Just bought a new laptop that comes with Windows 8.

The real question is ‘why’?

Well that is a good question. MS are faced with competition from Apple, so they need to respond. If they just stood still the world would be thinking of MS as the boring plain workaday option and Apple as the lovely luxury item. They don’t want to be thought of this way.

W8 is a much bigger step than simply rearranging the start menu and taskbar. The front screen can be quite powerful with those tiles displaying content.

I really do agree though that the metro front end shoul dhave been an option, or maybe even like an app, and that when you switch to desktop mode the start menu should be there. That way if you just open up your machine for a quick social network browse or catch up on something, metro makes it easy; but if you sit down to work you can do it in productivity mode.

They are actually two different styles of use, MS should perhaps recognise this. They COULD produce two OSes in fact, work and lifestyle say, or they could make it easy to switch between modes. Or.. they could sell a work version without the metro stuff.

OR, even better still, a work version of Metro. So your sysadmins could configure your start screen for you to provide all the work stuff you want with your apps displaying useful info in those tiles set up for your particular job.. hmm..

Still using XP here at work (can’t see any point in changing) and Macs at home, but very much enjoying learning Python and working with this on the Raspberry Pi 🙂

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Currently encoding a video made from timelapse images taken last night by the Pi.

MS are faced with competition from Apple, so they need to respond

Been using Windows 8 on a desktop for about two months now. I find the whole user interface so awkward that I’m actually contemplating getting an iMAC instead!

My new laptop that I bought a month ago has Windows 8 on it and it replaced my old one with XP and I could not get on with the metro interface and charms thing, so I downloaded one of those start button apps and things are much better.

One positive about Windows 8 is the speed with which it boots up and closes down in comparison to XP.

Yes, each new version of Windows gets much better technically, aside from the user interface.

It’s completely designed for touch screen (on which it is ok, but nowhere near as intuitive as Apple’s stuff). So, on non-touch screen systems, it just doesn’t fit.

As an aside to the interface, I got my son a Windows 8 phone. Oh. My. Lord. What a complete and utter FAFF to set up.
Ok, I’ll explain – you’re prompted to set up the country/region when you switch on… Set to UK. You’re then prompted to set up a Windows account.. no country prompt (why would you need one, you’ve already told it you’re in the UK)… Turns out the account you’ve just set up for your kid is US based. Oh, so he can’t download anything (because although my MS account is UK, the credit card it wants to verify that I’ll let him download stuff is US because my son’s account is US (you still with me?). Right, so set him up a new account, make sure its UK… then change the phone to that account. How? FACTORY RESET!
What fun.

A few stories online suggesting MS might bethinking about a major rethink of Windows 8 as feedback has been so poor

Above quote “Windows 8 is the new NT” is priceless, love it

Good points above. The real reason for this is pure marketing. Of course there are some technical improvements but to dress those up a some sort of ergonomic revolution is just Ed Balls. MS need ‘new’ products every few months to keep the revenues flowing and the corporates subscribed (read tied in). However, to dress this up a something solely for our (the users of the damn stuff!) benefit is laughable.

My main gripe is the investment made in training and familiarisation is discounted with a quick ‘get used to it, Luddite’ comment that simply belies the retraining required to get productive again. Imagine the furore if ‘tools’ in other industries were changed willy nilly just to appease the marketing boys…. Grrr, 🙂

Flaperon – Member

Could be you tech luddites just need to spend a little time getting used to it

Sounds like the definition of a bad consumer OS to me, tbh. OSs should work how you want them to work not how they want you to work.

I’ve been using Win8 since the preview came out. I can’t say I miss the start menu but I’d definitely miss the speed and stability if I went back. In fact Win8 on my PC is more stable than Mountain Lion is on my iMac – now how did that happen? I agree that some of the execution of the GUI needs tweaking but the OS seems fundamentally sound.

If I hadn’t missed the cheap deal I was going to load Win8 on the iMac to see how well it worked with the magic trackpad, maybe that would be the golden combination.

It’s completely designed for touch screen (on which it is ok, but nowhere near as intuitive as Apple’s stuff). So, on non-touch screen systems, it just doesn’t fit.

As an aside to the interface, I got my son a Windows 8 phone. Oh. My. Lord. What a complete and utter FAFF to set up.
Ok, I’ll explain – you’re prompted to set up the country/region when you switch on… Set to UK. You’re then prompted to set up a Windows account.. no country prompt (why would you need one, you’ve already told it you’re in the UK)… Turns out the account you’ve just set up for your kid is US based. Oh, so he can’t download anything (because although my MS account is UK, the credit card it wants to verify that I’ll let him download stuff is US because my son’s account is US (you still with me?). Right, so set him up a new account, make sure its UK… then change the phone to that account. How? FACTORY RESET!
What fun.

mine was a piece of piss to set up.

OSs should work how you want them to work not how they want you to work.

Except how you want it to work is exactly how W7 wanted you to work.

It’s all about them coming up with good ideas and you adopting them. Always has been. This discussion comes up every single time MS change stuff. I remember it when W95 came out.

As for investment in training and productivity – really? If you’re doing lots with the OS, then you’re a techie, and you can figure it out like you did for everything else. If you’re not, then you just click on the apps you need for your job the same as always.

Trouble is, if you use win 8, Excel, Word, Access, PowerPoint, Visio, Project and Outlook, that’s a lot of productive time spent ‘making the effort’ whilst continuing to deliver the ‘real work’ already committed to.

Nope, exactly the opposite. Once you’ve ‘got’ the idea behind the ribbon you can navigate in all of those applications really easily whereas in the past they were all a bit different in how to find things. In Win8 you no longer even bother looking for where the settings are, you just search. Want to bring up reliability history, just ‘Win-W reliability’ and you’re there. Much easier than ever before. I understand the pain with the change but it is so worth the effort of learning it

molgrips – Member

Except how you want it to work is exactly how W7 wanted you to work

Not exactly- since 7’s way of doing things was so similiar to pretty much everything else. You could jump from Win 3 or Proper Ancient Mac or our old OS2 builds to Win 7 with very little readjustment, they all shared the same logic. Sure, there’s an element of chicken/egg but it doesn’t really matter that much- good design builds on the familiar unless the familiar’s massively inferior.

Not exactly- since 7’s way of doing things was so similiar to pretty much everything else.

Only the start menu, which was also new once. Vista was the big change in terms of how you did configuration and maintenance and stuff.

W3.1 to W95 was a big step.

The main thing that sent me back to Windows 7 was the lack of POP3 support in the email program that comes with Windows 8. I know there are work arounds, but why should I?
I find that curious, given that Windows 7 doesn’t come with an email program at all.

Given the Outlook/Mail habit of automatically binning important mail I didn’t even try the mail program.

Well three of us at home have been using email in Windows 7 for the last few months so we must have a special, unique version with email.
Also never had a problem with the (non-existing) email software losing emails.

I have both Mountain Lion and Windows 7/8.

Mountain Lion >> Win8 for usability.

The start screen sucks big time. Move your mouse out of the way? Oops, charm comes up. The desktop, to be usable, has to have all the programs you use pinned to the task bar, else you’re dropping in and out of the metro interface to start anything. Some people I know hunt out the EXE files to run or put shortcuts on their desktop to avoid that.

Stability wise – its OK and under the hood there seems to have been improvements. I’ve never had ML crash on my 2009 iMac, but neither have had win8 crash either. Win7 on the other hand does tend to crash on shutdown of my work laptop (think its a driver issue).

Live tiles are nice when you first see them then shortly afterwards you ignore them. The Apple version of having, say, a little red number next to your mail program icon is better: you know something is there for you to look at but I can’t be faffed with sitting and waiting for a tile to update with something, usually a mail from CRC about their latest deals.

But lets face facts – the only reason Metro was put onto windows was the marketing department, to make all Windows offerings look the same, regardless of use. Win Phone 8/X-Box/Windows now all use metro and I know one gamer who doesn’t use his X-Box as much as he used to because of the change-for-change’s sake.

Metro is great for touch, but not much else.

mine was a piece of piss to set up.

Yours? So not your child’s?

I still don’t ‘get’ the changes to ribbon menus in Office with no option for a ‘classic’ view. Same sort of thing, buggeration for buggerations sake.

Thing is, if MS had kept a “classic” view they’d have to spend money on maintaining it, bug fixes, etc. And the Ribbon really is a lot better, you realise just how poor endless button menus are when you fire up Libre/Open Office.

It’s a bit like changing the accepted conventions of the dash layout of a car just to appear fresh and funky.

the only reason Metro was put onto windows was the marketing department, to make all Windows offerings look the same, regardless of use

What everyone is missing here, is that the reason Microsoft want Metro apps highlighted, is because they want you to buy your applications from their Windows Store, because they get a hefty cut in everything sold on it. Same as Apple and their app store.

For the end user it is hard to know whether that is a good or bad thing – I mean Microsoft get a hefty cut, but then when you buy a product from anyone except direct from the original developer, there are importers, distributors and all that rubbish taking a cut which probably works out similar to the Windows Store tax. For small developers it is also hard to know – it obviously ups the cost compared to direct distribution, but on the other hand, it makes it easier for people to find and install your stuff.

For the end user it is hard to know whether that is a good or bad thing

It’s meant to be much easier to develop apps for Metro than for Windows natively. This could result in an explosion of cheap really useful stuff for Windows, which would be great for consumers. Or it could end up like Chrome apps…

It’s all about them coming up with good ideas and you adopting them. Always has been. This discussion comes up every single time MS change stuff. I remember it when W95 came out.

And i have been using windows since 3, mac since 7 and Solaris from 5,

OS’s evolve, if you can use one version you can use the following version, there is always a learning curve, but w7 to w8 is a huge curve compared to any other release from any platform i have used.

Is fundamental change a good thing? maybe the collapsing sales of PCs can answer that question?

There could easily be more than one reason for collapsing PC sales though.

“They are actually two different styles of use, MS should perhaps recognise this. They COULD produce two OSes in fact, work and lifestyle say, or they could make it easy to switch between modes. Or.. they could sell a work version without the metro stuff.”

This is the whole point, they want one OS that provides the experience you want when sat at home on the sofa, and the experience you want when in the office, so you only need one device.

I’ve got a single touch enabled device for work and home, at home I spend most of my time on the metro interface, at work I spend most of my time on the desktop interface.

Switching between the two is easy as you just click on the Windows key. Starting things is easy because you just click on the Windows key and start typing what you want to start, I really don’t miss the start menu now, but I did to begin with.

molgrips – Member

W3.1 to W95 was a big step.

Don’t really agree tbh, I went from 3.11 to XP and that wasn’t a big step. Some differences but the main logic was the same. That’s not true of 8 IMO, it’s a reinvented wheel.

There was no start menu in 3.1, or did I get that wrong?

EDIT see for yourself 🙂 http://www.michaelv.org/

No, there was no start menu, but that’s not a massive change- it’s just an extra way to get to the same results that they added to complement the existing methods.

Ribbons etc are great for mouse jockeys and occasional users, less so for those who’ve committed their experience to muscle memory.

This, exactly this. Every bloody change since the mid ’90s, long before the damn ribbon, has made Excel (where I spend a lot of my working day) easier to use if you faffily waft a mouse pointer around, but harder / longer / slower if you know what you want to do and know what the keystrokes required to do it are.

I’m still using Excel 2003 a lot, but there’s things I could do quicker in ’98..

Did the keyboard shortcuts all change?

Did the keyboard shortcuts all change?

Not all of them, but enough of them to be a right royal PITA.

Shortcuts and menu routes – don’t know if there’s a term for it, but I’d distinguish, as a keyboardy user between a shortcut (e.g. Ctrl+P for print) and a learned route through the menus (e.g. the equivalent of wafting your mouse over “Format”, clicking then wafting over “Conditional Formatting” and clicking that, being, for a keyboard user, the three keystrokes of ALT O and D which is much much quicker when you’re used to it).

So yep, between shortcuts and keystrokes to access functions in menus and sub-menus, there’s plenty gone or changed with 2007 and its damn ribbons. It seems that MS don’t like people to use keyboards, which baffles me when applied to spreadsheets and word processors particularly.

I think MS just want to piss you off.

Remember, that old version you used to love was new once.

Some positive then:

Switch on: it boots faster than any other computer I’ve used. The various standby options work without crashing so I only boot once a day.

The Metro screen is there with the CAC 40, the news clicking round (this morning I read an article about the films in the Cannes festival) and a desktop icon if I want to use the machine like W7.

The applications that run direct from Metro are full screen with no bars top or bottom. That means everything is bigger and I can read without glasses. To close the window drag it to the bottom, other options are on a right click. As screens get wider, bars top and bottom take up more space. Press F11 if you’re in Firefox to see how much you gain.

Move the mouse right on the Metro page (no need to find a bar and drag it across) and there’s every application on one page. Choose and click.

To switch off, click the big red button bottom left (a Bell Packard addition I think).

In conclusion, new things I like and all the old things are there if I want them.