Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[JorgeA]

It pays to read the MSFN frontpage once in a while!

"The thing that really infuriates me is that it seems like Metro apps, and apps running in the normal desktop don't have any knowledge of each other, " said Forrester Research analyst David Johnson. "There's no easy way to navigate between them, and I'm not quite sure why that is."

Interesting point. I'm sure that others can think of more complex examples, but let's say that one of your live tiles (or whatever they're called) pops up some information that you would like to copy into an Excel or Word file-- is that possible, or not really? Is the info in live tiles "for eyes only"?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

Interesting point. I'm sure that others can think of more complex examples, but let's say that one of your live tiles (or whatever they're called) pops up some information that you would like to copy into an Excel or Word file-- is that possible, or not really? Is the info in live tiles "for eyes only"?

You must be joking .

The intended procedure is:

1. buy a Microsoft digital camera (the thingy will be presented soon, it runs Windows 8 ARM )
   
2. take a snapshot of the screen
   
3. upload the picture to the cloud (MS cloud) through a paid for subscription (the MS camera doesn't save anything locally you must upload it to the cloud)
   
4. buy an OCR app at the MS online store (including the needed framework it is only around 3 Gb in size)
   
5. run it (in a Virtual Machine) and have it process the online image (that you have re-downloaded in the meantime, and that goes in a special folder that you cannot access, only the TrustedOCRService can)
   
6. the ouput will be an .xml file that will be, once stored on the cloud, re-downloaded and automagically converted to plain text using the MSXML2TXT TrustedConverter (another few bucks on the MS cloud store)
   
7. at this point you hit Ctrl+V, a small window popup will appear asking if you really want to paste plain text in an Excel cell (since the content is different from the cells immediately before and after) and you have to fill a form to guarantee that you won't sue MS if the result is not what you expect, digitally sign it and send it to the cloud, which depending on the speed of your connection and the status of the servers may shortly authorize the paste operation, log it both on your PC and on your MS account, and finally issue the OK to the TrustedKeyboardFilter to let the command go through
   

jaclaz

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

The intended procedure is:

1. buy a Microsoft digital camera (the thingy will be presented soon, it runs Windows 8 ARM )
   
2. take a snapshot of the screen
   
3. upload the picture to the cloud (MS cloud) through a paid for subscription (the MS camera doesn't save anything locally you must upload it to the cloud)
   
4. buy an OCR app at the MS online store (including the needed framework it is only around 3 Gb in size)
   
5. run it (in a Virtual Machine) and have it process the online image (that you have re-downloaded in the meantime, and that goes in a special folder that you cannot access, only the TrustedOCRService can)
   
6. the ouput will be an .xml file that will be, once stored on the cloud, re-downloaded and automagically converted to plain text using the MSXML2TXT TrustedConverter (another few bucks on the MS cloud store)
   
7. at this point you hit Ctrl+V, a small window popup will appear asking if you really want to paste plain text in an Excel cell (since the content is different from the cells immediately before and after) and you have to fill a form to guarantee that you won't sue MS if the result is not what you expect, digitally sign it and send it to the cloud, which depending on the speed of your connection and the status of the servers may shortly authorize the paste operation, log it both on your PC and on your MS account, and finally issue the OK to the TrustedKeyboardFilter to let the command go through
   

jaclaz

Excellent summary. Traditionally we have a name for that design, Rube Goldberg machine, but perhaps now Ballmer-Sinofsky?

See pages of them at Google Images.

NOTE: we really should resist the urge to embed any Animated GIF versions here because it only takes a couple kill the page!

Giant Full Screen demonstration of Microsoft's vision.

Microsoft Windows 8 : No-one needs more than a screen of colored squares! (or 640KB of RAM)

Edited July 4, 2012 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[JorgeA]

Interesting point. I'm sure that others can think of more complex examples, but let's say that one of your live tiles (or whatever they're called) pops up some information that you would like to copy into an Excel or Word file-- is that possible, or not really? Is the info in live tiles "for eyes only"?

You must be joking .

The intended procedure is:

jaclaz,

I couldn't have put it better!

The procedure you describe is, of course, what Microsoft has in mind when they say "simplicity." A "simple" UI means it's harder and more complicated to actually DO anything...

--JorgeA

[Fredledingue]

You are all making jokes but the issue is truely deeper than just added complexity.

It's Microsoft's deliberate ignorance of how we use computers and denying the most basic and most useful tasks: copy-paste and saving content on your hard disk.

First came the PDF format which prevented copy paste and editing.

Then Flash/YouTube made a second huge step in the entertainement consumer oriented IT and view-and-forget philosophy.

And now we have Metro which is one more attempt to make the the content basicaly visual and not written.

You are not supposed to save on disc or to copy paste from Metro.

what I'm worried about is that new Windows users (those who start using Windows with Win8) might never get to experience the richness of "real" Windows.

Yes this is a source of worry. IMO W8 will be too short lived for any effect to occure but we never know.

Now et's say poeple who have never used a computer before (but may have used a Metro-styled portable device) are accepting little by little the Metro interface and the market shares is growing slowly year after year. Some poeple eventualy buy computers only for its metro apps.

That would be horror.

But unless MS completely remove the desktop and creates Metro-only OS for PC, which is IMO what they plan to do, poeple will always know that the desktop exists.

They will also see other computers with desktops and so on.

Young users are intelligent and are always looking for new, better things, cooler things. They are curious and spread the word pretty quickely.

They will try Metro, find it's cool at first, then realize that there is something better beside Metro.

Teenagers are expert in P2P, digital camera uploads and other advanced stuffs we have no idea of. Kids before 10 are expert in finding free games online and already know how to avoid the pay traps and already know how to turn on a spam filter and to choose FF instead of IE or vice versa depending on the website without anybody telling them.

(I witnessed that in real life)

Kids will quickely find out how to work around Metro and decide that it succks because it lacks capabilities.

Also what do you mean by new users?

Today the first contact with a PC is at the age of, what, 3? A 3 years old toddler is unlikely to by a new PC.

Remains the elders, who feel that they need a computer, just they are not sure for what but everybody uses it.

But here again, the age of such person moves also to the oposite extreme.

Practicaly you need someone who retired from active life before computers where everywhere.

That means 80 years old or something.

They are more likely than kids to stick with Metro because it will be simple to use especialy with a declining vision, very elemtary needs and very low learning curve (as long as it works for what they heard a computer is useful for).

Metro somehow fits for very old poeple in some ways (in other ways like finding the invisible charms it makes it worse for them).

But it's not the demographic class which is likely to drive sales, buy new programs and new gadgets. Once they have their computer, they are likely to stick with it unchanged the rest of their life.

All the 90% of users in between will just see Metro as a sort of webpage over the desktop. Sometimes useful, sometimes annoying but always regarded as not the main thing on the OS because eveytime you step out of the 3 or 4 ultra basic actions on Metro you are back to the desktop.

I said that one of the first reaction will be "Why I can't resize windows in Metro" (And MS is already coming up with an erzatz of multiple windows on Metro)

Another reaction will be "Why I can't have metro app shortcuts on my desktop?"

MS will get mad when non-infrormed poeple will start asking stupid questions!

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

It's Microsoft's deliberate ignorance of how we use computers and denying the most basic and most useful tasks: copy-paste and saving content on your hard disk.

First came the PDF format which prevented copy paste and editing.

Then Flash/YouTube made a second huge step in the entertainement consumer oriented IT and view-and-forget philosophy.

And now we have Metro which is one more attempt to make the the content basicaly visual and not written.

You are not supposed to save on disc or to copy paste from Metro.

There is deliberate ignorance, yes, but also a component of irresponsibility, as in 'with great power comes great responsibility'. In my opinion all facets of computers and technology, except for data, are expendable. Data is the only thing that matters and really is the only thing that carries forward through generations. It should be treated sacredly, not willfully destroyed ('reformat the system!' says Tech Support).

Microsoft first began to worry me when the tired but widespread HLP format was forsaken with Windows 6. Yeah there is a download to fix it (though in Win8 it is doubtful) but they were definitely trying to kill it. There is a lot of DATA, not just program help but statistical and historical data locked up in those files all over the world and no easy way to convert them. Expect the same thing to happen with CHM shortly which contain far more data. I am not saying they are perfect formats at all (far from it!), I am saying keep the viewers in Windows because that is the responsibility you have taken upon yourself by maneuvering yourself into a position of authority and of monopoly. Besides, they regularly support countless other far more obscure formats in many of their applications.

What worries me is the cavalier attitude they and many others display concerning user data in general. Deliberate data destruction through bad advice (reformat it!) or the usual planned obsolescence IMHO is a high crime of Computer Science, like a Doctor violating their Hippocratic oath. Their feet need to be held to the fire. If they fail to respect users' data or *any* data in general because of short-sighted marketing or profit decision-making, then something will need to be done.

Moving, as you say, to a content consuming model, which is really the Twiiterizing or Facebooking of Microsoft is the easy and lazy thing to do (but the WRONG thing given their unique position). It suits the empty-headed executives in Redmond and it also suits Wall Street as well because the talking heads do not care if Windows even works at all, just that the perception is good. When Microsoft begins layoffs in a year or two Wall Street will cheer again for their bravery and willingness to appease shareholders (but no discussion of the effect their incompetence has on the technological world that depends upon their products). Very few feedbacks will ever make it into the executive boardroom that concern quality, only quantity and perception.

The immediate problem I think is the undeniable envy, the Apple-envy and the Google-envy. As to which is stronger it is a coin-toss, but it exists and they are once again operating at a disadvantage, in full copy the enemy mode even though the window of opportunity will have likely closed by the time they get their footing. They learned nothing from the Internet and Netscape fiasco. In fact, the visible response was that horrific Channels thing on the Win98 desktop, a proto-Metro attempt at turning the desktop into an internet appliance. Almost nothing has changed! If they want to get out of the OS business (admittedly a very tough job) maybe they should just release the Windows XP or 7 source code as a gift to the world and step aside. If they are too cowardly to do that and insist on playing in this game they have to re-commit to their responsibility which is very large.

People out here like us, long timers with the various platforms, are probably the only ones who really care at all about data and the literal Operating System. Ironically I think we are the only ones that even care about Microsoft itself. So we have to use the few tools we have to be heard, criticize them, ridicule them, influence them, and ignore the fanboys, before they complete their corporate suicide and forsake the awesome responsibility of their position.

[JorgeA]

what I'm worried about is that new Windows users (those who start using Windows with Win8) might never get to experience the richness of "real" Windows.

Yes this is a source of worry. IMO W8 will be too short lived for any effect to occure but we never know.

Freledingue' date='

Thank you, you have provided good and plausible reasons for hope!

You are all making jokes but the issue is truely deeper than just added complexity.

It's Microsoft's deliberate ignorance of how we use computers and denying the most basic and most useful tasks: copy-paste and saving content on your hard disk.

First came the PDF format which prevented copy paste and editing.

Then Flash/YouTube made a second huge step in the entertainement consumer oriented IT and view-and-forget philosophy.

And now we have Metro which is one more attempt to make the the content basicaly visual and not written.

You are not supposed to save on disc or to copy paste from Metro.

There does seem to be a progression there, no?

I remember one of the first annoying things I discovered about Windows (vs. DOS) was that you could no longer output a directory listing to the printer. Itr seemed like such an obvious function. Never did understand why MS didn't provide that capability. But eventually others came out with utilities to do that.

Fortunately, we now have PDF-to-Word converters, and things like YouTube Downloader to defeat that view-and-forget philosophy. With any luck, someone clever will find a way to hack into Metro and enable saving/copying from it onto their computer. And if they can't, then maybe that will help to hasten the demise of Metro (for the reasons you describe later on).

--JorgeA

[UltimateSilence]

A "nice" little translated article that explains how Metro is ugly.

That gorgeous picture of Windows Vista illustrates more than just beautiful UI design, it shows how Metro was designed by school children after lunch.

Edited July 5, 2012 by UltimateSilence

[jaclaz]

it shows how Metro was designed by school children after lunch.

On behalf of IACDUIAL, the International Association of Children Designing User Interfaces After Lunch , I want to signify how your statement is higly offensive of the professionality of the Members that have designed in the past and will design in the future MUCH BETTER interfaces than Metro.

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

Expect the same thing to happen with CHM shortly which contain far more data.

That ball is already rolling. In the ADK, there seems to be a bunch of info about how to create help files with HTML5. I personally love CHMs.

[submix8c]

Microsoft first began to worry me when the tired but widespread HLP format was forsaken with Windows 6. Yeah there is a download to fix it (though in Win8 it is doubtful) but they were definitely trying to kill it. There is a lot of DATA, not just program help but statistical and historical data locked up in those files all over the world and no easy way to convert them. Expect the same thing to happen with CHM shortly which contain far more data.

BARF!!!

A way to convert HLP to CHM - get it while you can (haven't tried it - have used the MS HTML Help Workshop - what fun!).

Another way (includes links to Viewers)...

HTML Help Workshop

WinHelp Compiler - HCWSETUP.EXE (not a direct link - folder and filename given)

Edited July 5, 2012 by submix8c

[JorgeA]

A "nice" little translated article that explains how Metro is ugly.

That gorgeous picture of Windows Vista illustrates more than just beautiful UI design, it shows how Metro was designed by school children after lunch.

UltimateSilence,

Well, that was extremely interesting!

With the understanding that Google's machine translation may not be, um, totally comptetent, the following passage caught my eye. It speaks to something we've been saying here:

If you look at the characteristics of the Metro I described earlier, it is easy to notice that the principles dictate very simple interfaces, not just a simple user, but also simple computer.

(emphasis added!)

What the writer says about CPUs getting less powerful jibes with what I've been seeing at electronics stores. Lately there's been a rash of new desktop and laptop models bearing CPUs with obscure names from both Intel and AMD that you have no idea how good they are. When you look them up, they're cr*ppy-specced processors that can't hold a candle to what you could find AT THE STORE a year or two ago. (You can still buy powerful, known processors, but more and more you have to go to the manufacturer directly to get them.)

And -- yes, that Vista screen is just gorgeous. If I have to look at a computer screen all day long (and in my work, I do), I'd MUCH rather look at the refined, detail-rich Vista screen than at the plain, flat, and boring Windows 8 screen.

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

BARF!!!

A way to convert HLP to CHM - get it while you can (haven't tried it - have used the MS HTML Help Workshop - what fun!).

Another way (includes links to Viewers)...

HTML Help Workshop

WinHelp Compiler - HCWSETUP.EXE (not a direct link - folder and filename given)

Well I would hope the "BARF!!!" is directed at Microsoft for trying to kill even the possibility of viewing HLP files in Windows 6+, another clear manifestation of planned obsolescence. I've got all those things you mention and more, all the official help dev tools, unofficial decompilers, all those pages saved and bookmarked, been there, done that. But my original comment stands - "... and no easy way to convert them".. The reason it is so difficult to 'convert' HLP to something else is because the format really does suck, but it is what we had back in the Windows 3.x era. CHM on the other hand is much easier to handle, which is just really a ZIP-like archive of HTML pages with relative links. Extracting them is fast, lossless, recompiling can be done in seconds (big plug for HTM2CHM by Yaroslav Kirillov), converting the extracted source files is as easy as processing any HTML. With one caveat, some people (~cough~ Microsoft) go to outrageous lengths to make the source unmanageable with over-use of Javascript and randomized anchor names and other tricks. But it is still not insurmountable.

For a very long time, all the good programming references were only available as HLP, the Intel Opcodes, Assembler, the entire Win32 and other API's, C, C++, Javascript, Pascal, (fortunately most everything was re-done in CHM, er maybe unfortunately?). Many non-programming topics as well, country historical data, population statistics, even books and things. Again, much was redone later, but I doubt everything. I guess my point is simply that Microsoft must tread carefully here because they are more than just a software company. People rely upon them to access actual data, not just Twitter. But we're off the subject really. All I was saying is that Microsoft chose to deprecate HLP and later, CHM, which even that is fine. Deprecate their use for future development. But it is criminal to try to make it impossible to simply view existing files by eliminating the viewers. There is no excuse for that. What, they would have us believe that there isn't room in a distribution for a tiny Winhlp32.ex_ or Hh.ex_ taking a few KB as loose files or even less when scrunched into a WIM. They can tell that nonsense to their fanboys who will swallow anything but it doesn't fly with any logical person.

What worries me even more than the HLP and CHM planned obsolescence (and it is just one example) is the danger of precedent should it pass UN-criticized. For example look at photography. There is a real possibility that an entire generation of photographs could be lost to the ages because of the fickle consumer that gobbled up cheap cameras and printers with no thought about the future, and the businesses that willfully feed them because of the race to the bottom. Their photographic 'negatives' exist as downloaded images on HDD's, often in lossy JPG format only. Few people if any even care that they are a single 'reformat the system' or 'HDD click of death' or 'lost cloud access' away from vanishing forever. As long as the cameras keep selling and Microsoft keeps making live tiles everything is just peachy to the bean-counters and the sheeple. But lots of data is truly at risk of being lost. Wouldn't it be ironic if a century or two from now a big gap of missing photos exists from the early 21st century but 1st generation photographs from the 1840's like Daguerreotypes still survive. Great thought and care needs to expended as technology moves forward. The consumerist model is an easy, selfish way to do business, it is probably irresistible to a modern executive or an average computer user. The adults who were not born yesterday need to stand up and point out the potential dangers of fleeting trends.

EDIT: typos

Edited July 6, 2012 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[TELVM]

This bad joke of OS survived ten minutes in my comp.

After just five minutes the itching, burning sensation was:

However I thought 'come on, give it a chance, something good it must have'.

But after ten minutes I couldn't endure it anymore. No way, thanks. Then to my inmense joy & happiness I discovered that W8 had sabotaged my system, to the effect that Se7en took now ten times longer to boot.

So I exorcised the aberration, reformatting the partition with rancor, and savoured the monumental upgrade back to Se7en.

I guess if the W98 folks are still using it 14 years later, I can run W7 until 2023 at the least.

[Tripredacus]

Then to my inmense joy & happiness I discovered that W8 had sabotaged my system

That's not very fair. It seems to me that you sabotaged your system with Windows 8!