CowboyNeal Weighs In On the Windows 8 "Metro" GUI 671
By far, the most visible new "feature" in Windows 8, is it's new UI, which takes inspiration from smart phone and tablet devices. The old start menu is now full-screened, with large icons for all apps, and apps run in full-screen by default, changing a desktop PC into a very large tablet minus touchscreen with a keyboard and mouse added on.
It's not surprising in the least that many users take issue with this. Early on, people have said something along the lines of, "Oh it's just for the early builds, surely they will allow some way for long-time users to disable it." However, now it would seem that that would be only wishful thinking, at least for the time-being.
This is a sharp turn for Microsoft from their previous UIs. Aero, found in both Windows Vista and Windows 7, allowed users to disable it if they didn't agree with it's aesthetic, or wanted to reallocate the memory from the UI to applications. Moreover, Aero was still functionally the same as older Windows UIs. It may look prettier, but it still fires up a Start Menu like before, still lets one dock things into the taskbar, and still lets the desktop get cluttered up with icons.
It's this difference that's key here. For companies that have Windows deployments with hundreds or thousands of seats, changing the way a Windows UI works is not an option. Regardless of how easy to use the Windows 8 UI may be, it's still not the same as what users have been trained to use since 1995. Sure, Windows 7 isn't Windows 95, but changes have been introduced gradually over time, making new features easier to adjust to. The Windows 8 UI is a fast, jarring change, that is likely to frustrate users as they adjust. With no clear path to turn it off as there is with Aero, it also makes it more likely that administrators around the world are less apt to adopt Windows 8 quickly. After the debacle around initial releases of Windows Vista, one might think that Microsoft had learned their lesson. Even Microsoft wasn't too popular to make an OS that no one wanted, and Windows XP lived on far longer than anyone ever thought it would. Windows 8 has already suffered from its share of bad press even before the official release. The logical thing to do here would be to be proactive in heading off user complaints.
That's why it's rather surprising to see them take a hard stance on the Windows 8 UI. Sure, undoubtedly some third party will create a drop-in shell replacement eventually. That's been done in past versions and will likely be done again for Windows 8. For a home user, it's an acceptable path. Home users of Windows are used to beating it into submission. However, for any company that has deployed hundreds of Windows seats, mandating the use of a third party shell replacement just isn't an option, much like Windows 8 isn't an option at present.
Short of opening the source to Windows, it's reconfigurability has, until now, been rather accommodating for users. Through the use of registry settings, or third party software, users have been able to configure Windows for themselves until they feel it's sufficiently usable. While still not "free" in the GNU sense, the UI has still allowed users this semblance of freedom, to do with the UI as they will. Since a normal user wouldn't hack at the source anyway, giving them the tiny bit of freedom to determine how they interact with their UI is what keeps them as a user. What Windows 8 is looking at here, is backlash not unlike the transition from GNOME 2 to GNOME 3, albeit on a much grander scale.
What will be the final outcome? That's hard to say at this point, as Microsoft could still change their stance and implement a way to bypass the Windows 8 GUI and bring up the legacy desktop. As it is, there are several keyboard shortcuts that allow this, it's just not possible to do so automatically at boot, which would seem to be what legacy users would want most. There's also an opportunity here. If people with large Windows deployments are faced with having to retrain their users, they may think about training them on Macs or Ubuntu or something else instead. The most likely scenario though, is likely the one that we saw with the release of Windows Vista, and that is that Windows 8's predecessor will be around for a lot longer than Microsoft planned.
Business Workstations (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The every other version problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that's a bit ridiculous, to think that a company like Microsoft would intentionally want one of their products to fail, putting their market share in danger as it might cause long-time Windows users to jump ship to another platform.
No, I think it's just Microsoft being it's normal, misguided self. They really want Metro to succeed, but know that most people don't like change, so the way to force adoption is to disable any ability to revert to the previous interface. Sometimes, this sort of behavior is for the best--pushing people away from their comfort zone helps drive progress and prevent stagnation. Whether this is one of those times is a matter of opinion, and only time will truly tell whether the gamble will pay off. Personally, I fully expect them to suffer for it and for Windows 7 to become the next Windows XP, which users cling to well past its intended lifespan.
Not for me, thank you (Score:5, Interesting)
Unlike most folks here on /., I've been a windows guy forever (Hint, I still have my windows 286 floppies!). I have my own copy of MSDN, and therefore Win8 (any version) is 'free' for me. This will be the first version of Windows I don't load. (I don't count ME - I was running NT...) Sorry Microsoft. I MIGHT stick it on some secondary box somewhere, so I can test code against it, but I'll keep coding for Win7/HTML/CSS,JQuery etc. I played with an early beta on a tablet, THAT was nice, but the desktop? RIGHT, and the last 2 places I consulted at all have the same opinion, that dog doesn't hunt, and will NOT be installed
this will backfire. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that Windows 8 is going to backfire on Microsoft.
Most current Windows PC users are going to be instantly put off by "metro" on the desktop. It serves no immediate purpose and just makes it harder and less convenient to do many common things you already know how to do. There is a learning curve there and the interface only becomes efficient with some help or google searches and some practice. There is simply no reason (at this time, anyway) for it to exist on my desktop PC and it's annoying me. No other version of Windows has made me jump through quite this many hoops to do basic tasks
On a tablet it might work and it might work well. However.... I doubt MS can make a $200 windows tablet any time soon and that's the price point they will need to hit. Besides nearly everyone who wanted an iPad or iPhone probably has one by now, even if they normally use a PC. I think Windows 8 will drive millions of PC owning, happy iPad/iPhone users into the arms of Apple rather than entice them them to ditch their iPads and buy a Windows 8 Tablet. They are already tempted and if they have to learn something new, it may as well be Apples OS. When it comes time for a new PC, i think Apple can get a lot of sales, especially if they drop their PC/Laptop prices a bit. Also... I think most people running Windows 7 will not need new hardware for quite some time. The crop of PCs from the last 3 or 4 years are already overpowered for most home users. I don't see many of us buying just an OS upgrade either.
It's pretty obvious that Microsoft's ultimate goal here is to create an Apple-like walled garden. Initially, the wall won't be as high but there will be a wall. Don't forget this. They desperately want a successful iTunes/Apps Store/Google Play, etc...
Apart from "metro" There's little in Windows 8 that couldn't have been included in a Win 7 SP2. And nothing important that you can't already do in Windows 7 with a few downloads. While the core OS is solid, I still think we have another WinMe/Vista on our hands. Nobody asked for this.
Missing the strategy... (Score:5, Interesting)
The MS strategy (which will probably have some success), is pretty clear...
They figure they've got a few years of desktop monopoly left, and they want leverage this to protect their core business from iOS and Android. The plan is to get home users used to the Metro UI so that they'll be more likely to buy Windows-powered phones and tablets. Home users are far less conservative than enterprise users, and most of them will just go with whatever is loaded on their machines.
Within a three years the vast majority will be comfortable with Metro. That's about the time enterprise customers will be looking to upgrade from Windows 7, and in the meantime, everybody will be familiar enough with Metro to be immediately comfortable when they pick up a Windows Phone/Tablet.
It's really not a bad strategy. I don't think it will crush iOS and Android by a long shot, but it might just prevent MS from becoming totally irrelevant.
Re:The every other version problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember when innovation meant jumping from 16 colors to 4000 colors, from a sound chip that went "beeeeep" to near-CD level music, from single task word processing to multitasking dozens of programs at the same time. While in a live chat online. With a mouse.
Now "innovation" is just changing the screen from a desktop with icons to a desktop with brightly-colored icons. (Man. Computers have become so boring.) ;-)
Re:Microsoft Breaks Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
Well. Windows 8 is one of the first operating systems in history that uses less resources than it's predecessor. That alone should be cause for celebration. There are a lot of changes under the covers, like a rewritten network stack, faster and better file copying and moving, class drivers for printers etc that most people won't really notice other than it just feels better in use. If you don't like it, stick with Win 7. I can't help but feel that if Apple had introduced the start screen concept, people would be hailing it as the most impressive invention in the history of computing.
Re:The every other version problem (Score:4, Interesting)
> I think that's a bit ridiculous, to think that a company like Microsoft would intentionally want one of their products to
> fail, putting their market share in danger as it might cause long-time Windows users to jump ship to another platform.
Sure, it you put it like that in black and white. But if we add some particulars... ... A company like Microsoft would intentionally want one of their products to fail on the desktop, because otherwise they'd be putting their market share on the tablet in danger as it might cause long-time Windows users to jump ship to another platform.
See where the suggestion isn't so unreasonable? Given that most people and companies probably upgraded to 7 from XP about 2 years ago (if even!), a Win 8 at this time was never going to be very appealing. Most would probably just as soon wait for Win 9 which would mean a more comfortable ~6 year cycle. I think Microsoft realized this, and that they were already losing hard in an increasingly relevant market (tablets), and figured that the only thing that mattered about Win 8 on the desktop was that it worked at all. It can fail, hard, as long as it gets them into the tablet market.
Re:Death rattle (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect it's a little more subtle than this. Essentially, Microsoft has been unable to compete with Apple in terms of "innovation" because they're supporting so much legacy crap, and they're always relying on 3rd party vendors to supply the hardware. So even if they come up with some innovative cool new thing, if it requires hardware support, they're dependent on Dell and HP to build in the right hardware to make it cool.
So yes, I think this is an attempt to compete with Apple, who has been making some big gains in market share. If you include tablets, notebooks, and desktops as the same market, then Apple's recent growth has been astounding. In response, I think Microsoft has done a series of things, which I would all connect as part of a coherent strategy:
The problem here is that a couple of these goals conflict with each other. Trying to strip out legacy stuff runs afoul of the goal of making it a "fully-functional PC". The way to resolve that issue is to push legacy stuff out of your fully-functional PCs as well, and market your tablet OS as a desktop OS. Unfortunately, that seems to have resulted in having a desktop OS with a GUI that's only suitable for tablets.
Re:Downgrade rights (Score:5, Interesting)
I hate arguing with AC's, but while you are 100% factual, you just don't get it.
The point isn't whether or not you can get to the classic desktop in 1-click. The point is you can't boot to the classic desktop, and every goddamn time you need to go to the "Start" menu you're back in Metro.
I don't want a PC that acts like its a tablet. If I want a PC that acts like a tablet, I'll BUY A FUCKING TABLET. (disclamer: I do own an iPad and use it regularly. That said, I would NEVER want iOS on my desktop. NEVER)
I get what Microsoft is trying to do - they're trying to unify the interfaces so that the tablet experience mirrors the desktop experience. The problem is...mouse vs touch as the device input NEED different experiences. Either its designed for touch, which makes everything giant and bulky for mouse use...or its designed for mouse, which makes touch all but impossible.
In conclusion...I see absolutely NO reason to install Windows 8 on either my home PCs OR work PCs. There is no benefit that I can see....I'd rather stay with 7.
Re:Downgrade rights (Score:5, Interesting)
While there were lots of complaints about, say, the implementation of UAC in Vista, the Aero UI in Vista and 7 -- despite its changes from XP -- wasn't the focus of much negative reaction. (Unlike, say, the Metro/Modern/Win8/whatever-they're-calling-it-now UI in Windows 8, or the Ribbon-style UI when it was added in Office 2007.)
And, while the same basic model was retained, the UAC implementation in Vista was refined in Win7, and the things that were complained about most strenuously about the Ribbon UI implementation in Office 2007 (notably, the lack of an easily locatable, self-explanatory equivalent to the File... menu with its very-commonly-needed used tasks) were addressed in Office 2010.
I suspect that a lot of the issues people have with the Win8 desktop implementation of the UI-style-formerly-known-as-Metro will be similarly be addressed in the next major version of Windows.
While for any new thing in the computing world you'll find some people on Slashdot that don't like it (because Slashdot is full of people with strong, and divergent, opinions on technology), you'll notice that -- as was the case with the Vista in-your-face UAC and the Office 2007 Ribbon -- the issues aren't just a Slashdot phenomenon, and they are much more specific than just being a problem with novelty.
Re:Downgrade rights (Score:5, Interesting)
The Start page is just a full screen start menu with active tiles, nothing more.
If anyone had actually spent time using it, or if CowboyNeal was attempting anything other than a flamefest to drive ad impressions, perhaps that'd be more clear to people.
Imagine Windows 7 where the start menu opened at login and took up the whole screen. That's it. If you don't use any modern apps, you won't ever see the WinRT part of the system. Start an application, you're on the desktop. Click the start button, or push the windows key, you'll see the start screen until you launch another app. Hell, you can hit escape to close it *exactly like the start menu*.
IMO, its worth it just for all the new hotkeys that are available. Win8 is a lot more efficient if you're a keyboard user than Win7 was.
Re:Microsoft Breaks Windows (Score:4, Interesting)
That is not true. Every version of Mac OS X for 10 years now was faster on the same hardware than its predecessor. Windows 8 is not even the first Windows to do that — Windows 7 shrank to match the tiny, underpowered machines that Windows ships on today now that the Mac has the whole high-end.
OS X's first four iterations were faster because of improvements in the code. That ended with Leopard, which ran like a dog on older PPC hardware. And from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion, OSX hasn't really been increasingly faster. Apple has been cutting code from the last three releases, and that speeds things up in some cases, but that's not because the code is improving, but because Apple has stopped supporting legacy hardware, as well as adopting a 64 bit only approach. If your Mac is five years old (or older), you're pretty much out of luck if you want to run Mountain Lion. It's not that 10.8 is slow on those machines, its that Apple prevents you from even trying to install on them. Maintaining speed and stability is easy if you force customers to use only recent hardware from a very narrow list. Windows 8, on the other hand, will run on a 10+ year old P4 computer as long as the graphics card meets the minimum requirements (and runs surprisingly well). I'm a Mac user, but when making arguments comparing Windows to OS X, be honest and include the point that Microsoft is much more supportive of a much wider range of hardware. The parent poster was wrong about 8 being "one of the first", but it's certainly one of the first Microsoft OS's to be faster than a previous version on similar hardware. As far as 7 goes, only the 32 bit version was faster than Vista's 32 version, but that's largely because Vista 32 was an unholy mess. Vista 64 performed well out of the gate, and 7's 64 bit version wasn't really an improvement, performance-wise.
All about the Windows Store (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think that's all that important to them, directly.
But they definitely want the Windows Store to succeed, and the leverage they are using to get people to distribute apps through the Windows Store, rather than through the mechanisms used for Windows desktop apps previously, is that Metro-style apps can only be delivered:
1. Via the Windows store, or
2. To "enterprise side-loading enabled" versions of Windows (Windows 8 Enterprise and Windows 8 Server, but none of the consumer-targeted editions), or
3. By acquiring a special product key to sideload Metro-style apps on to a non-"enterprise sideloading enabled" version of Windows 8.
Re:Downgrade rights (Score:5, Interesting)
MS tried the desktop interface on a tablet and it didn't work. Now they're trying the tablet interface on a desktop. Nobody except MS really expects that will work any better, but they're going to try anyway.
Re:Downgrade rights (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole idea of the full screen launch apps thing is that the tiles can show you some info like updates, weather etc without needing to be launched. Similar to the dashboard concept in OS X. This is the biggest reason why I don't like it: privacy. Think about it MS wants people to make line of business apps to use with Metro, Outlook tiles, etc and this is going to be the first screen you go to when you login/go to find something. So customer is looking over your shoulder while you launch word to view their quote, oh wait while you are in the start menu why not show them that your deal with their competitor is going ahead too? I don't like apps deciding what they are going to broadcast everytime someone sees me open another app. if I want to view info from an app I'll open it.
Re:Downgrade rights (Score:4, Interesting)
I still stand by my utter condemnation of the abomination that is the ribbon UI. I want my fucking drop down menu's damn it.
Re:Downgrade rights (Score:5, Interesting)
Brilliant comment +1 vote if I had one.
This is also a case of the bias MS has towards developers: Metro promises to make building tablet, phone and desktop versions of the same app trivial. Simply right to metro and other than fiddle around to make the UI layout nicely at the different form factors your done. The problem is a desktop user doesn't want to be limited in the ways that someone on a phone is. A phone user probably doesn't want to have to try to navigate a desktop on a tiny phone screen etc. Great for developers sucks for users.
Re:Downgrade rights (Score:4, Interesting)
Nobody except MS really expects that will work any better, but they're going to try anyway.
Nobody except MS and the GNOME Shell (aka GNOME3) interface developers, that is.
Re:Downgrade rights (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Downgrade rights (Score:5, Interesting)
CNET reports that users of the recently-leaked RTM builds of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 have discovered that one of the tweaks Microsoft has made since the launch of the last public test build, Windows 8 Release Preview, centers on the boot process. Microsoft is reportedly now blocking users from bypassing the boxy Start screen, preventing them from booting straight into Desktop mode. [tomshardware.com]
Previous test builds allowed Windows 8 users to create a shortcut that switches to the Windows 8 desktop. If the user didn't want to boot their machine into the tiled desktop UI (formerly known as Metro), they could simply schedule this shortcut to be activated immediately after logging into the user's account.
Rafael Rivera, coauthor of the forthcoming Windows 8 Secrets, has reportedly verified with RTM downloaders that Microsoft's block of the boot bypass is indeed in place. He also believes that Microsoft has blocked the ability for administrators to use Group Policy to allow users to bypass the tiled startup screen. That said, it seems that Microsoft is trying to keep the desktop of old out of sight, hoping users will simply grow accustomed to the new blocky era of Windows.