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Get the true story behind Windows 8

I am nowhere near as cynical as most of my fellow commentators. I do believe that the "Metro" interface was a genuine attempt to rethink the UI from the ground up, with no legacy constraints.

Having used Window 8, I think it's a cracker on a portable touch-screen device. It wipes the floor with Android and iOS, which suddenly look so last-century (my opinion, of course).

BUT, but, but..... you will guess what I'm going to say as it's been said so many times before...... "Metro" / "Modern" / Whatever is a FAILURE on large screens (e.g. the 24" screen on my desktop) because all the elements of the UI are just too big to scan easily by eye. It's madness to use up a full 24" screen (or even 3/4 of one) just to read one email. It's just too big, with too much dazzling white space.

And another (oft said) thing: switching between Metro and Desktop is a major mental speed bump. Yes, you can cope with it well enough, but it really jars and spoils the smooth feel of the new UI.

I wish, how I wish, Microsoft had had the balls to do two things differently:

1/ Allow desktop users to switch off the Metro part of the UI entirely (not with a 3rd party kludge)

2/ Leave desktop mode OUT altogether from W8 RT.

The latter seems only to be in there so they can offer MS Office to RT users. What a terrible kludge! Without any trace of desktop mode, W8 RT would be the very embodiment of Microsoft's vision for their new UI.

Yes, I know there would be a delay making a "Metro-ised" version of Office, but it's a risk I absolutely would have taken. FWIW, I suspect the desktop mode will disappear from RT at the next release, when MS have had chance to develop a Metro-ised Office.

Those are two criticisms that have been made thousands of times already. And I believe they are absolutely valid. But those aside, if you stay inside the "Modern" part of the UI, and use it on portable-sized touch screens, I absolutely love W8 and now my Android devices look and feel seriously drab, klunky and old-fashioned.

"Having used Window 8, I think it's a cracker on a portable touch-screen device. It wipes the floor with Android and iOS".

I held off buying any tablet until after being able to review Win 8 RT. I completely disagree with you. I opted for Android and it's a joy to use across different sized devices (also bought a dual SIM smartphone, android, which is impossible in the windows or apple worlds). By comparison Metro is really fisher-price blocks for kids, not at all sophisticated and they are just square widgets, loads of empty white spaces within the apps. Android can sync with my Exchange account perfectly and Polaris handles Office files without a problem so far, why on earth would anyone go with Win 8 unless they are forced to or are a MS fanboy? I've really stuck with MS since the mid 80's but my goodness, what a dinosaur they have become. At this rate they will become extinct within a decade if they don't replace Balmer and change the company culture and products.

......but of course, when it comes to UIs, it's primarily a matter of taste. I can't seem to get on with iOS, but really like W7 and feel right at home. Other people feel the opposite. And I share your opinions of W8 if we were talking about on a desktop.

All modern UIs are designed to be a usable as possible, obviously, so there are probably no "bad" ones any more. We've got to the point where we are in a similar position to buying a car - almost any make will do the job you need, but most of us have a preference for Ford, GM, Jaguar, or whatever.

Microsoft have taken a risk and gone for what is probably the most radical UI currently available on portable computers. As with any radical product that's away from the mainstream, some will hate it, others will like it. I really like it, as I've said, but I've no idea whether it will be successful or not.

I think that whatever magic it is that makes some products successful and others bomb is still a bit of a mystery. Marketing has a lot to do with it, of course, but there's the capriciousness of the buying public that makes things pretty unpredictable in the end.

It will be interesting to see if anyone else speaks up in favour of the Modern UI.

The complaints are because its the most radical UI currently available on NON-portable computers.

No, some of the complaints are about W8 on portable kit - in particular cavehomme1 above, to whom I was replying.

I've said myself that W8 stinks on a desktop.

For a face/palm moment, how is this for the Win8 "not really thinking it through"? I have a brand new netbook, 24 hours old. In a rush of blood to the head, I tried the Upgrade Assistant and when all was well, paid for the admittedly well-designed in-place upgrade from W7 Starter to W8 Pro. (Lovely upgrade process by the way).

So I have a shiny new OS with the main selling point being the new app-based interface. Except... Netbooks run at 1024x600 and the apps won't work less than 1024x768!

This raises two issues; firstly, this isn't a surprise to the developers - can they really not trap low resolutions and re-scale accordingly? The key functionality would seem to be something you make work. And secondly, what type of Upgrade Assistant DOESN'T pick this up?! Really, this should have flashed up "your screen resolution can't cope with Windows8" and smoothly transferred me to an Upgrade Advisor to take me to Win7 Pro or some OS my (brand new) hardware could handle.

Not a great experience for me, if I'm honest!

you that what you want won't work due to poor planning by Microsoft, especially if it means you won't be paying them for the upgrade if they do?

any OS upgrade from Microsoft work. If you want a new MS OS, you are so much better off to buy a new computer.

you the low end version without any media and loaded with spyware and trialware, while you can get an OEM disc of the top end for very little now, if you go to the right on-line shops.

Generally speaking, your desktop or laptop was built to work with a particular operating system in mind.
Even with that, as Deadly points out, if you buy a computer that barely meets the required specifications for the OS it was supposedly "built" for, you can get screwed.
Sometimes, you can switch your old computer to Linux and squeeze a few more years of usefulness out of it. I'm punching this post out on a 7 year old Dell Inspiron laptop running Ubuntu.
With all of that being said, I was pleasantly surprised when I upgraded my three year old Fujitsu convertible laptop from Windows 7 to Windows 8. I have had no issues with the transition at all. The tablet is much faster and much more responsive. Everything works and it boots up in 30 seconds or less. It used to take 2-3 minutes to boot with Windows 7. I would have moved on to a newer convertible tablet by now if I hadn't upgraded the OS on the current one.

Even my old Frankenstein desktop that has parts mixed between 2003 and 2007 passes the windows 8 test. It helps that the hardware manufacturers all still exist or are well supported (like soundblaster).
I won't bother upgrading though. Windows 8 may run faster than XP, but the OS girth will kill any speed boost. A 120gig HDD from 2003 and IDE lacks the speed needed to load a 10 gig OS in an efficient time.
I could rip out the 2003 parts but it doesn't seem worth it. If I did, I would move to Windows 7.

Oh yeah, it has a 10 gig fuji hard drive in it from 1998 and an ATI Rage 1 for output to an old CRT TV using those old yellow & red & white plugs.

nt

Now there is just pieces of paper covering the holes.

nt

nt

They got it back to the shack and proceeded to pry the wood panels off.

"Ya know, Bubba, I think it looked better before we took it out of the crate!"

My dad used to drive a white station wagon with fake woody sides. If it was green it would have looked like the one in National Lampoon's Vacation.

The Wifes Son in Law is restoring a Yellow Woody sort of anyway.

He's currently finished removing the rust and is now starting on the minor modifications to the Drive Train. Seems that fitting a current model Motor as well as a Full Suspension Package with a Watts Link Rear Axle will fit the bill nicely.

I'll tell him that if he paints it green he could be driving NL's Car.

he currently has been telling me that the Wood Inserts will always allow him to have Firewood if he ever breaks down outside the city.

Col

National Lampoon's Vacation is one of my favorite movies.
"Sorry folks, park's closed. Moose out front shoulda told ya."

They had a hilariously gaudy fake woody station wagon on there too!

This is a perfect example of how disconnected and bloated MS have become, and how increasingly irrelevant they will become if they do not get their act together. Your story reminded me of a recent netbook experience which had Win7 starter and would not allow my wife to change the wallpaper due to "restrictions" on this version of windows, crazy! Anyway, her netbook got trashed by a boot virus that I could nor repair so a re-install was needed. I baulked at the idea of spending half a day or more re-installing the whole thing, so I made an "executive decision" and installed Linux Mint 12 LXE in little more than about 20 minutes! More importantly she loves it, finds it more user friendly than Windows 7. It's exactly these kinds of situations which will keep on turning users away from the increasing garbage of MS. I recently bought my first table with Android on it, it's really excellent and easy to use and have no trouble working with my MS Office files on Polaris and connected to my MS Exchange account and syncing perfectly - why would I even need to think about Win 8 RT or even Pro to be honest?

One of the first things that I heard that convinced me right from the start it was not going to really tell the truth was, while Win 7 sales has grown, it seems to have gotten left out the number of PC that once purchased, get put back to XP. I can't answer for the entire world but in my little world that number is about 30%. Remember you can't buy XP on a new PC so it looks like a Win 7 sale.

Having said that I agree with the previous posts, the OS is designed around mobile devices, not a PC. In order to make it work like a PC it's aftermarket or more clicks to make the same thing happen. They have continued down the path of making things more complicated [harder] to use that they started in office 2007 and win 7. The biggest complaint I get from users is why does it take more time to get the same thing done. [more clicks, more menus].

Microsoft has the right to develop whatever they think will be the future of their company. It seems they are telling the PC user to find another OS as we are not going to make anything any better than XP was. IBM went this same type route back when I worked for them with Office Products Division. They priced themselves out of the market then stopped production and dissolved that portion of the business. Is Microsoft up to the same thing. It no secret the life of a PC as we know it has a limited future. Is Microsoft giving up on that market already, making OS that is cumbersome to use so they can discontinue developing it when users choose another option?

The operating system that we call Windows 8 can't be the last word on implementing an entirely new user interface to replace (or, better, to supplement) the "legacy" desktop. I say this based on over a year of using the various Preview versions of Windows 8, plus upgrading more than half of the computers my wife and I use at home, plus having bought a Surface RT so I could say I was truly using the Modern interface without much of the desktop experience intruding.

Windows 8 (or the current iteration of RT) has too many inconsistencies to be the fully realized Modern experience that the designers were aiming for. For instance - the Windows Store. You can install apps from this source, but sometimes when you try to actually use them, the app will pop up its initial screen, only to throw you back to the Modern screen after some indeterminate time, having failed to load for some unknown reason. Only later do you find that there's an update for the app that will make it actually do what you expected it to do initially.

The apps that are included as part of the Windows 8/RT experience are often pale imitations of their desktop equivalents. Is this because touch is less capable of the range of behaviors or services than the desktop world, or is it just because they've been rushed to market before they're done? Mail, for instance, doesn't support POP email. My main email address is with Comcast. All they offer, besides their web email, is POP email service. Consequently, I can't use my Surface RT to check my main email address except by way of the built-in IE 10. I don't really get much sense of capability in that app either. If I had the choice, I'd load Chrome.

In summary, there are a lot of things about Windows 8/RT that I like, primarily those improvements that are below the UI - better security, better speed, smaller footprint, etc. On the other hand, it's uglier, in my opinion, than its predecessor, and still seems like a work in progress. I hope it's a success, because only in that way will it have the chance to improve to be a truly great OS. Right now, it seems like a good first effort.

Window 8 for me is not very user friendly. I am new to it and practicing on window 8 but I think it will take some to shift to window 8.
Concept behind window 8 to provide users an ultimate experience is great but its execution need more improvement.

...is that it's far too little and far too late. Period.

Revenue stream.

Thhhhhhhat's all folks.

Can you see sharing your touch screen in an office or library or airport? Where have those fingers been? There isn't enough hand sanitizer in the world.

Have you ever used an e-ticket machine at an airport?
Have you ever used a cash register?
Have you ever used a "self checkout" at the grocery store?
Have you ever paid for gas at the pump?

People have been using common-space keyboards (number pads) and touchscreens for many years now.

I don't think they are going away so maybe you should invest in some e-tip gloves.
Better yet, invest in screen and keyboard sanitizer stocks.

on the above surfaces, or your hands afterward. I don't know that I want perfumey rubbing alcohol on my screen, either, though. BTW, if you're prone to contaigion, don't touch those gummy escalator handrails, either....

makes you strong.

...herpes sufferers, or diabetics feel better (or, even worse)? That which didn't kill *me* left me brain-damaged and somewhat immobile. I suggest that "That which doesn't kill you makes you HURT" may be more accurate in real life; I'm much less strong than I was before 'that' didn't quite 'kill me', but it still hurts every day.
I agree, however, with the point I believe you were making about immuno-epidemiology.....
How's this? "That which doesn't kill you leaves you.....irritable"

(edit: 'leaves' was 'makes', altered for clarity)

That's how vaccines work. A low dose of an attenuated virus or bacteria stimulates an immune response.
I worked in immunology research for 18 years - specifically researching the herpes class virus. Trust me, you can't get herpes from a dirty touchscreen or keyboard.
I don't think I'm going out on a limb with this one when I say that I am pretty confident that you can't get diabetes from a dirty keyboard or touchscreen either.

Break the Touch Screen while pressing it all bets are off and you could catch anything.

Not to mention poisoning yourself from what leaks out of the screen.

Col

I would like to see you
A. Break a touch screen by poking it with your index finger.
B. Not notice that a touch screen is broken before you touch it.

c'mon guys! You are really grasping at straws.

I was thinking of some female customers that I have run across who use their Fingernails to drive the Touch on their Smart Phones/Tablets.

I've seen several cases where they have cracked the screens and continued using them because they still work and their long Fingernails are not subject to cuts. Of course when they come to me with a problem I have issues using their devices as I don't have long fingernails and unless I have one of those Plastic Screen protectors handy for their device I don't use them.

But the point I was trying to get across a couple of days ago was that people continue to use these things when they still work regardless and they expect them to be "Repaired" by the Techs when they run into problems.

However seeing the way that some people use Touch Devices personally it wouldn't surprise me if they cracked the screens with either their Long Fingernails or a Stylist, I've even see some use a Ball Point Pen to activate the Touch Capability of their devices. Some have claimed that they have seen me use one so it's right and safe. But as they can not tell the difference between a stylist and a ball point pen I tend to not worry too much about their views except when they complain that the Stylist that I use has run out of ink and no longer writes on paper.

Col

I have never seen anyone break a touchscreen with a fingernail. Those ladies should be ninjas.
I suppose you could crack a screen with a ball point pen but a stylus is made to work on a touchscreen. Therefore it should not be able to break one too easily.
Smartphone screens crack mostly from dropping or sitting on them when they are in your back pocket. The former I could see happening with a computer touchscreen monitor but with no more frequency than a non-touchscreen. The latter would require some large back pockets.
By the way, I call smartphones with cracked screens The Spiderman Edition.

Did I say 'herpes and diabetes were contagious from touch-screens' (That's the inference backing your response.....)?!? I'm positive I said that the *aphorism* (would-be truism) you invoked, "That which doesn't...." was designed for the morale of sufferers of such non-life-threatening diseases or 'conditions' as herpes or diabetes (I made no distinction between intracellular parasites and environmental toxins, since it's 'symptoms' that elicit the comment; not 'causes'), but that it did NOT apply (as an aphoristic generality) to those of us who's 'debilitator' was something other than disease. CharlieSpencer_P got it, didn't he? He invoked a paraplegic.....

I was just trying to get you back to the subject.
If you remember, BillGates mentioned people not wanting to touch someone else's touchscreen.
I replied that he and his users touch a lot of other shared objects -inferring that the germs found on those objects are no different from what would be found on a touchscreen.
You took my statement "That which doesn't kill you makes you strong." on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
I apologize if I tried to get you closer to the my point.
I will avoid responding to your digressions from now on.
I really wanted to talk about Windows 8.

and began at "Have you ever used an ATM.....". I hadn't made you as a 'topic purist', either (any post that uses an allegory, simile, metaphor, [or aphorism] could be called a digression---or, for effect, a 'tangent'). My bad. Maybe you'll make a good moderator one day, and keep all that irrelevance (basically, any post more than two threads in...) off the page.
I wasn't the only one who gave another perspective to your post, but I apologize on behalf of us all. Happy New Year!

Like I said, I was responding to a Windows 8 / touchscreen concern. Maybe you just didn't go up high enough in the thread to catch it.
I just didn't want go down another rabbit hole further away from Windows 8.

physical hurts can leave you paralysed or severely incapacitated without killing you

nt

and if I had a tablet or fartphone,err smartphone I'd not be loaning it out to others to use.

And you never touch a doorknob, handrail, telephone, faucet, steering wheel, or shopping cart without sterilizing it first.
Yeah, right. Please...
You are full of what makes the grass grow green and I don't mean chlorophyll.
I think I'll start calling you Howard Hughes.

in some not so nice areas in the past, and a few jobs I've had got me very much into the habit of wearing gloves all the time as it was part of the work.