The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell | Hacker News Reader

The Stupidity of Windows 8 in a Nutshell

singularityhacker.com

32 pointsBinaryAcid37 comments

Okay. So I've been using Windows 8 nearly every working day for the past year. I'm a programmer, multi-monitor user, and a "power-user". And how do I use Windows 8? Pretty much exactly as I used Windows 7. I've never used a "metro" app outside of playing with a few on day one. The learning curve was insignificant given my many years of experience using all sorts of different computers and operating systems.

So am I less productive now using Windows 8 than I was using Windows 7? Not at all. However I'm also no more productive than I was. Which is disappointing in way: many of the previous OS revisions have seen huge gains in usability and productivity (2000 -> XP -> Vista -> 7). But not this one.

But even though the changes in Windows 8 haven't affected my day-to-day productivity, there are plenty of annoyances that I've learned to live with. Such as:

- Start menu search is nearly unusable in Windows 8 despite the "improvements" in 8.1.

- Metro UI "leaks" in some places such as Outlook notifications, and the Open With -> Other dialog. Though that open-with dialog gets worse in every Windows revision.

- Before 8.1 the charms bar and hot-corners sometimes got in the way.

Edit, more comments:

So why upgrade? It's probably safe to say that being on the most up-to-date stable version of any OS is ideal for any number of reasons ranging from security, platform features, and general "future-proofing" of the software you use.

As a multi monitor user doesn't Win8 provide a much better experience over Win7? Not saying this alone is worth an upgrade, but IIRC it's definitely better in a "would make you more productive" way

One great feature of it is that it puts a start bar on every monitor (not just your primary monitor) which makes switching between programs much easier. For some reason though they decided not to put the task area (which has the clock, etc.) on each start bar though, only the primary monitor.

Not really. There are features like having the taskbar visible on all screens, if you enable it. There are very minor improvements such as a 4px vertical "line" in each corner which helps you move the mouse to a corner adjacent to another screen without accidentally overshooting. But nothing major in my experience.

Stupidity? Stupidity is people making criticisms without actually using the product they're criticizing.

>Treat the Metro UI and desktop as different modes and encourage developers to build applications that work on both. When you’re interacting with windows from a tablet switch into metro mode. When you’re using windows from a desktop with a mouse switch into desktop mode.

This happens today. It's called... Windows 8. My desktop boots to the desktop and I only use desktop applications with it. My tablet boots to Metro and I use a lot of Metro apps with it. This is a thing that exists today. The regular size tiles are about the same size as a desktop shortcut is (ie, not too big for a mouse). The larger size tiles are more useful than a static icon, since they show you data without needing to launch the app.

Here's the big rub with Windows 8: people are complaining that it's worse, when in reality it's just different. Especially in Windows 8.1, where some of the things that were worse are now corrected. It's been two years of this "Windows 8 is a failure" bullshit. People are still using it. PCs are still being sold. Work is still getting done. The world is still spinning. When are we going to find something else to complain about?

I wrote this as reply in the blog, but asking you - is this fixed in 8.1: "Most confusing to me, was mouse-wheeling up and down the Weather app, which in turn did left<->right scrolling, but if it ever hovered over a listview with more elements to display it overtook the left<->right scrolling and started up<->down scrolling... This really felt weird... Very very very wrong!"

I don't use the weather app with any computer that has a mouse attached, so I am not sure if this has been corrected or not. I understand their decision to design the system this way, but I can also understand your frustration when it's not working the way you expect it to work.

on a side note, windows 8.1 makes windows 8 look like a failure...the difference in terms of response and functionality is ridiculous

Yup - there were some growing pains associated with such a big change. The first versions of Windows after they switched from DOS were pretty painful, too. I don't think the desktop became useful until Windows 3.1.

That means Microsoft did something right. Same way a new i-whatever is supposed to make the old i-whatever look old, slow and ridiculous.

It's called incremental update or improvement.

... ignoring the fact that you can have multiple metro apps on screen just like with any other tiling window manager.

i think there's a good argument that manually micro-managing the sizes and positions of overlapping windows (some of which can additionally be application or system modal) is a waste of time and gives few benefits.

whilst the metro apps are all pretty cut down at the moment - and there's a lot of work to do before it can viably replace the old desktop - i have no real issue with this as the direction of progress.

After years of windows bashing, Microsoft seems is trying to correct it's security nightmare past.

Security is a higher priority than functionality right now (from observation). Until they can get a way to secure windows apps without hampering functionality, we will always have both desktop and metro mode living together.

The surface shows that microsoft, rightly or wrongly, have a different idea about where the whole mobile / desktop vision may converge. it's not a desktop, laptop nor a tablet and, for all the shit it gets, quite refreshing and innovative. metro UI also works very well on it, as it does with touchscreen laptops

Personally I bought a surface just because i wanted to be able to play old games on it, but turns out now i use it as: A standalone desktop replacement with a blutooth keyboard/mouse combo (seperate keyboard on a mobile device is heaven). Replacement for note taking with the wacom digitizer. An on the move gaming console for even modern games (blutooth game controller + steam) A picture frame on the coffee table that tracks all messenging applications (only need to look to the side, not go for the cellphone everytime something updates)

--- Tim Cook could not have said it better when he summarized Microsoft’s confusion. “..they’re trying to make PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs.”

What was the first criticism of smartphones that I heard? They're trying to take PDAs into Cell Phones, and trying to turn Phones into PDAs.

Its like these bloggers can't even imagine a new model of computing. Converged computing is the future. A single device that does more than previous devices is easier to carry, centralizes management and simplifies your life. I frankly prefer the Surface Pro over any of the tablets that exist today.

When you have a keyboard / mouse, then TYPE on the start screen. You know, the auto-search feature? The Start Screen is one of the best keyboard-interfaces I've ever used.

> When you have a keyboard / mouse, then TYPE on the start screen. You know, the auto-search feature? The Start Screen is one of the best keyboard-interfaces I've ever used.

For me, the problem is that, on the desktop or laptop, the Start Screen uses 100% of my screen real estate for a task (typing a search query, hitting enter) that would be better performed with, at most, 10% of my screen real estate. Having a full-screen dialogue pop up for a trivial task is horrible for maintaining flow.

You know, leaving your current program and starting up a new program is horrible for maintaining flow as well. But lets be frank here: you're entering the start screen because you're starting up a new program.

Its not like your programs disappear when the start screen pops up ya know. Its all there...

> You know, leaving your current program and starting up a new program is horrible for maintaining flow

I don't "leave" my current program to open a new one. I can have more than one program open at the same time. Many (most?) programs do not open in full screen.

I always thought Microsoft were crowbarring their mobile UI in to the desktop system not because it was a good idea, but to gain familiarity. If all Windows users are familiar with the Tile UI, they might then be more comfortable getting a Windows phone or tablet - areas MS need all the help they can get.

On the other hand though touchscreen laptops and desktops are gradually becoming more common, so the fat-finger UI of the start screen tiles can work for that as well.

When I saw Windows 7 I thought I knew where Microsoft was heading. I saw the new task bar with it's "finger friendly" buttons and thought to myself "MS is slowly integrating touch into their interface....makes sense.".

However between awesome Windows 7 and the mess that is Windows 8 something must have happened. Someone inside MS must have preaching that you can't simply make Windows touch friendly. They must have argued for a dedicated touch interface, one that would be made more powerful with each release so as to eventually phase out the "old" windows interface for good.

This approach I feel is wrong, and the disjointed effort in Windows 8 is demonstrating how confused it's making both "regular users" and tech pros alike.

I wish MS stayed focused on their traditional OS model and made Windows 7 even better with Win8. The "touch OS" from Microsoft could then have been born, and evolved on it's own without having to carry the burden of 3 decades of general computing.

Windows 8..n can be bad and good.

It's awful when used on old hardware - just like vista.

It's sweet when ur using hardware that supports it fully. 1. Gesture aware trackpad 2. Touch screen

These are very important, without them, windows 8 will hell. i've been there, hated it until I got gesture sensitive mouse. I'm sure touch screen will do wonders.

It's not the touch that's the problem. I'm running Win8 on just about the newest hardware you can buy, and it's a user-experience hell.

The "metro" screen is neither the start menu, nor is it the desktop, nor is it the new OS itself. It's stuck in this artificial layer of existence that I can't even discern.

phr4ts what's the down-vote for?

Conduct a poll and u'll see that alot of those who dislike win 8 the most are on old hardware.

You could be getting downvotes for your grammar, which makes your point hard to understand. You do make a valid point that Windows 8 is better on hardware that was designed for the new input methods.

ha ha ha ha ha. Down-votes for grammar. Some trigger happy bastard that could be policing anti-microsoft comments.

Since there's nothing anti-Microsoft here, he's deciding to check grammar. Lovely! Downvote this one too.

We need large icons in the context of mobile computing because we’re using our fingers and our fingers are fat. You don’t need giant tiles when you’re using the tiny curser of the mouse.

Or perhaps Microsoft is actually forward thinking here and is considering that touch is becoming a more popular interface even on laptop. If you are designing a new UI now to cover the next 5 years, it seems like a good idea to take this into account.

Why would I be forced into a full screen view on a 20-inch monitor? The only reason applications are full screen on mobile devices is that it is assumed that screen real estate is small. Microsoft is indeed very confused.

I also believe you can have two Metro apps beside each other. But aside from that, I took a quick look at my setup and all my applications are full screen except for the Command Prompt instance I have open.

I love Windows 8. At first the separate "Desktop" and "Metro" environments are confusing, but once you realize you can go into desktop mode and stay there while utilizing all the new utility offered by the interface (Windows + Q anyone? It's a more robust version of Spotlight) the whole thing clicks and becomes a real joy to use.

I believe 90% of the backlash is from people who have never used Windows 8, or gave it literally 30 seconds of use in Best Buy then came home to post online about it.

Give it a real shot, its fun!

Microsoft caused the confusion by not adding a tutorial. I suggested it during windows 8 developer preview but they ignored it.

Their current tutorial still doesn't cut it but it's a step in the right direction.

What Windows 8 [and Windows Phone] do really well, is keep shit from piling up. By making the icons big, there's less room to save another icon to the desktop/home_screen. And applications don't get to place stuff there by default.

Having run Windows Phone for two years, and my new Android phone for less than a month, the Android homescreen is already more disordered than the Windows device - and despite my more active management. And please don't ask me how many useless icons are on the classic desktop of my under the desk box. It's too many to count and I don't care enough to clean it all up. I hate filing. It's the sort of clerical work that we shouldn't be doing here in 1973.

The second screen on both Windows 8 and Windows Phone shows everything in a simple text based scrolling list. It's fucking genius - the idea of using words to organize things with names rather than hieroglyphics.

This of course begs for the question of why Android rather than WP8 for the new phone. The answer is that as much reading as I do, the phablet form factor made the sale. If there were still Windows Phones with keyboards like my old Dell Venue Pro, I'd still be on Windows Phone. But there aren't so I ain't.

I agree with you mostly, but I do have a complaint about the all programs list in Windows 8.1. For some reason, I still find it difficult to actually parse the list of all applications. The titles of the program groupings don't stand out well to my eyes, and it gets impossible to read with a lot of things installed. I tend to just use the search rather than trying to pick something out of the list.

I agree on Android vs Windows Phone. I'm currently pulling double duty between a Nexus 4 and a Lumia 920, and I'm looking at a Nexus 5 for my next phone. Lord knows I love my Windows Phone, but I really want a 5" phone next. I was disappointed when Nokia announced the 1320 as a 6" screen and a huge case. The 1520 may be an acceptable size for my hands, but the $750 price tag is too much for me to justify.

See, this is the type of conversation I was hoping to have after the recent Nokia event, until all of the articles were inexplicably pulled from HN.

Your argument about grouping is valid.

Solution, search for your most used programs, right click and pin to start screen or taskbar.

So make the icons bigger and call it a day. In fact Gnome (at least used to) allow you to make icons as big or as small as you want. Want that project you are working on to remind you to click it and not something else? Make it take up half the screen!

I dont get why people think about the new start menu as a replacement of the old one. It's more like they buffed up the Alt+Tab functionality to include openin programs and search into a single feature. Old start menu is gone and not needed any more. Can't think of a single use case.

The real vision though for Windows I think is probably summarized with Surface Pro + Surface dock.

I'm way too tired to explain why Windows 8 is a good idea - in the long run. But if you browse through my comment history I think I've explained it a few times. Probably from ~1 year ago

Metro UI would have been brilliant had it been the replacement for wallpaper on your Windows desktop. I still can't believe that there isn't a single modern operating system that I can natively add HTML5 components to my bottom-most layer.

How is this on the front page of hacker news? Nothing in the article was new, revolutionary, or interesting. The author threw a recent quote in the article to make his point relevant.

Windows 8 is made to use with touchscreen monitors ! so the argument of this guy is just stupid.

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