Windows 8: a 'Christmas Gift For Someone You Hate' 740
zacharye writes "Microsoft is no stranger to criticism these days, and the company's new Windows 8 platform is once again the target of a scathing review from a high-profile user. Well-known Internet entrepreneur and MIT professor Philip Greenspun handed Windows 8 one of its most damning reviews yet earlier this week, calling the new operating system a 'Christmas gift for someone you hate.' Greenspun panned almost every aspect of Microsoft's new software, noting that Microsoft had four years to study Android and more than five to examine iOS, but still couldn't build a usable tablet experience..."
How about a direct link to the original article (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about a direct link to the original article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How about a direct link to the original article (Score:4, Funny)
Yay, another article telling us a microsoft product is going to murder your children, drive us off the fiscal cliff, bomb Iran, and infect everyone else with AIDS... because it doesn't have a button where you'd want it. The horror.
Re:How about a direct link to the original article (Score:5, Insightful)
Yay, another article telling us a microsoft product is going to murder your children, drive us off the fiscal cliff, bomb Iran, and infect everyone else with AIDS... because it doesn't have a button where you'd want it. The horror.
Arguably, having buttons where you want them, that do what you want them to do, is a UI's purpose in life. If it can't manage that, We Have A Problem.
It's especially problematic because of the relative lack of useful under-the-hood-upgrades. Selling "Windows 7 Compulsory Tablet UI Edition" on devices that don't even have touchscreens is just a bad joke.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:How about a direct link to the original article (Score:5, Insightful)
Just read the damn thing instead of a knee jerk defense of a broken product.
What is funny I think is that so many responses to the original article essentially say things like "you'll get used to it after bit" or "here's how to do what you wanted to do", etc. This is analogous to telling someone "oh grow up, prison isn't that bad, you'll get used it it, here let me show you how to make a shiv." In other words so many of those responses are from people that appear hardwired to defend a bad design instead of just coming out and admitting that MS screwed up.
In many articles I've read I've never seen a response that says "I know it's bad and it sucks, but I have figured out how to work around it." Instead they all seem to put some bogus positive slant on it, like "Here's show you're supposed to do it." That's like telling people that they're holding the iPhone wrong.
How can people actually defend the schizoid nature of Windows 8? Does anyone really think that it's better to have the desktop and metro swap places so often? Do they really think that a missing menu bar on the desktop is a positive improvement because they get a half inch of task bar freed up?
The ultimate problem is that Windows 8 is two products mindsets in a single product. It has a smartphone/tablet style designed for passive consumers of media, which is distinct and separate from the desktop intended for active producers and workers. The Metro part is for people who just want to touch things with one finger and think that's enough to do everything they'd ever want to do in life, they'll read documents and scroll through them but that's the closest they'll ever got to working. Metro is for the sorts of drooling people who think an app store full of wannabe programs written by interns is a great idea. Windows 8 metro is every bit the TOY that a smart phone is a TOY. The desktop part is for people to actually do stuff; write documents instead of just reading thing, swap back and forth between different tasks that must work together, interface with other systems, etc. This is fine to have two separate products for two completely separate types of users. But Microsoft screwed it up by crippling those two products when they were forced together; metro without desktop is crippled (at least without some unreleased fixes and apps), and desktop without metro is crippled (at least w/o lots of extra utilities).
Re:How about a direct link to the original article (Score:4, Funny)
Relax kid, I'm not kicking your dog. Or worse, defending a microsoft product.
Re:How about a direct link to the original article (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, wait! AC is talking to itself again! It's so confusing. Maybe we need "first AC" and "second AC" but no, then I suppose it wouldn't be anonymous. In the meantime, it sounds like AC is very confused...
Re:How about a direct link to the original article (Score:4, Funny)
Does AC have parents? How could we tell? They too would have to be AC. AC is indeed his own Grandpaw. Or hers. Its.
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Why do I never have mod points when I need them? +1
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Nope.
The monopoly OS continues to sell when PCs are sold.
This is merely the extension of the MS-DOS monopoly that first got Microsoft in trouble with the US DOJ (way before that bit with Internet Exploder).
It's not a product that anyone goes out of their way to buy and sometimes they even go out of their way to avoid it. Vista was like this. Win8 sounds like the new Vista.
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Because at the time they weren't declared stupid. It was a big advantage over the Windows 3 style that everone acknowledged. The real problem with windows 95 was that it was buggy. Many Windows NT3 users (professionals and not home users) asked for the Win95 style of UI and so they got NT4.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How about a direct link to the original article (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How about a direct link to the original article (Score:4, Funny)
Why is this sad? Was the collapse of the Ottoman Empire sad? The breakup of the British Empire? Relax, pop yourself a bag of popcorn, and enjoy the show -- it's been a long time coming and worth every minute.
Re:How about a direct link to the original article (Score:5, Insightful)
What is pathetic is that every one of us who did the testing on the DP and CP told MSFT repeatedly this was a BAD move, and if you'd have asked any of us retailers we'd have been happy to point out why.
So what focus groups were they listening to? And do they listen or do they just make up whatever conclusion they want to hear?
What is most irritating is if you like Windows 7, but have noticed little bugs, UI inconsistencies, or other irritants, well, Windows 8 means you're out of luck. No more Service Packs, no more Desktop Gadgets, Aero, or other Windows 7-type stuff, no more non-critical bug fixes, security updates only, end-of-life has been scheduled.
They did the same thing to XP with Vista. Granted XP was 10 years old, but by SP4 it did what it did really really well. Vista came out and wasn't close to being a reasonable replacement, but with a stranglehold on OEM's and massive PR, Microsoft was set to steamroll over XP. Once again, the focus groups all loved Vista, and you will too! Everybody upgrades, massive profits.
Didn't quite go as planned.
With Windows 7, you would think they learned their lesson. Decent OS, still in its infancy but an honest improvement over XP, seemed to have a decent future up to about a year ago. Imagine regular incremental upgrades for the next 5-7 years, re-establish a solid hold on desktops and laptops (particularly in the work space). But Microsoft is cutting it off to... what? Push developers to create tablet apps? for a late-entry tablet in a market already covered by iOS and Android? How is that a reason to upgrade, except that Windows 7 is now a dead platform just like XP?
link to the article (Score:4, Informative)
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/12/05/christmas-gift-for-someone-you-hate-windows-8/
but isn't that a somewhat expensive (Score:5, Funny)
way of expressing said sentiment?
I've always found Dog Crap in a Box(TM) to be both economical AND effective at communicate feelings of loathing and hatred. It's really easy to get book rates on the postage, too.
Re:but isn't that a somewhat expensive (Score:5, Funny)
I think the Windows 8 approach reminds me more of a tribe in Africa that praises killing their enemies by first 'fattening them with friendship'. With Windows 8, they will think the gift was an act of good will and will continue to use it under that impression, never realizing that they're slowly dying in the process.
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Receiving Windows 8 as a Christmas gift should illicit a reaction like Chris Farley had
Plenty of things that Chris Farley did were illicit, but that word doesn't mean what you think it does. [grammar-monster.com].
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The stench of Win 8 will linger for literally years...
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nah, the 'crap' is instantly informative and likewise instantly thrown away.
The stench of Win 8 will linger for literally years...
Nah Windows 9 will be better, Windows 10, thats the one that will replace Windows ME as worst MS OS evah.
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They seem to fail every other version.
ME - awful.
XP - usable.
Vista - awful.
7 - usable.
8 - awful
9 - usable?
Re:but isn't that a somewhat expensive (Score:4, Insightful)
They seem to fail every other version.
ME - awful.
XP - usable.
Vista - awful.
7 - usable.
8 - awful
9 - usable?^c^c^c^c^c^c irrelevant?
FTFY
Re:but isn't that a somewhat expensive (Score:5, Funny)
CE
ME
NT
CEMENT!
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I think it's really that they're always compared to the last thing they put out.
ME released: Ick! Stability sucks! .Meanwhile, no one has really seen many stability problems since Vista or so.
XP - Sucks, but at least it's not as bad as ME!
Vista - Ick! WTF did they do to the user interface!
7 - Sucks, but at least it only bugs the user half as much as Vista!
8 - Ick! WTF did they do to the Start Menu?
9 - Sucks, but at least they put the Start Menu back...
I jumped from XP to 7 without ever running Vista unt
Re:but isn't that a somewhat expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:but isn't that a somewhat expensive (Score:4, Interesting)
I run windows 8. I installed startisback... I'm not entirely sure why its not an improvement over windows 7 anymore.
Metro UI, the main part of it that is essentially a tablet-only UI, is garbage. The rest is basically good, and in most cases drastic design improvements over windows 7. Some of the easy functionality of windows xp has even been restored.
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The moment this shows up in Linux as any single application being a little different, you will be the first one in line to shout down the "lack of consistency".
The fact that I can use the same tools that I did when I first started using Unix is actually a feature.
Such things are helpful during the next round of "Where's Waldo" when the children that don't really understand usability decide it's time to scramble everyone's "ease of use interfaces" again.
Re:but isn't that a somewhat expensive (Score:4, Funny)
Re:but isn't that a somewhat expensive (Score:5, Funny)
Why bother finding a dog?
Re:but isn't that a somewhat expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
The Windows 8 as a gift does more though. If you give dog poop in a bag then the person knows that you hate him or her. However if you give out Windows 8 then the person may be fooled into thinking that you care. Windows 8 is not an impersonal gift like a gift card. If you give this to your mother-in-law she will be glad that it's not the same old basket of bath products.
Here's the best part. If the person actually uses Windows 8 and loves it then it will prove that your hatred of the person was well founded. If the person uses Windows 8 and is constantly annoyed by its UI then you will have a small measure of schadenfreude (it's someone you hate afterall). If the person sees it and immediately recognizes it as a hate gift, then this will merely be your subtle way to say "I hate you".
Windows 8 as a gift is the modern version of the white elephant.
Expertise does not translate (Score:5, Insightful)
“Suppose that you are an expert user of Windows NT/XP/Vista/7, an expert user of an iPad, and an expert user of an Android phone you will have no idea how to use Windows 8,” Greenspun wrote.
“Suppose that you are an expert user of Windows NT/XP/Vista/7, an expert user of Windows 8, and an expert user of an Android phone you will have no idea how to use an iPad,” Greenspun wrote.
Seriouslt, playing around with settings,etc is frustratingly hard in iPhones atleast. The basic stuff is on the surface, the rest is 5 km below the surface
Re:Expertise does not translate (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you hit one of the key issues with that article on the head. Of those listed, I found the iOS the be the hardest to work with, and even it was fairly simple.
Windows 8 has some good ideas from the tablet perspective, but they do some idiotic things (the UI context switching the author mentioned, as well as the 'auto-hide' stuff that works better with a mouse than a touch interface). Are they as bad as the author was saying? No, but sensationalization gets clicks!
Not saying I recommend Windows 8 (even with the difficulties, I'll take an iPhone over Windows 8 RT, and all the non-RT tablet hardware looks to suck). Fortunately, there's Android about.
y no manage ios from da cloud?!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
What exactly about iOS is hard to use?
You mean aside from requiring reasonably up-to-date Mac or Windows machine to run iTunes on? (note that's two problems there, not one)
Every time I touch iTunes I end up wanting to MURDERDEATHKILL every single developer involved.
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You haven't _needed_ a PC/Mac for an iOS device for awhile now... Of course instead you'd have to buy into Apple's iCloud and let them manage all your data (and sell it to you in the first place).
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Nope, the "apps store" is a separate entity and separate application to run to install apps.
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I think there is also an expectation that Microsoft will fix the Windows 8 flaws... because they have shown in the past the ability to react to negative feedback (i.e. Vista = BAD, Win 7 = GOOD, now Win 8 = CRAP, therefore... Win 9 = teh aw3s0me)
Windows 8, even in release mode, smells like beta testing. The general reaction has been very "ME/Vista"-like. So we expect them to improve it. Will they? That's the real question...
Re:Expertise does not translate (Score:4, Informative)
Win7 = Vista + SP2.
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Re:Expertise does not translate (Score:5, Insightful)
Vista wasn't bad by design, only execution.
Windows 8 is a bad design. It should never have made it out off the drawing board.
Why should it improve? Its not the software (Score:3)
I think there is also an expectation that Microsoft will fix the Windows 8 flaws... because they have shown in the past the ability to react to negative feedback (i.e. Vista = BAD, Win 7 = GOOD, now Win 8 = CRAP, therefore... Win 9 = teh aw3s0me)
Windows 8, even in release mode, smells like beta testing. The general reaction has been very "ME/Vista"-like. So we expect them to improve it. Will they? That's the real question...
Its not the real question. I barely care but to put Windows 7 in context its Vista released on time; covering up its worse excesses; on hardware that could cope with it better. It still does not look 10 years better than XP [or at least SP2]. Microsoft cannot do that with Windows 8 because the problem is "Metro" on a tablet designed with "Office" in mind, that is a strategy, which you cannot fix with software.
come on with anti-Windows bias (Score:5, Informative)
We do not even pretend to be impartial now?
The title obviously should be
> Greenspun: Windows 8: a 'Christmas Gift For Someone You Hate'
Re:come on with anti-Windows bias (Score:4, Insightful)
We do not even pretend to be impartial now?
Has /. ever pretended to be impartial? Besides, impartiality is overrated.
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Don't confuse /. with reality :P
The guys is wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
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He is referring to needing to swipe from the corner of the screen in order to find the restart option. This definitely fits within the "tablet interface" definition for me. Restarting and shutting down seem to take people a while to find in Windows 8. If you don't know the shortcuts and you have only ever done it via the start menu, you won't find the option anywhere obvious.
As far as Windows 8 being a failed tablet experience -- I don't understand how he could have ended up at that conclusion. I don't have
Re:The guys is wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
While Im not an advocate of Windows 8, miss information makes me mad too. In the article it said "Some functions, such as ‘start an application’ or ‘restart the computer’ are available only from the tablet interface". I took this to mean the Metro tiles, which if that's what he meant, he is completely wrong. The command prompt is still there. The standard desktop is still there. "Old style" shortcuts still exist. Of course, he complained about that too.
WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.
The old desktop IS still there. HOWEVER, many of the things which used to be on the desktop ARE NO LONGER.
MANY THINGS HAVE BEEN MOVED TO METRO AND CAN NO LONGER BE ACCESSED OUTSIDE METRO, INCLUDING SYSTEM FUCKING PROPERTIES AND RESTART THE COMPUTER.
The review is absolutely correct, and you're completely misinformed. Just because you have a command prompt doesn't mean that everything else from your desktop still works or is still there.
I have to switch from metro to desktop to use half my apps, but I have to switch from desktop to metro to use system properties? Worst design ever.
You don't seem to understand his complaints. Its not that shorcuts work. Its that metro shortcuts kick you to the desktop, and the desktop kicks you to metro. Why can't you just use one? Why can't everything be done in both? Its a clusterfuck.
Lies, damn lies, and frothing at the mouth (Score:5, Informative)
Ummm.... yeah, you're full of shit. Very aggressive shit, by the look of it, but still shit.
Right-Click in the lower left corner (where Start appears), select Control Panel. Behold, the control panel appears (you can do this from anywhere, but it's typically something you'd do on the desktop since it's a right-click). There's a ton of other stuff on this menu too, including some that are harder to reach in Win7, such as an Admin command prompt or the Programs and Features (add/remove programs) control panel. It can also be used to jump straight to the desktop from any app, incidentally.
There are so many ways to shut down the computer it's crazy. Alt+F4 on the desktop. The Ctrl+Alt+Del screen shows the Power button. Lock screen shows the Power button. If you are an "expert user" like this idiot in the article is ranting about, you'd know how to use the Shutdown[.exe] command; you can call it from the Run dialog or add shortcuts to it (on either the Start screen or the desktop, of both if you want). In fact, you can even add a shortcut key chord (Win+Ctrl+S, perhaps) to trigger those shortcuts. If you can tolerate the presence of the Charms bar and just don't like the ever-so-offensive concept of a tablet-like gesture to display it, try Win+I to display Setting immediately, at which point Shutdown or Restart are two clicks away.
Seriously, did your brain calcify or something, resulting in frothing at the mouth without even *trying* to look for the things you claim "ARE NO LONGER" present?
Other things that your so-called "absolutely correct" review got, in fact, completely bone-headedly wrong:
Let's start with this beauty, from near the top. First of all, Microsoft requires the presence of a hardware Start button on RT devices. Call it a "Home" button if it makes you happier; I've heard even a few Microsofties do so (I live in Seattle; there's a lot of them here; I'm not one myself). Second, you can always access Start from anywhere with at worst a small gesture. If you're using Touch, swipe in from the right side of the screen and tap the Start button that probably appeared right under your thumb. If you're using the mouse, move down to the lower-left corner (where the Start button would be on the desktop) and lo and behold, a Start button appears!
Perhaps it slipped this... enlightened gentleman's notice, but the App Bar (that thing that appears on the bottom of the screen when you swipe from either the top or the bottom) is context sensitive. It's intended to be a more graphical and touch-friendly replacement for context menus. I don't think it's as good an implementation of a context-based interface, personally, but it's not missing.
We've mostly been over this ground already, but I wanted to point out that starting a program totally doesn't require using a tablet interface. If you like icons, put some on the desktop or put them on the taskbar (exactly like in Win7). If you prefer the keyboard, tap the Start key and type the first few letters of the program name, then hit Enter; you can be launching the program (and back on the desktop) before that oh-so-offensive tablet interface finishes its half-second fade-in animation. You can also use Run from the desktop, via Win+R (as before) or right-clicking the Start button or hitting Ctrl+X to bring up the menu, then selecting Run. You can certainly use the command line interfaces too.
Re:The guys is wrong (Score:4, Informative)
MANY THINGS HAVE BEEN MOVED TO METRO AND CAN NO LONGER BE ACCESSED OUTSIDE METRO, INCLUDING SYSTEM FUCKING PROPERTIES AND RESTART THE COMPUTER.
Really? Alt-F4 on the desktop, Winkey+X, right clicking the lower left corner (instead of left clicking which brings up Start). Since I actually have Win8 installed, AKA I've used it, which means I can actually say something about it with authority, every single desktop control panel item is there. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. There are some new Win8 features that you access via the metro system settings link from the charms bar on the left, the main one being the system reset function.
I know it's a new /. thing to just hate on windows 8, and being critical is certainly your right, but at least please know wtf you are talking about so you don't look like another loud-mouthed buffoon.
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Or have you forgotten that one STILL needs to go the command line to do things in every single Linux distro?
And because of this a lot of people say 'This is why Linux will never succeed on the desktop!!!11eleventy!!'.
So by that same metric, does this mean that W8 will never succeed on the desktop?
He admits he's not using a tablet!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:He admits he's not using a tablet!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a big honkin 27" all-in-one touch-screen desktop computer... so pretty much a big tablet. If you can't get the full Windows 8 experience on that, you'll never get it on a dinky little tablet.
Re:He admits he's not using a tablet!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of his "review" he said he was using Windows 8 on a desktop, not a tablet.
The guy is clearly a dumbass for reviewing Microsoft's latest desktop OS offering on a desktop.
We all knew there were usability issues on the desktop.
So you feel that should make it immune from bad reviews, even though it's the OS now shipping on consumer desktop machines?
Re:He admits he's not using a tablet!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm lost.
"We all knew there were usability issues on the desktop" sounds like conceding "This is a shitty operating system", or at least "This is a tablet only OS".
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new OS for Squares
Not just squares, rectangles too!
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Touchscreens aren't included with the OS, though.
Hell, I don't believe there's even a touchscreen requirement in Microsoft's Windows 8 certification.
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I went down to Best Buy to try this out. Hey had some Leveno pro tablet thingy, with regular W8 on it.
My answer is 'no', the usability issues do not disappear, some do, but plenty of new ones show up. With touch you get to see how many of the apps don't respond the way a person would expect, or leave you stuck in places clicking the 'home' button on the tablet to start all over again. Windows 8 touch is not anywhere close to prime time, it's going to need another year or two of updates to get rid of all the
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The only workflow I have found to work for me in Windows 8 is to hit the Windows key and type the name of the program I want to run and press enter.
It's almost as good as DOS was, except with DOS I didn't have to hit the Windows key!
The point is not to clone iOS and Android (Score:5, Insightful)
What use would it be to invent something that duplicates iOS or Android?
People would just keep using the original and deny the copy.
It's smart to take features from these systems, but useless to repeat them. Technology is forged by people who find new ways to do useful things. That doesn't mean imitation, it means re-invention.
Microsoft also has a long legacy of Windows products and users to uphold, and has to merge these two.
I realize that liking Windows around here is about as favorably looked upon as non-ironically liking Bruce Springsteen at a hipster party, but demonization for not being a clone is undeserved here.
Re:The point is not to clone iOS and Android (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see ... copy what people have done successfully and make a useable product, or create something which is getting panned by reviewers as a bad hodge-podge of features that don't work together. I see which choice Microsoft made.
Only if you do it right, otherwise you've made the "dogs breakfast" the reviewer mentioned.
How? By pissing off both desktop and tablet users?
Yes, slavishly copying how other people do stuff isn't innovation. Producing something which is unusable is just incompetence, and it sounds like they'd have been better off just ripping everybody else off.
Sometimes, Microsoft just misses the mark by such an extraordinary amount that you have to conclude that either they're out of touch with the rest of the market, or live so much in their own echo chamber that they actually believe they've made something totally awesome.
When a company as big as Microsoft comes to market 5 years too late, with a product offering people can't make sense of, you have to assume there's some real problems going on.
Sucking at both target markets is a lousy strategy. And, to be honest, I'm hard pressed to think of anything which Microsoft has innovated recently -- even things like the Kinect they bought.
I am not sure I could name even 2-3 products which Microsoft created first, and that everybody went "wow, I need one" and that everybody else later copied. In fact, I'm having a hard time coming up with one (though I'm sure there has to be some examples).
MSFT innovates with the best of them. (Score:5, Informative)
Innovation is generally incremental. The iPod was not the first MP3 player; they just perfected it. The same is true of many MSFT products.
Microsoft also unified the computer market with Windows back in the 1990s. Before that, it was sheer chaos and incompatibility. Windows and FAT32 gave the world a standard.
While many people dislike it, Microsoft Office was the first complete and integrated office suite to include all the functions needed in an average office. It took it some years to get good, but now it's the standard.
Windows 95 gave us real multitasking at a time when you could freeze a Macintosh by holding down the mouse button.
Come to think of it, the 'softies have done a lot of good things.
And then there's Microsoft Research [microsoft.com] and Microsoft Press [microsoft.com].
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Windows 95 gave us real multitasking at a time when you could freeze a Macintosh by holding down the mouse button.
Windows 95 didn't invent multitasking. I think nearly every other OS, except the Mac, had it first, including OS/2.
The good old days. (Score:3)
Me too, except for OS/2, which scared me off. The "good old days" were good not for the products in them, but how good they were for the time, especially in contrast to what came before.
I don't think I'd want to trade today's OSs for some of those older, chaotic days.
Another way to view this is that they understand what's current now, and change f
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I'm more likely to take the word of a retired MIT prof [wikipedia.org] than a drooling journalist or fanboi who says "ZOMG, this is the best thing evar". I can at least understand his evaluation criteria.
I remember 1984. And I remember there were Macintosh computers. But in all honesty, I've used a Mac maybe 4 times in my life. I saw OSX once over someone's shoulder.
And, if a 28 year old example is the best you can come up w
The start panel isn't such a big deal... (Score:5, Insightful)
I converted my main workstation at work to windows 8 a week ago, mostly in order to learn and get used to it.
While there indeed is a bit of a hassle to change some of the habits from xp, vista and 7 to fit 8, and I really dislike the start panel that has replaced the start menu, it's not really a big deal.
I've put my 20 or so most used applications in the taskbar and pinned my most used folders and files into the respective taskbar icons and changed my "click start menu and open the file or folder"-habit into a "right click the taskbar icon and open the file or folder"-habit.
Also, I've installed regular windows applications as replacements for all the standard windows 8 applications, like vlc instead of the full screen windows 8 movie player, acrobat reader instead of the full screen windows 8 pdf-viewer, etc.
To be honest, I haven't used the start panel at all this entire week, except for going to the desktop after logging in.
On one hand, I've not really seen any of the horrible downsides with windows 8 that everyone talks about. On the other hand, I haven't seen many improvements over windows 7 yet. The new task manager and the new file-copy graph windows are awesome though.
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The intended workflow is to pin your apps to the taskbar. I rarely go into the start screen on windows 8 not because its bad, but because Its not needed every time you want to launch a program.
Which is nice if you use a handful of applications. However some of us regularly use a lot more than that. Off the top of my head I can count 35 different applications I launch on a daily basis, most of them many times a day. I'm excluding all games and such.
Pinning 35 apps to the taskbar would take so much space there's hardly any left for the windows that are active, and so the windows would quickly become grouped, reducing efficiency significantly.
I just cannot phantom why Microsoft didn't give us the op
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You can get an W8pro upgrade copy (up to 5) for $16.32 or so from www.windowsupgradeoffer.com. Worth buying 5 now and selling them for more later.
Greenspun is not an MIT professor (Score:5, Informative)
He's not a professor; far from it.
He's an "MIT affiliate" (search People on the MIT home page), which is the loosest form of connection to the Institute.
Note also that the blog he's posted on is at Harvard Law, which says:
"Weblogs at Harvard Law is provided by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University as a free service to the Harvard community. Anyone with an email address at harvard.edu, radcliffe.edu, or hbs.edu can sign up instantly and be blogging in minutes."
If you search his name in the directory at Harvard's home page, there are no hits.
In other words, he has no significant connection to MIT, doesn't show up at all on Harvard's staff list, and maybe for some reason has a Harvard email address.
The poster was just quoting the blog, which pointed to the original blog, but hey, is 30 seconds worth of fact checking too much to ask?
An Actual MIT Professor.
The most common complaints (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems like the number one complaint so far is "It's different, and I don't like to think". That's just lazy, and I tend to discount it immediately.
There are two fairly valid criticisms, however. The first is that by moving functions into various gestures and hidden panels, the discoverability is quite poor. I'm constantly forgetting that the search feature is buried in that "charms" bar, and instinctively look for a search field on the screen somewhere. I'm sure the Microsoft knee-jerk approach to "fixing" this will be to print tips and reminders on the display bezel, which of course won't make any sense when the screen is rotated some other way. Going back to the drawing board and completely re-engineering a concept doesn't seem to be their thing.
Second, the weird desktop/tablet UI dichotomy is baffling. Functions that were previously confined to a small number of places - chiefly the Start menu and Control Panel - are now spread across two "control panels", a hidden "charms" bar, a "Settings" button in that charms bar, and many of these functions bounce back and forth between the tablet or desktop UI, or even duplicate features of one another. Key functionality has also been removed entirely. Where does one view, edit, and reorder the entire list of saved wireless connections? Nowhere, unless you want to use the netsh command!
So while I can appreciate making finger-friendly design considerations, the way they've done it is disjointed and nonsensical. If I had to fix it, I'd allow "Metro" apps to run windowed instead of only full-screen, make it easier to scale up UI elements of "desktop" apps for touch use, get the Control Panel consolidated into a single point of access, and put some of the most common features of the old Start menu directly on the new one, without hiding them off-screen or in menus (Control Panel, Devices and Printers, Run, Computer, Documents, etc). If you change the window manager to act more like the Metro mode when a window is maximized, then you've got a reasonably successful marrying of the two concepts.
For traditional desktop use, it's not at all horrible for an advanced user, and does have some nice performance and usability improvements here and there. For casual home users, it will probably be overly confusing, and leave them shopping for iPads even more than they are already.
People don't have a problem with different. (Score:4, Interesting)
No people are not complain about different, ios is different..Andoirsd is different, people seen not only to like these interfaces they LOVE them. I'm pretty much tired of blaming the users for bad UI choices. Its not just a windows 8 thing.
Windows 8 isn't all that bad (Score:3, Insightful)
However, due to a drive failure, I installed it and thought I'd give it a shot. Once you get past the Start Screen/Page/Menu thing - which is what 99% of the fuss is about - it's not all that bad at all. It is a dogs breakfast though, and does need some refinement. However I haven't had as much fun finding out new stuff in an OS since I got my first OSX box in 2002.
Firstly, I'm currently using it for development on a multi-monitor setup - 3x 24" monitors with one in portrait mode. Windows 8 handles multiple monitors in desktop mode much better than 7, no question about it. The ability to have the Taskbar setup to display programs running on that monitor is a great change.
Secondly, The desktop environment is much cleaner and I'm glad the huge hive of junk that was the Start Menu has gone. The number of times I aimlessly trawled through it to find some obscure program I needed wasted way too much time... Now, I can just pull up the search and find whatever app, then either run it or pin it to the Start Menu/page, or the Taskbar.
Performance is better too. Simple stuff is a lot faster than 7, and running the whole OS from a new 256GB SSD means I can boot in around 12 seconds. Even spindle to spindle file transfers are a lot faster.
You might notice I haven't really mentioned Metro, well that's because I hardly use it. In my view, it feels like a 'fun layer' that you can almost shut out completely when using the desktop for serious stuff. Today I've used it precisely once as I pin all my apps to the Taskbar in pretty much the same way I use the OSX dock. That said, the live tiles are very nice and some of the news and informational apps are good. Overall though, the ecosystem is lacking in content and I really can't see any point when I'd use a Metro app alongside the desktop.
As far as shutdown goes? Simple, I just map the power button to shutdown and don't have to fiddle around in Metro for it.
So, while not a 'fan' of the extreme changes in Windows 8, I am glad I can shut them out to a degree, and can benefit from the underlying changes made to the desktop. It's by no means a Vista though. While I may not like Metro, the underlying OS is solid and works better than Windows 7.
This is nothing new for Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
They have a habit of missing the boat on things and then when they realize it, they compensate by embracing it and over doing it. A perfect example was the Web. They completely missed the boat on it in the mid 90's and when they realized it, they reacted by reworking everything they could to be based on http/html and the result was a mess. This time they completely got it wrong on smart phones and tablets and now they are over compensating by trying to turn a desktop into a tablet.
Apple seems to be getting it right by moving the best features of the tablet to the desk top but doing it in a way that makes sense. For example, gestures are great on both, but when it comes to the desktop, you should use a proxy surface such as a touch pad rather than the screen itself. The first fucker that jabs his finger into my monitor to move a window is going to lose it :)
A candidate (Score:4)
Regardless of what anyone thinks of MS products, (and I use Win7 everyday, and think it's perfectly fine), my candidate for understatement of the decade.
I'm More Worried about Server 2012 (Score:5, Insightful)
Selex
Hate train. (Score:3, Insightful)
I see the Windows 8 hate train is making daily stops here.
I wonder how many have actually used the damn OS. I installed it well over a month ago on a 5+ year old Dell. My impression has been that it's a fabulous OS. It does away with a lot of the clutter and performs extremely well. I think gesture control has been implemented very well, not once have I felt like lacking a touchscreen has compromised my experience. I like the tile interface and don't find it cumbersome at all to switch between apps, it's certainly a lot better than Apple's attempts at full screen mode.
For your average consumer who doesn't do much more than browse the web, check emails and maybe use Office it's going to offer a clean, intuitive experience. One of the biggest turn offs for Windows has always been that users feel like they're fighting the OS, that the inner workings rise to the surface far too often. It's been one of the appealing attributes of OSX and definitely iOS. So Windows 8 runs with that concept and offers great online integration. Even your average office worker who spends their entire day with Outlook or Office is going to get a better experience with this OS. And given that you can clear out the start screen of everything except the essentials, it will make things even easier for them.
The nature of my work, however, demands that I work in a windowed environment. Being constrained to full screen mode is cumbersome. Windows 8 does offer desktop mode, and for anyone so repulsed by the tiles, you can use your start screen strictly as a glorified start bar, if at all. But I do agree that there's a bit of a disconnect between the two modes. Transitioning between the two isn't too bad, but there really should be a way for those metro apps to jump switch to windowed.
I'm not suggesting anyone needs to like the new OS, but at least look being the Microsoft bias and appreciate what they're trying to do. The problems are there, but it's not the sort of thing that's going to be evident in a cursory review.
While the integration is nice, it also turns things into a bit of a mess. I've ended up with a lot of duplicated contact info which I've yet to sort through. And the problem is that linking accounts is dangerous because it's far too aggressive in looking for similarities. Sometimes it will link accounts merely because two individuals have the same first name. And if you have a lot of contacts it gets overwhelming trying to fix it all. My Android phone did a lot better job with this.
Messaging and Skype is a bit of a mess. I'm currently in a situation where the few Messenger I still have and I see each other as offline regardless of our actual status. And the rampant linking of accounts makes it difficult to sort things out, especially if you've got stuff like Facebook tied into it. You can link Skype to your account but once you've done so it's permanently link. To separate it from your Microsoft account you actually have to get in touch with customer support.
Early on I had an issue where despite being logged into Xbox Live games weren't seeing this and wouldn't log in. The problem there is that instead of spitting back a message the games would just crash. Eventually it all just started working; I'm not sure what I did, if anything, to fix it.
The way bookmarks are handled in the metro version of Explorer is a joke. It gives you this impractically long band of bookmarks you're supposed to sift through.
If you're going to complain about Microsoft at least find a target that makes sense. I think from a fundamental UI standpoint Windows 8 is great. It's in the details and always have been in the details that Microsoft stumbles. My overall experience is great, but then I run into an issue, or some intuitive hiccup and there's this creeping sense that there's an insurmountable mess just hiding under the surface.
But then, I fire up GIMP on my Mac and am reminded of how miserable an experience open source can be. And I'm running one of the more highly recommended packages. Sure,
It was so bloody simple and they fucked up. (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft had a great little OS on their hands. It works better on the same hardware than the rock solid Windows 7 and incorporates real performance and useability improvements.
All they had to do to have made Windows 8 a great success on both existing and next-generation devices was:
1. Default to the desktop on systems that don't have a touchscreen.
2. Bring back the start menu.
Simple! Yet, they but on the blinders, and said to themselves 'we can be like Apple too' and proceeded to completely alienate their existing user base in favor of a user base that hasn't been proven to exist (touchscreen device users who prefer Metro to Android or iOS).
For what it's worth, I happily use Windows 8 with the free Classic Shell utility that resolves Microsoft's blunders.
Start Menu use case: How do you find old stuff? (Score:3)
So they took away the start menu: the simple list of programs you have installed.
So in Windows 8, how do you find the program you installed 6 months ago, but you forgot the program's name?
This use case, finding an old forgotten program, is the only thing I use the Start Menu for.
Re: (Score:3)
Click the search button. Dont enter anything, just click it once. By default the search on both the tile screen and the desktop screen will show you all your applications in alphabetical order. Alternatively, right click the tile screen and click All Apps to do the same thing.
Hello, I actually used it!! (Score:3)
Until recently, being a rather old /.-er, I have spun fun about and around W8. I know too well what it takes to be a nerd, and a member of Slashdot (aside of the few who try to post reasonable stuff, paid handsomely by the evil empire).
Finally I took the leap, and actually installed an original version (not OEM, neither pirated) on my box. My partner started a row with me, when after a few hours, I seemingly unmotivated exclaimed OMG! while she was in deep concentration. Done. Finished. Whatta crap!
From now on I can honestly state 'been there, done it, useless'. Okay, not totally, it actually installs fast, boots significantly faster than W7. But that's the end already. Being a CS person, I could even navigate the two disparaging screens. And still, no need I would ever want to again. I don't miss a 'Start'-button (my KDE is configured to do totally without), I love screen edges (my interface is configured to let me do most stuff with edge events). The time - bang-bang - comes in like I was visually impaired, the address bar of IE looks likewise. The logon screen is okay, fresh and inviting. But the two non-unify-able interface constructions, with a bit of toggling switches left and right and a bit of traditional radio-boxes; no, OMG!
If it was free (of charge), I'd discourage using it, because 'there are better interfaces'. But someone paying actual money for a rabid mixture of unfinished substances ought to have her head examined.
Re:Android is NOT a useable tablet experience (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop using the 79 dollar chinese made resistive screen tablet you bought a Walgreens last Christmas and try a real android tablet or install Cyanogen Mod on an HP Touchpad. Then get back to me.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:The man is right! (Score:5, Insightful)
RE: IT wasn't build on marketing
I used to say this years ago.
MS proved that you could sway IT decisions by wining and dining executives of organizations regardless of technical merits of the products.
Soon after, MS products were sold on the lemming effect, alone.
Re:The man is right! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is simply not true.
Speaking of which...
For those who have long enough memories, there was an MS versus IBM world, with MSDOS versus IBM's DOS (Disk Operating System, not Denial Of Service). IBM held the corporate IT guys. MSDOS had no one but the masses to appeal to. The MSDOS was just as good and was nearly half the price. IBM with their hubris thought the masses would stick with IBM because they were IBM. The MSDOS got good reviews so the masses went for the much cheaper DOS.
Microsoft won because Microsoft had a much better, faster and cheaper product. Sadly, that was then. This is now.
Nonsense. MS DOS succeeded so well because MS negotiated per-CPU licenses rather than per-install. Ergo, anyone who installed PC DOS or DR DOS on their shipping units paid double for the privilege.
That was then, and this is now.
Re:That bad? (Score:5, Informative)
I really wanted to like it and bought into their promo deal to put it onto my laptop (like $40 for a legit copy of Win 8 Upgrade).
But I've run into the same gripes as him regarding the interface. If you were just in the Modern UI 100% of the time on the tablet it wouldn't be a terrible experience. However, it tries to switch back and forth from that interface to the traditional desktop interface and does so very, very poorly. Even on a tablet this transition is godawful. It's worse on a non-touchscreen laptop.
The new "start menu" just adds more work for me and adds very little value to the experience. This isn't a bad format for a tablet, but when you're on a laptop and not in the Modern UI - forcing the use of that new start menu is just absurd.
Now, it does seem to be a bit more responsive than Windows 7 and has a couple of neat features - for example the taskbar now extends across multiple screens and you can set its behavior to a couple of different methods. It seems to integrate nicely w/ the xbox environment but I'm waiting to see what its full potential will be for that.
Overall there are just a lot of things like "are you friggin serious?". In the land of UI the amount of mouse movement, clicks, and typing is how we define "work" and yet for some reason MS has been wanting to add more work to a lot of the user's tasks. This is something I still don't quite understand. (Look at the office ribbon - despite some of its nice features there are quite a few places where it just managed to add more work for the user to accomplish a task).
So yeah, it's that bad. I don't outright hate it but it's because I've modified a lot of it so far to fit what I'm after. I would absolutely recommend against it for a non geek to upgrade to.
Re: (Score:3)
Look at the office ribbon - despite some of its nice features there are quite a few places where it just managed to add more work for the user to accomplish a task
Yeah, for a while I disliked ribbons, but then I realized the true problems aren't ribbons. Ribbons are great in their place, but the way Microsoft uses them is horrible.
There's nothing wrong with ribbons, it's just the standard Microsoft UI.
Re:That bad? (Score:5, Funny)
You felt so strongly that the "cool" Windows 8 UI is the way of the future and that people who prefer the "old, lame way" are "lazy, old dogs" that you just had to register a Slashdot account today to say it. I respect the strength of your convictions.
Re: (Score:3)
Instead of whining how about trying to add something positive to the discussion instead? The fact that you are obsessed with the messenger instead of the message proves you are being an Arrogant Cunt. Grow the fuck up.
Bringing this thread back on topic ...
. /oblg. Joke: "I heard they were renaming 'Windows' to 'Window' because that is all you can have open in new version!" (rimshot)
Looks like other people are running into the same retarded Win 8 design ...
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/8-wor [nbcnews.com]
Yes, I say it is "that bad"! (Score:4, Interesting)
Since I've recently passed the 40 year mark, maybe that puts me in that "old dog" category now? But I still work in I.T. supporting multiple platforms and systems, and I think I'm still pretty good at figuring out new UIs and upgrades to applications.
Nonetheless, I absolutely agree with Greenspun's blog on this. It's not so much a debate on whether the old START menu or the new tiles screen is more useful. It's a design issue/problem, where the radically new tiled UI feels like it's crudely bolted onto the traditional desktop UI. I feel like in Windows 8, I'm really running two different operating systems in tandem on a desktop machine, except the integration between them isn't even as tight as recent versions of a product like Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion for Mac OS X gives you when running virtual Windows 7 sessions inside them!
For example, the tiled UI happily displays icons for apps like MS Office, which actually install and run from the Windows 7 style desktop side of things, yet it's possible to install web browsers which act completely independent of each other in the two UI's. To access them from both the tiles and the desktop side, you have to install them twice!
Re:That bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
. Its as if they dont even care that windows 8 is more efficient and faster than windows 7.
Can't speak for the others, but I sure as hell don't. What's the point in squeaking out an extra 5% faster speed when idiotic UI design makes everything I do take 20% longer anyway.
There's a reason people use PCs for actual work, and not tablets. Trying to make the PC act like a tablet was a bloody stupid decision when Ubuntu did it, and it's no more intelligent when Micky does it. Even less so, since they've actually got something to lose.
Re:That bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
...says the guy who has literally never posted anything other than about how Windows 8, Surface, and IE10 are much better than the competition (and the older products they're replacing).
Free tip to shills (and yes, I'm calling you a shill): mix it up a little. Talk about something funny at work. Mention a local restaurant. Make a car analogy. Just don't come in and make comment after predictable comment saying the exact same thing.
And in the unlikely event that you're not a shill? Get a hobby. Seriously. There is more to life than the most recent software releases of any megacorporation. Explore your other interests a little. It's a big world!
Re:That bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you know you can type the name of the program, or area of the settings you're after? Geeks should love this, since it's much easier to operate with the keyboard than previous versions of windows. Searching by typing a few letters vs hunting through menus is easier, period.
The exact same thing is available in Windows 7.
Re: (Score:3)
Windows 8 is better than 7 in every way.
I've moved a lot of customers from XP to 7. Most of the time it's been very easy, and there have been few questions, because in general, 7 acts mostly like XP.
With 8 so far, it has not been as easy. Yes, they can do most of what they do, but then something will run into an odd behavior and I get a call. Far more then XP to 7 ever did.
So if there is one thing that 8 is better then 7 at doing it's...
Confusing the living fuck out of Microsoft customers.
Re:That bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
A simple Windows+D keystroke takes you into desktop mode and you can choose to remain there as long as you wish. I do hate the removal of the windows launcher in Desktop mode, but there are alternative options out there to get back that functionality.
This is what's really bugging me about everything I read that has to do with Windows 8, people are constantly making excuses for it.
Seriously, it became ok to remove a feature that seemed to be essential to the system because we can download a third party module that will fix it? Honestly, If there is such a demand for a feature that people have to download an extension to get the feature back, is that maybe something that shouldn't have been removed in the first place? and it's ok that it starts up in "tablet" mode a.k.a "Metro" on a laptop or PC because all you have to do to start getting work done is press Win+D?
To me this all sounds like utter intolerable insanity. Because people keep making excuses it makes me seriously think there's something else going on there and any positive message concerning Win8 needs to be taken with a mountain of salt.
My bet is the first change they'll tote in Windows 9 is the convenient new start menu where applications can be launched without having to use the metro interface. The next thing will be that it starts up in Desktop mode on Laptops and PCs by default and Metro on tables and phones.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously. When you have a start button, you do the following:
move your mouse to the bottom left corner of the screen,
click it,
move your mouse to the app you want to open,
click it.
In Windows 8 it works like this:
move your mouse to the bottom left corner of the screen,
click it,
move your mouse to the app you want to open,
click it.
It's the exact same. I swear the people complaining about this stuff aren't actually using it. I always f
Re:That bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
In windows 8 it works more like this...
You poke at the bottom left corner for the square to pop up and click it. /r /t 0' rather then poke around to get the shutdown menu to show up.
You look for the app you want to open it's not there???
You ask a friend about it...
You now know to right click.
You right click on the desktop
You drag your mouse from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen to click all apps.
You click all apps.
The app you want is closer to the left side of the screen now, so you drag your mouse back to the left side and
click it.
You make a shortcut on your desktop so you don't have to deal with that shit again.
You also make a batch file on your desktop containing 'shutdown
I'm guessing you are using a different product then I'm running. 'Cause I just described the Windows 8 I am using.
Re:That bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
But thats just it, it seems essential but its not!
If it seems essential, millions of users are screaming "we need it" and third parties are writing extensions to put it back, it was essential. The start menu is a nicely organized hierarchical structure where it's easy to find applications I might not necessarily know the name of off the top of my head.
The Metro interface looks like my daughter ate a box of crayons and barfed on several place mats. There are so many issues I could literally type a fifty page document on how not to do usability when designing an interface for human computer interaction.
Not to mention from what I've read and seen demonstrated the Metro interface could possibly be used as advertising platform by constantly updating tiles to display new sales, promotions, etc... You know marketing firms will take full advantage of that. Who wants to read dozens of advertisements when you're trying to find an application to do work with?
Please don't go around tell everyone out there the start menu isn't essential to them because you don't use it. I might as well go around saying cars don't need blinkers because my father-in-law doesn't use them.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It's an abomination of the highest order designed by programmers who have no clue of what they're doing and violating the first rule of IT that should never be broken: Never let programmers design your applications.
Actually, the abominations that are Windows 8, Lion and Mountain Lion, Unity, and Gnome 3 are the result of people buying into your line.
So called UI experts suck, and it's far preferable to let a programmer design the UI. At least it will be practical, even if it's not pretty.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Linux Mint impressed me. It's Ubuntu-based, so it still has the training wheels, but it has a sane interface (I prefer Mate to Cinnamon). It's still a little sluggish though.
Personally, I just use Debian. It's grouchy at first and takes a little time to get it how you want it, but after that it stays out of your way.