Windows 8 Dev build

[liolio]

I tried chrome o/s on my p.c god it was awful.

I can't really speak about it as I did not tried it though I've an Android phone and I tried (less than I would have wanted) my dad Nexus 7.
I feel like my laptop with newly installed Windows 8 tries to be as convenient as my phone but fails.
Simply the UI can't be customized. I lack my google calendar widget, my gmail apps, a facebook apps (I mean an official one).
The browser works great but I don't have the notification I would get with apps for example.

Live tile are a nice idea but they need to allow bigger tiles as they are too tiny too mimic widgets.

Then I got used to it but there is the shuizophrenic nature of the OS, you can access the same setting through Metro and desktop UI though the former usually provides less choices.
To some extend I feels to me as if they did half (more 1/3) of the job. Everything should be available in through the Metro UI with that pretty amazing "whole / full screen flavor".

Now I'm convinced that gaming aside I would be better served by an Android devices, be it a convertible or tablet+ wireless KB+M.

Another thing is the omission of Office starter, I do get that it is to push their online services but in my opinion it is a risky business. I updated my computer without knowing that Office starter was no longer available, I found that now I've to use a web app, I'm ok with that.
The thing is I think that MSFT does a bad job with my gmail and facebook accounts, ultimately if it comes to use the cloud, I would prefer to go with google and Android as I'm sort of bound to email address as it is the one that is linked to my phone.

To sum-up I think MSFT got me to want a phone/tablet like environment on my laptop, the bad is that they do a tedious job at offering that. While doing that shift (toward phone/tablet environment and cloud and SaS) one finds that he is primarily linked to his phone (I did at least). Thad is a bad omen for both version of windows 8 as I expect more and more people through the use of devices like phones and tablet to find out that they no longer need Windows.

If I were to stick to MSFT I would most likely go for a set-up like this:
Winphone, Windows RT and xbox for games.
The phone plays for the main part in defining to which environment your are bound to.
I think that I'm more likely to finish with and Android phone, and Android Tablet or Netbook and something else for gaming.
------------------------------------------------

I think Google should somehow offer an option for serious gaming: they have cheap google tv box, not that successful /no real market, console market is tough to enter and they are not ready yet. I think a good basis would a new Nexus, a nexus 24" I mean an "all in one" Android solution (Pc integrated in the display).
If AMD sells Kaveri along with 4GB of GDDR5 I think it would be an interesting basis for google to push and they could start to attract to build something with core game publishers.
EDIT
Kaveri is pushing and it would get expensive, actually I wonder about the screen size too. As PC are no longer what they used to be in the consumners eyes, I think that actually it could be interesting to push a tinier screen. You would have neat sexy device that you can more easily fit somewhere than those massive Mac27 or those big Windows "all in one" Display. As the usage are changing I wonder if if big screens are still really relevant to the market (outside of TVs).
But that is another topic /OT.

 

[Davros]

what is msft ?

 

[liolio]

what is msft ?

Oops usually it is written in caps MSFT, MicroSoFT
MSFT is actually used in the financial world.

 

[Grall]

Until they really experience it on a multi-touch laptop/tablet then they're really missing out on why the new UI is designed as it is.

And that's the problem. You need to understand that you can't design desktop and touch OSes the same way, yet MS stupidly went ahead and did just that. Win8 is the biggest pile of bullshit I have ever seen coming out of Seattle, possibly with the exception of WinME - which was easy to use, unlike this ginormous turd, but had terrible stability and suffered unbelievably from "windows rot".

Swipe down to close metro apps...? ...With a MOUSE? What the fuck! Where exactly does it teach you to do that? Nowhere! You're supposed to learn it yourself from reading the non-existent manual it (does not) come with I have to assume. It goes against everything you've been taught using GUIs, and it's the same with all the other hover-the-mouse-over-here-or-click-this-invisible-"button"-to-do-this-or-that shit they put into win8. For decades now, GUIs have been all about being VISUAL, giving graphical cues and clues of what will happen when you click something and being consistent (if you do it right anyway.)

Win8 just tosses all of that aside, and it's an utter, unmitigated DISASTER. Frankly I don't understand how they could release this pile of crap as it is. The design as a desktop OS is utterly LAUGHABLE.

Their so-called replacement of a start menu is nothing more than pouring all fucking icons all in a huge jumbled pile with no discrimination of what belongs where or with what. It's utterly prepostrous and near impossible to use.

 

[Davros]

Win8 is the biggest pile of bullshit I have ever seen coming out of Seattle,

Grunge,
Only joking

 

[liolio]

And that's the problem. You need to understand that you can't design desktop and touch OSes the same way, yet MS stupidly went ahead and did just that. Win8 is the biggest pile of bullshit I have ever seen coming out of Seattle, possibly with the exception of WinME - which was easy to use, unlike this ginormous turd, but had terrible stability and suffered unbelievably from "windows rot".

Swipe down to close metro apps...? ...With a MOUSE? What the fuck! Where exactly does it teach you to do that? Nowhere! You're supposed to learn it yourself from reading the non-existent manual it (does not) come with I have to assume. It goes against everything you've been taught using GUIs, and it's the same with all the other hover-the-mouse-over-here-or-click-this-invisible-"button"-to-do-this-or-that shit they put into win8. For decades now, GUIs have been all about being VISUAL, giving graphical cues and clues of what will happen when you click something and being consistent (if you do it right anyway.)

Well actually it is not what is bothering me, most of those things are convenient to do (at for me with a mouse), though I've to agree that the touchpad makes things trickier (though it always does... ).

Imo the issue is that it has to be pretty complicated for a people less verse in tech than us to figure out what is going on, the difference in desktop vs Metro, Apps vs legavcy apps, etc.

The main issues to me are: first that schizophrenia, your average people may very think that he is in fact dealing with 2 OS...
I like the metro UI full screen look and reverting to desktop UI to access some setting let me with a taste of "is that a finished product or they gave up porting 2/3 of it?"

The other is sort of link to the lack of success of the platform and some too strict policies with regard of the size of the live tile, it lacks proper Apps and it misses proper widgets. I mean when Facebook does port its Apps to your system and your name is MSFT... you have a problem...

Then there is the matter of what is your primary email address, I've gmail, if I had a hotmail clearly Windows would serve me better (still no proper widgets...).

Win8 just tosses all of that aside, and it's an utter, unmitigated DISASTER. Frankly I don't understand how they could release this pile of crap as it is. The design as a desktop OS is utterly LAUGHABLE.

I agree I'm not sure my wife would ever get the difference between IE metro and IE desktop... or manage to deal with that duality. Imo it really looks like they stopped in the middle of porting Windows 7 to the metro UI.
For professional usage I don't get why they ever considered changing anything as far as the UI is concerned.

Their so-called replacement of a start menu is nothing more than pouring all fucking icons all in a huge jumbled pile with no discrimination of what belongs where or with what. It's utterly prepostrous and near impossible to use.

well I sort of disagree with that, you can make groups, your average user doesn't access that much Apps or program or doesn;t touch the setting that often. THough there are the short coming I was speaking about earlier: no widget and lack of apps make you revert to the desktop more than you should for casual use. I stated one or two days ago that I liked the full-screen UI of IE10, guess what? The new shiny effect is gone... I reverted to Firefox accessing the bookmark is a chore pretty fast and switching betweeb tab reqwuire one extra step than on Desktop browser (or you use ctrl+tab).

Overall and no matter the fact that I personally ddeal with it without much troubles, I think that it is indeed a disaster and I wonder how they could let this out.

One question is Windows RT wrt to schizophrenix UI?

 

[Blazkowicz]

I'll be happy.. if they include the command prompt as a Metro application
Thinking about it, the first computer my parents bought had a UI schizophrenia too. There was MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0 (later upgraded to MSDOS 6.0 and Windows 3.1). Least to say there was a slight difference between the 70s styled command line and the Program Manager.

For an experienced user, UI schizophrenia is the norm. I think the Start screen (tm) is a bit like "widgets", i.e. non standard applications that dwell on the desktop and that people sought after, down to installing a 3rd party app to get them. (also available on Mac, on KDE, on Vista/7 as "gadgets" etc.)

Microsoft probably tried to limit schizophrenia by getting rid of the start menu, else you have start menu and start screen competing. The trouble is that Metro is stupid shit (and that microsoft thinks that search and settings icons are "charming").

But on linux I have bash command line, dosbox, the GUI (and I have to choose one!, including three similar ones I've used - mate/gnome2, lxde, xfce).
On Windows 8 I'd have Metro UI, explorer, cmd.exe, dosbox, powershell and bash command line inside a ssh client or Cygwin or MSYS. And there are tray icons too (and panel applets on linux). And then various GUIs to worry about in web pages.

It's not easy. Hell, I liked Windows 3.1. Apps oriented, simple and lightweight, built-in tutorial. MDI model that would maybe work on high res screens (have one file manager with multiple sub-windows, etc.)
Windows 3.1 is some kind of Android or IOS, with support for multitasking.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'll be happy.. if they include the command prompt as a Metro application
Thinking about it, the first computer my parents bought had a UI schizophrenia too. There was MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0 (later upgraded to MSDOS 6.0 and Windows 3.1). Least to say there was a slight difference between the 70s styled command line and the Program Manager.

For an experienced user, UI schizophrenia is the norm. I think the Start screen (tm) is a bit like "widgets", i.e. non standard applications that dwell on the desktop and that people sought after, down to installing a 3rd party app to get them. (also available on Mac, on KDE, on Vista/7 as "gadgets" etc.)

Microsoft probably tried to limit schizophrenia by getting rid of the start menu, else you have start menu and start screen competing. The trouble is that Metro is stupid shit (and that microsoft thinks that search and settings icons are "charming").

But on linux I have bash command line, dosbox, the GUI (and I have to choose one!, including three similar ones I've used - mate/gnome2, lxde, xfce).
On Windows 8 I'd have Metro UI, explorer, cmd.exe, dosbox, powershell and bash command line inside a ssh client or Cygwin or MSYS. And there are tray icons too (and panel applets on linux). And then various GUIs to worry about in web pages.

It's not easy. Hell, I liked Windows 3.1. Apps oriented, simple and lightweight, built-in tutorial. MDI model that would maybe work on high res screens (have one file manager with multiple sub-windows, etc.)
Windows 3.1 is some kind of Android or IOS, with support for multitasking.

I never did like windows 3.1 much. Back then I was an OS/2 + DOS guy. Win95 combined with OS/2 basically dying is what finally won me over to the Windows camp.

Regards,
SB

 

[liolio]

OK as I get more and more experience with the OS, I've to say that from one day to the other I share more and more Grall's opinion on the matter.

The sense of "new" is wearing off and having to go to the start screen is a pretty sucky to access applications or programs. It indeed sucks and whereas the fullscreen flavor of the apps is nice it makes unpractical any type simple multi tasking (like having multiple windows visible at the same time).

Overall Apps are nice for extremely casual uses only and so is the start menu. I think that MSFT should look at what Sansumg did with that notebook as I think for them it was the way to go:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7092/...1800-133-tablet-running-windows-8-and-android
They should simply have Windows RT running on a virtual machine... reintroducing the start menu is not enough. Windows8 and Windows 8 rt are different product for different uses, trying to blend them was a bad idea.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That's where I disagree.

On my desktop I mostly use desktop apps. But like the ability to use Metro apps at times even if rarely.

On my tablet I mostly use Metro apps. But it is absolutely essential for me to be able to run my desktop apps on my tablet just as I have had for the past 8 years starting with Windows XP Tablet edition.

If all I had access to on the tablet was Windows RT, that would be absolutely useless to me. Just as an iPad and Android tablets are absolutely useless to me.

I got my g/f a Windows 8 slate with docking station. She's a heavy Mac user, but loves the Win 8 tablet. She mostly uses it while docked. She never uses the touchpad or connects a mouse to it. And she now finds herself trying to use touch on her 27" iMac. It's also less powerful than her Win7 laptop (Core i3 versus Clovertrail) but she hasn't even touched her Win7 laptop since January. She's also been using Windows based machines since 1993.

Regards,
SB

 

[liolio]

That's where I disagree.

On my desktop I mostly use desktop apps. But like the ability to use Metro apps at times even if rarely.

On my tablet I mostly use Metro apps. But it is absolutely essential for me to be able to run my desktop apps on my tablet just as I have had for the past 8 years starting with Windows XP Tablet edition.

If all I had access to on the tablet was Windows RT, that would be absolutely useless to me. Just as an iPad and Android tablets are absolutely useless to me.

I got my g/f a Windows 8 slate with docking station. She's a heavy Mac user, but loves the Win 8 tablet. She mostly uses it while docked. She never uses the touchpad or connects a mouse to it. And she now finds herself trying to use touch on her 27" iMac. It's also less powerful than her Win7 laptop (Core i3 versus Clovertrail) but she hasn't even touched her Win7 laptop since January. She's also been using Windows based machines since 1993.

Regards,
SB

Well nothing prevent manufacturers to both ship tablets based on Windows 8 and on Windows RT.
The Windows 8 RT "virtual machine" could be a "standard" feature of vanilla windows 8.
Imo that approach would solve a lot of problems.
MSFT could revert to and possibly improve an UI that is both well known even of casual users and that is convenient for professional uses.
The real casual users may not need vanilla windows and could be fine with RT (though same critics applies to that OS, there are lackings and it badly lacks Apps...) the others users would not have to deal with the schizophrenic UI or "on demand". Quite the contrary of what we have now where you have to launch the "desktop", you would Windows RT and the metro UI.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That's my point though. The UI isn't schizophrenic to me. And I find the changes with regards to desktop computing to be an improvement on what we had before with the start menu.

Then again perhaps it's because I'm like Blazkowicz, and I'm just "used" to computing with different UIs.

Up until Windows 8 launched I was starting to think I was getting old because I wasn't able to adapt to change as quickly as in my past. But, if anything, the Windows 8 launch shows me that more of the forum goer's on the internet must be far older than I am if I can adjust so quickly to such a minor change.

No one is forced to use Metro apps on the desktop. If you don't like them just don't use them. Populate your Start Screen with desktop apps. Over 95% of the apps on my desktop Start Screen are desktop apps (Tablet is different). I just have a few Metro apps there because they show informative information at a glance (weather, for example) without having to start them.

Or the music player app because I love how it snaps to the side taking up a predefined amount of space that can't be overridden by another app while my desktop and desktop apps take up the rest of the space. I'm doing that right now. I could just start up a desktop app for music and manually size it and place it, but this is just so much more organized having it snapped to the side and always available.

Meh, to each their own. Just like I used to hate Windows and vowed never to use it if I didn't have to. Times have changed.

Regards,
SB

 

[Grall]

Well actually it is not what is bothering me, most of those things are convenient to do (at for me with a mouse)

"Convenient" is a relative term...

My point was, regardless how "convenient" running metro apps on a desktop UI may be, the way MS designed metro means the way you use it differs fundamentally from a traditional "WIMP" GUI. Swiping and hovering the mouse pointer to perform actions and reveal hidden buttons isn't logical, ergonomic or practical in a desktop/mouse environment. The layout of metro works really BAD on a large monitor, buttons are laid out all over the screen meaning you need to fly around with the mouse a lot to reach them. For example, you click bottom-left corner where start menu used to be to get the idiotic start screen, right-click the background to get the "show all apps" bottom-bar (which isn't visible AT ALL until you do this, with no hints at all of how to accomplish this task unless you find it out yourself by experimenting or somebody tells you), and move the mouse to the far opposite side of the screen to click that button.

What a fucking disaster. IE9 and 10 both suffer from the same disjointed UI design, but that's on a small scale compared to this.

The main issues to me are: first that schizophrenia, your average people may very think that he is in fact dealing with 2 OS...

Well, you are, aren't you.

well I sort of disagree with that, you can make groups

I can MAKE groups...? My start menu was INHERENTLY grouped, that's what was good about it.

Also, since they removed the start menu, accessing the startup folder is a royal pain in the ass; there's no functionality whatsoever for doing that through the new excrement-orgy that is the new start screen.

I whole-heartedly approve of the idea of punting all of metro into a separate virtual machine. That's what MS should have done in the first place to let people run metro apps on their desktops. No need to try and shoe-horn two disparate OSes together. You end up with UI schizophrenia as you so accurately put it, and metro is so incredibly space-inefficient. All the buttons and UI widgets are retardedly huge and child-like in appearance due to having to be designed for big inprecise human fingers.

Rip it out! Windows won't be useable again until they do.

 

[Arwin]

I disagree with some oc what you guys are saying. In my view they haven't integrated Apps and the rest enough. Apps should be able to run in Windows (like I have now with a third party tool). The 'Start Screen' shouldn't be limited to one display necessarily, and features that make sense on a tablet such as only ever showing one image at a time or pausing a video automatically should have Desktop options that behave different. Also let me drag more freely with the mouse, not just using the scroll bar.

 

[Miksu]

One of the larger problems with Start Screen is that every app icon is added to it automatically, without any hierarchy. For example, when I install Visual Studio, I get around 10 new icons (/tiles). I think I have about 150 tiles on the Start Screen at the moment and it's just a mess.

Fortunately, 8.1 should fix this. In 8.1 the new tiles are added to "All apps" (or is it just "Apps") view from which the user can pin them to the Start Screen.

Also, 8.1 should make the search better. I just loved how in Windows 7 the Start menu search results included the apps and the settings. In Windows 8, if I want to launch the "Network and sharing center", I first type "Netw" and get "No apps" result, after which I must click the Settings-button where I have ~30 matches. The 8.1 should integrate these two again.

The 8.1 Beta should be available on 26th of June.

 

[Davros]

One of the larger problems with Start Screen is that every app icon is added to it automatically, without any hierarchy.

My god I would of ended up with over 500 icons on the start screen (or is that just for apps and not programs)

 

[zed]

My god I would of ended up with over 500 icons on the start screen (or is that just for apps and not programs)

yeah thats a major complaint with windows 8, i get multiple icons/tiles with some programs
how does mac do it, it seems to only give one icon/tile/widget per program
not that im advocating doing anything the mac os does but it seems to use a smarter (tm) method in this case

 

[UniversalTruth]

Win8 is the biggest pile of bullshit I have ever seen coming out of Seattle,

Yup, that's quite true, I am quite intrigued how exactly they will get over it and in which direction they will go to fix those enormous inconveniences they caused or are trying to cause to millions of people...

I think the major reason nowadays to have crappy products is that companies give too much credit, are too tolerant and very liberal to the ideas of many different people.

Instead of doing what is supposed to be right, they go in different weird directions just to satisfy those people's silly vision...

 

[Davros]

how does mac do it, it seems to only give one icon/tile/widget per program

Even if win8 did that I would still have over 500 icons on the start screen as i have over 500 programs installed

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

So is it true that Windows 8.1's solution to not having a start menu is to put in a start button that simply takes you to the abortion that is the start screen under Metro? If so... well that's shit.

I don't believe that MS is full of stupid people, so I can only think they are stuck in corporate denial and insisting on forcing a touchscreen GUI onto desktop systems despite the minor lip service of a button.