Windows 8 Pre RTM Metro UI Leaked 484
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from PC Tech Talk, which features screenshots of what is said to be something very close to what users will see in Windows 8: "One of the biggest changes Microsoft announced for Windows 8 was the change from the 'Aero Glass' interface we had in Windows Vista and Windows 7 to a new Metro UI. Until today these changes had not been fully seen as the weren't included in the recent Release Preview. A number of changes have been made to the UI since the Release Preview 2 weeks ago. Microsoft have said the new Metro UI will appear crisper following the removal of shadows and transparency. Gradients have been removed from buttons. The task bar is no longer has the glass, transparent look or blur effect. The new design brings with it some heartache for those that loved the Aero Glass effect as it has now been completely removed from Windows 8." Maybe it's more exciting in motion than are these static shots.
Wow (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh, it looks to me like win7 with less transparency. I'd say it's more on the order of "minor theme adjustment" than anything.
I just can't make myself get worked up about it one way or another like it's a huge deal.
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Windows 7?! If that IE icon was the Windows Start Button
This is my horrified face.
Seriously though, nothing about dropping Aero seems radical. I haven't played with win8 yet so I'll reserve judgement on the underlying functionality.
But in the meantime, I'm not jumping off any bridges.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
well.. you know how some people bitched that start button menu filled their entire screen after they installed 200+ programs? well, now microsoft fills your entire screen for start button and it's pressed by default.
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It get's better. I tried Windows 8 yesterday. Actually gave it a go in the environment it was designed for, a tablet PC just like the adverts show. Except that this is a widescreen tablet so every icon on the metro interface brought up the same thing "Your screen resolution is too low to run metro apps, 1024x768 minimum".
WELL FUCKING DONE MICROSOFT. About the only tablet convertibles released recently have been eeePCs with tiny screens. Way to fucking go releasing an OS that doesn't run on those because you
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And now with Unity, we can return to those glorious Win3.1 icon mashups!
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So soon we'll have dual 24" monitor tablet pcs you need to drag around with a mouse. Thanks iPad.
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Microsoft makes a design decision you think is brain dead, which is (once again) the aping of a successful user interface but meant for a totally different device type... and you blame Apple??
Your beef is with Microsoft alone. Unlike Microsoft-Nokia, Apple doesn't have a loyal point man inside Microsoft making boneheaded decisions.
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I was mostly joking. What I mean is the ridiculous success of the iPad has made everyone think everything has to be like a tablet to be worth selling. I don't want my desktop to turn into a giant iPhone/iPad.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
But what if I don't have a tablet and only have a desktop. Now I have to get a touchscreen to launch any application on my home desktop.
Everyone loves touchscreens, they're so cool. Haven't you watched sci-fi movies? Haven't you seen CSI?
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
How am I supposed to start new programs?
There is that start key on your keyboard that 99% of keyboards not produced by Apple Inc. in the last 15 years have. Tablets will also have a physical start button, much like the home button on iOS devices.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean the key that 90% of gamers disabled or removed because accidentally touching it just as you were about to cap/frag/score/win/pwn/save the princess is the leading cause of keyboards being snapped in half over a knee in a fit of hysterical rage? That key us gamers haven't used, ever?
Great.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
What kind of crap games are you playing that don't disable that key for you? Seriously. That key is 17 years old.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
What kind of crap games are you playing that don't disable that key for you? Seriously. That key is 17 years old.
He said "save the princess".
I think that says it all.
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You mean the key that 90% of gamers disabled or removed because accidentally touching it just as you were about to cap/frag/score/win/pwn/save the princess is the leading cause of keyboards being snapped in half over a knee in a fit of hysterical rage? That key us gamers haven't used, ever?
Great.
The key that you, gamer, don't use. The rest of us adapted to it sometime over the last 10-15 years since it was introduced. Quick launch explorer? Win+E. Search? Win+F. Force-minimize everything? Win+D? Gently minimize everything? Win+M. Lock quickly? Win+L. Run dialog? Win+R. There are more.
As far as hitting it by accident... just don't. Not to mention most games provide a means to disable it.
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The home button is unnecessary when you have a well-designed touch-only UI. Apple has only made things worse by stuffing extra functions in to the home button that would be better served by additional keys. Right now, the ugly thing takes you home, switches between applications, launches voice control, launches Siri, launches spotlight, launches iPod controls, (did I miss any? probably!) depending on when and how you press it.
Take a look at WebOS or, even better, the UI on the PlayBook to see a touch-only
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The equivalent shortcut on Windows is Win+R
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Not really, since you won't find most applications in the %path%.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
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..... especially since I won't be using Eight. ;-)
I need to get off my duff and go buy a spare Win7 machine while they're still available. BTW will this be Windows NT 6.2? Or are they incrementing to 7.0 for Eight?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
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Bring back the File Manager
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Actually, the best comparison I’ve seen is the one between Windows 1.0 and Windows 8.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, the best comparison I’ve seen is the one between Windows 1.0 and Windows 8.
Agreed. Basically, they've gone from just lines ("flat"), to beveled, to Luna (the "Fisher Price" default XP theme) to Aero Glass, and back to lines again. I wonder how much Aero cost to develop, now that they're basically tossing it.
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Do. Not. Want.
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It's like a 12 year old Disney intern ate a bunch of crayons and threw up on the screen.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Remember the golden rule of Windows: "Skip every other version - because it's crap"
I remember it well, but I think you put an extra "other" in it.
almost as attractive as Windows 3.1 (Score:3, Insightful)
That's horrific.
and Merto is program manager full screen (Score:2)
and Merto is program manager full screen that goes away when you start a app.
Re:and Merto is program manager full screen (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny you mention that. I had told a colleague the other day that I predict this will be the same as Active Desktop. People will just want to turn it off / get it the hell out of the way so they can get some actual work done with their PCs. Unfortunately, it's going to be another set of APIs in Windows that will have to be maintained forever, and will turn the OS a bit schizophrenic in terms of it's presentation.
I'm actually really happy with Windows 7 - I really like the way it looks and performs. So, I don't think it's a matter of me simply not liking change, I think. I just can't see any use for this Metro stuff on a desktop. Sure, it makes perfect sense on tablets, but why try to pretend it's useful in situations where it obviously won't be?
Meh. I just don't get this at all.
It looks the same (Score:4, Insightful)
It looks the same. I the blurring/transparency that important?
Is this Metro? (Score:2)
This seems to be normal overlapping windows. I was under the impression that "Metro" was a Unity-like single app desktop.
Re:Is this Metro? (Score:4, Informative)
This is not Metro. This is the Windows 7 - like part of the OS, they just made the color theme a bit more like Metro. Aero transparency was really jarring when you switched from Metro.
I think the desktop has been deprecated. Microsoft no longer intends to add any new feature to it, just bug-fixes. That's sad, because the desktop found in Windows 7 is probably the best computer interface there is.
Re:Is this Metro? (Score:4, Informative)
>"Metro" is the new start menu
No. No.. It's. Not.
Go play with IE in Metro mode and tell me that Metro is just the start screen.
Where did this idea come from that Metro is just the start screen? I've seen people who are totally ignorant claim this, and then I've seen dyed-in-the-wool Windows White Knights 4 Lyfe who should know better, claim this. It's not. It's a whole new interface paradigm.
Crikes.
--
BMO
Pirate proof (Score:5, Funny)
I for one will not be pirating this version. The ultimate DRM!
hideous, hideous, hideous (Score:5, Funny)
its like seeing bill o'reilly naked
i'm going to run out and buy a Mac for twice the price of a PC just so i don't have to look at this
Don't need a Mac just to escape Windows 8 (Score:5, Funny)
i'm going to run out and buy a Mac for twice the price of a PC just so i don't have to look at this
You don't need to. My clean PC runs Xubuntu.
Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC [xubuntu.org].
Re:Don't need a Mac just to escape Windows 8 (Score:5, Funny)
You, sir, play a very dangerous game.
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i'm going to run out and buy a Mac for twice the price of a PC just so i don't have to look at this
You don't need to. My clean PC runs Xubuntu.
Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC [xubuntu.org].
Yeah, but will it speed up the gigabits in my router?
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Shh.... if they all run Linux we'll have no Apple users to laugh at. [paradoxoff.com]
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Interesting choice. Your collection of O'Reilly pics will look much more lifelike on a retina display.
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"its like seeing bill o'reilly naked"
This thread is worthless without pics!
'Windows Classic' theme? (Score:3)
Can it still be set back to the 'Windows Classic' theme? If so, nothing to see here.
(I do need to touch a Microsoft PC once every few months).
Re:'Windows Classic' theme? (Score:5, Informative)
No, the Windows Classic theme is actually not there this time. After surviving XP, Vista, 7, 8 seems to kill it off.....
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Well that tears it; Classic was the only reason I could even tolerate Win7 as a dual boot option. So Microsoft has joined the GNOMEs in total tablet madness. Only Microsoft has now one upped them with this retro 'could have been done on 16 color VGA with no GPU' look.
XFCE for the win. Guys, computers aren't new virgin territory anymore! We just want to get work done, not spend all of our time relearning your latest reimagining of the OS. It is beyond that now, it is all about the apps.
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LXDE (lubuntu) for the win.
This is what a 16 color OS looks like. Not too terribly exciting is it? Hey wait. It looks like a lo-res version of Eight!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/Windows_3.0_workspace.png [wikimedia.org]
Actually, not too bad. (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree, this looks a lot better (Score:4, Interesting)
Just because you can compute transparency does not mean you should use it.
IMHO this is looking infinitely better, the first time they have improved over the "Classic" appearance. Clean is much better.
The title bars and resize edges are really thick however. And they seem to be cluttering the titlebar with icons. Not sure what the colored text that seems to be attached to the "ribbon" tabs is either, it would seem better to move the ribbon tabs and menu bar up into the titlebar.
window manager (Score:5, Funny)
These screenshots remind me of linux when the window manager crashes.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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In other words, good enough to eat.
No morse code for you (Score:5, Funny)
... looks like ass.
Or vagina.
Stay away from Morse Code, if you have that much trouble determining dots from dashes.
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Or vagina.
I like this new meme. It's one of the few good things to come out of Microsoft.
Some blur... (Score:2)
The task bar is no longer has the glass, transparent look or blur effect.
Actually, look at the lower right corner. The wallpaper is indeed showing through in a blurred translucent way. Of course, I'm going to guess the trick is the wallpaper has a one-time blend done and windows will not show up behind the bar in a blurred way....
In any event, MS is throwing Desktop experience under the bus hard chasing that tablet market...
Feels like late '90s all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
If these screenshots are to be believed, it feels like every fancier looking OS from the late 90s, back before most of the fancier stuff was really feasible.
Shadows have a role (helps to establish depth and layers). Gloss has a role (draws the eye to interactive elements). Translucency has a role (establishes that something is over something else and gives it a sense of impermanence). Gradients have a role (draws the eye along the gradient towards something). Windows Vista and 7 overdid it by quite a bit, but cutting them out entirely is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You sacrifice usability when you do so. You can take a minimalist approach while still having those elements.
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Yes, but they're going back to their favourite iteration of the UI: Windows 98. :P
GPU? (Score:2)
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Actually, the color scheme is *actually* defaulting in that way and not a lot of customization offered to change it. At least based on the release preview....
Re:GPU? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you want your CPU doing the Window compositing? Computers have these massive GPUs sitting around doing nothing - might as well use them for something like, I dunno, graphics processing.
Re:GPU? (Score:4, Funny)
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They removed transparency? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why?
It's like a step backwards to an old 80s OS where everything consisted of solid bars with no shading or variation.
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Well, technically:
C:\>
Although I had the nice ANSI colors and extended graphics to make the prompt look nice :)
[John]
3.0 v. 3.1(1) (Score:5, Funny)
This design is great, but Windows for Workgroups 8.11 is going to be even better!
Metro = Retro? (Score:5, Insightful)
How odd - it looks like any of a dozen Linux window managers from the late 90's. Back then I used to think how the flat/square look was just the first simple thing a developer would come up with, and how Linux would need a little more graphical refinement if they ever hoped to go mainstream. In the end it doesn't matter much for usability, but it sure looks like a toy/baby window manager to me.
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Clean and simple (Score:5, Insightful)
All I have to do is set the window border color to a nice light blue, drag the task bar to the top of the screen, and I'll feel like I'm back using my Amiga from 20 years ago. Which isn't a bad thing, really.
What I find funny is that everyone bashed XP's big rounded edges and colorful themes as being cartoonish. Then Vista came around, and everyone railed against Aero for being a pointless resource hog, adding eye candy without functionality. With 7, everyone complained it was just a service pack for Vista, because there wasn't a big huge interface change. Now, they decide to overhaul it to be a simpler, cleaner interface, without the frivolous flair, and everyone hates against that too.
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I'm one of those people, and after I've had my say and lambasted Windows compared to the wms I've experienced with Linux (Windows should really decouple its window manager more so that it's easier to run 3rd-party wms), I sit down, spend 5 minutes searching through rearranged menus, and turn on Classic Theme.
It's unobtrusive, it's simple, and it works. Win+R is vastly inferior to the Mod4+P dmenu binds I could set up, the lack of multiple workspaces is atrocious, multimonitor support is a joke, but at leas
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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>>>With 7, everyone complained it was just a service pack for Vista, because there wasn't a big huge interface change.
That's because Seven is what Vista SHOULD have been, if they had not rushed it to market.
>>>Vista came around, and everyone railed against Aero for being a pointless resource hog, adding eye candy without functionality
When your brand-new 1/2 gigabyte computer freezes-up for 2-3 minutes because of ahrd drive thrashing, that means Vista is a braindead resource hog. (Funny ho
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That's the best they can do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Much improved (Score:3, Insightful)
We're now in an age where we don't need to draw physical analogs to digital representations in order to understand them. File systems make sense without talking about a filing cabinet and a physical manila folder. Erasing makes sense without having to talk about a pencil eraser. Copying makes sense without having to talk about a clip board. However, Apple still insists on a physical spiral notebook for their notes app, or a desk planner for their calendar app, or a bookshelf for the iBooks app. Maybe this is comforting to a much older generation than mine, but I find no value in it, and therefore welcome the cold digital interface that metro brings.
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That's an excellent point. I hate icons (I don't necessarily know what a squiggle and two dots mean) and some of the faux garbage in Lion is truly annoying.
But my big gripe with Metro is the wasted space. Yeah, you need some extra room on a 4 inch tablet. On a 27 inch monitor, not so much. Don't know how configurable this will be. But it's got to look better than 7. That 's just unnecessarily complex and busy.
Maybe wait for 9.....
Dumbing down the interface (Score:2)
Microsoft is slowly alienating the users who keep it alive, until it become irrelevant and so
similar to the competition all it will have to fall back on is features and innovation, which it is no longer
a leader in.
I've never seen a company so eager to destroy their own user base though forced , unwanted, change.
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I've never seen a company so eager to destroy their own user base though forced , unwanted, change.
Wander over to a discussion on Mountain Lion in the Apple forums. Remarkably similar rending of garments and gnashing of teeth.
Simmar to gmail (Score:3)
Is this just some kind of "natural" progression we're going with?
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My guess is that the developers are being starved for good / passionate ideas, so they're scraping the bottom of the barrel. You know how things are when you read the same sentence over and over again, until it loses its meaning? And then you keep reading it, and playing around with the words in your mouth, stressing syllables and thinking about alternate meanings for the various words? That's what they're doing here. They haven't bridged the gap from the current paradigm to a superior evolution, so they ar
let me guess? (Score:2)
Still the f'ed up ui that ONLY works on on tablets, right? Pass. Its going to be an absolute nightmare for all of these poor people who order their Dell's and go "What the fuck is this shit? How do I navigate this thing?"
RIP Windows 7 the last sane MS Desktop OS
RIP Snow Leopard the lasr sane Mac OS
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I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you didn't RTFA...
In other news: (Score:5, Informative)
IE 10: Better HTML 5 support - not much else - who cares?
Sign in with MS Account: Who cares? Is anyone gonna use this?
Picture Password and PIN Login: Picture pass is kinda cool, but PIN login? Really?
Ribbon in Windows Explorer: Holy cow no thank you.
Hybrid Boot: Kinda cool - depends on how well it works.
Windows To Go - Officially supported BartPE. Yawn.
Refresh and Reset Recovery - How about making it so you don't need recovery in the first place? How is this better than a decent backup system?
Native USB 3 - This shouldn't be a Windows 8 "feature," this should be in a service pack for Vista and Seven
New Windows Task Manager - Yawn
XBox Live integration - I don't think anyone will care about this - are they thinking about competing with steam? Good luck.
Storage Spaces - LVM for the masses? Kinda cool.
Family Safety - Wasn't this included with Windows Live? Yawn
Antivirus in Windows Defender - In other words, they are just including MSE.
Secure Boot Support - Holy cow no thank you
So a handful of actually useful new features (that can, mostly, be added on to Seven with 3rd party utilities) a few that should be included with Seven and Vista, and a bunch that I don't want, including, in a big way, Metro.
Doesn't sound like a winner.
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Refresh and Reset Recovery - How about making it so you don't need recovery in the first place? How is this better than a decent backup system?
It replaced the mish-mash of different manufacturer specific recovery systems. Less half baked crapware and a single system to support can only be a good thing.
Windows To Go - Officially supported BartPE. Yawn.
Most people have never heard of BartPE and using it violates the Windows license. Plus it doesn't work well from a USB drive, e.g. installing apps is flaky. MS has taken a good idea and added proper support for it. I really don't see how you can paint that as anything other than a useful and good thing,
Ribbon in Windows Explorer: Holy cow no thank you.
I find it faster and easier than menus.
Native USB 3 - This shouldn't be a Windows 8 "feature," this should be in a service pack for Vista and Seven
It practi
Leaner and faster (Score:2)
balmer not satisfied with destroying ms monopoly (Score:2)
Leak? (Score:4, Insightful)
This theme seems to already be present in the Consumer Preview that was released a few weeks ago. The only difference is that the RTM is going to use this theme by default. Did I miss something here?
First impression? (Score:2)
Those images look like they could be from Google Apps.
Microsoft just became the laziest of OS designers (Score:5, Insightful)
After having used Windows 8 and started developing apps for it using VS 2012 (11 beta) for several months now, I have to say Metro is about the laziest UI design that has come out of any OS developer in the history of operating systems.
What they have done is removed ALL borders, all color variations and rounded corners, along with any chrome and created blobs of white/grey boxes with text on it.
Its almost like Microsoft has given up on traditional desktop applications and want to encourage more "web-like" app designs exclusively for the Metro overlay.
I could almost be claimed to be a Windows fanboy, but Windows 8 is the first time since Windows ME that I am greatly disappointed in the direction Microsoft is taking for UI/UX. It is horrid on almost every level of UI and UX and I have been a UI/UX developer for 15+ years.
Windows 8 may be the biggest disaster they have ever created.
Never liked Aero (Score:3)
I really never liked Aero that much and the special effects just seemed like fluff to make the CPU work harder than being anything useful.
Less is more and I suck for calling BS (Score:3)
I still prefer NT4 era window decorations (NONE) cause I just want to get shit done and pretty graphics means less space on screen for apps.
However on friends and realitives computers who don't all have eagle eyes the aero thing with the transparencies really look quite nice and cool.
It is to me a little bit hilarious Microsoft is focusing on function over pretty interfaces while at the same time pushing a totally zombie consumption based interface concept like metro which makes no sense at all on the desktop.
My conspiracy theory they want the desktop interface to look as ugly as they can get away with so people will be less confused by Microsofts 8-bit blockworld interface.
It was cool to be able to run and see the output of two DOS programs on one 640x480 vga computer display at once in desqview like 20 years ago... The reserrection of that same prospect for metro apps in 2012 on our modern high rez monitors is beyond anything I am capable of processing or understanding.
I wish MS the best of luck in its future endeavours chasing the apple zombie class of users.. As for me I don't want to be on your nonsensical sinking ship anyway MS...I'm jumping ship while there are still penguins in the water willing to rescue me.
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My guess is it isn't real-time blend and blur, but a blend and blur only when wallpaper changes. I'm guessing if you have a window 'under' the taskbar, you won't see the window contents blended and blurred like you do in 7.
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If you look at my post history, I have *HAVE* been an avid supporter of Windows for my desktop OS
from an AC.
Slashdot is getting weirder all of the time.
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Correction: "2012 will be the year of Windows 7 on the desktop"
If you want to get really crazy: "2012 will be the year of OSX on the desktop"
As much as I would like more Linux on the desktop, it is not to be........ Unless Valve releases most of their first party library, steam, and all the indie games that support linux there too, that could change something...
Steam For Linux Will Launch In 2012 (9 days ago) (Score:2)
Unless Valve releases most of their first party library, steam, and all the indie games that support linux there too, that could change something
Then you might call this change we can believe in [slashdot.org].
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I don't really have a problem with them using a little bit of CPU or GPU time if I get something out of it. But the operating system UI exists to connect me to either my data, or the applications I want to run to do something with my data. It is not, in and of itself, supposed to do much. What it looks like is a matter of basically arbitrary style. There are some considerations for designing for accessibility (physical and learning), but otherwise the OS should stay out of the way of what I'm actually d
Re:It's shiny and pretty (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that all that counts today ? pretty effects and cool graphics ? I for one just want a plain old desktop with no background, just the classic theme without anything installed, no gadgets no candy just the desktop, a couple of icons there and that's about it.
You do realize, of course, that roughly 30 years ago, computer geeks were running complaining about these new-fangled GUIs and how they just wanted a good ol' command line interface without the pretty graphics. I think we're long past those arguments at this point. IOW, you are squarely in the minority. People want computer interfaces they can relate to and that feel "human" and that means pretty effects and cool graphics.
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Nah, he is just a mindless drone.