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Comment by bratsche | Hacker News Reader

Metro itself wasn't the problem though, imo. It's the UX of going back and forth to do simple tasks that is the problem.

Example: how do you restart or shutdown your Windows 8.1 machine when you're on the desktop? Go to the start screen. Click your name, sign out, click the screen so it 'opens', click the power button, click restart or shutdown from the menu.

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Or just go to the bottom right corner of the screen, wait for the charms bar to pop up, click the Preferences icon then shutdown. Which still doesn't make a lot of sense, but is simpler than what you described.

Yeah, and it's really f*cking annoying to try to do that on a remote desktop to a Win2012 server with the same horrible UI. On a desktop you can just drag your cursor to the bottom right.. in an RDP window, it isn't so easy.

Beyond that, Metro is horrible when you have more than one large monitor. The UI simple doesn't scale well in that environment. It looks like 8.1 update 1 will finally be much closer to how it should have been.

It reminds me of Vista, where half the control panel UI was updated, and half wasn't, and it was just a bad mix of old/new. I don't mind a new UI. For that matter, I'm really digging Ubuntu's Unity interface, ymmv on that.

I think that Windows 7 had a really nice UI, and that metro should have been an option on top of that from the beginning. Trying to make a unifying UX for interfaces from your phone to tablet to dual-monitor desktops just doesn't work that well. You really need two options, and making the UI work for those metro apps in the desktop context makes more sense.

Yeah, and it's really fcking annoying to try to do that on a remote desktop to a Win2012 server with the same horrible UI. On a desktop you can just drag your cursor to the bottom right.. in an RDP window, it isn't so easy.

And the Server 2012 R2 upgrade was not free unlike Win8.1. While at it, don't forget the lack of IE11 too.

Over RDP, I'd just use the Windows+C shortcut. Haven't been a huge fan of "Modern UI," but you can learn to work with it.

Disclaimer: MSFT employee, opinions my own.

That doesn't work if you're RDPing from another Win8 machine, the local OS swallows the keybind. What you actually need to press is Alt + Home or Alt + Delete (good luck figuring that out without doing a web search).

I'm actually really confused why this is, it seems to be such an important use case. I would not be surprised if they didn't even test WS2012.

You can customize your RDP settings on how it behaves with key binding. You can set it local or remote.

Before opening the connection, click "Show options" -> Local Resources tab -> Apply Windows key combinations.

Or just press the power button, which actually does make a lot of sense.

There are a lot of things about Metro that I dislike, but killing the "don't touch the power button on a computer" idiom is one that I do like.

Except that that gets you precisely one option, which isn't even normally the one I'm looking for. When pressing the power button somehow gives the the restart/sleep/shutdown option, then it will make sense.

This has been around forever, since at least Windows 2000. The power button signals the OS through ACPI to shut down correctly. It wasn't always reliable on all hardware and BIOSes, and didn't always default to that behavior until set in Control Panel - Power Options, but soft power-off is supposed to have been working for a long time and is hardly new.

Yea, Windows has required ACPI to boot since Vista.

> Or just press the power button, which actually does make a lot of sense.

No it doesn't. Pressing the power button implements what the PC maker wants to implement. In many cases (especially on laptops) it's for the computer to go to sleep.

Nope. Settings -> Power Options -> Change what the power button does.

Who would have guessed restart/shutdown would be under the settings?

I think I heard their justification once was that they thought it was a bit of an anachronism that we'd press a hardware button to turn a PC on, but would have to go through a software route in order to turn it off. Every other electrical device usually has a single on/off button, and in a world of ACPI it's entirely reasonable for that to be the same as a default "turn off" action on a PC. Initiating a manual restart or true shutdown then becomes more of a power-user thing that, yes, perhaps it does make sense as a Settings panel.

I actually had to Google "How to restart Windows 8?" - How can 'restart/shut down' be a setting. That's the most ridiculous thing I've seen about Windows in all these years.

Or even better, right-click the bottom left corner of the screen, go to Shutdown or Sign-out. Along with a ton of other stuff that power users want most of the time.

The UX of going back and forth to do simple tasks wasn't the problem, forcing Metro without a Touchscreen was the problem.

> Example: how do you restart or shutdown your Windows 8.1 machine when you're on the desktop?

I've been out of Windows for a long time, is this something that comes up much? Even with a laptop, I'd think you mostly be suspending it by closing the lid.

Can you still use the physical power button to bring up the shutdown menu?

It's something you hardly ever do. Even if there's been some kind of installation/update that requires a reboot, it tends to be able to trigger that itself (which can cause other pain, but that's for another day).

There are some people who like to shut down their machines, though. I think they haven't forgotten the days when a good reboot once a day was necessary to clear out cobwebs.

That's what I figured. I reboot my Mac when updates require it, and every once in a while if something weird is going on I might reboot it, but by and large my computer has uptime's in the weeks.

> Even if there's been some kind of installation/update that requires a reboot

Oh so they still have those in Win8. I didn't miss that when I moved to Linux. Reboots for Updates is a broken concept.

I wonder if they're true reboots.

On OS X it's somewhat rare for an update for require a reboot. Often they don't actually reboot the machine but just log you out, perform the update, and then log you back in.

While these updates feel like a reboot since you lose your desktop environment state, you can tell the difference if you're paying close enough attention.

Many are. I get Grub again, and can pick Linux.

Win+x, U, U

Much better than ANY other version of windows ever.

Then again I'm a power user.

If you really want mouse clicks, you can right click the "start button" and get the Win+X menu.

Press windows key + X and click shutdown. Or press the power button

I do this all the time. Just right click the windows icon in the bottom LEFT corner. A context menu pops up with an option to shutdown, restart, log out, or sleep.

I just go to the desktop (win+d)and hit alt+f4

Or press the Windows Key together with I.

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