gshaw Posted May 20, 2012 Posted May 20, 2012 (edited) That's the thing with Metro, it's so high contrast and in-your-face I find it painful to look at. At night the full white screens are awful! With Aero the gradients were as subtle as you want them to be or you can turn it off and use classic window colours. With Win8 it has a lowest common denominator feel to it... something along the lines of "if tablets and phones can't run it we'll restrict desktops to the same" The whole MS gamble is on the user wanting the same OS and look on tablet and PC. It's either going to be genius forward thinking or a huge fail. A lot of which depends on tjr hardware and price point of said hardware... will take a lot to make the sheep move from their iOS devices... Edited May 20, 2012 by gshaw
localzuk Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 The whole MS gamble is on the user wanting the same OS and look on tablet and PC. It's either going to be genius forward thinking or a huge fail. A lot of which depends on tjr hardware and price point of said hardware... will take a lot to make the sheep move from their iOS devices... And there in lies the problem for me. I don't want a steering wheel on my microwave. I don't want a joystick on my taps. So why do I want a tablet interface on my PC? 1
alttab Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 That's the thing with Metro, it's so high contrast and in-your-face I find it painful to look at. At night the full white screens are awful! With Aero the gradients were as subtle as you want them to be or you can turn it off and use classic window colours. With Win8 it has a lowest common denominator feel to it... something along the lines of "if tablets and phones can't run it we'll restrict desktops to the same" The whole MS gamble is on the user wanting the same OS and look on tablet and PC. It's either going to be genius forward thinking or a huge fail. A lot of which depends on tjr hardware and price point of said hardware... will take a lot to make the sheep move from their iOS devices... although it seems like MS are banking on cracking the tablet market with a combo of Win8 and x86/arm tablets, if you leave aside the changes to the traditional Start Menu, is it not an evolution of Windows7 rather than something completely new ? Dropping aero doesn't make it a radically different departure from Windows 7, to that degree they've clearly thought about the new OS still needing to run on the millions of OEM pc's that will continue to be shipped every year. And so they're basing the success on the foundations of Windows 7. I would suggest that XP to Vista was a far bigger leap for consumers because various things were renamed or relocated. So much so that people who used nothing but xp for years would be forgiven if they were still thinking in xp-mode and struggling through navigating around windows 7. i would say what they're doing is really bold, and could be argued is a better approach than hiding some of the tablet-style features where only the curious would bother to explore and everyone else happily ignores and carries on using the new OS in the old ways because they are not compelled to do otherwise, which is arguably what you have had with the last couple of OSX releases.
Gatt Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 Unless MS pull a rabbit out of a magic hat and restore the start menu and have the option for Win7 themes, I will be sticking with Windows 7 This is the first time since I started using Windows (95) that I have not been eager to upgrade to their new OS Even ME and Vista looked promising during Beta. TBH, I am even being swayed towards looking for a decent Linux Distro or even **shudder** OS X - and run either XP or Win7 in a VM/Wine for stuff that has to run in a Windows Environment... Windows 8 looks like something that has been designed in KS2 - for KS2 Perhaps the only people to be worried are VTech and LeapFrog..
CyberNerd Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 With Aero the gradients were as subtle as you want them to be or you can turn it off and use classic window colours. With Win8 it has a lowest common denominator feel to it... something along the lines of "if tablets and phones can't run it we'll restrict desktops to the same" TBH when XP first came out it was also criticised for being the 'teletubby' operating system and pandering to the lowest common denominator, for stupid people and children. That turned out to be a success. TBH, I am even being swayed towards looking for a decent Linux Distro or even **shudder** OS X - and run either XP or Win7 in a VM/Wine for stuff that has to run in a Windows Environment... Been doing that for years now. Best of both worlds,
Gatt Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 I stopped using Ubuntu when they launched Unity but now that most distro's seem to be using Gnome Shell I may need to revisit (esp now I got 12.04 with Linux Format on Friday...) As for OS X - Unless it can run smoothly on a standard PC - I'm not shelling out the ridiculous cash for a Mac..
CyberNerd Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 I stopped using Ubuntu when they launched Unity but now that most distro's seem to be using Gnome Shell I may need to revisit (esp now I got 12.04 with Linux Format on Friday...) Try Cinnamon, in Mint13 (RC) New features in Linux Mint 13 - Linux Mint 1
Gatt Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 Will do - will need to get it and build a VM for a play about...
SYNACK Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 TBH when XP first came out it was also criticised for being the 'teletubby' operating system and pandering to the lowest common denominator, for stupid people and children. That turned out to be a success. In other words the vast majority of humanity then
zag Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 Windows 8 is ugly but moving to linux? Come on, its not that bad!! The minimalist interface actually looks OK once you get used to it. The task bar really needs to be upgraded as well as the icons to make it all look good together. But to me its still a downgrade from windows 7, especially missing the start menu and option to apply windows 7 aero if you want. Someone already mentioned this but remote desktop could be very quick using this no frills interface. I'm really interested in all this turns out, its a huge gamble from Microsoft.
wadtech Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 TBH when XP first came out it was also criticised for being the 'teletubby' operating system and pandering to the lowest common denominator, for stupid people and children. That turned out to be a success. I definitely had that impression, ran in 'classic' look for so long.
gshaw Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 (edited) I definitely had that impression, ran in 'classic' look for so long. I put the Royale Remixed black theme on any PCs I re-install for people, so much better than the blue As far as goes the Winkey+W combo I just checked in 7 to see if I was imagining things but I was remembering right... using the current Start Menu search I can find files, programs or control panel items all within the same pane... why then in 8 does MS feel the need to split them out? Seems like much of the UI is putting extra barriers in the way of common tasks. I'd love to know if the same team from Windows 7 is doing the UI in 8... feels like a completely different design philosophy and in the process undoing much of the good work done recently. Edited May 21, 2012 by gshaw
Arthur Posted May 21, 2012 Posted May 21, 2012 why then in 8 does MS feel the need to split them out? In Windows 7 (and Vista), most people used the search box to find applications, not control panel items or files. Microsoft's blog post titled Designing search for the Start screen is worth a read if you want to find out why they changed the way it works in Windows 8. A couple of quotes from that post are shown below. When we look at the usage data of how people are using the Start menu to search in Windows 7, it’s clear that searching to launch programs is the most frequent and important activity users engage in with Start search. Our telemetry data shows that 67% of all searches in Windows 7 are used to find and launch programs. Searching for files accounts for 22% of all Windows 7 Start menu searches, and searching for Control Panel items about 9%. Searching for email messages via Start Menu is very rare (less than 0.05%). The remaining 2% are searches executing the “Run” functionality. In Windows 8, we expect people will be acquiring and installing more apps than ever before. Had we continued using the Windows 7 Start menu search interface to search for a Control Panel item, you would always see app or program results before Control Panel results, displacing many Control Panel items from being the first match. This and other constraints on the existing design required us to develop a new approach—this is especially true as we consider the increasing use of larger monitors or higher DPI screens where longer menus become even more difficult to use and navigate. In Windows 7, the total number of results that could be shown in the Start menu was limited. Depending on the number of groups with matching results, an average of 3-4 results were shown per group. Very rarely did all results for a group show up, and the organization of the results was pretty unpredictable. To give you an example, if you typed "power" into the search box, most of the time you would be looking for PowerShell, not Power Options.
Pottsey Posted May 22, 2012 Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) In Windows 7 (and Vista), most people used the search box to find applications, not control panel items or files. Unless I misread it that is not what it says. Most people use control panel items or files. That stat is very misleading as just because searches are used to lunch programs it does not mean that’s the main way or only way people prefer. Take myself I must have done around 100 searches a year with around 67 of those searches to launch programs so I fit in around 67% of searches. But I must have launched over 1000’s of programs via icons or start menu which is my preferred way. In my experience 60% ish of searches are used to lunch programs but searches are used under 1% of the time to lunch programs. EDIT: To simplify they only used the usage data look at how search is used. Not a comparison of usage data for how programs are lunched outside search. Edited May 22, 2012 by Pottsey
Arthur Posted May 22, 2012 Posted May 22, 2012 Unless I misread it that is not what it says. Most people use control panel items or files. The Control Panel is 9% and Files are 22%? http://i.imgur.com/Edp9h.jpg To simplify they only used the usage data look at how search is used. Not a comparison of usage data for how programs are launched outside search. You're correct that it only covers search and the Start Menu. Launching programs in Windows 8 without searching for them first or clicking on the Start Screen is identical to Windows 7. i.e. you can still put shortcuts on the desktop and taskbar.
gshaw Posted May 22, 2012 Posted May 22, 2012 See this irritates me, rather than give the option to search for everything in there MS prefers to tell me how to use my computer (seemingly like a bad ripoff of an iPad thus far)... might only be 10% of the search but having to use another (rather bizarre) key combo to get to it annoys me 90% more than it did in 7.
Pottsey Posted May 22, 2012 Posted May 22, 2012 (edited) The Control Panel is 9% and Files are 22%? http://i.imgur.com/Edp9h.jpg You're correct that it only covers search and the Start Menu. Launching programs in Windows 8 without searching for them first or clicking on the Start Screen is identical to Windows 7. i.e. you can still put shortcuts on the desktop and taskbar. It does not cover the start menu, it only covers the search within the start menu. I cannot see where it says people use search more over the start menu. That chart is only in the context of what the search button is used for. Most people do not use search but of those that do 67% use it for programs. Which is not the same as saying search is used to load 67% of programs on a computer which is what a lot of websites seem to be reporting after reading that link Edited May 22, 2012 by Pottsey
Arthur Posted May 22, 2012 Posted May 22, 2012 That chart is only in the context of what the search button is used for. Correct. That blog post is about the Start Screen after all.
Arthur Posted May 31, 2012 Posted May 31, 2012 (edited) Here's the download link for the Release Preview... http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/release-preview Direct Links (ISOs) [b]x64[/b]: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=251532 [b]x86[/b]: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=251533 Edited May 31, 2012 by Arthur New Links
DrCheese Posted May 31, 2012 Posted May 31, 2012 Server RC up Download Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate (RC) Datacenter
CHR1S Posted June 1, 2012 Posted June 1, 2012 I do like the look of the metro UI (must be the only one) but I still think this is a tablet OS only. Fail!
SYNACK Posted June 1, 2012 Posted June 1, 2012 I do like the look of the metro UI (must be the only one) but I still think this is a tablet OS only. Nope, I like the UI too, for phones and tablets but they have not tweaked it enough for the desktop. They are doing a standard MS. Jumping on something too soon. The intro should be a bit smoother over two releases. They have been doing this for a while now with stuff like web TV and smartphones. They jump into the market and make large strides but are usually about a decade early (the UI is just a case of smooth transition). This has cost them dearly a bunch of times as someone else releases the same thing with a little more polish and usually a little more mature infrastructure behind it and suddely everyone cries revolution despite it just being an updated version of something else. MS is not alone in this but probably the most commonly done over by their own forethought in some things.
CyberNerd Posted June 1, 2012 Posted June 1, 2012 Nope, I like the UI too, for phones and tablets but they have not tweaked it enough for the desktop. They are doing a standard MS. Jumping on something too soon. The intro should be a bit smoother over two releases. They have been doing this for a while now with stuff like web TV and smartphones. They jump into the market and make large strides but are usually about a decade early (the UI is just a case of smooth transition). This has cost them dearly a bunch of times as someone else releases the same thing with a little more polish and usually a little more mature infrastructure behind it and suddely everyone cries revolution despite it just being an updated version of something else. MS is not alone in this but probably the most commonly done over by their own forethought in some things. I don't think it is true that MS are jumping on something too soon at all. Historically MS are usually late to market anything. With a few exceptions (kinect maybe?) MS is behind the competition. There is precedent for the metro principals UI in phones and linux flavours. What MS do quite well is wrap things up nicely bu they are hardly a market leader in terms of revolutionary technology.
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