Indeed.

Regarding computer sales vs mobile sales:

I don't think it will be that "bad" as some people predict. Sales has slowed, but very few people will actually replace their PC with a tablet. Unless all you do is watch porn on your computer, you need one for so many other things. A tablet simply lack so many things compared to a computer.

[lesser_minion]

No you can't. It's not even remotely a fitting analogy.

Really? Thinking that the market somehow favours the 'worthiest' products is exactly like thinking that political systems favour the 'worthiest' leaders -- hopelessly naïve.

Every consumer has an obligation to themselves to make good decisions based on sound -- fair -- judgement. Otherwise, they're wasting their money.

There are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons why a given consumer might not want to switch OSes, and they do include "I don't want to learn a new interface". But a dodgy appraisal of the OS itself is not one of them.

It is also worth pointing out that nobody going onto an internet forum to bitch about Windows 8 -- or to defend it -- is judging it as a consumer any more.

[Avilan the Grey]

Really? Thinking that the market somehow favours the 'worthiest' products is exactly like thinking that political systems favour the 'worthiest' leaders -- hopelessly naïve.

Every consumer has an obligation to themselves to make good decisions based on sound -- fair -- judgement. Otherwise, they're wasting their money.

It is also worth pointing out that nobody going onto an internet forum to bitch about Windows 8 -- or to defend it -- is judging it as a consumer any more.

1. Exactly. Which is why we wonder why you kept arguing the "obligation" thing.

2. No actually not. If everybody had an actual obligation to always make the best choices... Well I guess theoretically we do, but thank god we are not, or we would be robots, not living beings. People drink. Smoke. Cheat. And buy things that are of sub-par quality or overpriced on a regular basis.

3. Please explain this one?

[Flickerdart]

Indeed.

Regarding computer sales vs mobile sales:

I don't think it will be that "bad" as some people predict. Sales has slowed, but very few people will actually replace their PC with a tablet. Unless all you do is watch porn on your computer, you need one for so many other things. A tablet simply lack so many things compared to a computer.
That's not the concern. The concern is that most people find that their dual-core 4GB RAM computer is good enough for everything they do. Until it breaks, they won't buy a new one. The things most people use computers for (Office suite, internet stuff) are not demanding. Windows 7 works well enough. Power and stability are no longer meaningful on their own, so Microsoft is trying to win people over with new form factors, modes of interaction, services (such as the app store), and conveniences like lightning fast boot times. Gaming? Microsoft would rather you buy an Xbox for that.

It's easy to say "oh everyone at Microsoft is just dumb". Their actions make sense if you think about it, and changes were necessary. Whether or not they were the right changes is an issue that can be debated, but putting out the same thing as before was quite literally not an option.

[Don Julio Anejo]

That's not the concern. The concern is that most people find that their dual-core 4GB RAM computer is good enough for everything they do. Until it breaks, they won't buy a new one. The things most people use computers for (Office suite, internet stuff) are not demanding. Windows 7 works well enough. Power and stability are no longer meaningful on their own(...)
Yep, that seems to be the pattern so far. Even hardcore nerds don't update their computers much unless they game excessively and have lots of disposable income.

However, a more likely scenario would be much less reliable, disposable machines that are hard (or at least expensive) to repair, with some marketing justification as to why that is ("but look, they're now 30% lighter and sleeker than before"). In effect, they'll become what TV's have become, where people for the most part buy the cheapest thing with okay-ish quality that'll physically last them 3-4 years at most.

Sure, someone like Lenovo or Dell might make high-quality, reliable, easy to repair business lines (like they already do) but the average manufacturer will eventually start pushing price, marketing and low reliability in the hopes of getting repeat business in a few years. They might not get repeat business from the same customer, but they'll get business from someone who bought a different brand and had "bad luck" with it.

Example: Sony TVs manufactured in the last 3-4 years don't last more than ~4 years on average (usually 3.5 or so) except for the very high-end model lines, but they're banking on reputation and brand loyalty to get repeat business.

[137beth]

Yep, that seems to be the pattern so far. Even hardcore nerds don't update their computers much unless they game excessively and have lots of disposable income.
I don't game on my computer, but I use it for math, so I need to regularly update my processors (but not graphics cards, this is a big reason I prefer windows to mac, I can get a strong processor without a top-line graphics card to save money). Though people who use processor-intensive programs for their work but do it on a personal computer (rather than a large-scale cluster) are probably still outnumbered by video-gamers. And yea, both groups are probably outnumbered by the people who don't care one way or the other about high-end systems.

[factotum]

Gaming? Microsoft would rather you buy an Xbox for that.


Considering the almost total lack of game content at the release announcement for the XBox One, I'm starting to think they'd rather you bought a PS4 for that... :smallwink:

[Flickerdart]

Yep, that seems to be the pattern so far. Even hardcore nerds don't update their computers much unless they game excessively and have lots of disposable income.

However, a more likely scenario would be much less reliable, disposable machines that are hard (or at least expensive) to repair, with some marketing justification as to why that is ("but look, they're now 30% lighter and sleeker than before"). In effect, they'll become what TV's have become, where people for the most part buy the cheapest thing with okay-ish quality that'll physically last them 3-4 years at most.

Sure, someone like Lenovo or Dell might make high-quality, reliable, easy to repair business lines (like they already do) but the average manufacturer will eventually start pushing price, marketing and low reliability in the hopes of getting repeat business in a few years. They might not get repeat business from the same customer, but they'll get business from someone who bought a different brand and had "bad luck" with it.

Example: Sony TVs manufactured in the last 3-4 years don't last more than ~4 years on average (usually 3.5 or so) except for the very high-end model lines, but they're banking on reputation and brand loyalty to get repeat business.
This is basically already the case. My previous laptop was a Lenovo Thinkpad X-series, and it started breaking down about three years in. My desktop, though, is older and runs just fine, so I guess desktop PCs are still a breed apart in terms of longevity.

[Don Julio Anejo]

This is basically already the case. My previous laptop was a Lenovo Thinkpad X-series, and it started breaking down about three years in. My desktop, though, is older and runs just fine, so I guess desktop PCs are still a breed apart in terms of longevity.
You are NOT making me feel good about my X230 :tongue:

[Avilan the Grey]

This is basically already the case. My previous laptop was a Lenovo Thinkpad X-series, and it started breaking down about three years in. My desktop, though, is older and runs just fine, so I guess desktop PCs are still a breed apart in terms of longevity.

It's not a quality issue as much as a heat issue. Sufficient cooling is hard to get in a laptop, that's why you should never, ever, ever actually use it in your lap, for example, but always have it on a hard flat surface and preferably on a cooling plate whenever possible. NEVER use it in your lap, NEVER use it on a pillow or on a kushion, NEVER use it on a rug or on a table cloth.

Also, if you plan to do ANYTING else than looking at pictures and reading texts, don't get an ultra thin one. It WILL cause heat damage to itself over the long term even if you only watch Netflix on it. It is enough for the graphic card to take damage over the years.

(Not to mention that people who has their laptops in their laps constantly can cause low grade heat damage to their skin on their thights).