Windows 8 Welcome Screen And Windows Explorer Screenshots Leaked | Hacker News Reader

Windows 8 Welcome Screen And Windows Explorer Screenshots Leaked

digitizor.com

68 pointsdkd90390 comments

Well, I'm sure eventually there will be something to chew on. But for now... Reading about the ribbon feels like reading that the next Cadillac will have chromed tail fins again. Intensely interesting if you're thinking about buying one, but not particularly actionable.

Which is an interesting counter-point to the Windows of so many years ago: The entire industry worked on a calendar dominated by Windows releases. Apps would be upgraded on that schedule. PC purchases would spike on that schedule. Hordes of apps would become extinct overnight as Microsoft built their features into new releases of Windows.

But now? As a developer, what does a new release of Windows mean to me? What does a new release of Windows mean to startups? Come to think of it, what does a new release of Windows mean to Microsoft?

Can Microsoft count on taxing their existing customer base in the form of upgrade revenues? Specifically, incremental upgrade revenues (people upgrading to Windows 8 that wouldn't upgraded to Windows)?

Obviously the thing will sell to OEMs and so on, and Microsoft will claim huge wins from corporate customers upgrading, but are we going to see another bit of sales jiggery-pokery where most of the revenue would be money Microsoft would have made anyways?

Quick question - what are the killer features that you would want to see in Windows 8?

I can't think of any. While Windows XP was getting a bit old (in terms of age) it did pretty much everything you'd want from an Operating System and some security weaknesses aside (which as someone working in that field matter to me, but may not to others) I struggle to find what, other than shininess and less reboots on major changes Windows 7 brings to the table. Likewise, Windows 7 is so 'good enough' I can't imagine what features would possibly make me want to upgrade. Anyone got any ideas?

Exposé. Virtual desktops.

A massive overhaul of Windows Update that turns it into part app store, part package manager. I want a Debian-like system where it's easy to add my own sources, and everything on the system is updated with one service.

So, you are anticipating features that have been in other operating systems for years?

To be fair, both features already exist as third party applications (for years).

Right, so is it really exciting for MS to make their own version?

I get quite annoyed when I read comments of the "hah, [X] has had [Y] for ages!" variety in response to questions like this, as I don't believe they are particularly helpful or address the point.

This isn't a question asking for comparisons between Windows and other operating systems - it's looking for sought-after features (whether implemented in another OS or not).

Responding otherwise always seems to end up in a fanboyesque argument (see commentary on this recent TC post on desired iOS5 features devolve into an Android-vs-Apple flamewar: http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2011/04/01/10-things-that-simply...).

I"m not saying any of that at all. My point is that probably, there are more exciting things to hope for in new versions of Windows. Or, perhaps as others have stated, there really isn't much to be excited about. All of the major desktop environments do everything a user wants, and it's really unlikely MS will do anything majorly innovative, bold or disruptive in terms of interface in the next version of Windows.

Agreed. Windows 7 is a wonderful OS. I've never said that before about a Windows version -- tho I was certainly wowed as a 13 year old first seeing Windows 95.

But package management would be wonderful.

You know, all my development is linux-based. Many of the guys I work with run ubuntu for that reason. I tried that. And I tried OSX.

But in the end, Windows 7 is the best desktop experience I've ever seen. I love it. And I just live in vbox for development which also has a ton of advantages itself.

Huh. I went from using XP at work to using Windows 7 at work, and I didn't see what all the fuss was about. The file finder was nice, but other than that... ?

Since then I've moved to OSX at a newer job. I really like the paradigm of installing apps just by putting them in a folder and uninstalling them just by deleting them. And I really like having multiple workspaces to slide between. I also have that on Ubuntu at home - not sure if Windows has it or not.

I guess overall I feel like OSX has the command-line power of Linux and even more shininess and nice UI stuff than Windows. I sort of miss easily maximizing windows, but then again, my iMac does have a pretty big monitor, so maybe that's a waste of space.

Windows 7 taskbar is certainly inspired by the dock, but it's also an improvement upon it. The context menu that each pinned item has is awesome.

The implementation of Libraries is awesome. No longer have to give a shit about where my docs or music or anything else is. It's like the gmail change from folders to tags. And it's super easy to make new libraries. I can create libraries for individual projects with code, specs, business documents, etc.

Before I had an SSD, readyboost was great. Unlike the Vista version it actually worked.

There is no longer a stability argument to be made. I've run Win7 since last april and I've had one blue screen since then. My system is often running 20, 30 days and I only restart because I've got several weeks of aggregated updates that I want to install.

The way Microsoft uses Virtual PC actually shows they have found the VM religion. I can install a program to run in "XP Mode" and create shortcuts to it, etc, as I normally would to any other program,. but it of course runs in an XP VM seamlessly. This is exciting for what it means going forward for the OS.

The "Homegroup" networking feature is great, i dont' use it myself but set it up at my dads house. His 4 PCs in the house were networking as easily as I've, in the past, setup a similar network in OSX.

It's just FAST.

Powershell is great. I don't use my OS for much: all my development is in Vbox VMs but when I do need to interact with Windows, Powershell is legit. Here's a 1 line reason why: You know how you can easily pipe output in bash from one app to the next? In powershell you can pipe actual objects, not just stdout output.

The way it handles cameras, printers, etc, that I plug in. Awesoem standardized control panel for these kind of devices instead of the old hodgepodge of whatever driver it had.

But mostly, once again, the taskbar. It turns out, when you develop in Vbox, the biggest interaction i have with my hostOS is the taskbar. The way it handles pinning, stacking, the aforementioned context menu, the way the notification area actually works now and I dont' get BS annoying "balloons" (oh god I hated balloons...)

Anyway, in good faith, those are the things that come to mind when I say I love Windows 7.

It's funny how difficult window management is in an operating system named Windows. The only useful addition to window management since XP is the addition of easy vertical maximization. The lack of virtual desktops is especially unfortunate in Windows because the taskbar gets cluttered so quickly.

The lack of virtual desktops in Windows is especially unfortunate since at least Windows 3.51 (but perhaps Windows NT 3.1) the support for multiple desktops (and multiple interactive login sessions) has been part of the operating system, but not properly exposed to users.

Disclaimer: I'm a technical person, or in some cases called geek :)

The non-technical user, I'm sure loves these large buttons, informative popup-bubbles and cool icons everywhere.

But if one is supposed to _use_ the system for anything else than the most basic tasks I have found these 'features'/designs to be more annoying.

I hope windows 8 (or whatever the next version is called) to be more minimalistic - or at least give me _the choice_ to have tiny tiny icons, lots of raw text and links, small menu-bars etc.

I don't expect any of these to actually be implemented by Microsoft as they are all major design changes, but, to name a couple:

Central standard system for software configuration.

This would be similar to the Windows registry but with larger scope. Every setting of any software would be configurable here by users. No nonstandard config files. No trying to find config files everywhere, etc. The Windows registry is only used by some programs, and in my opinion, is not at all user friendly.

This would apply to the control panel and internal settings as well. The current control panel has many different inconsistent styles for dialogs and configuration screens and can be tough to learn and tough to know where to find some things intuitively (eg: to restart your network you have to go through a 'network adapters' page).

Package Management

Windows has made strides with Windows Update, Add and Remove Programs, and standard installers, but there is a long way it could go to entirely streamlining this.

Central standard system for software configuration.

Windows already has such a central system. The registry is used by almost all apps that aren't ported over from other platforms. And anyone can ship a management console snap-in to manage registry settings for their app. It's easy. Nobody does it because it's even easier to work some UI into your app to configure things.

Package Management

Windows couldn't use package management even if it wanted to. Packages are only necessary if you want apps to share dependencies. For various reasons sharing dependencies between apps on windows is not feasible (mostly because the dependencies are proprietary). Windows tries to solve the problem the same way OS X does: ship all the dependencies with the OS itself.

No, read my paragraph, I'm aware of the registry and it is lacking.

Package management is nowhere near 'only necessary if apps share dependencies'. Compare:

1) Search google for software. 2) Search software website for download link. 3) Download. 4) Go to folder it was downloaded to. 5) Run installer. 6) Click next five times.

The same situation, but with package management: 1) Type in a single command and watch it install exactly what you want, quickly. eg: `pacman -S firefox`

I did read your paragraph. In my opinion, your issues with the registry are not with what it can do, they are with how well app developers use it. If they're not even using what's already there, why would they use something more complex?

Secondly, what you want is not a package management system, but an app store. You can build that as a third-party app today, without any additional features in windows. In fact, somebody has already done so, it's called http://allmyapps.com/

You could argue that microsoft should ship such an app store by default, any maybe they will. That would however place them in the position of having to review the apps and arbitrate them. They don't like doing that.

Hardened security, automatic restrictions on applications to stop them hogging memory/processor cycles and slowing down your machine.

A security system for programs ala Android where you have to approve what each program can do (but in more detail, eg this program may not read my files but it may store files in a private directory on my hardrive or it may access facebook.com but not any other url, etc) programs should be installed as a bundle ala MAC programs with standard directories for dll, exe, configure files, etc.

This was available for XP via a third party utility CoreForce... shame they didn't keep developing or open source it. It acted as a permissions firewall for network, file, and registry access giving you really fine-grained control.

http://corelabs.coresecurity.com/index.php?module=Wiki&a...

Integrated version control: call it something like "Tracked Folders" and build the UI into Windows Explorer. Build an efficient set of diff algorithms for text, binary, images, and media, plus visual-diff views for each. Make it work with Office's change tracking, so old changes from Office documents are automatically added to the repository. Provide a complete API, so developers can add differs and diff UIs for their own file formats. Integrate it with search, so you can have indexed search through old versions of files.

That's quite a project, but it would be a formidable response to Apple's Time Machine (a feature I've personally seen sell a few Macs).

Actually, VAX/VMS's shipped with a versioning file system, so the technology has been there for a long time.

It's been a LONG time since I've used VMS, but I'm pretty sure that the file versions were just complete copies of the prior version of the file, not deltas as any modern VC system would keep, and there was a limit (perhaps configurable) e.g. you'd have up to the last 10 versions of your file, but not the entire history since creation.

The versions were indeed complete files and not deltas. The limit to the number of files kept was a user-configurable setting, and there was a series of commands (like PURGE) to get rid of unwanted versions. (There was also an optional directory size quota, to limit disk usage by users.)

Obviously, it would take a bit of jiggering to alter the system to use deltas-- but you'd think that there would have been ample opportunity in the past few decades for someone to do that work, if desired.

First steps toward what you want exist in the next OS X:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/#versions

I don't know if it has diff capabilities though.

Something targeted at encouraging a strong hacker community around the OS - most likely lowering the barrier to entry for non-professional developers to build and distribute simple tools which add functionality in creative ways. Microsoft's idea of a developer community is still too focused on professional developers working on large scale commercial apps.

Better window management, with things like Expose, virtual desktops and window tiling. A rework of the file manager. Better integration with the command line. Basically small UI tweaks to make things slightly easier to work with. Something like Apple's Time Machine would also be kind of nice, and perhaps working to integrate some NTFS features into the core OS.

Bash and the usual tools.

Integrated off-host backup mechanisms past Apple's Time Machine, with bare-metal reinstall.

A UI that wasn't so blasted proud of itself when it successfully connected up a USB key disk, and reversing the current UI of excessive chatter for one of quiet; only tossing messages on actual errors.

Transparent, integrated VM support, and with per-application VMs.

Cross-box-portable disk installations and full software re-installation mechanisms.

PostgreSQL and SQLite integrated.

Open-source multi-platform management and deployment tools. Make me want to manage the Microsoft boxes from Microsoft boxes.

Non-obfuscated data file formats, and a simple alternative to the current and over-grown Office suite; those tools can't decide if they're a text editor or a layout tool or a spreadsheet package or a database. (And yes, Windows and Office are two sides of the same coin.)

That Microsoft management and Microsoft marketing folks shut up until they actually have something to show, rather than their usual model of unintended death of product interest by a thousand leaks.

Stability is a given. No advertising is a given. Cleaning up the most fetid piles of legacy is a given. Fast install is a given. Fast upgrade is a given. Fast upgrades are a given. Fast roll-up patches are a given.

And all of which runs contrary to the existing Microsoft and Office implementations and models in the current market.

But I question why end-users are involved with Killer Features questions. Users classically stink at inventing Killer Features. All of what I've posted above are me to features. Not Killer Features. (In all honesty and not intending to slam Microsoft here, I can't identify the last killer feature that Microsoft came up. Which gets back to the 'good enough' comment.)

No advertising is a given.

In their defense, I think we have the PC manufacturers to blame for this one. I do agree that Microsoft should push hard to minimize that stuff though.

Look at the current windows UI and count how often you read 'Microsoft' or 'Windows', or how often you see a big gaudy Windows logo somewhere. It's gauche. It's tasteless. It's pointless. It's over-branding.

If I'm paying for something, I don't EVER want to be advertised to about it again. I made my choice. Don't make me regret it.

Consumer grade security enhancements. ROM-able boot chain validation support. A fine grained version of Mandatory Integrity Control that supports individual profiles, ships with profiles for popular applications and allows ISV's to embed requested access in their signed installers. A home user focused Steady State type application that allows them to reload the core OS from a known good repository on demand without breaking most user mode applications. An extended validation type code signing policy for anything that isn't user mode.

Hey, a lot of them may not be realistic but I don't have to implement them.

* DNS server--I'm tired to install BIND on every laptop with Windows 7.

* Analogue to rpm/yum.

* Virtual desktops.

* Rebindable keyboard & mouse bindings for the system WM.

* 'Follow mouse' focus (and an ability to drag any freaking window with Alt+Mouse-1).

* Lightweight & tiny pdf-viewer.

* Something like sysinternal's Tcpview.

* System-wide spellchecker.

* Integrated version control.

Why do you install BIND?

Several reasons:

1. I can use custom (internal) domain names for my vmware virtual machines.

2. I don't have to depend on shady DNS servers on public wifi networks.

Apart from features like package manager, proper firewall (manually configurable rules with more options than allow/block), apparmor/selinux equivalent, virtual desktops, I'd simply like it to be more responsive. I use a windows laptop at work for 2 things really - visio and outlook. Compared to other linux systems I use, it's simply slow to respond, even though it's a new, high spec, multicore machine.

Also, networking in a domain could be finally fixed... Plug out the cable while you're logged in to a domain - freeze. Suspend, unplug, change rooms, plug in, resume - freeze, "windows explorer is not responding".

Have you used Windows 7 much? The firewall is no longer the "Allow/Block" only version that was included in previous versions.

And similarly, I've found it quite responsive. If you're on a laptop -- and it's Vista -- then it probably suffers from the same issue a lot of laptops do: it's not the cores that's the problem, it's the RPMs. Pop a SSD in there and it'll sing. In the meantime, if you're on Win7, stick a USB stick in and let Readyboost do it's thing. At least 2 GB. Preferably bigger. Readyboost never wowed me in Vista and in 7 it's still not "wowable" i guess (i mean, wowable is a high bar to attain) but it definitely works to speed things up.

Considering I've got a crappy, bottom of the range laptop at home and the latency of all actions is much, much lower (on ubuntu), I'm sticking to "7's fault" rather than buying more equipment. The other laptop has a 7200 rpm disk with 16GB ram to use for (pre)caching and I'm complaining about latency of basic action like work with Outlook or using explorer to look through folders - how hard can it be to display emails/files?

Thanks for the info about the firewall - I can't find anything advanced however. Have you got some links / screens? I can see only the same old on / off / per-application thing.

Ooh maybe you're on Windows 7 home? I'm on professional. That could be a difference.

When I use it, I go to: Control Panel > System and Security > Windows Firewall and then select "advanced settings" on the left. Do you have that option?

Better networking. It still baffles me that I can launch a FTP client and connect to my web server in a fraction of the time it takes Explorer to discover the other systems on my network. Even connectivity to partitions mapped as network drives can be slow. If you launch an application that loads the last file you were working on, and the file is on a mapped drive, it's not uncommon for the load to fail.

* tagging files system wide (all files, not just some formats)

* user friendly hard links.. to be able to have one file in more folders (I know it is possible with NTFS, but it is quite pain to do)

I'd love for Microsoft to have the nerve to make a fresh start. Windows 7 is brilliant for anyone that wants it to continue to use: Windows 8 can be rebuilt from scratch as a new operating system without any concerns for backwards compatibility.

Yeah, sort of like the way they threw out their old smartphone OS and started from scratch with WP7. I suspect this would be heresy for their main OS, sadly.

EDIT: typo

- query-able versioned filesystem (whatever happened to winfs?) - built-in appstore a-la osx (which would be huge for startups aiming at desktop development, freeing them from the piracy issues)

> whatever happened to winfs?

WinFS was marketing through vaporware. MS were scared of ZFS making into OSX and had to show something to say "look, we aren't so much behind the others" so less people would be tempted to migrate. They do it all the time. Last thing I perceived as being that was the ARM support for Win8. I would be very surprised if it materializes as a product, but they just had to say "look, we are not chained to x86".

Longhorn being all managed code (Java envy?), WinFS (every-other-modern-filesystem-envy?)... The list goes all the way back to Windows for Pen Computing (GEOS-envy?). They make outrageous claims and launch so-so stopgap products so that corporations have an excuse not to move away from Windows.

> WinFS was marketing through vaporware.

That may be how it looks from the outside, but from the inside that's not what it looked like at all. The WinFS team Truly Believed in what they were building. They tried to get Office on board with coordinating data through there; tried to get the OS on board; tried to get all the app partners together to make the whole "queryable store with all of your information and explicit relationships between all items" vision work.

But, the tech just couldn't get there, no matter how well that team delivered. They were in the worst possible space. Below them, they had huge dependencies on the .NET framework, which was at the time proven for small applications but still in its infancy scaling up to a system-wide service, and WinFS was not the top-tier internal client that Avalon, SQL Server, and many others were. Above them were a huge set of application dependencies, none of whom wanted to make a bet until they knew WinFS was a winner (playing dependency chicken -- you're on our schedule because our VP demands it, but I'll only do my work when you show me that everyone else has done theirs).

Of course, I was just in developer tools at the time and only saw it as a third party, so my view could be a bit off. But I'd caution against assuming that there is some amazing marketing organization at MSFT that is carefully concocting ill-scoped and ill-planned projects just to maliciously steal airtime from your favorite other projects. The reality was quite different. Sometimes, projects fall short of their plans. And if they're ambitious, sometimes becomes often.

I don't think Microsoft's developers are guilty of this. I have several good friends in there (we agree we are on "the Other Side of the Force") and I am sure they do their best to build great products and, sometimes, they do succeed (I don't give SQL Server the same harsh criticism I give Sharepoint - shrugs - or Exchange).

Unfortunately, it's not the tech guys who are running the company. What products get announced and how they are pitched is not up to them. And those who decide the roadmap don't care if a new technology is shipped or even if it's possible to deliver what they specified, as long as it helps them get their bonuses. There is a high correlation of what gets announced to current tech fashion. That indicates either that MS product roadmap is uncannily tuned into the IT zeitgeist (so that you can deliver stuff when fashion demands it) or that actual planning is shallower than would be needed to really be in that position.

> Unfortunately, it's not the tech guys who are running the company

I can believe that is the case now. Things had been becoming more marketing/business driven even when I left back in ~2006. And I was in Developer Tools, which was much more run by the tech guys than the "profitable" parts of the company :-)

I've been waiting forever for a damn extended taskbar for dual monitors. Multimon works OK, but I just don't see how a feature like this can be ignored for so long in a software company where (hopefully) tons of people use dual monitors internally.

I'm not sure how actionable these requests are, but the things frustrating me about windows are:

* Lack of decent symlinks (I know there are ways to accomplish it, but they always seem to have tradeoffs and problems)

* Lack of a decent terminal window with straightforward copy/paste and resizing (Console 2 helps, but it's still less than ideal)

* File locking - I hate this. Can't we have the unix approach instead?

* Notification bubbles - way too annoying

Difficult to say if this is a April-fools joke, but if not, here is my thoughts.

I hope Microsoft does not apply the ribbon UI to all their future programs as it takes a lot of pixles and makes the menu messy and complex. The minimalistic side of me would hope for more shortcuts and _one_ place where you did settings/preferences for a program. I believe Mac OSX has done this very good with their system preferences panel and globally accessible cmd+',' shortcut in order to get to the preferences of current program.

And what is up with that background picture?

I will agree with you that OS X Preference windows are easy to natigate and often have very apt UX for various types of preferences.

However, the menubar system (File, Edit, View, etc) as it currently stands is in much need of improvement. How many times have you hunted for an action/preference in the menubars to no avail? It's rows and rows of text with no visual feedback for various types of actions.

The only improvement of late has been the addition of a live "search and hunt" (by that I mean, type in a search keyword and it will hunt it out of the menu and point to it).

Yes, I agree with you on the 'file, edit, view, window' etc. This need some rethinking and redesigning, but I'm not sure these huge ribbons is the right way.

Hence my example to Mac OSX cmd+',' : if I want to edit some preferences in my program I know where to do it. In windows the preferences can be both under 'file', 'view' or 'window' for that matter.

This is only an example, but the Windows-line has proven to have almost non-existing 'rules' for how to layout preferences and this affect mainly the non-technical user.

How many times have you hunted for an action/preference in the menubars to no avail?

not sure which OS you're talking about, but in OSX all menus are searchable via the help menu (top entry in help menu is a search field. type here and it will highlight matching menu items in any menu)

[Edit: this video shows what I 'm talking about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOoOvIqiWe0&feature=playe...]

I find it easier to locate things in a well-organized system of menus than I do on the "Ribbon" where everything is just sort of in your face. Countless times I've stared at the ribbon for minutes trying to find what I want to do, only to suddenly spot it and realize it was right in front of me all along, but because it's so busy nothing stands out.

My number one peeve with MS is the Ribbon and if that becomes global in Windows 8 I'm finished with the platform.

These ribbons look to be the same thing that exists in MS outlook. I must say that I think the outlook UI is messy. Way too much going on. If I used it more I would spend more time to learn the shortcuts. Since I don't know them I have to hunt through the numerous icons/options in the 'ribbon' like header which can be very frustrating.

I don't understand people who say this about the ribbon UI. "Messy and complex"? Do you remember what Office XP looked like on startup? Literally forty different, tiny anonymous icons?

> ...it takes a lot of pixels...

Just want to point out that you can hide it so it looks like a normal menu bar until you open a menu - seems a lot of people aren't aware of that feature.

I hope this isn't even close to the final design. With their Metro UI on Windows Mobile 7 they took a big step into the right direction - an all-flat, simple, clean interface that got rid of all those shiny, glossy elements. Why wouldn't you stick to that approach when it comes to your flagship product? Especially given the fact that Windows Mobile 7, despite lacking in certain features, received a lot of praise for their original and well executed UI philosophy. Additionally this is a chance to unify the interfaces of the desktop and the mobile OS.

Some may say that this interface doesn't work on the desktop, but have you seen the Zune software? It looks clean, original, simple, yet very modern and substantial. That piece of software should have been the template for the whole operating system.

Some kind of incentive program to stop OEMs loading new PCs up with crapware. Most importantly, Microsoft Security Essentials installed by default thus removing the need for Norton/Mcafee/whatever. Sure they might get a bit of "anti-trust" flak for it, but it would be worth it to the end user.

I do student laptop support for a university at the moment, while I won't be doing it by the time Windows 8 comes out it'd be nice to think my sucessor on the job doesn't have to wade through tonnes of default installed junk to connect to the university wireless.

"The Windows explorer has also got a lot of new stuffs - mainly the inclusion of ribbons. Ribbons was first introduced in Microsoft Office 2007 and in Windows 7, it was used in other applications such as Paint, WordPad etc. The Ribbons UI makes it possible for users to notice features much more easily than the old menu based system.

No doubt some people will complain about the change. However, I believe that the Ribbon UI is quite a good and refreshing replacement for the old menu based system."

So to summarize:

IE9: "We have the cleanest UI out there, more space for content, less UI! Streamline!"

Windows Ribbons: "Show it all to the user! Less space for content, more UI, expose every option all the time!"

And we wonder why Microsoft is conflicted. (yes I will admit to being a 'Ribbon Hater')

You know you can just double click on a tab of the ribbon and it will hide, right? I'm a sort of ribbon lover by the way! :)

Just not buying that this real. Why would they reuse Windows 7 wallpaper, and return to NT style login. It is a repost from: http://www.withinwindows.com/ looks like they enjoyed the traffic too much to let it go, as a follow up reveals more detail: http://www.withinwindows.com/2011/04/02/windows-8-secrets-wi...

If these are real, they're screenshots of an early internal build. It'll be a while before they start adding the final artwork.

Are you referring to "press ctrl-alt-del to login" as NT style login? This style is still in Windows 7 if you set your network up like that.

Sorry, didn't mean to hit "down" arrow, meant to mod-up :)

You're entirely right, that's a domain-policy option. It's a security feature to require a Ctrl+Alt+Del before showing a password box.

I think Microsoft will move Windows towards Metro, as Apple moves OS X towards iOS. Which is good, since both Metro and iOS are both less tech, and more human.

Where do Microsoft hire their designers from? How can one of the richest companies in the world not be able to hire crack designers to actually produce something more than a glossy tacky UI.

Or is Microsoft so engineer/developer focused that they let the engineers design the interfaces that normal every-day people will use.

And if Windows 8 is supposed to be the touch friendly OS from the ground up, why are they still relying on Ctrl + Alt + Del and implementing that god awful Ribbon UI across the board?

> why are they still relying on Ctrl + Alt + Del

I bet it's gonna be optional.

> and implementing that god awful Ribbon UI across the board?

Well, that's for consistency, although I am not entirely sure it's a good move, time will show.

> why are they still relying on Ctrl + Alt + Del

That's a security measure. No application can hook into Ctrl + Alt + Del... the OS always handles it. This way, a malicious application can't phish you with a fake login screen.

If they were to pick another key combination to reserve for the OS, they would break backward compatibility.

That ribbon is taking up way too much space considering 80% of it is disabled.

Considering how massively pre-alpha the software undoubtedly is, I'm not about to leap to conclusions.

I would love to be able to have full customization of folders and navigation structure on my windows pc. things like 'games' 'searches' 'links' etc. that nobody (I've not seen one) uses annoy appearing in start menu and all other places eating up screen realestate and making it harder to use. And actually its really hard to get rid of them if not possible. You keep deleting them from various dialog boxes and they some of them keep coming back making it feel like you trying to kill a zombie that keeps coming back with one organ less each time.

Can anyone else not stand the ribbon UI? It drives me nuts. If ribbon UIs are going to be even more pervasive in Windows, I'm even more glad I switched to Mac.

The ribbon UI to me is like those websites where you have to hunt for a link. I can't stand it either.

Lousy use of space is something that turned me away from Windows from the start, and they are still wasting space. Worse though, it is harder to find alternatives that don't; even Mac OS X these days has more and more iTuneseque apps that fill a huge display without adding much. I think I was happiest with Window Maker on Linux or Solaris.

The screen shows "Friday April 1", April fools?

Here is the original post with more Pictures

http://www.withinwindows.com

Ribbon on explorer is a bit weird but better then then win7 no menu, weird context sensitive button bar.

What a mess, so much clutter still going on. Doesn't look like a very pleasant or easy UI to use.

That's a huge menu! Respect!

I wonder if they'll continue the pattern they've set so far- Win95 => Win98SE : Win2000 => WinXP : WinVista => Win7

The OS changes on a more fundamental level every other release. (At least, this is how I see it)

So does that imply Win8 is likely going to be another 'rewrite' (not that they necessarily start from scratch)?

P.S. Yes, I am ignoring WinME.

You're also ignoring WinNT, which became Win2k, which became WinXP. The real story is more complicated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT

That's what they've done with NT for the past 4 releases, yes. 2000 was the first NT5, XP was the second. Vista was the first NT 6, Windows '7' was the second. The actual version numbers of Windows, unlike the marketing names, reflect this release style.

Actually, the reason WinXP is 5.1 (instead of 6) and Win7 is 6.1 (instead of 7) is for "maximizing application compatibility":

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/archive/b/windowsvista/ar...

Ah, but they care about maximizing application compatibility more for some versions than others. Will microsoft care as much about app compatibility for windows 8 as they did for windows 7?

They sure don't care about IE 9 being compatible with XP. Breaking third party software and hardware is more of a pain, though, as Vista proved. That was most of the problems they had with Vista, but I guess they are over that hump at this point.

Windows 8 is 6.2. But I doubt it has any relation to the content.

Why would it not?

Yes, I think you're right. Remember that Windows 8 will run on ARM, which means major rewriting will be involved.

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