Final thoughts on Windows 8: A design disaster | Hacker News Reader

Final thoughts on Windows 8: A design disaster

zdnet.com

162 pointsmtgx203 comments

> I’m going to avoid commenting on Metro on touch-based systems for now because Windows 8 is too far off in the future to know what the hardware is going to be like. Instead, I’m going to limit my discussion to using the operating system on desktop and notebook systems.

I think he roundly missed the point.

Yes you scan over the screen and it might be hard to find the things you want on day one. That's how it was with our iPhone and Androids too on the first day we got them.

You all know what happens. People rearrange to their taste or memorize the locations of the less-than-five applications that they commonly use. It's not as if the "where's waldo" game goes on indefinitely.

I think he's being intentionally obtuse about this. Windows is trying to unify their UI among the XBox, Phones, Tablets and Desktops and he wants to focus on the one where it will be less useful than the others by complaining about a problem that literally every smartphone user has already solved by day three.

Typing the name of the app you want is clumsy, you say? More clumsy than eyeballing a list that gets rather large?

http://i.imgur.com/Z0pCc.png

If you know what you want, typing is vastly easier than scanning a long startmenu list of items.

I disagree that he missed the point. People use Windows because they already use Windows. If a new version of Windows is as hard to learn as OS X or Linux, then there's not much point in continuing to use Windows. (The same goes for Office. People use Word and Excel because they know how to use Word and Excel. Otherwise, they'd be saving themselves the license fee and be using Libre Office or Google Docs.)

Your Office point kind of loses traction since I'd say the Office 2007 was a bigger change from Office 2003 than Windows 8 is to Windows 7.

Honestly Windows 8 doesn't change how people use computers that much. Most people use the start menu to ~search~ for a program. I.E. they hit start and begin typing. You can do the same exact thing with the Start screen.

Aside from the start screen, Windows continues to work in basically the same way it always has.

>Most people use the start menu to ~search~ for a program.

Is this true? I mean it might be but it seems like something MS would have numbers on.

If only there was an OS where you typed what you wanted in an omnibox and it would just work...

Are you talking about Alfred on Mac OS X?

I'm gonna guess he's talking about ChromeOS.

I LOVE Alfred - it beats Spotlight hands down! The best equivalent I've used for windows is Launchy. Honestly Alfred has changed the way I use my Macbook :)

I wonder if Microsoft's numbers (which we're assuming they have and use) aren't skewed by the usage patterns that they create, with users taking the path of least resistance for the given options, which are themselves sometimes paths of a-fair-amount-of resistance.

For instance, I frequently switch windows in Win7 with Alt+Tab, but also dip into the task bar quite often to click the Word icon, then identify the correct Word document open, then move the mouse to the document... neither of which are particularly efficient.

The only approximate solution I can think of would be having a touchscreen above my F-keys to select apps with. I can imagine MS have no data on how well that would work.

I worked at a very Windows-heavy company until last year, and we were still on a very old version of Office when I left. (It was the pre-ribbon Office. 2005?) The reality was all the knowledge the employees had (not to mention their shitty macros) didn't transfer to the new version, so we simply did not upgrade.

The reason new laptops ship with a new version of Windows rather than Ubuntu is because people are used to fighting changes in their software, but they'll notice that they don't have "the real thing" when they buy a $13 Windows-only LED keychain charger and it doesn't work when they plug it in to their computer. Then they'll complain to their computer's OEM, and Microsoft will laugh evilly. (I don't really understand it. The amount of hardware I never got to work in Windows is approximately the same as the amount of hardware I never got to work under Linux.)

> I.E. they hit start and begin typing.

Who are these users and how do I get a job supporting them? I provide support to over 100 people and I've yet to find a single one who uses that particular feature. And now they're supposed to learn how to use "hot corners" (or whatever it's called)? Ugh.

I have never seen anyone do this. Ever.

I do this literally a hundred times every day.

Same, it's a magnitude times more productive than hunting down program's through nested menus with your mouse.

"I.E. they hit start and begin typing." -- people do that because the start menu in W7 has a text box that says "Search programs and file" and a visible caret telling them they can type. In W8 you do not get any visual clues to tell you that you can type to search.

I do like this feature of Windows, although it sometimes leads to the following non-optimal workflow:

Start -> i-t-u-n-e-s -> Hit Enter -> Am now reading "About iTunes" -> Alt-F4 -> Start -> i-t-u-n-e-s -> Choose the second result this time.

Yeah it is horrible at knowing what you are more likely to want. Doesn't even require that much thought, just put applications first.

It's improved in Win8. The results are sorted in some kind of MRU or frequency of use order. So the first time you have to look to not launch iTunes Help, but the second time iTunes will be on top.

People use Windows because it comes installed with the computers they buy.

The customer market for Windows is already slowly transitioning away from Windows. I think it's logically to say that if the consumer market goes, the corporate market will fall soon after that. Microsoft could have either ignore this, as Apple continues to sell more and more Macs and iPads or they respond with something to take on what Apple see's as the future of their consumer facing business: the iPad. Microsoft chose the action that might have a chance to actually turn this trend around… Time will tell if it works.

I'm no Windows fan (I can't imagine ever going back to Windows), but you've got to be kidding me if you think people only use it because they already use it. How about because it's far easier to use and less fiddly than Linux? How about because the software selection is vastly superior to both Linux and OS X? How about because almost any computer (including Apple's) can run Windows AND all your hardware will work just fine with it, while if you want to run OS X, you'll have to buy an expensive machine from Apple, and if you want to run Linux, you better pray there's decent driver support for your peripherals.

The situation has gotten a lot better over the last decade for OS X and Linux users (though Windows has also improved a lot), but we're a FAR cry from a world in which the only valid reason to use Windows is momentum.

I won't even bother trying to list all the reasons to use Word and Excel (especially Excel) over Libre and Google Docs. Google Docs is a child's toy compared to Excel.

Really, they use it because that's what they are used to. Or mainly that's what was forced at work.

For example for years we've used Outlook Express, then people moved to Outlook. Everyone uses Excel, Word, etc. - because the company provides it, and people if they want to finish their work at home, would use whatever they learned.

I for example learned so much P4Win (the discontinued Perforce client from years), that even if it's less performant (syncing for example, because it's done by 4096 bytes), I still use it more than P4V (the new client), because I simply know it all, so much that I feel P4V as step-back (it's not, but because of slower redraw it feels that way. P4V is way faster than P4Win, and multithreaded).

So color me stupid, but since then, I'm using P4V for heavy tasks (after carefully, and consciously clicking here and there), and then for day to day things - changelists mainly - I'm with P4Win...

Sorry for dragging into this, but I'm just showing an example. And at home for my projects I don't even consider perforce, never use it. (But if it was like office app, I might've).

So why would I want for my productivity tools (which I don't have much fun, but more work) a change?

You're a student. You don't really know much about computers. You need a notebook to type papers on. You have $500. What are you going to buy?

From my experience, students don't usually have $500 laying around, hence all the student versions.

They do when that sweet financial aid check comes around.

Of course, I've seen many a financial aid check go to Apple

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/campaigns/back_to_school?ai...

I got my last Dell for just about that, wth Linux pre-installed.

And everything, from IDEs to LibreOffice, to R, to programming languages, to databases came for free.

> How about because it's far easier to use and less fiddly than Linux?

It really isn't. Unless you cherry pick the wrong hardware, it just works. And keeps working for ages.

> How about because the software selection is vastly superior to both Linux and OS X?

I'll agree the selection is larger. As for its superiority, that is debatable. In fact, I consider OSX's experience less confusing. And the package managers you find on Linux are vastly superior to the Googpe-browse-download-run-next-next-finish experience most Windows users have to endure.

> How about because almost any computer (including Apple's) can run Windows AND all your hardware will work just fine with it, while if you want to run OS X, you'll have to buy an expensive machine from Apple, and if you want to run Linux, you better pray there's decent driver support for your peripherals.

It's hard these days to buy a computer that won't run Linux properly. You really need to plan your mistake. As for Macs being more expen

sive, they are also better built. There is no Mac competing with the US$300 HP notebook, of course, but the US$1000 MacBook has feature parity with US$1000 machines from Dell, Acer and Lenovo. Plus, it's pretty.

It's true that the computer components themselves have good support, but that doesn't yet extend to many printers, smartphones, gps devices or suchlike.

It's been a long time since I last met an unsupported printer. Multifunction devices are a sore spot, but they are the epitome of amateur equipment in any case. Any half-decent printer has very good support from CUPS. And what smartphone are you talking about? I don't have much experience with iPhones, but my iPod works just fine (as much as the lack of iTunes allows) and my Android phones work perfectly. I wouldn't be surprised if Windows Phone has problems, but I woulnd't call Blackberries and Symbian devices smartphones by current standards.

I'll admit that I was mainly reminescing about hardware from the previous decade when writing that. But the general point of "windows officially, linux maybe" remains.

How about because almost any computer (including Apple's) can run Windows AND all your hardware will work just fine with it

Ah, no. Having been a windows support/user for nearly 20 years, I am all too familiar with the 'find-the-drivers' dance, in particular, find-the-network-drivers, from which you can manually search the internet and find the rest. Then you get the fun of having a series of different things keeping themselves updated. A friend of mine even when so far as to make a 'golden XP installer', which was a standard XP install disk slipstreamed with 686 different network card drivers.

And boy it's fun trying to find the right Windows drivers. Easy for us experienced folk, because we know what scam sites look like. But to naives, it can be hard to tell the difference between what might work and scam sites, let alone actually trying to find the name of the chipset you're hunting for.

So if the argument is 'ease of installing', Windows most definitely does not get a free pass.

Windows, Linux, and OSX are about equal in terms of ease of driver install. That is, it either has the driver or uses a fall-back driver while it goes online and grabs a new one. Only difference is, most Windows drivers work this way because companies make drivers for Windows. There are a few too many Linux exceptions because companies don't make drivers for Linux.

If you're bringing 20 years of experience into the driver discussion, you're not giving enough weight to Windows 7, where drivers are rarely a problem. For the naive, there's generally a restore DVD/partition with all the drivers included. If you can't hunt for drivers, chances are you didn't built your PC yourself.

The argument of 'but drivers are hard on linux' is a throwback to the days when drivers were also hard on windows, it's just that we were used to the Windows way of doing things so it was familiar. I'm just saying that Windows doesn't get the free pass that the OP was implying.

When the Ribbon first appeared (in a radical redesign of Office) I heard relatives and friends say they "didn't like the new Windows". They didn't even realize at the time that only Office had changed, not Windows. The upgrade was being forced on them by their workplace IT departments.

That's what it boils down to: people don't like it when change is forced on them. It's one thing if you see a cool new product on a shelf, choose to buy it and are happy to try something new; it's quite another to have your existing products keep changing.

This is human nature. And that's why Microsoft is insane to radically change Windows; they're going all "new Coke" on their cash cow. If they really wanted a new product then they should have created a new product: new name, new marketing, new everything, leaving the existing product alone!

This problem isn't limited to Microsoft. I've been disappointed by several iPhone app purchases for instance, as companies keep "improving" their apps with updates and occasionally destroy the essence of the original that I liked so much (e.g. maybe they mess up the UI so it's not as good, or they add in-app-purchasing crap). That's not the way to treat existing customers. Sometimes products should just be left alone.

The thing is that Windows isn't Microsoft's cash cow.. in the consumer space. It is and mostly always has been the enterprise market.

I'm very curious to see whether they will use the Metro UI in their server OSes. My bet is, they won't, or if they do they'll either put out a new edition fairly quickly, or will roll it back even faster to the traditional UI.

What is "Metro"? Server 2012 does use the new start menu, if you want to call that "Metro"

Metro is the wp7 style tile interface, with one fully maximised app open at once.

"Metro and WinRT may be at the heart of Windows 8 on the desktop, but they're purely adjuncts on the server. The charms and contracts are there, along with the Start Screen, but you're hardly likely to see them as you can manage much of a server from inside Server Manager or via PowerShell (or externally via RSAT and System Center)."

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/server-os/2012/06/11/screensh...

This is going to be funny. When ME came out, enthusiasts started using Windows 2000 on their desktop.

Now with MEtro, maybe they'll again go Win 8 Server.

I agree that change for change sake is frustrating, but I jumped from Office 2003 to 2010 and a year later I still hate it. It's not just a matter of it being different. It's demonstrably worse. Things that took 1 click now take 3 or more. I also went from XP to Windows 7 and I can't stand it either. Why do I need libraries and all the confusion that comes from a library location and a 'real' location?

I'm enjoying Office 2010 a lot. Especially OneNote and Outlook. Everything is so nicely done, and I'm a power-user so I'm actively using it to the limits.

But I'm a power-user and I use keyboard short-cuts, categories, search folders, write my own add-ons if I need them etc.

If MS didn't do a radical redesign now and then, people might catch on to the fact that they're being sold the same thing over and over for each new computer they buy.

> (The same goes for Office. People use Word and Excel because they know how to use Word and Excel. Otherwise, they'd be saving themselves the license fee and be using Libre Office or Google Docs.) reply

I can tell you that this is definitely not the case. I've used Word a lot in (non-software) engineering setting, and there are a large number of features used on a regular basis that simply are not available in LibreOffice or Google Docs. Things like citation support, text wrapping for images, and a good equation editor.

> Things like citation support

http://download.zotero.org/integration/Zotero-LibreOffice-Pl...

I've written grant proposals and papers published in peer reviewed journals with LibreOffice and that plugin.

I have to agree with this comment.

As unglamorous as it is, Excel is great, and you can also create some _very_ powerful software rather easily with VBA.

I hate excel. For some reason, it has become the standard for creating any grid-based documents, even though the table support in word would often be far superior when equations aren't needed.

I hate the lack of smooth scrolling, especially when you have differing cell heights. I hate the lack of cell padding, leading to manually sizing every row.

Most of all, I hate the total lack of focus. What sort of document is it aimed at creating, these days? The answer is certainly not what is was 10–15 years ago, but the basic interface hasn't changed much (ribbon aside).

I agree with what you're saying, I've seen it used to write up a text document! Talk about missing the point...

Often equations are needed, along with graphing. It's very expandable and customisable by a non-programmer with VBA.

I'm not saying it's the best, but it's pretty good at what it does, and there's not a better spreadsheet application that I've found.

As an aside, I've seen it be used for managing portfolios worth millions. Then you get a clever IT dept say 'oh no, you shouldnt be doing that on a spreadsheet' and so a new IT project is created to retire the spreadsheet and copy the functionality. Predictably, the project is late, over-budget and under-delivers, so the spreadsheet lives on. Tragic tale of far too many IT projects.

Then you get stuck with a pile of uncommented VB6 written by accountants. Short-sightedness is its own punishment.

While I agree with you that MS Office has -in general- the most features of any common WYSIWYG document suite (note: that's just how I categorize this kind of software), Word isn't really the best example for it. Pretty much any feature in Word can be matched with LibreOffice and most can be matched with iWorks Pages (while the later is worlds simpler to use). What distinguishes MS Office the most IMO are:

1) smart art in PowerPoint

2) most of the data analysis and pivot table tools in Excel

3) powerful and mature, albeit cumbersome scripting support (VBA)

These features are important for a multitude of reasons, but for those who only need a good word editor, MS Office is certainly not a necessity anymore.

People will be skipping windows 8 just like they skipped Vista.

Microsoft operates on an unspoken major version -- development version -- major version cycle that users are accustomed to.

Don't forget people use Windows because that's what comes with their new computers. Almost nobody installs a fresh OS.

But what stops you from re-arranging and placing the most often used application shortcuts on your desktop in Windows 95? And indeed, most users do just that. The reviewer correctly points out that this new UI doesn't really add anything, only takes things away. Shortcuts+search have been around for a while.

Actually I have no opinion on Windows 8 because I have not seen it myself, but this review fits both Gnome Shell and Unity very well: it's like they all suddenly joined the iphone-as-a-desktop cult.

Typing the application titles does not work for me. Because for frequently used apps I already have hotkeys or sidebar icons, but I never remember the names of rarely used apps: should I be typing "Monitor settings" or "Display" or "Desktop" or whatever, if I need to change the background or a screen resolution?

Lastly, is that really the biggest problem with the modern desktops: finding apps? Seriously, of all things that could possibly be made better, why are they all trying to re-invent how we're launching applications?

> but I never remember the names of rarely used apps: should I be typing "Monitor settings" or "Display" or "Desktop" or whatever, if I need to change the background or a screen resolution?

Windows Vista and up automatically help you with this. Even typing things like "DPI" or "wheel" into control panel come up with a list of all possible relevant actions that could be taken, as opposed to just different panel screens. Here are a few examples of that in action:

http://i.imgur.com/c9uN1.png

http://i.imgur.com/hZStY.png

http://i.imgur.com/dQR9U.png

> why are they all trying to re-invent how we're launching applications?

My comment said why! It's not a re-invention, just a unification of the look and feel with the rest of Microsoft's ecosystem (xbox, phones, tablets, PCs will all have the same "start" screens).

I hate the wizardly control panel, incidentally. Just the other day, I was trying to remove a device. After maybe five minutes I decided it's not possible, until some time later accidentally finding the right button to press. It's very much not clear to me anymore what I can do, or how.

Not sure whether you're removing drivers or ejecting hardware, but Device Manager is still in the control panel and Eject Hardware is where it always was. I wasn't aware of any other way you could do it, past or present.

> why are they all trying to re-invent how we're launching applications?

I understand that they want to grow the tablet and mobile market, but forcing a tablet interface on desktop users seems like a serious strategic error on their part.

Microsoft has lost their sense of identity. IBM is not a sexy company. IBM is not in the news. But IBM knows who they are - a mature company that quietly goes about making a solid profits. Instead of embracing who they are, Microsoft seems to be chasing everyone else.

Edit: removed unsubstantiated rumor.

Those rumors are BS, nothing is being blocked. The basis for them seems to be that they have removed implementation code for the Windows 7 start menu that was left in earlier Windows 8 builds. Third parties can still write their own start menu replacements, they just won't work if they're based on hacking Microsoft's leftover start menu code.

Windows 8, now with your choice of start menus.*

* Start menu not included. Applications may cost extra and/or come with adware or other malware.

I prefer the start screen to desktop shortcuts because, since it’s really a popup menu of sorts, you can bring it up and (single-)click to open up a window on top of your existing window configuration without disturbing that. With desktop shortcuts, even if you use the Win-D shortcut, when you double-click on an icon it forgets your previous window configuration, so you have to manually restore everything. Another thing I like to do with the start screen is keep groups of shortcuts to folders and apps associated with activities or projects I’m working on. I can keep those groups off to the right most of the time, then easily move a whole group to the first page when I know I’ll be working on that for a while.

> even if you use the Win-D shortcut, when you double-click on an icon it forgets your previous window configuration, so you have to manually restore everything.

Windows+M to minimize everything, Windows+shift+M to bring everything back. My favorite shortcut since Windows 95 :)

Ha, I wasn't aware of that. Still an extra step.

Yeah.. they all lost the plot. Looks like going forward, it's OpenSuse + KDE for me.

>"But what stops you from re-arranging and placing the most often used application shortcuts on your desktop in Windows 95?"

Nothing. Lots of people did it that way...even back in the Windows 3.1 days. And I suspect that Microsoft has mountains of data showing that lots of people still do.

This is vastly different from the wild speculation and design dogma that went into Unity's design.

They should have kept the main interface same as Windows 7, and the whole Unity-like interface thing (which they call Metro), should have been an application which you would run to make it more friendly to touch - if you need.

That's exactly what it's like! I've been using Windows 8 on my sole laptop since April and only interact with Metro when I want to (which isn't very often). I use Visual Studio, Photoshop, Powershell, etc. the rest of the time just as before.

I don't know about Windows 8, but Unity's applications are well-tagged with appropriate search terms. For example, typing either "monitor" or "display" brings the Display shortcut (which includes screen resolution settings) to the top, while typing either "background" or "desktop" will bring the "Appearance" shortcut (which lets you change desktop background) to the top.

I haven't played with Unity much, but I'm running F17 and I have to say, as much as I despised Gnome 3 when I first encountered it, Gnome Shell extensions[1] have taken it from an unusable pile of excrement to a legitimate improvement on Gnome 2. Gnome Shell, for all of its design faux pas, is built on an incredibly modifiable foundation that allows you to reconfigure just about everything. Moreover, these modifications are dead simple to share (easier than adding an extension to Chrome).

Sure, it's worse than just getting the damned thing right in the first place, but it's much better to get things wrong and make them easy to fix, as Gnome has done, than get them wrong and make them unfixable, as Microsoft has. For that reason, I resent the comparison of Metro to Gnome Shell, although I get where it comes from. There's nothing wrong with Gnome that can't be fixed with some some js and CSS. Your UI is essentially a web app that you can modify arbitrarily, which is an incredibly powerful idea. Metro may have some themes, but there'll likely be no way to fix its underlying issues.

[1]https://extensions.gnome.org

Can you give some examples of Gnome extensions you find useful? I tried perusing the list a few times but nothing really jumped out at me as a huge improvement.

It seems it's not really a popular opinion, but I also like Gnome Shell a fair bit. It just gets out of the way for the most part.

Sure. I started off by installing cairo-dock (pkg, not ext), a nice OSX-style autohiding dock (tweaks req'd). This allowed me to install Remove Activities Button[1] and Applications Menu[2], which combined to replace the rather useless and annoying Activities menu with a standard Gnome2-style applications menu, and get rid of the ugly dash that was stuck to the left of my screen, hogging real estate. This had the sanity-preserving side-effect of removing the stupid hot corner to Overview that I would accidentally trip every other time I tried to hit the back button in the browser. It can still be accessed with the Tux/Windows key. I also installed Force Quit[3], which puts a little 'x' next to the Applications menu. Click it, then click any misbehaving window to kill -9 all procs associated with it. Haven't had to use it, but it seems handy.

Next, I installed Brightness Control[4], as the fn+arrow keys don't work worth a damn, and Advanced Volume Mixer[5], which replaces the standard volume bar with a separate bar for each app. I installed Remove Accessibility[6], just to de-clutter, and All-in-One Places[7], to give me some handy shortcuts.

Quit Button[8] replaces the username "status" menu with the familiar options from Gnome2, and Settings Center[9] gives me quick and easy access to a variety of settings menus. Finally, Frippery Move Clock[10] puts the clock over in the top-right corner, where it belongs. I'll probably look into installing some workspace-related extensions as I become more comfortable with the system.

The combined result of these small changes is a system that I find far more friendly and usable. As I said above, the only thing I find wrong with Gnome3 is the defaults. Gnome Shell is incredibly extensible, and absolutely gorgeous. It now works for me like a cross between Gnome2 and OSX, with some handy extra features thrown in. Some of these changes are fairly major, while others are tiny tweaks, but I love how simple and easy they are to experiment and play with. Most changes are instant, and enabling/disabling extensions simply involves flipping a toggle switch on the extensions web page. I've only been running F17 for a week, so I'm sure I'll discover more changes to make the GUI just right.

[1] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/292/remove-activities...

[2] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/6/applications-menu/

[3] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/102/force-quit/

[4] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/231/brightness-contro...

[5] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/212/advanced-volume-m...

[6] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/112/remove-accesibili...

[7] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/299/all-in-one-places...

[8] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/156/quit-button/

[9] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/341/settingscenter/

[10] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/2/move-clock/

> I never remember the names of rarely used apps:

On the same token, I never remember how to update the PATH variable in Windows, but in Windows 7 if you type 'PATH' in the search box on the start menu, it pulls up the 'Edit environment variables' screen as a search result.

MS has done their research, and is making slow, incremental progress on making their OS easier to use.

From the article:

"I’ve been following Windows 8 closely over the past few months, spending a lot of time not only with the official releases but also with a number of leaked builds, and I’ve had the chance to install the operating system on a variety of hardware platforms, both old and new."

"You may think that after a while you will become immune to these annoyances the more you use Windows 8. I don’t know. All I can say is that I haven’t come to that point yet, and the depressing thing is that I don’t think I will."

I don't know about you, but if I'd felt this way about the usability of anything (desktop, smartphone, whatever) after a few months, I'd have chucked it and moved on to something else (or gone back to whatever I'd been using before). Exactly how long should he keep beating his head against the wall until he's allowed to complain?

I've been using Windows 8 since they released the consumer preview. I hated it with a passion at first, but I wanted to see if it was just because it was different, or just because it was bad, so I kept using it.

You definitely can get past most of the annoyances without too much trouble. For example, there's a start screen when you first load up the computer, a screen that comes before the screen where you type in your password. You have to hold down left click and flick your mouse up to get rid of it, which is annoying on a laptop without a mouse, which is what I'm using it on. That annoyed me for a good week or two before I figured out that you can press a key to get by that screen without the mouse gesture.

There are still some things that make me curse, though. Anytime metro goes full screen because I hovered my mouse near the top left of my screen (I'll occasionally try to click on the options in firefox and go to metro instead), any time it reminds me that I can use an annoying full screen metro app to play videos when I open videos with VLC, anytime the charm bar appears (I've never used that thing once). I also wish there was an easier way to go to my computer, because that's what I use the start menu for 50% of the time, and now I have to right click where the start menu was and spend 10 seconds looking for 'windows explorer' on a small menu every time I want to do this.

It's just a lot of little annoyances. I can live with it, but I really do hope that Windows 8 crashes and burns.

Sorry but that sounds hellish.

Your claim of "little annoyances" sounds like several layers of deal breaker ...to me at least.

> also wish there was an easier way to go to my computer, because that's what I use the start menu for 50% of the time..

In other windows versions you can use the keyboard shortcut Win-E ..

Did they remove it in Win 8?

Or just click the file browser from the task bar in desktop mode.

Did they just put the Slide up to unlock on a god-damn laptop?

It's not like they can't detect if your computer is equipped with touch or not.

Yes. They also put "just hit a button on the keyboard to unlock" on a god-damn laptop.

So yes, they can detect if you have touch or a keyboard. It's your choice.

I think this is poor design choice. Why would you want to "unlock" a laptop. It is not prone to accidental touches when it's in your pocket or the bag, which is exactly what "<gesture> to unlock" is supposed to prevent.

Now, I'm worried that they've done this just to look cool and so that people go "hey, I do that on my Windows PC, and the same gesture works on my (very rarely found) Windows phone".

They've always had this. Previously it's been called "Ctrl+Alt+Del Unlock". It then takes you to the password prompt. This is just replacing that key combination with a prettier screen, and also adding a quick glance at how many emails you've received, how many IM chats, weather forecast, etc without having to log in.

Without getting into the discussion on how incredibly important a password on a laptop is, you can disable this lock screen just like you would disable the password prompt after coming back from sleep mode on any previous version of Windows.

Again, you don't have to slide to unlock. You can just press a keyboard key. And it's always been there.

Wasn't the point of having C+A+D to get Windows' attention, thereby assuring that only a valid login window will receive your login credentials? How does this handle that?

Typing the name of the app you want is clumsy, you say?

It's a good thing nobody told me that, 'cause I've been using the search box in Win7's start menu heavily for years and I would never go back now.

They've unified their UI by making it suck everywhere. I'm still upset over the Xbox UI change. It's just terrible.

That's how it was with our iPhone and Androids too on the first day we got them

Well, no, not really... not in the iPhone's case.

Oh really? You knew exactly where each app icon was located the moment you got your iPhone? And the settings, notifications, and everything else? There was zero learning curve? Come on. Sick of this Apple superiority fanboy bullshit.

Um, yes. When I wanted to find the Settings menu on my new iPhone, it wasn't too much of a leap of faith to try pressing the icon labeled "Settings."

The idea that you have to left-click and drag a certain unmarked area of the screen in Metro to reach the control panel is light-years distant from the iPhone/iPad UX.

A good interface is one that is either highly intuitive, or highly discoverable. I haven't used Windows 8 yet, but from what I'm reading in this thread and elsewhere, it is neither. Don't shoot the messenger.

I'm not sure if I remember good enough, but I do think the first iPhone didn't have any folders or second screens of apps – just one.

And a fresh install of Windows 8 comes with only one screen of apps, no scrolling required. It only starts to scroll when you install more than the one screen can display.

So, moot point.

How do you access the Control Panel under the Metro interface?

I think he talks about something else. When I installed Win8, and then cygwin, and all other tools that I use - then the Metro screen became full with lots of icons that you can't read the whole names easily, and all of them were the same. I don't even see some of these names in the Start Menu (or maybe i did not check, because I don't go for example to the menu for them).

So the problem is that it flattens out the whole tree structure, and while I think this is good idea (I like the OSX dock), it's good idea only if you have few important things there. If it's get too cluttered easily, then it's not.

> Yes you scan over the screen and it might be hard to find the things you want on day one. That's how it was with our iPhone and Androids too on the first day we got them.

Most of my friends who use Windows haven't even bothered learning how to use a smartphone. Those who like to play around with gadgets have long left Microsoft land.

There certainly are Windows power users out there, but most of this thread seems to skip over the rest: those who use Windows because they grew up on it, or because they've actually attended paid courses on how to use it. There's no way they will do it a second time. I think Windows 7 will become the new XP.

You know what they say about foolish consistency.

Unification of UI makes sense where modalities are similar. But touch vs keyboard vs mouse are very different modalities. The first demands a few large areas with gestures; the second demands something very much like a terminal; the third, much more densely packed areas without gestures (because large mouse moves are far more imprecise).

I have Windows 7. But I never use the start menu's search functionality, because I have a terminal; if I want to start an app by typing, I'll do it from the terminal. That way, I get completion for application arguments, I can write scripts to shorten more complicated launch sequences, etc. That's because the terminal (+ shell + friends) is set up for typing; a search box is laughably primitive in comparison.

Meanwhile, my start menu doesn't look anything like yours. I'm running Classic Start Menu, with programs classified by function: Development, Work, Games, etc., just containing the main icon. I use these menu items when I'm being goal directed, but more importantly, it saves me the effort of having to remember any names at all. Menus are optimized for scanning lists of text; in this way, they're far superior to ribbons when looking for an unfamiliar command.

? If I want to start Google Chrome, I can open the start menu, type "go" or "ch", wait half a second to see that it's the first result, and hit return. To do this from the terminal I need to switch to a terminal, know the name of the executable (not just the display name of the program), know what directory it's in (or make sure to put it in my PATH), etc.

I don't agree with your characterizations. The mouse allows density but doesn't demand it - both more and less dense layouts have pros and cons for mouse and are appropriate in different contexts. A terminal is good for input but limiting for output - I would like to see a command shell that took a text command language, but produced graphical output.

The only time I want to launch Chrome (it's not my main browser) is if I want to visit Facebook (which is blocked every which way in my main browser).

Now, if I wanted to make visiting Facebook quick, I'd create a shell script called 'fb' which would start Chrome with facebook.com as the argument. But I don't, so I haven't.

Switching to a terminal? I'm always in a terminal. I have 4 open on my desktop right now, not including the virtual terminals hosted in screen sessions. I'm pretty much never more than an Alt-Tab away from Cygwin in mintty.

Less dense layouts don't work well with the mouse, in my experience - I'm talking about screen-sized layouts, the kind you see on phones and tablets, only scaled up to multiple 30" monitors[1]. Big mouse moves can cause you to lose track of the mouse altogether for a second.

Graphical output? I'm not really sure what you're getting at. What kind of graphical output would you want, apart from starting graphical applications based on command-line arguments or piped output? I've written many of both. Most of the time all you want is to view a graph, picture or video. All are trivial to integrate to the command line with appropriate glue.

[1] This is actually a bigger concern of mine over Windows 8. I'm normally multitasking across 6+ apps at all times: my custom notetaking app, vnc, several terminals, browser, documentation and two email clients. It's why I have multiple big monitors. Only being able to multitask with two applications at a time sounds like a bad joke.

I agree 100% that the idea of Metro style apps with their severe limitations (on multitasking and otherwise) replacing desktop apps is a bad joke. However, I don't really interpret them as replacements, but just as another model with its own advantages ( isolation, suspension/controlled backgrounding, guaranteed declarative install) and disadvantages (multitasking limitations, walled garden, etc.) I think it's very stupid that metro style apps are set as the default for file types and on the start screen etc. However, as a supplement to the desktop I like having them available.

disagree with you on all point here.

Yes you can arrange the icons on your phone the way you like it and yes you can do this on your laptop too. But when I dock my laptop, the screen resolution changes and now I have to find something.

On the desktop, I use launchy. A simple keyboard shortcut, type and run. Simple.

Overall I agree with most of the authors point. I do mainly agree on the point that users should have an option to have their standard desktop back as the default screen rather than metro.

On a desktop, I use windows. Hit windows key, type and run. Simple :)

I'm sure launchy has more functionality, but both the windows7 start menu and metro lets you press the windows key and type in partial names to open an application. I find it a lot quicker than using the mouse, and it's already built in.

> These Ribbon toolbars are packed with small user elements and are fiddly to use with a mouse, and even more fiddly — at times bordering on impossible to use — when driven with a finger.

He contradicts himself, I stopped reading.

Where is the contradiction? He says they're difficult to use with a mouse and even more difficult to use on a touchscreen. Makes sense to me.

Yes you scan over the screen and it might be hard to find the things you want on day one. That's how it was with our iPhone and Androids too on the first day we got them.

When the iPhone was released, there was a single home screen. Everything that was available to you was visible from the start. What you see is what you get.

I've been using Windows since 3.11 and when I first booted up Windows 8 I clicked the Windows Explorer button in 'Metro' and was taken to the 'Classic' desktop. No Start menu. It took me a good fifteen minutes of clicking around to discover how to get back to Metro so I could launch any program.

In short it made a programmer feel like an idiot. I can't imagine how many grandads are going to be furious with it if they upgrade. I have no idea why removing the Start menu is a good idea.

I use OS X, Ubuntu (headless servers) and Windows 7 daily and I will definitely wait until Windows 9 before I upgrade my Windows VM. They are definitely sticking to the 'every second release sucks' cycle, like Star Trek.

"I have no idea why removing the Start menu is a good idea."

Because it wasn't removed, it was changed and given a new presentation. The alternative would have been to have two redundant start menus.

Even keeping the icon where the old one was which when clicked would take you to the new "start menu" would have helped...

That was the original design (seen in the first public preview).

I think that's probably an indication that the whole "It's not a replacement for the Start Menu, it is the Start Menu" school of thought is a bit flawed.

They've removed all visual cues that let you know what things do. You'd have no way of knowing that clicking the bottom left takes you to metro if someone or something doesn't tell you. If you click on the bottom right corner, you minimize all windows -- There's a visual cue for this in windows 7. The button still exists, but they've removed this visual cue in Windows 8, and I have no idea why. I'm really baffled by it.

My experience with the Win8 preview

looks ok. click on something, which launches an app. cool, but now how do I get back.

spent probably 10 minuted getting increasingly frustrated at not being able to exit back to the home screen (or whatever it's called. it's obviously not the desktop, because there's a tile called "desktop" that should be called "normal windows"). In the end I gave up and gave it to my wife, who did manage to figure it out (hint: you have to move the mouse to the very bottom left hand pixel)

Also - it appears I'm unable to use the email client at all unless I sign up for a live account. What's up with this?

> It took me a good fifteen minutes of clicking around to discover how to get back to Metro so I could launch any program.

Have you tried pressing the windows key? :)

Seriously, this whole metro thing is just the new start menu.

Well, I always click the Win key for the win :-D, but it gets really annoying to have the whole screen change to a stupid looking menu in order to open another app. An alternative is to use the desktop, but I've given up on desktop icons a long time ago...

It sounds like it's going to be the "Ribbon" debacle part deux.

The debut of the Ribbon UI in Office 2007 was the tipping point where I started to look at other platforms and other productivity suites. It made no sense at all to me to switch from literally decades of convention in the UI to something that to this day leaves me frustrated every time I use it (probably because it's not often).

The Ribbon is why I now use a Mac, and don't use Outlook or any Office products.

Windows 8/Metro is going to be another such pivotal moment. It's so different, I wonder how many people are going to say "wow, maybe I ought to look at a Mac / Linux if I have to relearn everything anyway."

I really like the Ribbon. Just like everyone else I found it a pain to begin with but it didnt take long to adjust and now I much prefer it to digging through menus. The customisation options are also really great.

Is there any research or evidence to suggest that the Ribbon is a UI failure? Office 2012 will use the Ribbon (restyled to look all metro-y).

Pretty sure the ribbon is a brilliant piece of well researched UI work. Definitely a case of people just not wanting to break from the familiar.

The Ribbon is too big. It often looks stupidly redundant (section titles matching action button titles, like Find/Find and Exit/Exit). Icons are overused; it shouldn't be a sin to let "only" a word be the label for something. Mostly it looks like somebody emptied all the drawers onto the top of my desk, forcing me to stare at a pile of junk all day long even though 90% of the time all I need from the pile is my pen.

I agree that the Ribbon is too big. It's certainly not something I want occupying my screen whenever I'm using explorer. Though, when I'm searching for options, I am fine with the Ribbon's presentation. It's fairly intuitive. At least as intuitive as the traditional drop down menu system, though that's probably not saying much.

Fortunately, I believe it can be minimized[1]. I just hope that the minimization carries over between sessions.

1: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/02/dont-p...

In the release preview it's minimised by default.

"Is there any research or evidence to suggest that the Ribbon is a UI failure?"

"The Ribbon is too big" is not research, and is anecdotal evidence at best. I, too, would love to see some actual research into the Ribbon. Programmers and the like hate it, but what about the "average Joe"?

Here's some info I've found:

http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2010/Faro/DNCOCO/D... http://www.exceluser.com/explore/surveys/ribbon/ribbon-surve...

Personally, I'm a programmer and I have no problem with the ribbon interface.

I tried moving away to other office productivity tools. I found out I can't. Excel is still way too full featured compared to Open/LibreOffice. The UX in Excel is waay superior to LibreOffice.

And kids, that's why I have virtualbox on my machine. Just for Excel.

It will definitely be that way for me. I have been using Windows since version 3.1, but Windows 8 marks the end of the road. I basically have no choice but to switch to Linux full-time at this point. Half the Linux desktops have recently gone insane as well, but at least there are still things like XFCE.

I'm probably not the norm here, but after installing Windows 8, getting the apps I care about pinned on the desktop taskbar I really, really like Windows 8.

It mostly feels like a cleaned up version of Windows 7, and it is much, much snappier. Whatever you do happens now. Even when you wake it up from cold hibernation it boots in less than 10 seconds. When it's only suspended it's ready just like that. Instantly.

It's as close to instant as my laptop has ever been. All the animations are silk smooth. Everything is fluid. This thing has been optimized to hell.

There can be no doubt that Windows 8 contains a multitude of technological improvements. Unfortunately for Microsoft, they seem to insist on literally taking the Windows out of Windows and forcing Metro on everyone. Even those who don't want it.

Every now and then (like when connecting to a new network) you have (Metro) infobars sliding in from the side and you can just tell that they come from a different world somehow. They don't belong in your desktop. And that makes the entire experience feel a bit less coherent.

But all in all, I may be the exception, but I love Windows 8 so far. But to Microsoft's dismay, I love it not because of Metro, but despite it.

They've done this before though. Remember the Ribbon? I used to hate it and now I can't live without it. We'll see if Metro fares as good, although deep down inside, I doubt it.

I am with you. I am wondering when exactly these desktop power users will even see Metro. Nearly all the apps I use day-to-day are pinned to my task-bar.

I haven't run the Consumer Preview yet, but in the Developer Preview, I kept getting kicked out of Desktop and into Metro when requesting a lot tasks that were initiated from the Desktop. The fullscreen transition was very jarring when I expected to stay in Desktop.

It sounds to me like he loves windows 8, but doesn't like the metro UI. Literally, despite how he repeatedly said "Windows 8 is a totally failure", his only complaint was with the ribbons. Everything else was about metro.

What does he even do in metro? Why does he keep returning to it? I've been working in windows 8 for months, and I'm only on the start screen after my computer boots up.

I can't help but wonder if he actually hates windows 8 as much as he sounds like he does, or if he's using link bait for page views.

The only noteworthy comment he made was this one:

> The biggest problem with Windows 8 is that it wasn’t born out of a need or demand.

Too bad that has little to do with what the rest of the article is actually about.

Exactly. I don't understand what everyone is moaning about. How often do people sit on their computers, open the start menu and just stay there?

Never. That means you don't have to do so in Windows 8 with the start screen either. Except the Start Screen does provide more functionality than the start menu but that's a discussion for another day.

In Windows 8 your work flow is all in all almost identical to your work flow in Windows 7. You can still pin your most used programs to the taskbar meaning you can largely avoid even opening the start screen for launching apps since 99% of the time you can just click the ones you've pinned to the taskbar.

Also, multi-monitor support in win8 is so much better than on win7. There are plenty of non-metro feature additions or improvements in win8 that make using it a better experience.

I'm glad to hear this.

I felt like I was using Windows 8 "wrong" because I was throwing away the start screen after boot and not coming back to it.

I think the power of windows 8 comes from the new form factors that will become common place. Imagine having a laptop where the screen detaches and becomes a tablet. Imagine carrying that around with you to do "tablet-y" things. You'll obviously use the start screen and metro apps. You can still use "classic Windows" but the majority of your time will likely be in metro since it is so much more convenient.

But then, you get home and decide you need to get some real work done so you plop that "tablet" back into the laptop and you have a full fledged laptop again. You can even hook it up into a multi monitor setup or whatever you want. Now get to work!

I think that will be really cool. One computer for both fun and work.

There's the problem: I don't want to buy this new hardware. My hardware is quite good enough with Windows 7 already. And how many folks really have a docking station at home? Laptops that split the screen from the laptop? Hardly anyone has one of these.

If that's what Microsoft is betting on, I'd be concerned for their overall strategy.

No-one will build it unless the software is there to support it. Microsoft has to jump first.

Laptops that split the screen from the laptop? Hardly anyone has one of these.

"Screens that support color? Hardly anyone has one of those."

You miss the point. If Microsoft want to make a lot of money in the mass market, then they will need to support the current generation of laptops, not the bleeding edge.

I'm not saying that splitting the screen from the laptop is not cool, as I'm no Luddite! I'm merely remarking on the fact that Windows 8 seems to have been designed for the next generation of hardware, but there is no guarantees that this sort of hardware will be adopted by a large proportion of the market any time soon.

It's usable by both. Windows 7 was not. There were many times on my touch screen laptop I wished buttons were better for touch. People act like Windows 8 is only usable on a tablet, when it's not. It will install and work fine on your desktop.

Something like 300 million PCs are predicted to be sold in 2013 I think? Most of these will have this new hardware.

Just like someone above mentioned, Microsoft needs to jump first. Windows 8 is more extreme, but a similar example is that the release of Vista made 4GB of RAM become the defacto standard for laptops without raising price.

I'm sure this new hardware will be more expensive, but I would predict that less than a year after it's out, the prices will stabilize such that a split-screen laptop will cost the same as a normal one with the same specs would have a year or 2 ago.

If you're not using the start screen / Metro then isn't Windows 8 basically just Windows 7? Is there any compelling reason to upgrade at all?

One thing that is pretty useful is the multi-monitor support. You get a taskbar for every monitor. Apart from that, though, Windows 8 has added absolutely nothing to my experience.

I already use DisplayFusion for multi-monitor taskbars in Windows 7.

Under the hood improvements: security, UI responsiveness, etc.

I can't imagine how typing the name of the app you want to open is a design failure. I use Windows 7 and OS X Lion about equally and Alfred on OS X and the Start search box on Windows 7 are the only way that I find apps that I want to open. It's largely the same way with finding files I want. It's my preferred way navigate the operating system.

I agree with you. In fact before I discovered that feature on a Mac I was absolutely baffled trying to figure out how people used Macs for real work.

On the other hand, I do a decent amount of desktop support in my job and I have yet to find a user who knew it was possible to hit the Windows key and start typing. There's a huge difference in usage patterns between the "power users" and "everyone else".

I too have used windows since v.3 and didn't know about this... One of the reason's I love OSX is using quicksilver.

try Launchy for Windows, it's no Quicksilver but it does a good job.

First thing that I did when I got a mac was drag the applications folder to the dock and make it a list view. Instant start (menu on the side of the screen. I still use it from time to time, sometimes you just need to see the app icon. But command + space changed the way I compute. I understand why type searching was given focus in Unity and now Win 8.

The Dock. Is it baffling how people can do real work via the Dock? I myself use QuickSilver, but I don't ponder over how people do real work without it.

Definitely. I'm surprised that keyboards don't have a "magnifying glass" key since search is entirely keyboard-oriented. (A Windows key doesn't count because it's not an intuitive search indicator. The Mac Spotlight's command-space is also unintuitive.)

I recommend Alfred too, as well as Dash (similar but targeted to programming). Both tools come up instantaneously compared to Spotlight, they're more configurable and they seem to stay out of the way better. Even though they cost money they are well worth it because of the productivity gain.

Alfred is free.

I feel like I was the only person on the entire planet who actually organized their start menu and deleted all the crud. Even now, I use ClassicShell on Windows 7 and I launch apps by category and muscle-memory.

But I've seen enough people's machines to know I'm in the minority, even among power users.

If you delete things from the start menu there's no way left to find them (other than rummaging through your whole hard drive for executables). Things I want to launch often go in quick launch or on the desktop; the start menu is always the interface of last resort.

An application install will add a new folder with the company name, the application launch icon, and a bunch of supplementary icons including an uninstall. I delete all that crap, except the app icon, and move it to an appropriate folder. Launching Visual Studio, for example, involves me clicking Start -> Programming -> Visual Studio. I'm not deleting application icons (unless they're built in and I don't use them).

I used to do the same, but I ran into too many problems with uninstallers. Specifically, I would try to uninstall an application and it would begin by trying to delete the start menu items it had created. Since I'd deleted 90% of the crud, those items were gone and the uninstaller would crash.

Of course, this is back in the 9x days. Have you run into this issue recently?

Never happens -- I install and uninstall crud all the time; no problem with uninstallers crashing if their icon isn't found. The only downside is if you move the icon the uninstaller won't find it.

I put all my Start Menu items in the same folder that contains the Programs folder. My programs folder then just contains the crud I haven't decided to keep yet or haven't otherwise organized.

I have ClassicShell configured so the class start menu appears if I click but the Win 7 start menu comes up if I use the keyboard (for searching).

Basically I almost never use the Start menu for launching apps. All my day-to-day softwares are pinned or in the Quick Launch. If not the case typing is usually quicker than looking in the start menu.

But as I said : I "ALMOST" never use it. I don't want it to disappear.

> I can't imagine how typing the name of the app you want to open is a design failure.

It's nice to have, but something is wrong if that's the fastest way to start a program. Even if you're a fast typer (most people are not btw), it's way to slow to use with commonly used applications.

My favorite ways to launch the apps I use all the time are:

- Keyboard shortcuts! Seriously, try it :) available on most linux/unix gui's.

- The launcher in Mac OS X, or "pin" in Win7: After logging in to my windows desktop I often start 3-5 programs in 3-5 clicks. Would be a pain to have to type the name of them all one-by-one >(

- Customized menus. Works ok, but still find it slower than the others. Never use the menus in fluxbox, I just use keyboard shortcuts for the common ones, or a terminal for the others (almost as fast as typing the name in gnome3)

- Typing the name. Use it on gnome 3 and kde sometimes. Mostely becuase I haven't bothered to set up keyboard shortcuts.

"Pinning" to the taskbar also allows you to launch the first 9 (i think) programs by pressing Win+{1,9}

I can open a program in my quick-launch-bar with one click before you even typed the first letter of that program. Maybe it's not a design feature, but it gets in the way.

(And yes: I'm using Windows 7 with the Windows Classic theme.)

I have a bunch of programs in my dock and I still prefer to open them with Alfred a lot of the time. If using 'CMD+space, ph, Enter' for Photoshop takes any longer than using quick launch then it's only by a minute amount.

You can still do that in Windows 8 as it still has the same merged quick-launch/task-bar.

I think more people would be fine with Windows 8 if people stopped telling them that they should hate it.

Same for Vista; personally, I never encountered problems with drivers/sluggishness that people told me were bound to happen. It wasn't a spectacular upgrade from XP but I think most people avoided it because people were very outspoken about how supposedly awful it was.

We had slowdowns, graphically, since most of the people moved to 7 it's all good. Not sure exactly what, but it feels better.

7 feels very solid, like XP and 2000. (Man, I still miss Windows 2000).

Oh, if only the problems were just drivers and sluggishness (both of which my wife saw). Nevertheless, she stuck with it for almost 9 months until Vista, while trying to repair a routine unclean shutdown, managed to render itself completely unbootable. Given that we had to start over anyway, I ended up buying an OEM copy of XP Home for her. She was shocked at how well her laptop actually worked (since we'd bought it with Vista in the first place).

With Vista nobody told my wife she should hate it but the version that came pre-installed on her laptop never worked right and so she told me to return the laptop or put something on it that worked, so I installed Linux.

The problem with Windows 8 seems to be a general issue going on with UI design generally. If you look at Unity and GNOME-3 for example, these also break settled user expectations. It's like there is a rush to tell the users they are stupid and don't know what a usable UI is. I don't get that.

I don't know if Windows 8 is good or bad, but I do know the perception of it is bad. Perception is reality. If Microsoft doesn't get control of Windows 8 image ASAP then it's going to bomb.

When was the last time Microsoft had control of the image of any of its products?

The difference this time is that many of the bad reviews are coming from historically pro-Windows sources.

It's been a long time, but now there is more viable competition as well as less need to upgrade from older versions.

I think Microsoft would be far better off doing more frequent OS updates with smaller changes.

This is clearly a result of pressure from investors. Osx,iOS/android and chrome/*nix are all rapidly advancing.

I remember Microsoft being called a "perception engine" by my boss around 1998.

In my (limited) experience, ZDNet has always been very friendly of Microsoft. The fact that even they are throwing around words like "disaster" doesn't bode well in my mind.

It comes down to this: Microsoft doesn't care about the desktop market. They don't have to. People will keep buying Windows. It doesn't matter how bad the experience gets, the average consumer will still buy it, and the manufacturers will still ship it. Not to mention the desktop market isn't growing. The tablet market is a different story. This is a young market with lots of potential and people are still making decisions. Steve Ballmer is a businessman. He knows desktop windows can be as bad as he wants, and nothing will change. But if Windows 8 works well on tablets, Microsoft might have a new revenue stream. From a business perspective, the desktop Windows experience does not matter, and so it will be designed for the tablet.

> He knows desktop windows can be as bad as he wants, and nothing will change.

If that's the plan, he's in for a rude shock. Given the Vista experience, Microsoft has probably room for a mulligan. They'll bleed a few users, but it will be a flesh wound. Most people who really care won't have trouble skipping a release cycle like they did before (plenty of them haven't upgraded to Windows 7 after all). But if two versions in a row suck, if there's no light at the end of the tunnel... people will have plenty of places to go, and they will.

I'm excited about Metro. I've hated every one of my Windows experiences to date. So I'm in a different boat from most people, who are probably upset about the changes, which will require learning something new with dubious benefits. But for me, I might actually find Windows useable for the first time (where the payoff of using it exceeds the effort to use it).

Interesting, you might be an outlier. What UI experience did you enjoy then?

It's hard for me to say much about how the UX feels without having used it. However, one thing sticks out to me as a concrete example of Microsoft's failings.

"Another annoyance with the Metro Start Screen is that all roads lead to it. Almost everything you do ends up throwing you into the Start Screen. I find it utterly crazy that I can go from clicking on a tile on the Start Screen and then be unceremoniously dumped into things like a Classic Control Panel applet or Windows Explorer. Then, to do the next thing, you’re back to the Start Screen again."

Microsoft effectively has unlimited resources (cash and people). There is no excuse for not updating all of the applications to match the new UI toolkit.

This sounds exactly like happened with Vista. They updated the OS, but not the 1st party applications. Windows 7 updated many of them (Paint, Movie Maker, etc), but even then not 100%. I guess the issue was that the 'Ribbon UI' was an Office team invention, not a Windows team invention, but as a user I don't really care about the office politics behind it.

Now they're adding a Metro layer and they made the same mistake? It makes the OS so inconsistent. They can't do much about it for 3rd party apps, but the 1st party apps should be consistent. The cost of rewriting the presentation layer across all of those utilities has to be a small amount compared to the overall budget.

I hope MS will up there release schedule just like Apple and Ubuntu. When OSX first landed most people didn't like it at all. But every year it was a bit better and at least since 10.4 one of the best if not the best desktop OS. Same thing go's for Ubuntu, the first incarnation of Unity was not good . But 12.04 is a really usable OS and for me (since I don't use OSX specific software) perfectly fine replacement for OSX. I'm really excited to see where they are going with it. So if MS is serious about there new desktop they should release a new version at least once a year. Perhaps they will need a LTS strategy for the Enterprise starting with windows 7. So by the time windows 8.4 comes a long Metro is matured and most workers will know how to use is.

I just can’t shake the feeling that Windows 8 would be better off as two separate operating systems.

Bingo. Apple succeeded in mobile because they were forced to break entirely new ground. Frankensteining Metro and the old desktop UIs together makes about as much sense as WIMPing the XBox.

The desktop is a fallback. Same as 16-bit mode, low graphics mode, XP mode, or the Classic Mac emulator in early versions of OSX. It's not going to be in Windows RT, and it won't be in Windows 9.

Microsoft can't just up and cut all support for programs designed for the previous versions of their OS.

Microsoft can't just up and cut all support for programs designed for the previous versions of their OS.

Why not? Apple managed just fine.

Apple really didn't have any legacy support or enterprise clients to speak of. Apple also included a Classic Mac emulator in early versions of OSX to allow programs to keep running while developers created new ones, similar to the classic Desktop mode.

When iOS was introduced, Apple had existing OSX customers. Microsoft does not have so many tablet enterprise clients that have to drag the desktop metaphor along just to appease them. Their enterprise clients didn't have to dictate what the XBox was. Tablets could be just as free of legacy as it.

ARM tablets won't have the legacy desktop. Only x86 installs will have that, because that's where the legacy support is needed.

Microsoft can't just up and cut all support for programs designed for the previous versions of their OS.

I'd go further: they should leave Windows pretty much as it is for the foreseeable future and treat mobile like the separate market that it is.

They shouldn't even think about deprecating the Windows WIMP UI until they've got something inarguably better for the average desktop/laptop user. Not even Apple is that reckless.

The thing is, I'm not sure that mobile is a separate market anymore. How many corporations are doing a BYOD initiative? Personally at the company I work for, all the salesmen (a few thousand) are getting tablets instead of laptops for the next refresh. It just makes sense. Likewise, instead of handing out corporate laptops, they'll be giving employees a stipend to buy whatever device they want as long as it fits their needs.

When corporations (even IBM) start adopting bring-your-own-device and that includes mobile, mobile is no longer a separate market. It's time for mobile to evolve, something it hasn't done since 2007.

OS X's yearly release cycle highlights a key problem that Windows 8 highlights. Making changes that are anything more than miniscule can happen over a long period of time that users can adapt to.

Microsoft is stuck trying to cater to two fundamentally different interaction paradigms in one gigantic release, which is very difficult.

I think if anything, the author's article highlights some common perceptions many consumers will hold with Windows 8. While I haven't used Win8, a lot of the authors complaints seem like he wasn't willing to embrace something new and wasn't willing to learn. They don't seem like design failures per se; but if 8 wasn't designed well enough to appease these types of criticism, then I guess it is a design failure

Once the new form factors come out I think Windows 8 will do very, very well.

But we'll see!

Windows 8 wasn’t born out of a need or demand; it was born out of a desire on Microsoft’s part to exert its will on the PC industry and decide to shape it in a direction — touch and tablets — that allows it to compete against, and remain relevant in the face of Apple’s iPad.

Early relational DB pioneer Michael Stonebraker once said: A company produces software architecture that resembles its org chart.

Maybe this is indicative on how well Microsoft can execute at this point. (Though, the overall trend seems positive for them.)

That's Conway's Law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

Who the hell reads these "professional" reviews? And why aren't people able to make their own opinion? It must be a dream-job (for some at least), get paid for playing prohpet and writing shit about other's (yet unfinished) products.

Personally, I bought my laptop a few years ago with XP preinstalled and Vista CDs alongside. I installed Vista out of curiosity, mostly because people almost unanimously said it was crap, and, wouldn't you believe it, I liked it. I got a rock-solid, capable OS that was way ahead of the clunkiness that I remembered from the XP days and way better than crappines I was starting to experience with Linux.

So a message to all you schadenfreude-review writers: go to f*ing hell.

I disagree completely. I tried the RC a few months ago, and it was abhorrent, but the image from just a few weeks ago was very usable.

I somewhat dislike the 'chrome' of the UI (I think it's hard to determine what is a button and what is just flair), but I've been running in 'Windows Classic' mode since XP so I may be an outlier.

They made that tile menu more transparent, to the point where you don't have to ever see it again if you don't want to, and many of the components that were Vista-y in the older RC have been polished for the newer image.

I'm not going to go out of my way to upgrade to Windows 8 like I did for Windows 7, but I also wont be downgrading to Windows 7 like I did with Vista (to XP).

There’s a palpable fear that Windows 8 will stumble out of the door.

If push comes to shove, you'd think MS could easily make the Windows 7 desktop the "default" look and feel, and let you turn on the Win 8 look via a setting. But then again, isn't the whole Windows 7 desktop just one click away anyway? This whole article seems like its vastly exaggerating the issue.

There's a good article here comparing Win8 to Apple's first release of OS X (with its built in MacOS 9 classic mode) ... http://www.osnews.com/story/25691/Windows_8_s_desktop_mode_M...

Clearly the author is to old in body or mind or both. Yes I agree us old folk get stuck in our ways. But it's my kids that are going to love it, they already try and touch the monitor and TV like it was a smartphone, my 6 year old operates an iPhone perfectly.

Yes an article about old people worried about new ways isn't surprising at all heard the same tired tunes with regards unity which after a few release is starting to humm and now feels intuitive.

You can wait for windows9 all you like it will just be a more refined 8.

I really hope they let users disable Metro UI - while it seemed pretty at first, having to switch to a full screen Start Menu 5-10 times to open all the programs I need is a bit tiring - the old Start Menu was much more inconspicuous. There are plenty of things to love about 8, but Metro just screws everything up, it seems.

The thing I keep thinking when I hear about windows 8 is: how should a new windows application be developed? I think it's very confusing. If I were to start an application now, would I do it for desktop or windows RT? If I create for desktop then it will look bad with windows 8, with all the start screen swapping.

>And if nothing else, I want to like Windows 8 because I know that I’ll be spending a lot of time using it over the coming years.

That's a pretty stupid thing to say. If you don't like windows, there are plenty of alternatives, except maybe for very nichy work.

Not for those of us with conventional jobs.

I kept reading this and going "wow, he's describing GNOME 3!"

Well, this is just another Visa - hardly a huge problem while Windows 7 is still available. Just wait for Windows 9.

Dammit, this is going to lead to a whole new set of questions from confused family members.

"How do I get to Start > Programs > [Some app which was made for usage on Windows XP]? I can't find the Start button, this new Windows is no good. grumble"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nU

This video is truly amazing

There's nothing particularly amazing about watching a man try to navigate a system he hasn't been taught how to navigate. Most of these kinds of experiments tend to end the same way, unless the system includes metaphors the users are already well accustomed to using.

I don't think there's any question Microsoft will include an extensive tutorial in Windows 8's final release. If they don't, we can safely laugh at them. As it is, though, this video is rubbish. I could make a similar video filming my Grandmother trying to use Windows 7(She only knows how to use a specific type of Web TV, sans mouse). I guarantee you we'll see similar results.

Windows has a massive install base. One of Microsoft's most important tasks will be to train their current users to make the transition to this new UI. It's not a small feat. But this video completely sidesteps the most important part in the process, and instead asks a man to use a novel, manufactured system with nothing but his natural inclinations. On those grounds, I think he does quite well. But the video is rubbish.

There's another video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeeOkHjV7nM where he is asked to use a mac for the first time in his life. The guy has apparently used XP for many years and is a die-hard windows fan. Watch how quickly he is able to pick it up (with zero instruction) in comparison to Win8.

The Win8 start screen isn't hard to get to - if you know how. I'll have no trouble with it, you'll have no trouble with it, and anyone who is given a tutorial or basic training will have no trouble with it.

But I'll bet there's going to be millions of users who find themselves in the same situation as the guy in the video, and it's going to be a nightmare for any company who tries to deploy this to all their users.

For me the big take-away is this:

Important user interface elements should be visible on screen.

I'm troubled by the invisible UI stuff, including the hot corners. And I'm worried because knowledge of these features is required to operate the system at a basic level. That's kind of frightening. Not insurmountable, but frightening.

I think OSX's interface elements are more approachable than these hidden elements, given his(and most people's) prior experience. If you've used Windows, you're not going to be a stranger to drop down menus or desktop like icons (a la the dock).

And I agree that the invisible user interface elements will be a nightmare for IT people around the world. But to be frank, I don't want to restrict change to things that make IT folks happy ;) (Of course, I'm not a company worth a few hundred billion dollars whose livelihood depends on enterprise acceptance...)

I'm interested in seeing how long it will take for these 'new' UI concepts, where screen edges and corners are elements to be touched and modified, to sink into the general consciousness. It seems to have sunk into the OSX world rather quickly. Now it's time to see how the other 90% cope with it.

agreed

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