Leaked Build of Windows 9 Shows Start Menu Return 346
Billly Gates writes A leaked alpha of Windows 9 has been brewing on the internet. Today a screenshot shows what MS showed us at BUILD which includes a start menu with additional tiny tiles for things like people, calendar, pc settings, and news etc. "The new hybridized Start menu appears to be part of build 9788, which was compiled on July 4. While no one seems to have leaked the ISOs for build 9788 yet, the general consensus seems to be that the build does indeed exist somewhere at Microsoft — and that it might also feature Windows NT kernel version 6.4 (i.e. the complete version number is 6.4.9788). The screenshots show a Windows 8.1 Pro watermark, but this isn’t unusual for a very early alpha of a new build of Windows. If this really is the next version of the Windows NT kernel, then we’re most likely looking at an early build of Windows 9 (Threshold) rather than Windows 8.2."
Re:Microsoft is wasting people's time (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft is wasting people's time (Score:5, Interesting)
Most non-trivial software is still written for desktops, and that probably won't change any time soon because tablets lack the screen real-estate; and plugging a mouse (for fine pointing) and keyboard into them is not always convenient.
When it comes to work and productivity, desktops still rule (writing, reports, spreadsheets, CRUD, graphics, sound editing, high-end gaming, etc.) Maybe that will change one day as the market for tablets grows so large that "productivity" application makers target tablets first. Then people will start purchasing bigger tablets for productivity usage rather than a Windows PC.
That tipping point is roughly 4 to 12 years off, I would gander a guess.
If MS plays their cards right, then maybe they can get decent Windows tablets on the market so that the dream of one device for all usage is closer to a reality such that those who want productivity applications AND a nice tablet can have both. However, their Window of opportunity (pun intended) is closing fast: Google is hot on their heals.
Re:What's the big deal about win8? (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows 8 just does dumb shit. The first box I setup had a touchscreen. The instructions say to move the mouse to the upper right corner. So I move the mouse and nothing happens. Check all the cables and everything but it all appears working. Finally figure out they want me to move the CURSOR to the upper right using my FINGER. The mouse is not even used!
Re:Fuck Tiles! (Score:4, Interesting)
How is it not the same number of clicks? In the best case, in both systems, it's two clicks. You click once on the start button, and then once again on the item you'd like to launch. In either case, that's assuming that you want to launch something that's going to come up right away, and you aren't going to go hunting through other items.
Of course, in both systems you could cut out clicks entirely by pressing the Windows key on the keyboard and typing what you want.
It seems to me that the big difference is that Microsoft hid the button, meaning you had to hover in the correct place before you could click. Then the menu that came up brought up, by default, showed a bunch of tablet apps, and not the desktop apps that you probably want, in a way that completely broke the context you were working in. Every time you wanted to launch something, you were thrown into a different little virtual world with no common spacial orientation, and where all the buttons behaved differently.
It may not seem strange to you once you've gotten used to it, but the normal and appropriate reaction when a person first encounters this sort of thing is to feel unpleasantly disoriented. A good UI designer would know that it was bad, and that users would be unhappy with the change. A good UI designer would also know that hidden hover buttons and hover menus are not generally desirable.
Or were you just trolling?
Re:What's the big deal about win8? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, the worst thing fior me about Windows 8 when I had to use it wasn't even the lack of the start menu; it was the fact that every time you move the mouse cursor near the corner, Windows 8 pops up some stupid sidebar. I want to move the mouse cursor from one monitor to another and Windows 8 kept getting in the way of that every time as if I were using a tablet device that needed these gesture popups.
Forget the fugly tiles for a second... (Score:5, Interesting)
I still want to know why a clean install of winders 8 eats 17Gb of hard drive space...
I mean, what the hell is in it that takes up that amount of space? It's obscene. And yet I can fit a fully working linux distro on a CD.