Windows Blue 9364 Screenshots Show Feature Enhancements 502
An anonymous reader writes "As expected, a new pre-public version of Windows Blue (build 9364) has leaked online and it reveals a handful of features that are coming in the next big Microsoft Windows 8 update." Several sites have screenshots from the build; Hot Hardware says "Assuming this is all completely legitimate, the most obvious change pertains to the Metro UI, including greater flexibility in sizing Live Tiles and customizing the Start screen, particularly as the Personalize setting (among others, including Devices and Share) is now under the Settings charm. The Name Group feature for the Start menu looks a little more polished, too."
Re:Give it up (Score:2, Informative)
I welcome these changes as I dispice Metro in its current form for all the reasons you stated. I like to be able to see multiple programs at once, use the taskbar to preview with aero all the differnet IE tabs and apps, and use instant search for things in my word document to see if I have matching files etc.
So far Microsoft is responding to some of the criticism by making making Metro applets do the same things like resizing and having more than one app open.
But the desktop and the start menu is notcoming back. The desktop is dead and Microsoft has invested too much into this and is losing too much marketshare to go back to the old ways. Customers are telling Microsoft they want a cool IPAD, iBook, or a Droid. Not wanting the same sluggish crashy POS with 11 year old blue and green colored XP machines they use at work. Desktop apps are not touch friendly and do not go beyond 100 DPI without major gui issues and bugs. Why is my 2 year old Samsung Galaxy S gives a better browsing experience with smooth GPU acceleration, less pixely graphics, and HTML 5 goodness than my desktop PC?
The infrastructure is dated due to XP compatibility with win32. I do not feel Metro is ready yet which is why I am typing this on Windows 7 but if MS clears its act with more colors a taskbar, a smart screen that doesn't block what you are doing, and more Skeumorphism they will have a winner. Windows Blue is even faster and less crappy and sluggish with huge ass latency compred to Windows 8, which beats Windows 7, which is even more responsive than XP when it comes to Windows Rot.
Arguing against it makes it look like we are old men who hate change because of a silly button.
Re:And it still looks like (Score:4, Informative)
Because Wine is broken? I mean, other than that, well sure.
Me, I run XP in a VM. Works fine. I don't let it on the Internet because, well, it's Windows, and Microsoft has trained me not to trust them... but other than that, does everything I want it to. Office, my legit copy of developer studio, image processing apps, testing the Windows version of the software I develop... Do the same thing with linux, for that matter, except it's well designed enough not to hose itself just because there is a network connection.
Virtual machines: For those of us who are tired of solutions that don't work very well.
Re:Idiocracy! (Score:4, Informative)
I think that Metro is actually Microsoft, for the first time in a long time, being ahead of the curve. I expect Apple will be following suit within a few years.
Re:And it still looks like (Score:5, Informative)
classic shell brings it back.
or if you're a paying customer, start8 by stardock.
I use Windows 8. I rarely ever see metro.
I find it useless and frustrating. Not because I think it's poorly designed. But because it's forced on the wrong device. My PC is not a tablet.
Re:And it still looks like (Score:4, Informative)
You can't do it anymore because they implemented search so you can just start typing for what you want and eliminate all those numbered steps. So old fashioned.
Re:And it still looks like (Score:5, Informative)
No one wants a degraded experience and whoever made the spec for LCD to only use the max and use software degradation tricks to still display should be taken out in a field and shot!
The old CRTs don't have a physical screen grid, it's just an electron beam in the back that can sweep over the screen and draw how many lines you want it to. On an LCD screen every pixel is a physical unit, they can't move or change size. "Whoever made the spec for LCD" only chose what was possible instead of the impossible. Personally I tend to blame the software if it must run in some specific resolution and games should be configurable so you can play them at high resolutions with low quality. There's no good excuse for why a game should do worse at rendering directly in high resolution instead of rendering in low resolution and then upscaling.
Re:And it still looks like (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And it still looks like (Score:4, Informative)
Wait. Around 11 minutes it shows desktop. And complains about something that works the same way as in Windows 7. And apparently he refuses to use Windows key, which was the easiest way to start programs in 7 and continues to be that in 8. (click and type a few letters. The same way he could have opened the control panel. Or searched the control panel to create recovery. Like in Windows 7.). Oh well, I changed from Unity to Gnome Classic and I guess I need to install some kind of Modern UI replacement for Windows as well. Sorry, I think I've seen enough of the video.
Re:And it still looks like (Score:4, Informative)
I got used to launching stuff very rapidly by hitting Winkey + R + command + Enter
Still works on Vista, 7 and 8. Even better, the 'R' is optional.