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Comment by ethank | Hacker News Reader

Metro to me, and I hate to say it, reminds me of MS Bob, and frankly of the original Windows 3.1 except where in that case it was a layer on DOS, this seems like a gloss on Windows 7. I hope for the sake of innovation I'm wrong, but it is frankly more bizarre than Launchpad (and that's saying something).

Let me show: https://skitch.com/ethank/f3drj/windows-8-x64-preview

then https://skitch.com/ethank/f3drc/windows-8-x64-preview

and... https://skitch.com/ethank/f3dr1/windows-8-x64-preview

after you go back to metro: https://skitch.com/ethank/f3dri/windows-8-x64-preview

dumped back into Metro with no context how you got out.

Thus: feels like a skin or window manager, not the OS.

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"like a gloss on Windows 7" - From what I've read[1] so far this is not the case. The APIs that 'Metro style' apps use are built deep into Windows. In fact it seems more like the opposite - legacy Windows is treated more like another app that you can switch to, if you're on x86/x64 machine.

[1] http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-devel...

I'm speaking from the beta. The act of going between a "traditional" looking UI and Metro and what is available in each is very disjointed.

It's not a beta!

Yeah, exactly. It's alpha, and it feels that way. That the dev preview doesn't resume state well when you go from Metro -> Desktop -> Metro didn't surprise me in the slightest. I'm sure it's one of a litany of features and fixes they're planning on.

And this is why kudos must be given to Microsoft for not making the distinction between "Developer Preview" and "Beta" more noticeable. Wasn't one of the reasons behind Vista's huge flop being that in the betas, driver support was incredibly lacklustre?

It's not a direct parallel, but this and the fact that companies like Google have completely upturned the definition of "beta", or well, pre-releases in general, seems to show how people come to their final judgement very easily.

I suppose that could be why Apple doesn't release things until they're well and truly ready for the limelight.

Win32 and Metro are both User Mode subsystems running on the same MinWin NT Kernel and you flip flop back and forth between them based on what you're doing.

Hitting the windows key brings up the start screen. It's supposed to do that, kind of like how the iPhone always takes you to the first page of apps.

Task switching is done by swiping on from the left or hitting Win+Tab. I just tried it, Windows+Tab brings you right back in the control panel where you left.

It could probably be clearer, but the Windows button takes you to the Windows front page, it's not a toggle between desktop and metro.

I think the act of flipping between them is not meant to be a common event. But I do agree they do need to clean up the edges, although I don't think its "critical" for v1 of Metro.

I disagree actually. I think cohesiveness should be a pre-requisite for the release of this.

Achieving cohesiveness in such a system will be very difficult though. There's a reason why Apple chose to keep OS X and iOS separate.

I do agree that cohesiveness is important to the user experience. It makes me a little disappointed that the extra step wasn't taken to make the Metro UI live on its own without the full desktop experience tagging along.

I don't think cohesiveness across these systems needs to be a prereq. In classic mode things should work great. In Metro mode things should work great. Bumpiness in transition, IMO, is acceptable for v1.

To put it another way, I'd much rather have bumpiness shipped on day X rather than a delay to clear up all the transition bumpiness and ship 6 months after X. Although I'd like to see updates that fix the transitions come out a 8-12 months after release.

Then why even put Metro on if they are striving for only half a level of perfection? Why not wait until they've got it solid before releasing?

What would make me very pleased is if they delayed 6 months to get it right rather than rush it out.

Why do you keep pushing on the idea that this is some sort of finished release of Windows 8? It's a developer preview, that's alpha stage at best.

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