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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions


JorgeA

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Apple hinted that you shouldn't clean the touch-screen at regular basis,

as it would diminish the quality of the screen

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3226

and for breaks, a game interface that already exist before before metro-UI for desktop were previewed

http://nemulator.com/media.php

its reach that form in 2009, a year before Win8 plan was leaked

Edited by Joseph_sw
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Biggest joke quote by JLG: "I think change for change's sake is what gets people into trouble,". <= Change for sake of change is what Windows 8 is on the desktop and lady, this is going to get you in trouble. ;)

"We'll continue testing until we release - that's the real test."<= LOL OMG WHAT? :D

"I like to go to the thing that scares me and overcome it". <= So she's scared of using the regular interface so she designs one for her to play Cut the Rope. The woman probably only checks Facebook and plays games and shares photos. What does she know about PowerShell scripting or debugging in Visual Studio or working a CAD program or 3D rendering using Maya? She has probably never use professional applications or never seen the job an IT admin does. How did this woman get to this position and why is the fate of Windows and Office in her hands? She's ruined Office with Ribbon (okay, some may argue Ribbon is great, but she had no right to strip off all backward compatibility of the UI), the toolbars and menus could have continued to ship with Office as just another tab like all the addins that reinstate them work. Same thing with the Start Menu, just give us a freaking choice you dumb woman, we do not want to play Cut the Rope and "immerse" ourselves in the joke called Metro-style apps. How does Ballmer and Sinofsky approve of this nonsense? Windows 8 is the beginning of the end of serious computing to turn the PC into a toy.

She's also probably scared of the dozens of Control Panels and settings Windows has so she removes one or two settings from here and there to "simplify" it and further reduce the system configurability. Even if Windows 8 fails spectacularly, who's going to undo all the damage that has been done to Windows by randomly removing features from here and there? They're not going to re-instate them. :realmad::angry:

I think this woman only got so much power because of Office 2007 which appeared to "succeed" while Vista badly flopped. So Ballmer thought everyone who worked on Vista=bad and Office 2007 people got charge. Except the morons don't know a thing about usability, productivity and have no Windows expertise.

Edited by xpclient
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Apple hinted that you shouldn't clean the touch-screen at regular basis,

as it would diminish the quality of the screen

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3226

Hmm -- I guess that they would prefer that you shell out another $500 for a new iPad instead of trying to keep the old one clean. How long do you think it'll be before many customers start feeling that they're simply getting milked, and abandon the whole touchscreen idea?

and for breaks, a game interface that already exist before before metro-UI for desktop were previewed

http://nemulator.com/media.php

its reach that form in 2009, a year before Win8 plan was leaked

Great find! I know very little about the Nintendo system. Do you know if the NES "start screen" looks like that, with tons of squares to select from?

--JorgeA

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I guess that they would prefer that you shell out another $500 for a new iPad instead of trying to keep the old one clean.

Their screen has a coating against finger smudges, and they have a page that explains how to clean them. They are also right to say that cleaning an LCD too frequently will slowly wear it (and its coating) out.

Either ways. Win8 won't make a dent in iPad sales. If anything, Win8 laptops (non-ARM) will only eat away at Win7 laptop sales. There's going to be some people who want to try it (just like those who bought XP, Vista and Win7 tablets, often with pens). They'll soon realize it's a pretty poor device at everything it does (we've got one at work with Win7, it's incredibly sucky). Win8 RT tablets will sell as good as Zunes and Windows Phones (not at all). Far inferior hardware yet expensive, much less apps, etc.

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Biggest joke quote by JLG: "I think change for change's sake is what gets people into trouble,". <= Change for sake of change is what Windows 8 is on the desktop and lady, this is going to get you in trouble. ;)

+1 !!

Windows 8 is the beginning of the end of serious computing to turn the PC into a toy.

It's part of the process of infantilizing the computing experience, in the name of making it more accessible to more people. A mistaken idea, as the sales of literally billions of computers over the decades attests to. We the public are neither that stupid nor that simple-minded, thank you.

And not only a mistaken idea, but also a shortsighted one, IMO -- it's precisely the PC's complexity that so many people find both fascinating and a challenge. If the dumbing-down process succeeds, it will be terrible for computing in the long run, as fewer and fewer novices will have either the chance or the inclination to really get into the inner workings of PC's, learn about computing, and then go on to become programmers and developers.

At any point in the history of computing where the "PC as an appliance" attitude had been taken, innovation would have slowed down at that point and eventually stopped as precious few new "techies" were fascinated by the machine and entered the field. It's to them that we owe the fantastic variety of things that we can do with our computers. But what if the Apple I or the IBM PC had adopted the Metro "ideals" back in 1979-81? That is, uncustomizable closed systems (think WinRT), with their workings opaque to the user, who would only see a few simplified choices featuring a few adjustable settings. Who would have -- or even could have -- delved into a PC's brain and guts, and explored what made it tick?

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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that is the issue. Windows 8 is tablet OS.The leaked docs from 2010 showed that Win8 is a Tablet OS:

Excellent discovery, thanks! In light of subsequent developments, that sure made for absorbing reading.

There does seem to be some inner confusion as to what the audience is supposed to be for Win8. Not only do they depict the use of a tablet as you show, but Goals slide 2 gives the intended form factors as "slate," "laptop," and "all-in-one." Where does that leave the enormous desktop slice of the market?

At the same time, the Target slide identifies "mainstream consumers" and "enthusiasts" as the target audiences. Yet "enthusiasts" are the likeliest segment to be using a DESKTOP computer, and because of their deep interest and advanced skills they are NOT going to want a dumbed-down interface, at least not for their primary machine.

Possibly the biggest joke in the slide deck:

Windows-8-Differentiation-Goals-01.png

Umm, what was that about customers being "able to choose [their emphasis] a Windows 8 PC that matches their personality, interests, and lifestyle"? Sounds like somebody at MS forgot that part when they baked Metro into the OS and made it impossible to dispense with it.

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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This woman ruined Windows and Office for me: http://windowmagazine.org/window/index.php?section=Stories&id=234 Can Gates please fire her along with Ballmer and Sinofsky? :realmad::angry:

Jenny Lam's better than her!

That is all. :ph34r:

On a side-note, I tried Windows 8 for the first time last week. CoffeeFiend, you were right. The drawbacks outweigh the benefits. For example, I hardly noticed the new copy/move interface.

While Metro wasn't bad with a mouse and keyboard (it was very responsive), it would be a waste of time learning how to use it.

*looking for news article about Windows 7*

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and for breaks, a game interface that already exist before before metro-UI for desktop were previewed

http://nemulator.com/media.php

its reach that form in 2009, a year before Win8 plan was leaked

Whoa, nice catch there Joseph! Can't say that I ever seen that before, nor has it showed up in any of the Windows 8 and Metro forums that I 've been in. Until someone claims otherwise it seems that you have reported an exclusive, and a new headache for Team B&S (Ballmer and Sinofsky) ;-).

Here is the still frame from version 2.2.1 (release date: 2010-12-09) ( original image ) ...

SmguOrj.jpg

There is a documented Nemulator release history over there. Here is something that indicates earlier dates of note ...

12/19/2009

nemulator 2.0 beta 2

Joystick support (non-analog joysticks only, see nemulator.ini)

Menus: On the game selection screen, use A to select a game, B to bring up the menu. In-game, press start+select to bring up the menu.

Fullscreen mode configurable via nemulator.ini

Configurable reset and menu delay behavior (thanks to Alexander Rojas for the suggestions!)

Fixed bug that caused crashes when quitting while in fullscreen mode

7/7/2009

nemulator 2.0 beta 1

nemulator 2.0 development started in 2008 simply in order to switch from DirectDraw to Direct3D (both to fix compatability issues with Vista and as a learning experience). Along the way, it morphed into what you see today. The GUI is the primary feature of nemulator 2.0, but there are a ton of changes under the hood including improved mapper support, an improved sound engine, and many bug fixes.

2003-2008

nemulator 1.0

nemulator development started in 2003 and was worked on, sporadically, through 2008.

And here is the still frame from version 2.0b1 (release date: 2009-07-07) ( original image ) ...

yUMHDs5.jpg

The do have a video up, mirrored at

, that shows the interesting menu side-scrolling of the 2009-July release. :blushing:(ruh-roh!). ...

The author listed on the webpage is James Slepicka who can be contacted thru the website or at one of his many other outlets. It would be very interesting to see what he has to say. Note: there is no Nemulator page at Wkipedia yet.

I think that previously shown graphic with Commodore Q-Link and AOL Kids will need to be updated. Very interesting stuff.

Microsoft Windows 8 : Resistance is Futile! (well that's what our fanboys keep telling us anyway)

EDIT: updated image URLs, and again

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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SyRChl.png

+

nemulator2.2.1.jpg

and for breaks, a game interface that already exist before before metro-UI for desktop were previewed

'>http://nemulator.com/media.php

It's clear that the goal of Microsoft is not to offer an OS but turn your computer into a game console, but not only, an on-line shopping console too.

But poeple don't like to be drawn into spending and be flooded with adds.

This woman ruined Windows and Office for me: http://windowmagazin...=Stories&id=234 Can Gates please fire her along with Ballmer and Sinofsky?

We started out on a desktop; you had to go to a place to use a computer, With a laptop, you take it with you and set it down, Now while you're walking around and moving from place to place, you want a different way to stay connected

Thanks for posting the link, the article was informative if depressing. No, Ms. Larson-Green, I have zero desire to be connected 24/7. I want to keep a mind of my own, and you know -- believe it or not, there ARE things 'out there' beyond the Internet, which I prefer to focus on when I'm out of the office or out of the house. Don't change my PC experience to cater tho those who can't bear to live without their smartphone or tablet.

The woman and Microsoft more generaly, make marketing mistakes because they rely exclusively on datas and lab testing and don't listen to the opinion of the poeple.

They forget that there are different devices for different uses and different poeple.

Poeple don't live and work by the 'patern'.

They believe that if someone belongs to a category, he or she will frocibly want to buy a device or software build for this category.

This is completely wrong! Poeple will reject a product for the 0.1% of jobs they cannot do with it.

The Metro start screen is appealing for a very small minority of users, the users who spend the less time on a computer and who are the less likely to use a computer at work.

There are many instances where using a laptop instead of a desktop would be less efficient, or less fun.

We didn't 'start with desktop and go for laptop'.

Many poeple like laptop so that they can carry their work with them everywhere. It doesn't mean we don't use desktop anymore. Everytime you need multiple drives, especialy two optic drives, you need a desktop.

Everytime you need a special internal or external connection slot, you need a desktop.

Everytime you want to upgrade a part of your computer you need a desktop.

But you will also chose a desktop anytime you don't need to carry your computer with you.

I never bring a laptop with me because I find it very burdensome and I have no or very little use for it.

Now with USB drives you can carry all your documents in your pocket or your purse and you will find a computer to plug it in just about everywhere you go.

It's much easier. Isn't W8 coming with a USB boot option? That at least makes sens. Assuming that all computers are portable gadgets doesn't.

It's not just that they will sell more by making poeple spending more everytime something new is out.

That works for 16~18 years old kids. Not with adult who are able to see the price/quality ratio.

She's ruined Office with Ribbon (okay, some may argue Ribbon is great, but she had no right to strip off all backward compatibility of the UI), the toolbars and menus could have continued to ship with Office as just another tab like all the addins that reinstate them work. Same thing with the Start Menu, just give us a freaking choice you dumb woman, we do not want to play Cut the Rope and 'immerse' ourselves in the joke called Metro-style apps. How does Ballmer and Sinofsky approve of this nonsense? Windows 8 is the beginning of the end of serious computing to turn the PC into a toy.

Did MS sold more Office licenses thanks to ribbon, or simply because more businesses used computers?

Ribbon is basicaly a drop-down menu displaying horizontaly instead of verticaly and slightly more graphical. It's nothing genius to brag about.

And since just about every other softwares use classical drop-down menus and because Ribbon doesn't increase much productivity, why not letting the user choose to have a consistant menu bar across all applications?

By removing the Start Menu, they went one step further into their hate for drop-down and cascading menus.

And, again, they ignore the variety of the tasks users are doing and think they can simplify it by applying findings from statistics.

At any point in the history of computing where the 'PC as an appliance' attitude had been taken, innovation would have slowed down at that point and eventually stopped as precious few new 'techies' were fascinated by the machine and entered the field. It's to them that we owe the fantastic variety of things that we can do with our computers. But what if the Apple I or the IBM PC had adopted the Metro 'ideals' back in 1979-81? That is, uncustomizable closed systems (think WinRT), with their workings opaque to the user, who would only see a few simplified choices featuring a few adjustable settings. Who would have -- or even could have -- delved into a PC's brain and guts, and explored what made it tick?

Since Vista Microsoft wanted to separate the end user from the under the hood stuffs (note that this also apply to cars). One step in this direction was creating fake names for directories. Directories which would be displayed under another name than that in their path.

That existed already in XP for the 'document' folder, but grew to many other things in Vista and again in W7.

As a result it made the use of Windows much more complicated for everybody, including novice users.

IMO if computer interface evoluated into multiple, resizable windows and into extensive, tabbed option settings, it's because it's the way it sold best.

It was selected by the market, like the natural selection of living beings if you will.

Windows like any other OS doesn't evolve toward what MS decides but to what poeple choose.

That's why I'm not worried about the dumbing down effect you fear about.

There is no reason why other users would feel differently than us here on this forum. You will hear very quickely 'Why I can't do this with this new computer while I could do it with the old computer!?'.

If I shout that Windows 8 will be a market disaster it's not because I don't like Metro, it's because Microsoft goes against the logic of the market.

(They have other plans to make money off Metro, but I talk here about the OS strictly speaking)

They don't want to sell what has always been the top and only choice by the users.

Every OS manufacturer have opted for the desktop/multiple and resizable windows/start menu concept. It's not by chance. It's because that's what the clients want and need.

Now MS is coming up with something that poeple neither want nor need. It's easy to predict the result.

---------------------

Edited by Fredledingue
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Did MS sold more Office licenses thanks to ribbon, or simply because more businesses used computers?

Ribbon is basicaly a drop-down menu displaying horizontaly instead of verticaly and slightly more graphical. It's nothing genius to brag about.

Or because a number of businesses refused to upgrade their Office 2000 (that was working) to the XP one (2002) which was severely buggy, and to 2003 (which offered NOT *any * real advantage) and thanks to the needless use by most demented people of the senseless .docx and .xlsx "new" formats were eventually "forced" to "jump" from good ol' 2000 to 2007 or 2010? :unsure:

BTW only to find besides the REALLY slowing up work ribbon interface, also a few nice features REMOVED? :w00t:

Something I just found out the other day:

If you read attentively the source (highlighted the interesting parts):

http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-excel/archive/2009/11/02/excel-add-in-for-manipulating-points-on-charts-mpoc.aspx

Overview

In Excel 2007, the ability to directly resize or reposition points on the chart was deprecated. This feature was sometimes referred to as "Graphical Goal Seek." For example, in Excel 2003 a user could click on a data point in a column chart twice which would surface handles that could be used to resize the columns. Over the last couple of years we have received a lot of feedback from customers indicating that this was a valuable feature for some scenarios. However, we were not able to react in time to roll this feature back into Excel 2010 but we are evaluating how to bring this back as a native feature in a future release. In an effort to restore this lost functionality, we have developed a sample Add-In that can be used in both Excel 2007 and Excel 2010.

it can be used to infer that:

Since the reaction time of the MS office team (which - with all due respect - has as focus a much simpler target than a "whole" Windows OS and the actual "issue" is so simple that can be solved by an add-in, a bit simpler that changing the whole GUI interface) is not snappy enough to react in over two years, then, even if the good MS guys would listen to actual user feedback, you can expect a "fixed" Windows 8 GUI by 2015 :angel .

jaclaz

Edited by jaclaz
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^ :thumbup It's a long video. Can you tell the approximate time code where he has trouble? (It has crossed a thousand times in my mind that how would uber geeks like Mark get along with Windows 8).

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These quotes and responses were from linked articles.

I did experience a shower of error messages on one occasion when trying to install it on a notebook, but on restarting the installation everything seemed to work just fine the second time around. Apart from this single incident, I’ve not experienced another crash or lockup while using the Windows 8 Release Preview.

This is potentially an invalid complaint, as some notebook BIOS will report the empty card reader as the C:, so there a potential for a first time installation to fail, while a reboot and it works. This is because setup would format the hard drive, but fail in assigning the drive letter due to it already being in use, and then installation would fail. But on a reboot, the BIOS would assign the hard drive the letter C: and give the card reader something else. So it is a reasonable assumption that this wasn't the fault of the OS.

Unless users are guided to these new additions, the only way they are going to figure things out is through trial and error.

Think of the average computer user: your relatives. You can easily imagine that there will be millions of Windows 8 users (presuming MS sells that many that is) who won't even know the desktop exists. Ignorance might be bliss for these users, but it will bring a horrible problem... Tech Support. If you've ever done tech support for regular users, you can already see how this is going to be a problem. Now imagine if a user has a problem and they need to do something in Control Panel (or worse, the registry) and they don't have a keyboard or mouse and only have a touch screen like an AIO PC.

I know this not only from that type of job experience but also from personal experience. I've recently become the go-to PC tech for a retired fellow in his late 70s. He was a master of IE6 and Outlook Express. Once it became evident that these antiquated programs were becoming a large problem, he requested to change to something more secure. While it may seem trivial to us, his request to change is something maybe he wished he didn't have to do. To switch to Chrome and Thunderbird brought on a wave of mass confusion and plenty of phone calls.

Edit: Here is a video that a user posted on Reboot, about a guy who had his dad try out Windows 8 for the first time.

The OEMs and vendors feel especially vulnerable, and if Windows 8 does become ‘another Vista’ then there will be an industry-wide bloodbath.

Exactly, this point was brought up in a teleconference last week. Its like Vista. But there is another problem with this that is behind the scenes. OEMs have been doing a crap-ton of work to prepare for Windows 8. There are big time differences in the production scenarios for Windows 8 compared to Windows 7. I sometimes wonder if all those man-hours (aka time vs money) is going to be worthwhile compared to how well the product is going to sell.

It's clear that the goal of Microsoft is not to offer an OS but turn your computer into a game console, but not only, an on-line shopping console too.

This is partly true. Part of the problem is that Microsoft accepts the stigma that people put on it. They say that the OS is insecure. Take a look at the known fact that Windows gets a lot of viruses from IE or Outlook Express (when it was around). And people point the finger at MS about getting all these viruses, even though their own practices were the cause of their problems. Nevertheless, MS takes the responsibility instead of attempting to inform their userbase. And this led to the UAC. There was no attempt to educate their users, so they put in a system that was designed to help protect Windows from the users.

Windows 8 with Metro is no difference. It is another step in protecting the OS from the users. This was already seen originally when the new Visual Studio was to only let you create Metro apps. The idea put forth at ADKFest was that regular desktop programs would cease to exist and there would only be Metro apps. Metro apps are not designed to touch the system files of the OS or the registry which would cut back on viruses or other corruption. This is the same thing as adding UAC IMO.

Edited by Tripredacus
added video
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Tripredacus,

Very informative post, thank you!

Do you remember (or are you allowed to say) who (i.e., person/organization) put forth the idea that

regular desktop programs would cease to exist and there would only be Metro apps

--JorgeA

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Part of the problem is that Microsoft accepts the stigma that people put on it. They say that the OS is insecure. Take a look at the known fact that Windows gets a lot of viruses from IE or Outlook Express (when it was around). And people point the finger at MS about getting all these viruses, even though their own practices were the cause of their problems. Nevertheless, MS takes the responsibility instead of attempting to inform their userbase. And this led to the UAC. There was no attempt to educate their users, so they put in a system that was designed to help protect Windows from the users.

Tripredacus,

This question may be OT, but what you wrote above caught my eye because I've been toying with the idea of switching to Linux if Microsoft persists in foisting Metro on users beyond Windows 8.

The question has to do with the relative security of Windows vs. Linux. Linux advocates like to say that their favorite OS is much more secure than Windows. Is that true, or just propaganda? Or perhaps "mainly true vs. mainly propaganda"? Seems to me that if the security problems attributed to Windows are actually the result of bad habits by users (as you suggested in the quote above), then maybe PC security wouldn't really improve even if there were a mass switch over to Linux. What do you tbhink?

--JorgeA

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