Windows 8 Dev build

[Malo]

My problem with Win 8, is still the fact that Metro (or whatever it is called now) is its own environment with its own software. It has its own IE that is different from desktop IE.

Why is this ? For tablet ? Security ? I really hated this about Win 8. Did they fix this for 8.1 ?

Spend a week or 2 on "desktop" IE and Modern UI IE solely on a touchscreen and you'll realize why. The desktop version is standard IE that isn't suitable for a non-touchscreen environment. I hate IE and yet I refuse to use anything else unless I have to on my Helix because it's just so well designed for tablet use and I don't see any competitors to it.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

My problem with Win 8, is still the fact that Metro (or whatever it is called now) is its own environment with its own software. It has its own IE that is different from desktop IE.

Why is this ? For tablet ? Security ? I really hated this about Win 8. Did they fix this for 8.1 ?

Then why in the world do you use Metro apps if they annoy you? Just to torture yourself? I mean sure, perhaps you accidentally went into them when you first got Win8 before you configured your Start Screen to only hold desktop apps or just got rid of the Start Screen and Metro entirely.

On the desktop there's only 2 Metro apps that I use with any sort of regularity. And that mostly just because their snapped view is useful for me on the desktop. I mean why in the world would I use a Metro app if I have a desktop app that works better on the desktop?

Otherwise, I only ever use Metro apps on my tablet. And there, I mostly use Metro apps. But I also use desktop apps depending on what I need to get done.

That said, I love that you have the ability to use the OS however you want on whatever device you want. Once I get a Haswell based tablet I'm likely going to retire one of my desktops as well as my Atom based tablet and use the Haswell tablet (connected to a monitor) as a Desktop/Laptop (with dock)/Tablet.

I won't be able to replace my gaming rig, but this would mean I'd only ever have to turn on my gaming rig when gaming.

Regards,
SB

 

[V3]

Spend a week or 2 on "desktop" IE and Modern UI IE solely on a touchscreen and you'll realize why. The desktop version is standard IE that isn't suitable for a non-touchscreen environment. I hate IE and yet I refuse to use anything else unless I have to on my Helix because it's just so well designed for tablet use and I don't see any competitors to it.

Yeah but why can't I switch between them ? If I open B3D Forum on the Modern UI IE and then switch to desktop IE, no B3D Forum is open. Why can't they integrate both IE and just changed the user interface to suit touchscreen or mouse. While keeping the instance the same. That is one Internet Explorer that changes interface depending on from where you use it.

This problem is the same for all Modern UI software. They all like seperate from their desktop counterpart. I tried using MS Surface Pro, It was good using Modern UI, but then some software launched into desktop and it was a pain to use. It just doesn't work well.

MS could have solve this by auto remapping the Desktop UI to Modern UI. That way when you're on that start screen, you stay there regardless of what software you launched. And when you get a chance to use mouse and keyboard you switch to desktop UI and all the software switch accordingly and you go on with whatever you're doing before.

Surely that's how it suppose to work, not the way it is now.

 

[V3]

Then why in the world do you use Metro apps if they annoy you? Just to torture yourself? I mean sure, perhaps you accidentally went into them when you first got Win8 before you configured your Start Screen to only hold desktop apps or just got rid of the Start Screen and Metro entirely.

On the desktop there's only 2 Metro apps that I use with any sort of regularity. And that mostly just because their snapped view is useful for me on the desktop. I mean why in the world would I use a Metro app if I have a desktop app that works better on the desktop?

This is my argument Metro UI sucks on desktop PC and Desktop UI sucks on Tablet. So why don't MS create a seperate OS for Desktop PC and Tablet. And just have a sync function between them to leverage their monopoly on desktop OS into tablet OS. This is why we got this screw up in the first place.

So say I was reading email, browsing web, reviewing spreadsheet, maybe sketched a few idea on the Tablet or Phone while out and about. Then I went back to my workstation and want to continue my work, why can't I just snyc my tablet and workstation and I go on working on the workstation from there.

At the moment the Metro and Desktop part just get in a way of each other, instead of improving user experience. Like I said if Metro IE and Desktop IE was sync from the get go, it would have been a better experience, but MS didn't do that and that sets precedence for all other software. It's just clumsy.

 

[Arwin]

It may be clumsy, but there's an amazing number of apps that are only available as Metro App, and at the same time more desktops come with touch-screens, so these worlds deserve to converge. They should just converge a bit better.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

This is my argument Metro UI sucks on desktop PC and Desktop UI sucks on Tablet. So why don't MS create a seperate OS for Desktop PC and Tablet. And just have a sync function between them to leverage their monopoly on desktop OS into tablet OS. This is why we got this screw up in the first place.

So say I was reading email, browsing web, reviewing spreadsheet, maybe sketched a few idea on the Tablet or Phone while out and about. Then I went back to my workstation and want to continue my work, why can't I just snyc my tablet and workstation and I go on working on the workstation from there.

At the moment the Metro and Desktop part just get in a way of each other, instead of improving user experience. Like I said if Metro IE and Desktop IE was sync from the get go, it would have been a better experience, but MS didn't do that and that sets precedence for all other software. It's just clumsy.

Probably because then your Tablet wouldn't function as a Desktop when hooked up to a Monitor. In other words, you get rid of the whole advantage of one device filling the roles of [three] devices. A tablet can function as a laptop with a dock or a desktop when connected to a monitor and keyboard/mouse.

I would really not want to have to install multiple OSes just to be able to use my Tablet as a desktop when I need to get serous work done, or as a tablet when I'm on vacation or just out and about.

It provides options. Options that you may choose to use or not use. I could perhaps see offering an option to uninstall the Metro component. I'd never do it, but I'm sure there are people out there that would. I'm not exactly sure how much HDD space you'd recover from that. 1.5 GB or 2 GB would be my guess considering the entire Windows Phone OS is under 2 GB, I wouldn't be surprised if Metro without any downloaded apps was less than 1 GB.

In other words, what's the gain from removing it rather than just installing a 3rd party start button/start menu that removes access to Metro?

Regards,
SB

 

[Kaotik]

This is my argument Metro UI sucks on desktop PC and Desktop UI sucks on Tablet. So why don't MS create a seperate OS for Desktop PC and Tablet.

Treat Metro as start menu on desktop, it works far better as start menu than any previous start menu ever did

 

[Davros]

I'm not exactly sure how much HDD space you'd recover from that. 1.5 GB or 2 GB would be my guess considering the entire Windows Phone OS is under 2 GB, I wouldn't be surprised if Metro without any downloaded apps was less than 1 GB.

The whole of xp was only about 500mb then it shot up to over 10gb with vista wtf happened there ?

 

[UniversalTruth]

The whole of xp was only about 500mb then it shot up to over 10gb with vista wtf happened there ?

Hmm, good question...

I'll put my money on the idea that it is intentionally so to drive large GB HDD sales

 

[zed]

Treat Metro as start menu on desktop, it works far better as start menu than any previous start menu ever did

Don't know about that.
One easy way to vastly improve it is instead of limiting itself to just 3 rows is fill up the whole screen. Surely usability is more important than seeing some background

 

[Malo]

They probably decided that scaling 3 rows of tiles was less busy than 4 rows. I'd probably agree.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

At 1600p it has 5 rows, but I'd also like to be able to use all vertical space if I wanted. As well the ability to have horizontal dividers in addition the current vertical dividers.

Regards,
SB

 

[Arwin]

I want to be able to grab the screen with the mouse to scroll sideways rather than be limited to a stupid scrollbar.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I want to be able to grab the screen with the mouse to scroll sideways rather than be limited to a stupid scrollbar.

Yup, totally agree with that as well. Whenever I come back to the desktop from my tablet, I'm always tripped up by that. Hopefully that have that in 8.1.

Regards,
SB

 

[Malo]

At 1600p it has 5 rows, but I'd also like to be able to use all vertical space if I wanted. As well the ability to have horizontal dividers in addition the current vertical dividers.

Regards,
SB

I didn't know that, thanks.

 

[Miksu]

One easy way to vastly improve it is instead of limiting itself to just 3 rows is fill up the whole screen.

If you have a monitor with a resolution over 1080p, there's a setting for that. Open the Start screen, bring up the charms, select Settings - Tiles and then enable "Show more tiles". It still won't fill up the whole screen, but it's better.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

If you have a monitor with a resolution over 1080p, there's a setting for that. Open the Start screen, bring up the charms, select Settings - Tiles and then enable "Show more tiles". It still won't fill up the whole screen, but it's better.

Haha, cool. Thanks for pointing that out. Despite liking the Start Screen, I never really looked at the tile options for it.

With a 1600p screen that now gives 8 rows of tiles, very nice.

Now I just need an option to have smaller tiles in addition to the sizes already available.

Regards,
SB

 

[Arwin]

If you have a monitor with a resolution over 1080p, there's a setting for that. Open the Start screen, bring up the charms, select Settings - Tiles and then enable "Show more tiles". It still won't fill up the whole screen, but it's better.

Yeah, I think that's one of the first things I enabled.

 

[Miksu]

Now I just need an option to have smaller tiles in addition to the sizes already available.

That will arrive with Windows 8.1. Here's a screenshot from my Start Screen (preview version of 8.1) where I've set some of the tiles to new "small" size:

 

[Albuquerque]

Yeah, the 8.1 preview brings in some nice and much-needed additional features for the metro interface. Some examples include customizing the titles of the tile "sections" (where Miksu above has Dev as the title of that section in the screen capture), smaller tiles and larger tiles (only certain apps support the biggest tile size), and a new swipe-up gesture for getting to "all apps" versus having to swipe up and then click a button for the same.

Really, 8.1 on a desktop system fixes all little complaints I had about it on that platform. My only remaining issue is a sleep problem on my Intel DX79SI board, which worked in Win7 but somehow locks the box in Win8. There's a much newer version of firmware out for my board that I haven't pulled down yet, and among other things, it mentions support enhancements for Win8 which I assume will help to rectify the sleep issue.