Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[Formfiller]

I had a good laugh here: Metrotard accuses Neowin of being biased against Windows 8!

http://www.neowin.net/news/start-button-returning-in-windows-81-with-updated-charms-bar-insiders-claim#comment-2196873

Comedy for the ages.

[ciHnoN]

A user's perpective on Windows 8 from another forum:

I bought a copy of Windows 8 the day it was released. I've got it installed on a 2nd PC that I use for miscellaneous tasks in addition to my primary PC. I find that I use it even less now that it has Windows 8. The UI is completely non-intuitive and a total PITA to navigate if you aren't familiar with it. Microsoft screwed the pooch by creating a UI that was foreign to most Windows users. There have always been new features that the user has had to get accustomed to with each new release of Windows, but nothing as radically different as Win 8. Metro may have seemed like a good idea for tablets and other touch screen devices, but it has no business on a desktop PC.

The Charm Bar is a joke and needs to be eliminated completely. Give me an icon or a Start button so I can access these items directly instead of waving my cursor at the corner and hoping I can make it appear. I don't understand why they can't just stick a Power button in the system tray or the bottom of the screen instead of making me jump through hoops to reboot or shut down the PC.

IMHO the Charms bar on a desktop PC is little more than a gimmick, something they tacked on just to show that it could be done. But "cool" and "new" are not good justifications to foist it on everyone. It serves no useful new function and IMX simply gets in the way repeatedly when you're trying to do something else. Leave it in place for tablets and stop annoying the rest of your users!

--JorgeA

This will make you lol...

Windows 8 - The built-in moronic pop-up called "Charms bar"

http://www.foolsdesign.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=89

[JorgeA]

This will make you lol...

Windows 8 - The built-in moronic pop-up called "Charms bar"

http://www.foolsdesign.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=89

Hey ciHnoN,

When I click on the link above, I very briefly see the forum site, but then right away it switches to a small image of a clown or joker in the upper left corner of the browser window -- nothing else at all to see.

I tried going in directly by typing the URL, and the same thing happened.

MSIE 8. Works fine in FF 16, though.

--JorgeA

P.S. Now that I got to see what you put in there, here's a thought. Wasn't Windows redesigned in 8 supposedly "to get the OS out of the way"? Well, the Charms totally wreck that notion. They remind you constantly of the OS, and in the most annoying, distracting manner possible. Only thing that could beat it in this category is... <drum roll> ... the Start Screen, which takes over the WHOLE monitor. At least the Start Screen only takes over when you tell it to, but then when it does, it takes over everything.

[jaclaz]

Oww, come on, people.

Get Windows XP.

Set the taskbar to autohide.

Move it to the right side of the monitor.

Enlarge it so that you can read the name of the apps.

SCOOP!

We always had a charms bar.

Seriously, this is a commonly attempted (completely wrong) interface, just as an example the stupid tool for some of Buffalo's storage devices behave like that, you get by mistake on the side of the screen and it pops out, but there are tens of similar "smart" (in the perverted mind of the respective Authors) popping out from nowhere apps/tools.

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

I had a good laugh here: Metrotard accuses Neowin of being biased against Windows 8!

http://www.neowin.net/news/start-button-returning-in-windows-81-with-updated-charms-bar-insiders-claim#comment-2196873

Comedy for the ages.

Unbelievable!!

So, any dose of reality over there is met with derision and accusations of bias.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

SCOOP!

We always had a charms bar.

LOL

BTW, in the image you attached -- that row of icon thingies I see running across near the top of the Opera window, are they browser tabs?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

BTW, in the image you attached -- that row of icon thingies I see running across near the top of the Opera window, are they browser tabs?

Sure. B)

About the senseless thread on neowin, it contains at least an interesting reference to this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/10/windows-8-actual-installed-base-58m

Windows 8: forget 100m licences 'sold', here's how many PCs are running it

Microsoft's announcement that 100m Windows 8 licences have been 'sold' disguises how many PCs are actually running it. The answer: a lot less than that suggests

....

which confirms substantially the calculations I made here:

which - BTW as expected - were largely in favour of MS.

The article additionally adds an aspect I completely missed originally, the number of people "forced" to buy a Windows 8 License but that downgrade "instantly" to 7, which would nicely contribute to explain the increase in Windows 7 usage.

jaclaz

[Formfiller]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22507935

According to market research firm IDC, shipments of Nokia smartphones fell from 11.9 million devices in the first three months of 2012 to 6.4 million units during the January-to-March period in 2013 - a 46% drop.

Neowin:

http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-phone-doubles-global-marketshare-but-still-far-behind

Windows Phone doubles global marketshare, but still far behind

OK, two different analysts (IDC on BBC versus Gardner on Neowin), but still...

Of course, for the metrotards, the more positive news on Neowin are STILL BIASED!

more shenanigans from gartner as usual(anyone remember last quarter they had mac sales up 15% which was total BS since mac sales actually dropped)

nokia sold 5.6 million lumias,as was reported during their earnings, yet gartner decides to throw out facts and use some number instead (5.1 million) they came up with using some obscure methods.

(says so here about 5.1 millions http://in.reuters.com/article/...rtner-idINDEE94D05V20130514)

and why give apple an extra million iphones when their iphone sales were reported in the quarter as 37.4 million and not 38.3 million.

that's a discrepancy of 1.6 million right there, which is close to 1% marketshare.

http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-phone-doubles-global-marketshare-but-still-far-behind#comment-2198367

Edited May 14, 2013 by Formfiller

[JorgeA]

BTW, in the image you attached -- that row of icon thingies I see running across near the top of the Opera window, are they browser tabs?

Sure. B)

Wow, that's a LOT of tabs open!

About the senseless thread on neowin, it contains at least an interesting reference to this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/10/windows-8-actual-installed-base-58m

That analysis was pretty devastating, thanks for linking to it.

And yes, it does corroborate your own earlier analysis.

An interesting report in the comments section:

Using website visit stats is a bit unfair as it will underbake W8 share - I upgraded to W8 6 months ago & it's so awful I've not used my laptop for approx 5 months. Can't imagine I'm the only one, so this should bump the numbers up a bit

Wonder how many people are on that same boat. Maybe not stopped using their Win8 machine completely, but deterred from playing with the new toy by Win8's annoyances.

--JorgeA

[MagicAndre1981]

ok, Blue will be released as 8.1 later this year via the Windows Store and it will be free for all Win8 users.

The preview will be released on 26th June:

We will also be making a public preview of Windows 8.1 available starting on June 26, timed with the Build developer conference in San Francisco. The preview will be available for Windows 8 and Windows RT.

http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2013/05/14/windows-keeps-getting-better.aspx

[JorgeA]

A brief exchange about Metro apps between Mary Jo Foley and Paul Thurrott in Windows Weekly 301. Start at 16:50:

MJF: We're in a very sad place on Metro-style versions of Twitter client for Windows 8 and Windows RT. We're waiting for Twitter to do theirs and they still haven't...

PT: I try to go back and forth and try things, but I don't know, I just don't like the UI's of a lot of these things.

MJF: Me too.

Gosh, do you think that the UI problem could be with the very concept of Metro itself??

--JorgeA

[ciHnoN]

This will make you lol...

Windows 8 - The built-in moronic pop-up called "Charms bar"

http://www.foolsdesi...ic.php?f=1&t=89

Hey ciHnoN,

When I click on the link above, I very briefly see the forum site, but then right away it switches to a small image of a clown or joker in the upper left corner of the browser window -- nothing else at all to see.

I tried going in directly by typing the URL, and the same thing happened.

MSIE 8. Works fine in FF 16, though.

--JorgeA

P.S. Now that I got to see what you put in there, here's a thought. Wasn't Windows redesigned in 8 supposedly "to get the OS out of the way"? Well, the Charms totally wreck that notion. They remind you constantly of the OS, and in the most annoying, distracting manner possible. Only thing that could beat it in this category is... <drum roll> ... the Start Screen, which takes over the WHOLE monitor. At least the Start Screen only takes over when you tell it to, but then when it does, it takes over everything.

IE 8.x? *lol* , update your browser.

Indeed, they are SUPER SUPER SUPER annoying. I see it several hundred times a month!!!

[JorgeA]

IE 8.x? *lol* , update your browser.

I've hung on to IE8 on my Vista system for a couple of reasons, an informational one and an esthetic one. The informational reason is that IE8 but not IE9 gives me useful little tidbits of information along the bottom that change as I enter and leave different websites; they're always in plain view and I don't have to go looking for the notifications. I can get some of these visible bits back using Classic Shell (thanks Ivo and @xpclient ), but not all of them.

The esthetic reason is that I much prefer the look of the Forward and Back buttons in IE8 over those in IE9, which have lost the permanent shiny, 3D effect. (Presaging what Microsoft was getting ready to do to Windows itself.) In IE8, the Menu bar at the top is separated from the other toolbars by a thin line, while in IE9 the toolbars are all one undifferentiated sea of blue. (In IE7 all the toolbar rows are separated by lines, with the Menu bar divider even sporting an indented 3D "groove" appearance.)

IE8 already represented a regression towards Windows 2.x flatness from IE7, where the toolbar rows all had 3D shading similar to the Vista Taskbar. IE9 eliminates even the vestiges of this 3D effect; browser tabs are the only elements that retain any depth.

Hope I've explained my position well enough!

--JorgeA

Edited May 14, 2013 by JorgeA

[sparkles]

...popping out from nowhere apps/tools.

This guy calls them "goblin farts."

[ciHnoN]

IE 8.x? *lol* , update your browser.

I've hung on to IE8 on my Vista system for a couple of reasons, an informational one and an esthetic one. The informational reason is that IE8 but not IE9 gives me useful little tidbits of information along the bottom that change as I enter and leave different websites; they're always in plain view and I don't have to go looking for the notifications. I can get some of these visible bits back using Classic Shell (thanks Ivo and @xpclient ), but not all of them.

The esthetic reason is that I much prefer the look of the Forward and Back buttons in IE8 over those in IE9, which have lost the permanent shiny, 3D effect. (Presaging what Microsoft was getting ready to do to Windows itself.) In IE8, the Menu bar at the top is separated from the other toolbars by a thin line, while in IE9 the toolbars are all one undifferentiated sea of blue. (In IE7 all the toolbar rows are separated by lines, with the Menu bar divider even sporting an indented 3D "groove" appearance.)

IE8 already represented a regression towards Windows 2.x flatness from IE7, where the toolbar rows all had 3D shading similar to the Vista Taskbar. IE9 eliminates even the vestiges of this 3D effect; browser tabs are the only elements that retain any depth.

Hope I've explained my position well enough!

--JorgeA

I understand the reason but I still think you are doing a wrong thing. It was people like you in corporations and everywhere who stuck to IE 6.x and we had the famous IE 6 hell all over the web. You are now doing it with IE 8 and complaining that sites are not working with this old old old browser. Which would make people start using special tags and such to make things work in IE 8 which would make history repeat itself, this time with IE 8.

There is absolutely no reason you should stick inside an old browser. I recommend you switch browser and use skinning technology to make it look the way you like because IE can't be skinned. I heard maxthon browser uses IE and can be skinned too ( I think ).

If you feel like using IE 6... or IE 8, it is fine... but you should not complain in public that modern websites does not work in it. After all, it is your choice to stick with an old browser and old technology.

Please bear in mind that I am specificially talking about web technology here. That is why in general Internet Explorer is a bad browser because it alters its looks on each release without the ability to use skinning technology. This behavious, which of course is completely foolish is due to the fact that there are only fools working at Microsoft. They do not have an understanding that people like different looks and colors, hence they do not offer skinning or customization to make it look like the older version when they update their browser.

Your behaviour is caused by foolishness of fools in Microsoft.

I actually see IE as not a browser but just a "thing" Microsoft "has" to have just because of the Internet and they are politically using IE to make people buy new versions of Windows.

My recommendation is that people do NOT use IE at all, let it die a hard death and let Microsoft learn it the heard way.

Anyway, as I mentioned, you could use other browsers and use skinning to make it exactly look like IE 8 but please, don't complain that certain sites do not work if you are using old browsers like IE 6 or IE 8. The web evolves.