Microsoft Reacts To Feedback But Did They Get Windows 8.1 Right? 543
MojoKid writes "Microsoft's Windows "Blue" 8.1 update has been long-awaited. Those who've been using the base OS since launch have no doubt been anticipating some of the enhancements that are coming. At the moment, Windows 8.1 is available only as a preview, and if you are looking to give it a try, there are a couple of things to be aware of. The most important is the fact that once you upgrade, you can't easily downgrade — so you may wish to try the update in a virtual machine or on a test machine if possible. In addition, your current product keys will not work, so you'll effectively be turning your activated OS into an evaluation (it's assumed that once 8.1 goes final, we'll be able to update using our original keys). That said, Microsoft's free update offers a slew of enhancements like a new Start Screen, the return of the Start Button, even quicker shutdown and restart, boot to desktop, quicker integrated search and Skydrive enhancements. All told, Microsoft's new OS release is a more than worthy successor for end users but now Microsoft really needs to work on getting developers on board."
Re:I tested Windows 8.1 (Score:4, Interesting)
So how much are they paying for posts these days?
I figure it must be down from the glory days of slashdot.
Still nothing better over Windows 7 (Score:4, Interesting)
No one is interested in the Modern UI apps and the Start screen is harder to use than the Start menu. It's a jumbled mess of icons which steals your whole screen and you have to move your mouse much more than before. Actually, I have noticed that many resort to just typing the application name they want to use into the search bar as the GUI is so clunky to use.
The minimal performance improvements, improved file transfer dialog, improved task manager, ISO mounting and DirectX 11.2, are not big enough features to justify an upgrade. All those features are good enough in Windows 7 already. Those improvements could have been released as a free Platform Update for Windows 7.
As long as Microsoft "dead ends" platforms... (Score:4, Interesting)
I put time and money and effort into making salable sofware products. What Microsoft has told me repeatedly is that I don't matter to them. At all.
What would motivate me, as a developer, to invest 1 more minute in a platform that's almost guaranteed to go the way of VB6, Winforms, Silverlight or XNA? Want to go to the web as your customers are demanding? Recode. Want to upgrade that game? Recode? Want to keep that nifty Silverlight app going. Find another platform and recode. Only C++ developers were extended the fundamental courtesy of running unmanaged old code along with .net. Everyone else is essentially told "tough shit." Worse, half-hearted efforts like the VB6 upgrade or WPF/Winforms hosting aren't developed to actually *work* and so end up wasting even more of your time.
VB6 should have upgraded with one click, or run between tags as unmanaged code. Winforms should either have actually been hostable in WPF, or come with a one click upgrade to an ASP simulacrum of Winform code. VBScript and JScript should have migrated to VBScript.net and JScript.net rather than the syntactic abomination that is Powershell. Those would have been the right decisions, had Microsoft given a shit.
When Microsoft finally realizes that the word "Recode" IS ALWAYS THE WRONG ANSWER when a developer needs to migrate to another platform, they might actually get some interest in their products. Not before.
Common courtesy and consideration of the financial needs of real developers would go a long way. The ISV world is not made of C++ elite. It's made of people who have to get some work done and make a living - who do not, and will never aspire to the at the top of the programming heap. That's your core audience, not the 20-something genius you hire from Kazakhstan. Cater to them and their ilk, and them only and you will fail.
Like you're doing now.
Re:I tested Windows 8.1 (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft doesn't give a flying fuck what is said about them on Slashdot.
Heh. Even Herb Sutter (from the Visual Studio team) has mentioned Slashdot in his talks at Channel 9 [msdn.com]. I'm sure microsofties occasionally bump on the comments on Slashdot too. This is a quite well-known technology website. I agree that the impact is probably still quite small, but it's not a complete "flying fuck".
Re:Start Button in 8.1 is useless. (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh and the hodgepodge of functionality. I love how in the start menu the oft used "search box" is right next to the shut down function, which is right next to a tiny tiny arrow which opens up lock computer/sleep functionalty. Why is the shut off button so large, when I do this function at most once a day? And next to often used functions like search and lock? Great UI.
For me, the start screen is much more customizable, much more informative, and easier to use all around. If I want to launch an app and i'm on the desktop, I win+s to pull up the search bar and type the app name. If I don't know the app name, I open up the "All Apps" window and I sort and I can see all my installed apps at a glance instead of rooting through a tree of vaguely and uninformatively named folders.
Going back is not a breath of fresh air, it's suffocating.
Microsoft: 'own goal' once again. (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft owns the desktop, and has tons of money. They didn't ever say, "How do we make the desktop really good? How do we use our massive resources to make our customer's lives better?" That can include serious and radical rethinking---if it makes desktop experience better.
Microsoft had a 'smart phone' -- a real computer on a phone with a reasonably capable OS -- long before Apple and Android. Microsoft did see the future and drove into a ditch.
This Windows Phone OS UI was awful. Terrible, revolting. The UI was really bad---because they tried to do a Windows XP on a tiny thing with a stylus. (I had a treo 700 something which I got for free). There was even a little mini "control panel" and similar confusions. Because at that time the ideology was Windows Uber Alles and serving the Windows empire.
Jobs didn't insist on stuffing MacOS UI on the iPhone, because it wouldn't be GOOD for those uses. Even though it was quite different there were no deep strain of serious complaint about the UI.
So phones and tablets get popular. And Microsoft makes the same mistake AGAIN as with Windows Phone (pre 7) -- stuffing a totally inappropriate interface (and one which isn't even that pleasant) somewhere else. This time, unlike Windows Phone, greatly annoying their enormous number of paying customers.
There are all sorts of ideas about how to make better desktops at a deep level (at least browse academia for 20 years) which are substantially more than another skin.
Back in 1995, Microsoft had the good sense to copy something decent for the Win 95 UI, NeXTSTEP, though of course it was degraded, it was still clear and effective enough. Nobody missed Win 3.1's UI. Desktop customers are not stupid dinosaurs, maybe they actually notice better from worse.
Even today, if they re-implemented NeXTSTEP 1993 for Win 9 desktop, they'd still be ahead. Really.
Re:I tested Windows 8.1 (Score:2, Interesting)
Full screen switch produces loss of context (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Start Button in 8.1 is useless. (Score:5, Interesting)
I prefer the win7 start menu.
Why?
Let's say I use calculator a lot. I mean A LOT. But, I don't want to put a quick launch button down, because the group policy enforced by my employer locks that thing down tighter than a nun's cunt, prevents it from being resized, enforces that certain things be in it, etc.
The win7 start menu keeps track what what I launch from it frequently, and puts quick links in for those applications, waaaaaaaaaay above the demonized 'all programs' area. I DON'T HAVE TO MANAGE THIS LIST. It is simply populated with what I most frequently invoke. Thus, to start calulator, it is literally: START->Calculator.
TWO CLICKS.
TWO.
Moreover, the software I use TO DO MY JOB, makes very heavy use of the mouse. Letting go of the mouse, so I can type "calc.exe" into the wild blue void is measurably less productive for my use case.
STOP INSISTING THAT ALL USERS ARE DATA ENTRY DRONES.
Moreover? YES, I *HAVE* used windows 8. Know what? It is counter productive to the workflow paradigm of the software I use, because it requires me to let go of the goddamn mouse, and type shit.
Know what else? I use notepad to look at the generated NC code I produce to make sure the toolpaths I am making are generating sane results, ad guess what? Windows 8 tries to make fucking notepad full screen! BULLSHIT, I just need it as a teeny little window to scroll through, jackasses!
I fucking hate the "why are you afraid of change!? Are you some kind of luddite?! You're a luddite aren't you?1 yeah, You're a Luddite if you don't like the new formerly-known-as-metro UI paradigm, because it is new, and the old way is old, and if you like old, and not new, then you are a luddite!" Circular reasoning bullshit. No, I dislike the new windows 8 UI because it fucking sucks for what I do for a living, gets in my way, slows me the fuck down, and invokes assholes to character assasinate me (and others in my boat) when we say we DON'T WANT the windows 8 UI paradigm on the desktop!
Is it so fucking hard to understand that NOT EVERYONE uses the keyboard the way you do, and that this is NOT a case of "idiots at the wheel"? That perhaps, the mouse is a legitimate input device, and not something to arrogantly scorn, since it has real, legitimate uses in graphical design that fucking keyboard shortcut keys will *NEVER* be able to replace?
Of course not. It is just easier to measure everyone else as being whiners, and not having legitimate complaints, because that makes you feel better without having to actually acknowledge wrongdoing, character assasinate them as luddites who are afraid of change, and arrogantly (and ignorantly) assert that they should just use the keyboard instead of the mouse anyway, "because it's faster".
Yeah buddy, try selecting NC geometry to drive 5 axis toolpaths on using the tab key. I fucking dare ya to, and to show how much faster it is. Because it fucking isn't. There are operations you can't even DO without a goddamn mouse in this software, for god's sake!
"Well, just use different software then!" You arrogantly chortle-- Not an option bitches, its mandated by contract agreements what softwares are allowed. Besides, more "open" offerings just don't have the functionality anyway.
Can you do what you do faster with metro by using the keyboard? Quite possibly. That isn't what is being argued.
What is being argued is that what *I* do with the computer is greatly hobbled by metro's hamfisted bullshit, and I have legitimate complaints about it that are fundamentaly intractable by anything other than reverting the changes.
That is why my employer, and our partners we do work for, DON'T USE WIN8.
What would have bee the POLITE thing to do? Turn on metro by default allright, but make it truly optional-- GIVE US A WAY TO TURN IT OFF.
But no, the response we had shoved down our throats so hard that our asses bled?
"Metro is the future! Its faster and better, and the old way is old, and if you don't like it, tha
Re:Soviet Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)