ActiveWin.com has just posted their 45-page, 40-screenshot review of Microsoft Windows 8. The review covers many different aspects of the OS including performance, security, application compatibility, and more. “Is Windows 8 a hit or miss? It’s a hit, it is clearly Microsoft’s most bold development in years, it probably beats out the transition from Program Manager (Windows 3X) to Windows 95, the move from Windows 9x to the NT Kernel. The Windows 8 platform represents so many things: truly touch centric, support for modern processor architectures, fast and fluid as Microsoft puts it and also represents where the majority of the world is heading when it comes to computing, entirely mobile.”
NO!
YES
Sure its good…if you are on a tablet. on a desktop? Eeeew. Where MSFT blew it was refusing to accept cell phone and tablet conventions simply don’t make any damn sense on a desktop.
Take the whole “turn the page” maneuver. Now on a tablet sitting in your lap, or a cell phone held between your hands? This move makes sense, its how we use books after all. on a desktop with a vertical screen or a non touch laptop this makes NO sense and is just awkward and wrong and if you have to do it on a touchpad its downright unpleasant.
Its a bad design folks, that’s all it is, a bad design. Ballmer and Sinofsky decided to throw a Hail Mary pass because they couldn’t give WinPhone 7 away and thought that by forcing the WinPhone UI onto desktop users when their contracts came up they’d buy WinPhones and WinTabs, at greatly inflated prices if the rumors are to be believed.
Will it work? well considering I’ve had a Win 8 desktop set up in my shop to play with and the response has been “Yuck!” or “stupid” I’m gonna have to vote no. I have a feeling this is gonna make Vista look like a hit, people will do just as they did with Vista and simply refuse to buy any unit that doesn’t come with the previous OS. This is gonna hurt the OEMs badly, who are already reeling from all those Ultrabooks intel told them would sell which now gathers dust on the shelves, and I have a feeling they won’t put up with tanking sales for long before they demand Win 7 to sell.
That will be the response of corporate America.
But Microsoft can make up those lost billions, all they have to do is sell Windows 8 tablets to Microsoft hating Apple fans who already own iPads.
WINDOWS 8 AND RON PAUL IN 2012
IGNORE THE POLLS, DELUDED FANBOY EMOTIONS CAN OVERCOME ANYTHING
I can appreciate what MS was trying to do with this release, but I think they really screwed up the integration (or lack thereof) between ‘classic’ desktop and metro. No self-respecting power user is going to have much to do with metro, and I can’t imagine it not confusing the hell out of tech tards (esp when they’re randomly thrown into desktop mode), but that remains to be seen.
That being said, I have been playing around with the final release, and other than the new start screen (which is ok once you get used to it), metro pretty much stays out of my way, and I find that there’s enough new features besides metro to make it worth the $40 upgrade price that MS will be asking for when it’s released.
For a broad overview of new features, see here:
http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/480432_10151089355403527…
Mixed bag is kinda over egging the positive, IMHO. True, one can almost forget ‘metro’ after installing a start menu app though, however, if the option didn’t exist ‘metro’ and the desktop are so unintegrated to make 8 unusable as a desktop. ‘Metro’ is irrelevant and just a pain in the ass and after puzzling over it for a bit one just wants it gone.
Even ‘metro’ on it’s own, as tablet etc using touch is, I fear, not fit for purpose. Initially, while puzzling over it’s use on the desktop and the bizarre decision to shove it down our throats come what may I had thought it would work well on a tablet but the more I played around, admittedly not on a tablet, the less it made sense. Most of the major ‘apps’ dealing with the nuts & bolts of being on the net and consuming stuff don’t actually work well enough that I’d be reluctant to use it. Pretty sure this will improve with time but it’s puzzling why MS is risking so much on something so half-baked.
The more I use it the more puzzled I become. What, underneath, would be a no-brainier update to 7 is wrapped in an ill-thought marketers ‘bright-idea’ to ‘Appleise’ Windows and is just a mess. Can’t imagine this is how 8 was envisioned and just wonder when the ‘bright-idea’ was tacked on. Maybe, it’ll all come together in 9 but for now it’s a disaster.
8 without ‘metro’ a positive yes, as it is…ho hum, a risk in being dependant on an app to make ‘metro’ go away and Microsoft not somehow forcing it back on the user.
Edited 2012-09-26 22:10 UTC
Well, of course metro is irrelevant to *us*, but it wasn’t made for us either. When the iPad came out, geeks around the world turned their noses up at it and said, ‘This isn’t OSX… it’s just a big iPod Touch. It’ll never sell.’ Well, that shows how much we know
The real test of metro is when tech tards and soccer moms get their hands on it. If they take to it, then it’ll be a success as far as MS is concerned. If the computer-illiterate masses don’t like it though, then MS is in serious trouble.
For this reason, I pretty much ignore metro as it is now, as you should too. Don’t fall into the trap of having your geek sensibilities offended just because it is there. Benchmarks have already proven that Windows 8 is faster than 7 and more memory efficient, so it’s not slowing down the system. And it doesn’t really get in your way either if you don’t seek it out.
The one obvious exception is the start screen; since MS removed the start menu, there’s pretty much no getting around it without a start menu replacement. However, after having gotten familiar with it, I’m not entirely convinced that a start menu replacement is absolutely necessary, depending on what you used the start menu for. Once I figured out that I could pin desktop apps to it, I was pretty much good to go. In fact, I find that since I can resize tiles and separate them into logical groups, it’s actually an improvement over the old start menu. And you can do searches as well, just hit the Windows key and start typing.
Well considering Windows probably still has over 90% market share, who the hell is Metro for then? I would say it’s meant to be shoved down every single PC buyer’s throat once released, just like every single Windows version released before it. Of course, Microsoft wants that to be everyone.
Every computer anyone ever buys, Microsoft wants Windows on it. They’ve largely succeeded, except now they’re going in for the kill on non-traditional devices (tablets, etc.), while pulling a GNOME and forcing their crummy GUI environment on devices it was never designed for.
If Metro wasn’t “made for us,” then why is there not a version of Windows 8 that doesn’t try to force it down your throat? Exactly. They somehow expect it to be some kind of miraculous one-size-fits-all that they somehow believe so strongly in that they’re foisting it upon all of us.
Edited 2012-09-27 01:46 UTC
You’re a vocal minority. A statistical rounding error in the grand scheme of things. Your opinion, while valuable to you, is largely meaningless.
There was careful and methodical reasoning behind a lot of the decisions made with Windows 8. Lengthy blog posts.
Telemetry which suggested usage patterns and hardware configurations. Endless data. Yet, you come here without directly even addressing that, and instead pretend to speak on behalf of a sizeable portion of the Windows userbase.
I think you grossly overstate the amount of people who concern themselves with such things. Remember how Vista DRM was the end of the world? In the end, no one gave a shit. Same deal here.
Oh I see you fell for Sinofsky’s blog posts about telemetry which never actually included outside public user studies. He also didn’t respond to any of the polls that showed overwhelming rejection. In fact the little Jobs wannabe hasn’t been blogging and is hiding in a corner somewhere.
But what do I know, after all Microsoft always releases products after careful market testing.
SENT FROM MY KIN
Nothing.
Hmm, speaking statistical rounding error to statistical rounding error you really suck at rhetoric, thanks anyway for your invaluable opinion.
Save me the time and don’t speak.
Its not “one size fits all”… Its “one size fits most, and we’ll deal with everyone else in a point release”.
This has been true of every major release of Windows, and virtually every other popular piece of software, to one degree or another. I get that many people hate Metro – but even more people hated on XP when it first shipped. Look at how that turned out… Now the problem with XP is killing the damn thing off – its like the energizer bunny or something.
Anyway, I’m just saying… This kind of knee-jerk reaction to major changes in a piece of software is nothing new (KDE? Gnome?). Time has a way of working it all out – some of it being people getting used to a foreign way of doing things, some of it the vendor straightening out the rough spots.
I’m not saying Metro is all good – but it isn’t all bad either… Anyone thinking that Metro is dead on arrival is just not learning the lessons of history – its going to take a year or two and a few revisions to see if it really has legs or not.
Exactly. It should be noted that when Windows 95 came out, people hated the start menu and went looking for how to enable the Win 3.1 program manager.
That does NOT mean I am trying to defend metro in its current state… while it may be good for your average iPad-using soccer mom, it sucks ass for anybody who needs to get real work done. Whoever came up with the idea of horizontal scrolling as a default needs to be beaten to death. And I don’t mean that figuratively either… I’m actually advocating physical violence. Remove that dumbass from the gene pool.
That being said, assuming MS doesn’t change its mind about metro (as they have done with most other technologies that they ‘bet the company on’), it’ll get better over time, to the point where they can port over fully functional versions of MS Office, Visual Studio, etc, and then they can move the rest of us over.
If you doubt me, take a look at Windows 1.0 and 2.0, which is basically what Windows 7 evolved from. Anything can be made better
Edited 2012-09-27 05:15 UTC
Faster at what exactly? Booting into the unwanted Metro screen?
Programs are already pre-cached in Windows 7.
Don’t fall for the unnoticeable benchmarks trap. Geeks have been falling for that in browser benchmarks for years.
Windows 8 is a POS. Metro is the worst aspect and what users will notice first and then continually. It’s fucking adware.
Fuck Windows 8. The world will agree with me.
What does “power-user” mean to you?
In a broad sense, I classify users into 3 different categories:
– Tech tard: How does this f**king app work?
– Power user: What are the shortcut keys? How do I customize the toolbar? Is it scriptable?
– Geek: What toolkit was this app written in? Is it open source?
Let me ask you a question though, what makes it worth upgrading from 7? What feature is so “wow” you feel its worth that $40 or after jan 15th $100?
If they had made metro optional? Then I could see it IF they kept the $40 upgrade price. after all a faster boot would probably be worth $40 over the long haul, but come Jan 16th when you can’t get it for $40 and are faced with win 7 and Win 8 for the same price, what’s the selling point? Why should I put up with the fugly start screen or have to hack it if I can get 7 for the same price?
It made me switch back to Mac.
Did your Windows 7 suddenly stop working?
Fair point but I could see some switching out of spite.
It’s the people on the fence that Windows 8 will push over to the Mac.
I could also expect some new server rollouts going to Linux over this. Word on the street is that CIOs are pissed over Windows 8 since Microsoft hasn’t explained how user training costs will be offset (answer: they won’t be, this is a dumb plan to take on the iPad). Treating high value customers with disdain is a poor business strategy. A single CIO usually gets the final say in an internal MS vs Open Source debate. Oh and on top of it all Server 2012 has that same metro screen that polls have shown that people don’t want. I have no doubt that Linux will pick up some extra web server and intranet portal installations over this.
It made me switch back to OS/2.
Seriously, waiting the end of october feels like forever. Sexy tablet please come to me.
You poor soul!
Question: What was wrong with Win 7? Because I can honestly say it was the first Windows OS since Win2K Pro where I could say without hesitation “You should be using this over previous versions, i don’t care who you are”.
I personally loved WinXP X64 but I just couldn’t say that, too few drivers for the more offbeat hardware and the cost of RAM at the time made it not worth it to the average PC owner but with 7 I could point out a laundry list of good things, jumplists and breadcrumbs making it beyond simple to get back to where you were last working, Aero snap made file operations like comparing folder contents easy, Readyboost let you move small I/Os to any flash stick thus giving you better performance, WMC with Internet TV making net TV easy, MSFT FINALLY putting some real common sense into memory management and using RAM as a cache when not in use instead of pounding the paging file, i could go on and on.
So if it was the choice of going Mac or sticking with XP or worse Vista? then i could see it. But Win 7 is the first MSFT OS in ages where its got something that will be useful to just about anyone, its solid and runs well and is just a pleasure to use, so why go Mac?
So this OS is a hit because of the bold move of making it “touch centric”? Yeah, that makes total sense when my input devices are keyboard and mouse.
The world may be heading towards mobile, but that doesn’t mean everyone is using tablets and only tablets.
Classic IS STILL FUCKING THERE!
And the fact that so few pay attention to that is a prime indication of Microsoft’s failure to address that significantly-sized audience.
Oh really? Where is the classic start menu?
The Metro screen makes a mess of my neatly organized start menu in my developer box which ironically is filled with Visual Studio, Microsoft Office and SQL Server related software.
And no I cannot pin everything to the taskbar or fill the desktop with shortcuts. Why would I want to make a mess of my desktop?
Neatly organised my arse. Lots of tiny little icons I have to try to spot (btw I have 20/20 vision)
I have SQL Server, VS etc. and I don’t have a problem.
I rarely access the start-menu as is without typing in the search box, so the new metro mode is no different than how it currently works, it is just DISPLAYED differently.
Using a keyboard it is faster than the old start menu, one less click on the search box.
If you are calling yourself and dev and not using the keyboard to search for stuff in the start menu, just do me a favour and make sure I don’t have to work with any of your code.
Err because pinning regularly used app is how it supposed work.
The Win7 Taskbar was basically QuickLaunch and Window Control in one. In fact if you are using programs regularly and they aren’t pinned, then you aren’t using the interface correctly.
I will re-iterate, the only thing that has changed is the the start menu is displayed differently. Nothing works significantly differently.
EDIT: Lets also forget all the dual screen improvements that have been put in.
Edited 2012-09-27 17:35 UTC
Metro removes the program hierarchy along with my own changes and dumps everything onto a single screen, including crap I never use.
If my hand is already on the mouse then it’s an extra movement to use the keyboard. What am I supposed to do if my left hand contains a phone? Probably didn’t think of that, now did you? My start menu also contains shortcuts that have different parameters since I run the same programs on multiple servers with multiple access levels. Probably didn’t think of that either, now did you? Like Sinofsky you arrogantly assume that everyone has the same workflow as you. I can point out in very precise terms how Windows 8 slows me down compared to the start menu. It isn’t the same and I and dozens of others have pointed this out on the Windows 8 blog. Sinofsky has buried his head in the sand as a result and you probably will too.
To say that “real devs use the start menu to search” is a joke. I have moderately accessed Excel files in my start menu and if I searched for them I would get about 100 that I don’t need that have the same prefix. But you probably didn’t think of that, now did you?
Err I regularly use over 20 applications. Why should I clutter my taskbar with them? Some of them have the same icon but again thanks for arrogantly assuming you understand my workflow.
There are no improvements if you use two screens for two Win32 or .NET applications.
Then you can remove it from the start screen. NEXT!
Because moving your hand to the keyboard is soooo problematic </sarcasm>.
If you are needing to use the phone and the computer at the same time you should be equipped with the headset. If you aren’t using it that regularly, I doubt you are seriously using the computer since humans are not capable of proper multitasking (there has been significant research into this).
So you have some very, very specific requirements and your own made up shortcuts and a very particular workflow.
Sorry, how the f–k are they supposed to optimize the OS for that? It is for you only, you made your workflow up and basically used hacks that was available in the design. If you want an OS that lets you do that shit, you should be using unix.
Sorry, in one thread here you say “they didn’t actually do any research”, when you are called out on how something is supposed to be used … you say your work flow is sooo f–king custom, that it needs the purity of the Win 7 interface.
Sort your arguments and position out please.
Firstly, it f–king easy to put 20 apps on there (you can even make it double height), secondly you can actually set an icon yourself for your own shortcuts.
As your workflow is sooo f–king unique as you keep on pointing out, I think you could manage to make another .ico file.
False. It on the windows blog, and it pretty evident if you … I dunno actually used it.
** —————— **
Basically much of your ranting comes down to “wah wah” it isn’t exactly like Windows 7 and it doesn’t exactly fit your very custom (probably fictional) work flow. Lets face it, your complaints are basically, I can’t do what I did before exactly the same, even though there are some perfectly valid alternatives.
So far from what I have gleaned you are probably one of those people that like to spend all day preparing to do work rather than actually doing it.
Edited 2012-09-27 19:57 UTC
So I remove everything from the start screen and reorganize it where? I love how you expect us to do all this work for……what exactly? Or we will will just stay with Windows 7 like the rest of the corporate world and laugh at Sinofsky/Ballmer and Windows 8 defenders like yourself as the stock drops.
It’s extra time that you don’t seem to deny. That is what Windows 8 breaks down to, extra time.
LOL so our development teams will have to request headsets for an OS upgrade. Or we will stick with Windows 7.
YouDon’tNeedThat(TM). Windows 8 defenders have replaced Linux defenders and use the same arguments.
It’s actually quite common for internal software development. You deploy to virtualized servers first for testing and then later to prod.
They can not break our workflow by doing the following:
METRO_ENABLE 1|0
Yes they didn’t do any research on how the start menu is used by power users or in corporate environments. Not sure where you are seeing a contradiction.
Yes I am aware that I could go and set custom icons for all my shortcuts just as I could go and reorganize all the Excel files that I have to reference. I could also go and take out all the unrelated department folder icons that I don’t use and I could go ask for a headset …. and I could also put up with the full screen animation when I do actually want to search …. I could also….. do you see a pattern here? What is the point of all this?
What you can’t describe them? Do tell how multi-monitor support is improved for desktop applications.
That must be it. I don’t actually work, nor does corporate America. Sinofsky is a genius and all the hatred is from people who don’t work.
That must be it. You’reAllWrong(TM)
Or Windows 8 is a POS system designed as part of a lame duck strategy to compete with the iPad and doesn’t offer enough benefits to desktop users to be worth the upgrade. Hell it isn’t even worth pirating.
Of course I shouldn’t even be commenting as I switched to Linux for all my own computers when Windows XP debuted with activation. But, as an IT consultant I do have to support others who might use this ugly, cumbersome OS. I have to agree with the conclusions of the article in that all of the touch-centric features should be optional on traditional form factors. While I can appreciate that much of the new functionality will go over well on devices such as ‘Surface’ and other tablets, on traditional laptops and desktops I think most people are going to very quickly find themselves lost. Especially people who have been working with Windows since ’95 and who are accustomed to a ‘Desktop’ paradigm. Also, is it just me or does the new flat, 2D looking default theme seem…cheap? At least Aero looked slick as hell! Sorry Microsoft, I give this a two thumbs down!
Edited 2012-09-26 21:25 UTC
I love it on my phone, but you’re right: Something about it on a PC screen just seems off. I really wish Windows 8 Metro on PCs was half as good as it is on WP7 devices. I think I’ll be sticking with GNU/Linux and Windows 7 on my main PC for a while.
On the other hand, based on my experience with Android on a touch screen tablet/laptop device (Asus EeePad Transformer) I would love to try out Win8 in that arena. I know Microsoft will never release a build of Win8 for my Transformer, but if I ever have the opportunity to get one of the new Samsung hybrids I’ll jump on it.
I’ve moved away from my iMac and MacBook thus now own a Lenovo ThinkCentre and ThinkPad X1 Carbon; I’ve given the enterprise 90day trial a go and quite frankly apart from a few changes here and there I don’t think there will be a backlash. As for enterprise adoption, it is always going to be a slow path because of the number of factors that need taking into account. Windows 8 marks a more focused direction when compared to the past where it appeared that Microsoft would create something then try to gel it together afterwards with other products rather than designing everything to work together from the ground up. Is Metro going to replace the desktop? doubtful, it’ll become one in an arsenal of API’s that developers can choose from so long term those of us who are traditional desktop users have nothing fear other than the usual tweaks that come with each release.
No, it is just you – ‘transparency’ is as about as slick as tail fins on cars, ‘streamlining’ appliances for the home ‘orbit rings’ ala ‘The Jetsons’. At least for me transparency is tacky and the kind of thing one would associate with a design and tone deaf person attempting to be ‘modern’ and ‘up to date’. It is about as unwanted on my desktop as the idea of having faux leather on my calender application.
Yes because Activation is such a terrible thing.</sarcasm>
Anyway everyone was pirating Windows at the time, f–king everyone. Blame all the pirates for things like DRM and Activation and what not.
Edited 2012-09-27 17:40 UTC
Activation is for paying customers. Pirates use the easy version that installs itself without any hassle.
Edited 2012-09-28 21:48 UTC
For an OS “designed” for content consumption, Windows 8 will spark a lot of creativity. The more I read about it, the more I want to write malware for it.
Dunno where you get that idea from.
Usual unimaginative bullshit, “it isn’t hardcore or complicated therefore nothing of worth can be created with the Metro interface”.
People like lack the imagination and the ability to create content.
Wow you can’t even take a joke.
Are you and Nelson going to troll financial blogs when MSFT is sold off after Wall St. decides that the “UI convergence” plan is a total failure?
10/10 ANGRY FANBOYS AGREE THAT $LATEST_PRODUCT HAS NOTHING WRONG WITH IT AND THE PROBLEM IS YOU.
Edited 2012-09-27 19:55 UTC
The joke wasn’t aimed at me, so I didn’t have to take anything.
It was a joke yes, but it was pretty lame … so I ridiculed it.
And before the smart boys come and proclaim that I only say so because I haven’t tried it, let me state clearly, that I have. I sat in front of a Windows 8-equipped 27” touch screen Dell machine and after a half hour of usage with my arms somewhat strained I concluded the absolutely frustrating experiment.
1) The sensation of swiping your finger across anything more than 2-3” is f’ugly… There is a small amount of body grease underneath the finger on which the finger slides. However, after dragging for 4-5” this is all gone and your finger essentially start stuttering, squeaking and heating up due to friction. Not a nice feeling.
2) Coherent text input is extremely clumsy. A narrow (about 10”) virtual keyboard appears on the bottom 1/4 of the screen and even doing something as simple as typing “osnews.com” into the address bar on a software keyboard at arm’s length took me about 20-30 seconds. Not to speak of the fact that the software keyboard was about 15” away from the field I was typing into, so I either could look at the keyboard, or at the input field (to see what I was actually typing), or continuously shift between the two nearly every other letter.
Also, to reach the screen one has to sit unnaturally close to it, which means that the screen stretches out of one’s active field of view. As a result, I had to constantly move my eyes and head around to see various parts of it. This wasn’t all that terrible, but the screen felt definitely too big for touch controls (also tried on an equivalent 24” – a little better, but still too big).
3) In most apps, half of the gorgeous 27” beyond-HD screen was taken up by inert colorful bars which did nothing but provide huge thick frames. Such a waste of pixels is near criminal.
4) The 70/30 apps split was nearly useless. Anything docked in the “30” part is unusably narrow. Sites in IE looked too crammed, and most other apps collapsed information to a few lines (on a display that is about a foot high…). Also, there’s no method (at least I haven’t found one) to put two tabs side-by-side in IE. Thus most fixed-width sites (like OSNews) look like a thin sliver in the center of the screen with huge white areas two each side.
5) Maximum number of tabs in Metro IE is 10. I kid you not. In 2012 on a machine with 8GB of RAM. Seriously Microsoft? In all Metro IE feels like taking the Android browser and blowing it up to 27” screen sizes. It’s like taking a cute little squirrel and blowing it up to the size of a truck. Functional? Sort of. But definitely not something you’d want to deal with on a daily basis.
6) To bring up the actions bar in e.g. Windows Store, or the address bar in IE (both of which sit at the bottom of the screen) you need to swipe in from the top edge of the screen. You heard right. Swiping in from the bottom does nothing.
Thus I conclude that this UI was clearly intended for tablets/smartphones, not desktops. It just doesn’t scale.
Edited 2012-09-26 21:37 UTC
27″ is not something a majority of users even have. So of course the touch experience will be a little awkward.
On a tablet, or on a laptop, it really isn’t half bad. Especially on a laptop with updated touch pad drivers to allow for Windows 8 gestures.
Going forward, all Windows 8 devices will come with optimized touch pads, touch screens, touch accessories, or a combination of all three. Windows sets the new standard, and subsequently hardware will be released to match it.
A great majority of all Windows 8 sales are brand new device sales, so I can’t envision this being a problem for anyone other than a select type of user.
Also your last bit about the actionbar is incorrect. You can swipe in from the bottom and it calls both top and bottom action bars.
Edited 2012-09-26 23:53 UTC
So Windows 8 is optimized for future devices?
That’s a dumb business plan given their existing market base, especially when the OS could adapt to the device instead of following this ridiculous idea that all devices MUST have the same interface.
Try looking at their financials sometime, yes they actually make billions from upgrades.
You’re going be on record defending one of the dumbest business plans in tech history.
I hope you’ve enjoyed your time shilling here, I doubt you’ll stick around after the disaster.
MSFT is at $30.00. Take a good look because it will soon intersect with the reality that Windows 8 sucks and there won’t be enough Nelsons on the planet to stop people from selling.
You need a therapist.
No I’m perfectly sane and that’s the problem.
I live in an insane world where critical thinkers are in short supply.
I will have called Windows 8 in the first 30 seconds that I used it. You on the other hand have fallen for Sinofsky’s bullshit just like Ballmer. Congrats on that.
Telemetry….lol, you really fell for that post didn’t you?
Here is your telemetry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nU
And this is how far your boss will get at becoming Steve Jobs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-pMZd1fupw
Your comments are uusually of a noun, a verb, and Steven Sinofsky.
You have an obsession. The real tragedy is your fall from grace, because you used of be thoughtful.
You’ve gotten to the point where you’re either a brilliant troll, or seriously off of your rocker.
Yes I’ve fallen from grace, or perhaps I was never a fanboy and you liked me before I started bashing the latest version of Windows.
If Microsoft had listened to us Windows developers over Vista they would have waited a year and not had any problems.
But fanboys agreed at the time that Vista was awesome.
Gee who ended up being right, the fanboys or the assholes?
Now get back to shilling, I see some posters here need to be told why they actually like what they don’t.
And you determined this… how? All of Dell’s new all-in-one desktop machines are either 20” or bigger (I tried it on their flagship product in this category, the XPS One 27”). All new monitors we buy are 24” at a minimum. Your statement is simply at variation with reality.
Then why the hell even put it there?
I was talking about touch screens on desktops. You’re arguing against something I didn’t say.
This Dell machine is a brand new just-released-to-market product that was designed with Windows 8 in mind. Your argument simply doesn’t hold water.
I tried multiple times on two different machines. It worked on neither. Since the Windows 8 release on them was marked RTM I assumed this wasn’t a bug.
Minor correction here, I meant to say something in the sense of “Your statement is irrelevant”. That is to say that while strictly speaking, yes, the majority of computer users may not have a 27” screen (simply because the majority of computers sold are laptops), it is irrelevant to the point I was making (desktop machines with touch screens). On desktops screens in the ~23-30” range are really quite common and the Metro UI simply doesn’t scale to it (either with or without touch; points 3 and 4 of my original post pertain to non-touch screens just as much as touch-enabled ones).
I think you realized what a stupid reply this was. The majority of screen sizes are 20 inches and below.
At those sizes, touch augments, not replaces, the interaction experience. You didn’t touch your All In One for everything prior, did you?
It would make sense of you didn’t mince my point and nitpick. I was saying that in contrast, touch is designed to be the only input method has a falling off point you’re rapidly approaching. It also coincides with your exotic choice of hardware.
You’re outside the norm expecting norm results.
Really? Which model? Dells W8 AIO lineup isn’t out yet. I know because I’m looking for one.
The Windows 7 class hardware multitouch digitizer isn’t up to snuff with new W8 requirements which is why charms bars can be hit or miss, why its usually only three or five point multi touch, and why responsiveness falls off toward the center.
Windows Store doesn’t even have a bottom app bar, it has a green top one. And in IE a bottom swipe brings up the top app bar. Same with other apps.
In fact this is baked into the SDK if you check the MSDN documents.
I’ve already clarified this part about a half hour before you responded. But obviously that didn’t stop you from dismissing out of hand what I said. Quite dishonest, don’t you think?
Not on desktops, which is what I was talking about (you know, the title of my post said “Touch on a desktop machine…”). But hey, when you’re strawmanning my position, why stop now?
I wasn’t touching it at all, since when using the keyboard and mouse I’m sitting much further away from the machine. Even so points 3, 4 and 5 still stand – Metro simply doesn’t scale well to large machines (not to mention the fact that it utterly fails at multi-monitoring).
My original post was as a result of me doing a deliberate touch-only test to see if it is usable. My conclusion is that it is not. I had to put the keyboard and mouse aside, since they were in the way, so using it as an augmentation is nonsense. It’s either-or. Any combination felt awkward and I had to continually adjust my seating position and move the keyboard/mouse around on the table (to have a place where to rest my elbows).
It would make sense if you didn’t strawman my position. I never said touch screens don’t work on small/handheld devices. In fact, I said quite the opposite:
That is all nice and sweet, but what about the desktop machine users (such, oh I don’t know, about 95% of the enterprise?) who do have large screens? Microsoft clearly intends this interface to be *the* method to interact with their new OS. Are they willing to relegate an entire extremely important market segment over to the “legacy” column?
It’s nice that Windows 8 works well in some areas – woohoo for them. But that doesn’t solve the problem of it sucking in some other scenarios. Users don’t average their experience over all market segments.
Excuse me? This is one of the flagship desktop machines from Dell. The mere fact that it’s “all-in-one” means jack shit – users don’t care if the components of the computer are crammed up behind the screen or sit in a separate box on the floor. The important bit is the interface – the touch screen. But perhaps you’re one of those mobile hipsters who thinks desktop machines are dead. Well guess what, a majority of businesses and enterprise users aren’t going to give them up any time soon, and even personal-use laptops are often attached to an external KVM. It’s just the nature of the user interface – large screens with comfy keyboards and mice are still much more usable than the crammed, dumbed down micro-interfaces of mobile machines.
That you can’t see which model I meant about shows me the level of your reading comprehension. I wrote which model I tried in my first response to you.
The occasion when I tried this machine was at a consumer electronics show – Dell was showing how their “future W8 desktops” would look like. It was exactly like this one: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/30/dell-announces-xps-one-27-aio-ru…
The machine will remain in production for the coming 2 years. It was been designed with W8 in mind.
My problem wasn’t with the machine not registering or misinterpreting my touches, so it wasn’t a hardware/driver/whatever issue. My problems stemmed from the fact of how the interface itself is designed, so all I tried was pre-installed Microsoft stuff (there wasn’t anything custom by Dell in there).
IIRC it was the “Games” tile on the home screen, which should be part of the Store app, but it might have been the “Messaging” app. I didn’t install anything 3rd party for sure (since the machine wasn’t linked to a Live account).
I can only comment on my experience, I haven’t checked any documentation. IE shows the address bar at the bottom and the tabs at the top. Swipe in from the top showed both, swipe in from the bottom did nothing.
That’s such a dumb artificial restriction. The point in my original comments calling you a minority was to highlight the fact that when contrasted against the entirety of the Windows ecosystem, you’re in the minority.
I don’t very much care that you can twist numbers and male your setup more common. It isn’t the point I’m making at all.
Which makes sense. AIOs aren’t primarily designed for touch. This would ring true using any touch OS. The ergonomics are not there.
Touch is instead supposed to augment, much like now the mouse augments the keyboard. Same with Pen. Its a choice.
The model you said you tested has an adjustable stand. You can tilt it closer to you. That’s the entire point. Touch is optional. Using it as the primary method of input is absurd.
However, its not the fault of the OS. Its just not a form factor suited for that kind of thing.
The same goes for the touch screen laptops. Its there in addition to a touchpad. Not to replace it. That’s the greatest miss I think people have when it comes to Windows 8. Touch is an option. So is Pen. So is Mouse. So is Keyboard. Its an option.
No. They can use a mouse and keyboard. They still exist. Shocking. I know.
In fact, if they’d like, they purchase gesture enabled mice and trackpads.
I think the issue is overblown, much like the Vista DRM stuff was overblown. At the time OSNews ran like 10 articles on it a say. FSF claimed it’d cause global flooding, etc. Things tend to get exaggerated.
AIOs are in and of themselves a niche form factor. TOUCH AIOs are even more niche.
More people will buy Dell Laptops than will buy this. Fact.
However, its all besides the point. As I stated above, the way you were using the machine was intentional handicapping by your own admission.
In related news, my 200inch monitor with Windows 8 sucks because I had to climb a ladder to swipe down from the top.
Well genius, Dells XPS One lineup is also a Windows 7 line up. I’m sorry I didn’t assume you went to a damn Consumer Electronics Show. Because that’s so common.
Just tried both those apps on my Windows tablet, which I’m writing this response on, and nope, a bottom swipe brings down the top app bar too.
I really don’t know what was going on with your experience, but that’s not how the AppBar works or ever worked in the SDK.
Sure, the entire enterprise/home desktop environment is a minority! How stupid of me to think that Microsoft cared about its traditional market!
What numbers did I twist?
NO desktop is designed for touch. Whether it’s AIO or KVM+box doesn’t matter. Nobody reaches with their hand onto the monitor.
Hallelujah, you finally got it.
Or maybe you didn’t…
When was the last time you used a pen tablet to operate a computer? I’ve had a Wacom tablet for 10 years and I’ve never used it to control the OS. It’s a very narrow single-application tool that is completely useless to the vast majority of users.
The stand is nearly useless.
First you tell me to move it using a stand into a touch-input position and then you tell me that using touch for primary input is absurd? Do you expect me to move it every 1-2 minutes depending on what app I’m using at the moment?
Finally I agree. Touch screens on desktops make no sense. My entire point from the get go.
In any given environment there is a combination of tools that is optimal and introducing other elements actually creates a detrimental setup. Touch + KVM is one such combination. KVM is highly accurate, very fast and allows for a rich set of input options. Touch, OTOH, is much slower, much less accurate and limits the richness of the displayed content. Nevertheless, it serves well in environments where external controls are impractical (e.g. mobile devices).
Your constant desire to shoehorn touch into everything shows me you’ve obviously never used it on larger screens. I have, and it doesn’t add anything to the mix that KVM doesn’t already have (besides adding smudges onto your screen, that is).
My entire argument was about touch-on-desktop and how Metro is completely structured around it, which leads to detrimental effects on traditional desktop-class applications. Also, you’ve simply skipped over my points 3-5 which are just as valid without touch (that is where you see the primary touch-orientation of Metro spill over into traditional desktop land and affect it negatively).
Not touch screens, have never argued against that. Get it through your thick skull.
What has this got to do with my arguments? Or right, nothing.
I’m not speaking Swahili am I? I explained to you exactly why this very exact argument is bunk (where the CPU+motherboard are positioned is irrelevant), and you just ignored it and repeat the same thing over and over again like a broken record.
Congrats, finally you caught up to reality.
How about addressing my points 3-5 then? Oh right, you can’t, because those still apply even without touch.
Look, the fact of the matter is, Metro was designed with touch in mind – that was the entire guiding principle behind it. For instance: why is everything fullscreen? Because touch doesn’t work on windowed GUIs. Why are controls spaced so far apart? Because fingers are darn imprecise. Why are there hot corners instead of panels of controls ala Ribbon? Because on small touch screens we need to save space. The entire desktop experience is being overridden to make way for a paradigm that was thrust over from a different form factor.
In related news, you can’t make sensible arguments and so you come up with BS.
Well genius, that’s because the XPS One 27 with Windows 8 is exactly the same hardware as the XPS One 27 with Windows 7. If you were unsure, you could have Googled it.
Seeing as these aren’t released on the market yet, way to show everybody that you clearly have no conflict of interest…
Then go talk to Dell, they’re messing up your product.
You know if the touch screen was like horizontal, like a writing pad … doesn’t matter what size it is your arms wouldn’t get tired. The size of the screen isn’t a problem, it is the orientation.
Haven’t I seen this wallpaper in KDE before?
http://activewin.com/reviews/software/operating-sys/windows8/images…
What? Microsoft has introduced a new filesystem? I wish the article would have explained this better. Besides a listing of the improvements, how is performance? What FS did the author use on his test machines? Is there a conversion process available?
Seems like a change this big would be more than a brief mention on the second to last page.
Also, the article does not make clear if there are still separate OEM and retail versions of the OS. This would be good to know if I plan on purchasing Windows 8 on my current computer, then attempt to move it to a different machine later.
The file system has already been addressed on Microsoft’s ‘Engineering Windows 8’ blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/01/16/building-the-next-gen…
Since it isn’t out yet, benchmarks aren’t either. We’ll need to see.
No.
ReFS will only be made available on Windows 8 Server for the time being. Desktops will remain NTFS-only.
There are separate versions, but OEM versions can no longer be purchased by consumers. See the details see:
http://www.myce.com/news/exclusive-windows-8-contains-new-product-a…
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Windows-8-OEM-OA-3.0-Piracy-Genuin…
Sounds like Windows is not so much better at in-place upgrades than Linux, after all. Good thing that old releases are supported for a longer time by Microsoft.
Or he is running untested drivers on an unreleased operating system on two computers from two notoriously crappy computer manufacturers – sure, what could possibly go wrong with such a stella combination! Wait a month AFTER it is actually released and heck, the person wrote the article September 5, almost two months before it actually being released! I mean, come on – if you want to critique and criticise Windows then by all means do so but how about waiting till it is actually released.
Side note, software vendors are already releasing updates for Windows 8 compatibility issues; Adobe over the last couple of weeks have released updates for their Creative Suite 6 that address possible Windows 8 compatibility woes. The issues are being addressed so lets put on a Cat Stevens record, pour a cup of tea and chill out for a moment.
Do you think that people who complain about Xorg or NetworkManager breaking after an update because of some explicitly unsupported proprietary driver for equally crappy hardware would care about such technicalities ?
If hardware breaks for some people, it’s a problem. Sadly, many people happen to buy crappy hardware because it’s cheap and they don’t know enough about tech to be aware of what that they are doing. So…
Windows 8 has been declared RTM and distributed to OEMs more than one month ago. So what this guy tested is a final release, that will be installed on every store’s PCs worldwide pretty soon.
If at this stage, there are still issues with widely used features and hardware such as ACPI suspend or Synaptics touchpads, that is quite a big issue that should not be handwaved with a “meh, they will fix it in SP1 a few months after launch anyway”.
Sure, sure. Still, there are some things that cannot be fixed with updates, such as an input peripheral breakage that prevents people from installing these updates altogether.
The problem is the fault of Linux failing to provide a stable driver API/ABI – if Linux provided said stable interface then the responsibility could be then placed back on the shoulders of hardware vendors to maintain their drivers. The reality is that every distribution of Linux isn’t compatible with the next, you can’t simply just grab a driver compiled against one kernel version of a particular distribution and then have it work without any problems on another – that is the fault of the OS vendor. Compare that to Windows which has a stable API and ABI thus barring any stupid decisions made by the programmers at said third party hardware vendor then things should work without too many problems.
You don’t have to be technically inclined to realise “you get what you paid for” – heck, my sister bought an el-cheapo NZ$600 Acer laptop and she knew what she was getting but as she said to me it was a throw away laptop and that should be move onto something better later on. Lets not assume that every person out there is clueless because a fair chunk of people, even if it is by gut instinct alone, that you pay for what you get and that the extra money isn’t necessarily for the brand but also the fact that these companies support you for the long haul.
Which mean nothing given that OEM will have newer drivers from their suppliers than what is actually available on the internet. Synaptic for example is already shipping Windows 8 compliant drivers through Lenovo (IIRC 16.2.x) which aren’t available on the Synaptic website itself. Regarding ACPI, again, that requires a power management driver which requires the OEM to provide an updated driver – again, if it is anything like the Lenovo situation then the driver will be release either on the day or a week or two after Windows 8 has actually hit the market. Windows 8 has been RTM’ed but it is not general availability, it isn’t shipping and very few hardware vendors have Windows 8 test drivers available – again, come back once Windows 8 has actually shipped to the general public then draw your own conclusions base on reality and not someones half baked review based on September 5 drivers that were tested only on Windows 7.
Then you should wait till the driver has been released – goodness gracious me, what is so f–king hard about looking up the hardware vendors website and checking whether they have a Windows 8 compatible driver first before deciding to install? install first ask questions later?
Edited 2012-09-27 08:47 UTC
Actually, as much as the concept of a stable driver ABI is lovable in theory, Windows does not really have it anymore. As an example, Microsoft switched GPU drivers API ABI from XP to Vista, added new features that required new drivers to be supported in Win7, and now they are breaking it once more just for the fun of it with Windows 8. Goes to show that in the realm of hardware support, manufacturer cooperation is much more important than technical merits.
It is true that Microsoft do not usually break their driver APIs during the lifecycle of a given release, though, unlike some unscrupulous Linux distros which ship incompatible kernel and Xorg releases as harmless security updates.
I know a lot of people who understand that a cheap laptop will have crappy hardware, that fail early, overheats, and that kind of crap. Fewer people, however, seem to avoid blaming “Windows” or “PCs” for awful OEM installs.
Are you trying to sell me that RTM copies of Windows do not include at least basic support for one of the world’s most widespread touchpad brands ?
Basic ACPI operation (such as sleep and resume) shouldn’t require a driver and per-manufacturer support. It has been designed precisely to standardize power management and avoid that kind of mess. Some device drivers should explicitly support ACPI and run routines on sleep and resume in order to avoid problems on resume (like, say, assuming that a network card is still connected to a network), but failure to do so should not cause a full kernel crash.
I guess we will indeed find out in a month, but if drivers are still not ready at this point I would tend to predict a Vista-like scenario with very few mature drivers at release time myself.
Hardware vendors will claim very early to have a Windows 8 compatible driver. What they will not necessarily announce is when said driver will actually be in a stable and usable state.
Edited 2012-09-27 17:30 UTC
Are you f–king serious?
There is a big difference between totally different version of the OS and breaking ABI/API compatibility within the same version of the distro.
The same driver written in 2001 for XP will work with XP SP3 EOL.
Same goes for Vista, 7 and 8.
Sorry it is not comparable.
Edited 2012-09-27 19:32 UTC
And IIRC Windows Vista and Windows 7 supported XPDM drivers – the experience wasn’t pleasant but it has been only in Windows 8 where they removed such support. 10 years supporting a display driver API is pretty damn good in my books when compared to, as you noted, Linux distributions lack not only inter-compatibility but compatibility moving forward if the kernel is updated with a patch. Remind me of my experience with Fedora where a new kernel would be released but have to wait for a recompile and repackaging of the nVidia drivers with a hope that nothing has been broken with the update.
There is a reason why it isn’t worth replying to Neolander – end of the day I’ve been coming here less and less as the quality of the contributing posts have been sliding further and further down hill.
Edited 2012-09-28 14:50 UTC
Unpleasant as in half of the new graphics-related features missing, software compatibility breakages (some core Vista API features like Direct3D 10 do happen to require WDDM drivers to work), and Windows Update constantly nagging you to install the unfinished WDDM driver instead ?
Might as well use the VESA fallback drivers then. Which, mind you, have been of unmatched quality on Windows for as far as I can remember. One has to wonder why on the OSS side of things, stupid Xorg just drops users to a command line with satanic imprecations when a driver doesn’t work, instead of just trying a fallback driver like Windows does.
Man, that’s two people now who explicitly ignore that I wrote exactly that very thing in my previous post. And seem to assume that I claimed that Windows is as bad as Linux distros for everyday software updates, which is also perfectly untrue : I was only talking about in-place (or “distro”, if you want) upgrades. Updates are, as I also stated previously, a distro-dependent manner : some distros do them relatively right, some don’t.
The first time around I just ignored the reply with disdain, but it does sound like I have to ask it openly : do you two really want to see me as a Linux zealot so badly because I happen to state disturbing things your favorite OS, that you wil not hesitate to ignore large chunks of my posts to this end ? As in, in your mind, I must be some kind of religious fanboy if I don’t agree with you ?
Each time I have this feeling myself, it turns out to be caused by high activity from posters which I don’t like (which are, in my case, mostly extremists which will write the worst bullshit to defend their company, OS or device of choice). You should probably be careful not to fall into the same psychological trap. Just saying.
Edited 2012-09-28 17:55 UTC
Though expensive, high-sticker-price hardware doesn’t really assure future support. It being rarer, more niche, can in fact decrease the chances…
Around here I have two webcams from the end of last century. One is as-classic-as-it-gets Logitech Quickam Express, very inexpensive even at the time ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickCam#Cameras and mine is even a black-logo OEM package, was notably less expensive) …and with quite horrible quality, fairly crappy overall. The other is a Philips Vesta Pro/Scan, with decent quality, exceptional low-light performance (which gave it a prominent place in amateur astrophotography http://homepage.ntlworld.com/molyned/web-cameras.htm http://www.pmdo.com/wintro.htm http://keithwiley.com/vesta675mod/vesta675mod2.shtml http://thierrylambert.free.fr/materiel/vestapro/vestaprocielprofond… http://www.astrosurf.com/astrobond/ebmate.htm ), and quite pricey in its day, I believe (it found its way to me as a surplus hw) …remaining so for a while, I think, with how it was sought-after for astro.
Now, I’ll let you guess which one of those webcams is supported by all popular Windows versions in a totally plug’n’play fashion (as in, you connect it and everything works, the driver is included with the OS – despite the webcam predating USB video class standard), and which is supported only up to XP… (and requiring 3rd party driver there)
Similar with one “pro” audio card that also found its way to me, E-mu APS, essentially abandoned a long time ago. Except, it’s related to SB Live! (I believe APS was the first card using the EMU10K1 chip – it sure has visibly “old style” packaging there), so it’s supported by a sort of community project targeting this family: http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/
If you want to be safest from driver woes, get what’s popular and still suitable to your needs.
Oh I don’t know if this one would be so bad – from what I see, most laptops are used with a mouse attached, anyway.