Ars Technica is running an interesting article about the Mail application on Windows 8. It’s one of the first party Metro applications, and Ars’ conclusion is that it’s really, really not up to snuff – it can’t even compare favourably to the mail application on Windows Phone. The sad thing is, however – this applies to virtually all Metro applications.
I’ve been using Windows 8 as my main operating system ever since the release preview was, well, released. A consistent issue – starting with earlier preview releases – was the downright abysmal quality of Metro applications, and Microsoft’s own Metro applications specifically.
In general, they tend to be slow, contain artefacts, crash, hang, lose responsiveness, or just flat-out refuse to do any networking operations. Mail and several Twitter clients, for instance, sometimes just stop updating, forcing a restart. In the case of Mail, not even going through the task manager helps; only a reboot will do the trick.
Internet Explorer has issues of its own. It suffers from a ‘black page’ bug, where switching to IE10 from any other application will make all the pages go black until you bring up the tabs bar and reselect the page. Another incredibly annoying thing is that page loading often blocks access to the tab bar; if a page is doing some heavy loading, the tab bar will not show up when you right click, so in frustration, you click again and again – only to have the bar quickly appear and disappear several times a few seconds later as the page stops loading. UI access should never be affected by page loads – I’m hoping this isn’t an architectural thing.
The media applications don’t fare much better. They pull stuff from your Libraries, but they seem to have to do this every time you load them up – with larger libraries like mine, that’s a process that takes not seconds, not minutes, but dozens of minutes. They also shove loads of advertising in your face (they’re essentially music/video stores which, oh, happen to give access to your own files.
This is just a sample of the bugs and issues you run into, even this close to release of what’s going to be a defining product in Microsoft’s history. This isn’t release early/release often territory; Microsoft is a publicly traded company and people are going to pay actual, real-world money for this product. Pulling a KDE 4.0 is simply not an option, but the current state of Metro’s applications do not bode well.
This should be Microsoft’s top priority. Metro has potential, but without quality applications, it’s going to fail spectacularly. It all feels eerily similar to Windows Phone 7’s usually rather abysmal third party performance, with the obvious difference that Windows Phone’s first party applications are some of the best – if not the best -smartphone applications out there (WP7’s mail application, for instance, eats iOS’ and Android’s for lunch).
The coming few months are going to be extremely crucial for Microsoft. Metro’s supra-application interface elements, like the Charm bar and application switcher, perform superbly, never failing and always quick, fluid, and responsive. It remains to be seen if Microsoft can bring that same level of smoothness and performance to Metro’s applications.
Microsoft cannot seem to agree on a platform. Previously, they pushed the old Windows API (even the ones from 1.0 days) with tons of backwards compatibility hacks and patches, but it worked. And you knew that if you were to develop an app, it would continue to run on next year’s windows – even phone with small modifications.
Currently there is no Microsoft UI framework that will run on Windows 7, Windows Phone 7, and Windows 8 (phone or desktop). At least Mac OS X had Cocoa and Carbon.
Windows phone 7 doesn’t matter as no one bought any phones, and its about to be replaced with windows phone 8. In the same way that it didn’t matter to Microsoft that Windows Mobile apps didn’t work on Kin, nor windows phone 7.
Those that haven’t learned from MS’s Mobile past are doomed to repeat it’s miseries.
WP7 apps will run on Windows Phone 8.
Big Windows have commonality, mobile too – overall, not much different from Apple (Carbon wasn’t ever available on mobile or iPad, and while Cocoa is shared …it isn’t really through and through, UIs for ~desktop and ~mobile beter be separate – so not much different than .NET or WPF and Metro)
Another interesting article on ARS? Im gonna go read ARS
i love trolls getting down voted.
the apps built into windows were never a windows strength. they are a joke really. how many jokes can be told about solitaire or internet explorer. please.
that windows 8 takes one of the well known historical weaknesses of windows and places them front and center with no powerful third party ecosystem to back them up tells you how blind microsoft management is. people use metro and go “pretty, this is it?”
I was just about to say this. Who uses ANY of the built-in Windows apps anyway?
– Internet Explorer? Crap
– Media Player? Crap
– Windows Explorer? Brings the crappiness to a whole new level
– Paint? LMAO
– Mail? Not even included in Windows 7
Hell, even Notepad is pretty lame. I guess about the only one I use is Calculator, as it generally does what I need it to do (which, admittedly isn’t much).
I do.
Much to learn, you still have
Some of the bundled Windows software does have some use, IMO…
-The file explorer. It’s far from perfect but it does the job, especially when tweaked with Classic Shell to bring back the up button. And unlike the alternatives, it’s free. Still a shadow of its former XP self, though, in my opinion.
-Paint did save my life from time to time when I couldn’t install something else (locked-up PC).
-MSconfig and the “management console” (or whatever it’s called in English) are great for turning off bloatware when removing them through a fresh install is not an option.
-While Notepad is pretty bad, Windows 7’s Wordpad is decent. As an example, it does properly open text files from all OSs. It can also offer Abiword-like basic formatted text editing (which is sadly enough for many people, who have never learned how to get the most of a word processor).
-And the basic photo viewer and scanning tool do their job, sometimes better than the manufacturer-provided bloatware for the latter.
Edited 2012-07-14 12:42 UTC
yes they have uses. I use them too, sideshows that they are. and the biggest feature of windows 8 is a new bunch of microsoft sideshows.
It’s sad in the other direction – I mean, there’s really nothing wrong when people could be generally happy with something like Abiword (even something between Abiword and Wordpad, really; preferably with a touch of Lyx or TeXmacs) …and yet, they often still insists on MS Word.
I guess that this is an inescapable outcome when the de facto standard for editable text documents is a proprietary file format…
Regarding the “there’s nothing wrong with people being satisfied with Abiword’s feature set”, I don’t know… It sure is perfect for quickly writing small documents, but anytime I see someone manually parsing a 30-page document just to rectify hand-applied title formatting, I die a little on the inside… I’ll be the first to admit that modern “heavy” word processors have too many features, but there are a few gems that everyone should know about IMO.
Edited 2012-07-18 20:00 UTC
And “something between Abiword and Wordpad […] preferably with a touch of Lyx or TeXmacs” would also be about better formatting (the LyX or TeXmacs part) – giving less manual control over it, really, that’s large part of the problem: UIs making it straightforward to micro-manage documents, so people do just that and settle on it.
At least that de facto standard thing is beginning to change in places ( http://www.webmasterpro.de/portal/news/2010/02/05/international-ope… and doesn’t your place has some non-trivial deployment projects?) …too bad it’s still mostly about Word-like application.
Hm, I use Explorer to browse and handle my files and I use Notepad, Calc and cmd.exe every now and then. More-or-less everything else I have replaced with better applications, though I still would like to find some application for helping me use multiple monitors more effectively.
http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon
I use IE… to download Firefox and Linux/Haiku isos.
I use cmd… if I don’t have PuTTY installed and need telnet.
Telnet is not installed by default on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008. Since you have to go to the trouble of installing it, might as well just use putty.
I use Media player on Windows, It works well for what it does. Better than iTunes on Windows, and it’s already there.
Considering what a pile of festering garbage iTunes on Windows is that’s not much of an endorsement…:P
I’ve still not found something better than Media Monkey for media management on Windows. Worth looking at if you haven’t already.
Itunes on osX is still barely better than eye lids full of pencil shavings but at least the osX native build quality offers improvements over the Windows build. (if one has limited themselves with an Ithingy)
And… they broke calculator in W7.
Now “programmer’s mode” is separate from scientific. And switching between these modes clears the accumulator.
Edited 2012-07-15 18:06 UTC
It’s called “broken mode”.
Haha.
LOL, I’m definitely not a power user when it comes to calculator, which is probably why I never noticed
nothing personal, I know how you feel and I agree – but you would be surprised how many companies (customers of us) still use IE in some version as company standard :/
Tom UK
Microsoft keeps piling API’s on top of each other, and abandoning the lower-level ones. There’s Win32, .NET, WinRT — and after MS pulls programmers along, they seem to cut the cord and switch horses mid-stream. I blame Ballmer — when Gates was at the helm, MS seemed to have more singular focus and consistency. Ballmer keeps chasing trends rather than having any overall vision of what he wants Microsoft to be.
Yeah, like it does not happen in other operating systems as well.
What are the Linux APIs, besides the POSIX standard, that are stable across distributions?
What Mac OS X from the early days are now deprecated?
Sure some apis in Mac OS X are deprecated. However, the Mac OS X frameworks are directly descended from NeXTStep which was first released in 1988. If you understood AppKit in 1988, you will have no trouble understanding Cocoa in 2012. There is just no contest, and not many people even know how far ahead NeXT was. The current Balmer led Microsoft is about as far from NeXT or Apple in terms of vision and implementing that vision in terms of apis as you could possibly imagine.
If you know .NET from 2001, or even WPF from 2003 then Metro Style Apps in C# are not a huge leap for you. Same rules apply.
So much revisionism here. Apple tried to write their next version of Mac OS in multiple ways, including Pink, Blue and Taligent and failed. Eventually Apple just bought NextStep and put all the old OS API in Carbon, and deprecated that. They continue to deprecrate APIs, including their own Quicktime API. Apple screwed up many other APIs like Game Sprocket, that Microsoft got right.
It’s stupid to talk about Windows vs Mac by looking at the Windows API history all the way back to the 80s, but only considering Mac OS X, and a fantasy version of NextStep as all the Mac side did.
It doesn’t.
POSIX *is* the most important API on *nix systems and has been stable for ages. You can’t simply leave that out.
Remember “xv”? It’s an image viewer with the last stable release from 1994, it still runs on modern versions of Linux.
You can see how powerful APIs like POSIX, SDL and Qt are by looking at how applications are released on POSIX systems. Virtually EVERY application you have on Linux compiles flawlessly on *BSD or MacOSX (with Macports, for example).
Heck, you can even install a complete KDE desktop on top of Windows or port your Qt apps with an ease from desktop to mobile platforms.
None. MacOS X still has the same native API it got when it was introduced, namely Cocoa which is based on NeXTStep which has been around since the 80ies.
You can even compile and run Cocoa applications on Linux: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2humz9hIVM
Anyone who has a decent understanding and experience with programming on Windows and Unix systems knows that the Microsoft world is a mess when it comes to APIs.
Their code is so messy and heavily platform-dependent, that they can’t even sync the code of simple applications like Windows Messenger on different platforms (Windows and MacOS), OneNote (the non-Windows versions of OneNote lack most of the features of the desktop application) or Internet Explorer (IE has always been behind on WP7).
Microsoft is suffering from their own platform-lockin and API unstabilities. It wouldn’t have taken them forever otherwise to get NT ported to the mobile platform.
Linux, on the other side, is already supporting soon architectures which aren’t even available in hardware yet (ARM Arch 64).
Adrian
Try this experiment. Get a cross-platform piece of code from the late 90s – say, Netscape 4 – and try to run it on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. It will run on one of them, guess which…
It’s not about the power – it’s about having four incompatible versions of Qt in the last 15 years.
It has the same design, but many APIs have been deprecated – or just plain broken – in the meantime.
The speed at which this can happen on OS X is breathtaking…
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Carbon/Refere…
Edited 2012-07-14 23:38 UTC
Try this experiment. Get a cross-platform piece of code from the late 90s – say, Netscape 4 – and try to run it on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. It will run on one of them, guess which… [/q]
I tried Netscape 4 on a Linux 2.6.32, works without problems. Just have to install some older libraries through my package manager.
As I already said, the 18-year-old image viewer “xv” still runs fine on current Linux distributions. One of my friends is still using it.
I just ran it.
Doesn’t matter at all. If you have applications compiled against Qt3, you just download and install Qt3 libraries and you’re done.
You have the same problems on Windows in this regard. If an application was compiled against MFC4.2, you have to have MFC42.DLL on your system, otherwise it won’t work.
It has the same design, but many APIs have been deprecated – or just plain broken – in the meantime. [/q]
Don’t just reflect the things I said about Win32 on Cocoa, this is stupid.
Why on earth do you reference “Carbon” here? Carbon was also deprecated when MacOS X was introduced in 2001. Developers were NEVER supposed to write Carbon applications when targeting MacOS X. Cocoa is and has always been the native API of MacOS X and it is STABLE.
The only API which is constantly broken is Win32 and other stuff from Microsoft. Ask any wine developer or developers at Steam.
For example: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/03/why-steam-makes-you-inst…
Adrian
Interesting. I have incompatibilities in libstdc++, where the ABI has changed so I can’t simultaneously support NS4 and anything else…
I didn’t, this point was purely OS X from the outset. Note the original poster was talking OS X, not Cocoa.
Well, it’s still OS X, which is what the original poster was referring to.
But you see the same with Cocoa too, just with simple googling…
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Referen…
not true. I was there at the OS X launch and Carbon and Cocoa were presented at equals. Java was as well.. Stuff changes. Cocoa was also the only way to access the full quicktime API (quicktime is not just a file format, it’s a full multimedia API). Apple’s own apps, like Final Cut Pro, were all written in Carbon. It’s only at the switch for 64-bit that Apple decided to drop carbon, and that surprised everyone — even some internal groups.
It makes no sense to talk about 30 years of Windows API, but only start in 2001 for Apple, btw.
Btw from year’s WWDC, objective C garbage collection will be deprecated now.
You are now mixing ABI compatibility, API compatibility, and familiarity in the same argument. Qt 4 is very similar to previous Qt versions. I have been programming in Qt since the early Qt 3 versions, and the switch from Qt 3 to Qt 4 was simple for programmers in terms of familiarity. The leap from an older Qt version to Qt 4 will be very small compared to e.g. the Win32 API to WPF.
API compatibility between Qt3 and Qt4 is not perfect, but acceptable. For many classes that were deprecated, there are (Q3*) classes, so that the old functionality is still available.
The ABI compatibility between Qt versions is not so good, e.g. 4.8 is guaranteed to be binary compatible with 4.7, but that is all you get. Of course, you can still run older precompiled applications using older Qt libraries.
In the preceding discussion the argument was around familiarity. People say that Microsoft asks developers to learn a new API every few years or so. The transition between Qt versions was non-disruptive, evolutionary, and simple. So, I don’t think that the argument that Qt released 4 major versions in the last 15 years really applies. It’s not as if Qt programmer had to learn a completely new framework.
The more serious problem on Linux is fragmentation. People do not just use Qt, they use Qt, GTK+, wxWidgets, or even Tk and many permutations of other libraries. As a result, the experience is rarely consistent.
The APIs of Windows are more clouded in this respect. Some people will argue that WinRT and WPF both use XAML, and consequently are very similar. Others will argue that they are completely different APIs. For companies making a new product, it is a difficult choice, Metro could be the future, so developing an application using WPF could be deprecated soon. On the other hand, if Metro flops, having developed a WinRT application would’ve been a waste of time.
On the other hand, although I am not a Windows developer, I think such arguments tend to be overstated. In a serious application, UI code will only be a fraction of an application. If the underlying application is written in a .NET language, it’s probably not too hard to target WPF or WinRT at will.
Right. People often forget Carbon, or how Apple pushed Cocoa on Java, to deprecate it just a few years later. Or how Objective-C garbage collection was the next great thing, to deprecate it in no-time for ARC. The gcc -> llvm-gcc -> clang switch in a short amount of time was also not pretty, with everything from small codebases or Haskell compilers breaking every few months.
I am not a coder. I am a power user, and I do some sys admin and user interface work. So excuse me if I am wrong – here we go – Actually I find Windows more fragmented then Linux. Windows has xp, vista, 7, 8; various servers; WinPhone 7; winphone8; now we have a seperate ARM version (was there a lack of Windows-versions??); home/student/enterprise/professional/media/ etc versions; English/French/Spanish (Windows has seperate programs for every language – the concept of language packs was too simple I suppose?); a jungle of licenses and activations; and a general tendency to make simple things very complicated.
The linux landscape is for me (as a non-expert) much simpler. Yes, some applications requiere certain frameworks, but I never had problems with that….. might be different if you code though.
Edited 2012-07-15 14:42 UTC
Have you ever counted the amount of Linux distributions available in Distrowatch, each with different set of APIs, many ignorant of the LSB, disparate packet systems, development tools, …?
Just today I can see around 300.
You are both wrong.
a) The API differences between xp, vista, 7 and 8 are minuscule.
b) The API differences between different Linux distros are minuscule. Same goes for development tools.
I did groceries on the weekend and was shocked, SHOCKED I say, to find that there where several options to choose from in every product category.
Ok, jokes aside, if we’re being honest then it’s not every potential Linux based OS distribution versus X. We’re comparing fragmentation to Windows; a single vendor’s OS distribution. We need OS distributions which intent to compete for desktop installs.
Novell? Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop and Suse Linux Enterprise Server.
Red Hat? Red Hat Enterprise Linux (server) plus a desktop option.
Mandriva? Three versions when I was last in that world; Free, One and whatever the paid premium was.
Canonical? Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Ubuntu Server?
That’s four major vendor options with a maximum of three product versions each? Should we look back at Microsoft’s list of current version Windows OS SKU?
Actually most of them (if not all) will have API compatibility. The differences between distros is largely only skin deep.
And LSB just states states what must exist, not the default. Hence why Debian is LSB despite preferring .deb over RPMs; because Debian also offers support for RPMs even if it doesn’t prefer them.
The real issue between Linuxes is with API version numbers between bleeding edge distros and the older / stable-focused distros. Which is why package managers come into their own. However that’s akin to compiling a .NET 3 application and then complaining that it doesn’t work on .NET 2.
Yes it does, only someone that does not work as a professional software developer can make such a statement.
Try to do this with a binary compiled dynamically in 1994.
SDL and Qt are not operating system APIs.
Really?!
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn2223/_index.htm…
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/MapKit/Refere…
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Cocoa/Referen…
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#qa/qa1342/_index.html
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#qa/qa1679/_index.html
I can list much more if you wish, specially the NeXTStep APIs no longer available.
That is GNUStep, not Cocoa, with lots of missing functionality.
http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/ApplicationKitCompatibility
Anyone with a decent experience developing software across multiple operating systems, knows that Microsoft world is quite bearable, when compared with many of the commercial enterprise systems available.
Different teams, even working in different buildings.
The same platform lockin like any other commercial vendor.
Great! Where I do buy such hardware with Linux?
I have developed commercial software for Aix, HP-UX, Solaris, Linux, BSD, OS/400, Symbian, NeXTStep, Mac OS X, Windows, Android.
What are your developer credentials to talk about stability of operating system APIs?
First sentence directly being an insult, yay, that’s how we start arguments.
Works without problems. You just have to provide the dynamic libraries it was specifically compiled against. Same on Windows with the DLLs.
True. But they are competing with APIs from Microsoft like DirectX, MFC and Win32 and they are gaining more and more market share due to their cross-platform compatibility.
Valve just hired the lead developer of SDL.
Deprecating parts of the API while providing good documentation on these changes is a very good thing.
I didn’t claim that. However, GNUStep does allow to run many MacOS applications on Linux. It is demonstrated by the guy in the talk.
There aren’t really any other commercial platforms left. Alpha, Solaris, HP-UX and so on don’t really exist anymore.
This doesn’t justify anything. It works for Apple and it works at Google. Microsoft is just incredibly bad in this regard.
Heck, they don’t even know how to read out the home directory on MacOS X using an environment variable, they always assume your home directory is in /Users (try using Microsoft software for MacOS X with a case-sensitive filesystem).
No. http://opensource.apple.com/
What is your problem? Most ARM devices shipped nowadays run Linux. Just use your favorite internet search engine and you will be happy.
Are we going to compare penis lengths now? This is not how you’re going to win an argument. It’s like saying “My parents are richer than yours, so I must be right!”
You can argue whatever you want, but Microsoft is doomed to decline in the future (just like ATARI or Commodore). Just have a look how many companies are jumping the Linux bandwagon. Valve, being probably one of the most important game publishers, is hiring Linux developers like crazy. And even Microsoft itself contributes lots of code to the Linux world (Skype 4.0, Hyper-V).
I feel really sorry for people who are so attached to Microsoft that they’re even willing to waive for features and usability when switching from Windows 7 to the awkward Windows 8.
Adrian
No, because those .so won’t be able to link with the kernel ABI of today’s Linuxes.
True. But they are competing with APIs from Microsoft like DirectX, MFC and Win32 and they are gaining more and more market share due to their cross-platform compatibility. [/q] [/q]
We were talking about operating system APIs. DirectX and MFC are also not operating system APIs.
So what? Sam is well known in the game developers community, surely Valve hired him for more than just Linux.
Before
after
Better make your mind what Apple does.
Before
after
Well I read your comment as Cocoa was fully supported in Linux. Changed your mind?
Better don’t tell that to the guys paying for consulting support on those systems.
Where is the source code for Cocoa and iOS?
No, it is saying that I have real life experience to know what I speak of, and am not making stuff up.
No need to feel sorry.
I don’t care about programming languages or operating systems. I care for what customers want, and how much they pay.
I guess, you meant “syscall” ? Since syscalls are considered a private API, a “professional software developer” would not use them, and instead would use the POSIX API that are exposed in the glibc, which keeps backward binary compatibility.
Any professional software developer that use syscalls directly instead of POSIX should be demoted from its “professional” rank (with a few exceptions being Kernel and libc hackers).
Edited 2012-07-16 07:59 UTC
ABI is much more than just syscalls.
An ABI implies syscalls, calling conventions, memory layout for data structures, executable file formats, …
Regarding your glibc example, it depends on how your application links with it, assuming it was even compiled with gcc.
Edited 2012-07-16 08:43 UTC
No, he was pointing out that there aren’t any arm 64 devices, as they don’t exist and the support for them in linux doesn’t really matter to anyone today. Well, Of course, it will matter a great deal for manufacturers who are looking build devices for the hardware, but I don’t think he thought about that.
Well, if someone would have a flame about ‘what it means to be a spoiled brat’, he would be right for real.
And now you’re flaming about software development and that indeed gives credibility saying ‘I develop software for living’….
I didn’t claim that. However, GNUStep does allow to run many MacOS applications on Linux. It is demonstrated by the guy in the talk.
[/q]
and WineLib allows you to compile Win32 apps on Linux or Mac, that doens’t prove anythings. There are countless Win32 porting toolkits for Linux.. One group in my company is using one called MainWin by MainSoft. The FULL Win32 API on Linux, based on NT source code licensed from microsoft.
This doesn’t justify anything. It works for Apple and it works at Google. Microsoft is just incredibly bad in this regard. [/q] [/q]
Apple ports iTunes to windows using a Carbon porting library that they build for Quicktime. That framework is ultimately implemented in Win32, of course, everything is. None of this has anything to do with a greater vision of portability; they are NOT using Object C or any NextStep frameworks for this.
On the Microsoft side, microsoft also DID use a Win32 porting toolkit, with the API and MFC ported to the Mac. And made the much windows-like Word 6 for the Mac with it They even sold cross a compiler at the time, Visual C++ Macintosh Edition. Then they stopped doing that, because people and Apple asked for apps that felt more native. Apple apps made with Qt also kind of suck compared to somethign developped natively.
Google has used WINE for Picassa, and they use different native code for Chrome. It’s really just a rathole, because you’re confusing OS APis, GUI frameworks, clones of these frameworks like GNUstep, and other stuff together. there is no cohesive point being made here except that you are not a developer.
No. http://opensource.apple.com/
[/q]I don’t think you know what’s there.
This isn’t true, ask any guy on the OpenBSD ports team, how linux specific some source code is.
POSIX doesn’t deal with anything UI related though.
That is only true for pure POSIX, SDL and Qt apps.
There is a massive amount of OSS code that is embarrassingly Linux-specific and you often run across the attitude that “Meh, it works on Linux, who cares if it doesn’t work anywhere else”.
Nothing wrong with that, really, but it gets a bit annoying when you hear people boasting about the portability of OSS code when what they really mean is “it works on all Linux distros…and maybe Solaris”.
Both are pretty messy really, in their own way.
Edited 2012-07-15 11:17 UTC
Nonsense, curses is part of POSIX.
.Net was around for a good ten years. win 32 has been around since 1995 and still works up to win 7. That’s actually pretty good support.
In theory you are right, Win32 still works up to Windows 7.
However, due to numerous bugs in the implementation which got fixed over the years, many applications that were originally written for Windows 95 – even if they use the proper Win32 APIs – won’t work on a modern Windows 7 anymore since they relied on bugs in the Win32 API.
Just ask the wine developers, they know Win32 by heart. A friend of mine is actually an official wine developer and he has told me dozens of stories about bugs in Win32 which make it impossible to re-implement Win32 by just adhering the documentation.
Same with DirectX. Ever wondered why Steam reinstalls DirectX for almost every game you install? Isn’t the idea of a library that it can be shared with all applications using it without having to reinstall? Well, Microsoft is constantly fixing DirectX over and over again that most games will only run properly if run with the DirectX version they were linked against.
Adrian
I don’t think this is true, Windows takes compat very seriously, and employs numerous shims for applications. To the point where they emulate buggy implementations of APIs to maintain compatibility.
Maybe it’s hard for Wine, but I’ve never seen this be the case on Windows, unless I’m missing something.
I experienced better support for Windows 95 applications (like some old games) in Wine, than in current Windows.
I’d love to see Longbow 2 running on winXP or win7 remotely stable. I’d be pleased as punch just to watch the load up and intro even if it then crashes out of the main menu. It was written for windows; why it no run on Windows?
They work much better than some Nextstep app from those times if you try to run them on present OSX. OSX apps from a short decade ago, also have huge issues – and you can’t even escape into “oh but you can install those obsoleted libs” ( http://www.osnews.com/thread?526828 plus, Java Cocoa and Carbon were full citizens, and were retired) …something which, yeah, you can do almost anywhere – but it’s really funny how here, with DX, you suddenly make a 180 turn, and treat shipping libs with apps as a defect.
I even have one nice win16 app (a dictionary) in use…
PS. WRT to all-in-one ( http://www.osnews.com/permalink?526829 ) – well, I hear smartphones are all the rage, and super-all-in-one is what they’re really about.
Overall, we won’t really know how well it can work, in the areas targeted by Metro, unless somebody seriously tries (and remember that Windows only became good and took over from 3.x onwards)
Edited 2012-07-21 00:15 UTC
Stop bitching about third party app performance on WP7. It’s really not that bad in my experience. And the quality of third party apps is usually no worse than most Android apps (though definitely not as good as Microsoft’s own WP7 apps).
Buggy applications in a pre-release is hardly surprising, and not necessarily majorly concerning.
For some people (like me) there is going to be a more fundamental issue – Metro applications simply do not behave and function in the way I expect and need of applications running on a “full fat” PC.
That’s not just a bug that can be fixed, it’s part of the basic design of what it means to be a Metro application, and they can’t change that.
Utter rubbish.
http://windows.github.com/
this isn’t a Metro App, but this is Silverlight and uses the same design ideas.
People need to see how full metro apps will work out. I don’t believe we’ve seen everything. And they’re holding back some candy from us.
…
And a nicer paint job on the Start screen wouldn’t hurt. It’s just as fugly as on WP7.
I see three possible reasons for those issues in Metro apps.
#1 Microsoft has clueless programmers and nobody checks their work. Stack ranking guarantees no-one competent will ever tell them how to do better.
#2 Microsoft’s programmers have disincentives to do anything properly. If it compiles and works in the most trivial case, ship it. That’s the agile way.
#3 Metro architecture is so screwed up it can’t deal with multiple working threads. To be fixed in the next version of Windows.
Btw. Clicking to bring up tab bar to change tabs? Really?
#4 Regardless what engineering says, upper management and marketing always have the last word
You’re wrong on all of them, especially #3.
This person, for one, will not be spending any my real, hard-earned money on this product. I too have been using it since the release preview came out, and to put it simply: I hate it. It’s schizophrenic, doesn’t know what it wants to be, it’s going to be a nightmare to administer, and is just plain bad. Just my opinion, no one has to agree with me.
I think I will be buying Windows 8, for two reasons: I just bought a month ago a new laptop so I’m eligible for the very low price deal, and because I want the performance improvements.
Undoubtedly 3rd – party solutions will appear to solve most of the issues with it, like e.g. Start8 ( http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/ ) already adds a custom Start-menu on the taskbar and allows one to boot straight to desktop instead of the silly Metro Start-menu.
but most of my development work is aimed at Server 2008.
The Server 2012 preview I’ve tried is next to useless in its current form.
If we can get it looking like 2008 + start menu and quick launch then it might have a future.
Not every company is willor or even able to make their apps work in the new sys management environment that Server 2012 delivers.
As I have said before, enforcing this mega change on us without a ‘ok you can revert to your old behaviour but in the next version you won’t be able to’ escape our new way of working.
Sadly they’ve got for the all or nothing approach. This is a classic ‘how to make your loyal customers thing again before buying anything else from you’ move.
Most of my customers are sadly wedded to Microsoft right down to SQLServer, DTC, Biztalk and MSMQ. If they can’t buy Server 2008 beyond the end of the year then I know of atl east three who will up sticks and move lock stock and everything to RHEL. They know that they will feel a lot of pain but they feel it will be worth it.
The move will mean purchases moving from Microft to RedHat(OS), IBM(MQ) and Oracle(database).
If enough vote with their feet then perhaps with SP1 we might get back what they’ve taken away.
Before that happens Ballmer and Sinofsky will be deemed idiots of the year for ignoring enterprise in a hopeless attempt at catching the iPad. The fact that they are even forcing Metro on Server shows how far off the rails into crazyland they have gone.
Sinofsky is afraid of pirates downloading Server 2012 in an attempt at avoiding Metro-down-your-throat. Nothing says quality software like trying to ensure that even pirates have no choice. Sinofsky is a little Steve-Jobs wannabe dictator who knows damn well that letting the people choose would mean a majority vote against him. That’s why he is forcing it.
Can’t wait til the little fucking pest is removed by shareholders.
…WTF? Really? That’s the stupidest idea ever. Is that really true?
Yes they are.
However a lot of stuff is done through powershell or recommended you do it through powershell (Sharepoint 2010 installation).
Considering a lot of the server setup, is done through single screen interfaces. IIS 7.5 I could see being a metro App in the future.
There are quite a few guys that I know that are fine sys-admins for Windows and would need considerable training to move to powershell interface.
Edited 2012-07-16 07:32 UTC
It is in the release candidates… so it it appears that it will be.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405165,00.asp
it is kind of true. the server people dont want to use it, but they’re forced to use what is given to them. they have most of metro removed as a “desktop experience” package you can install. and the main graphical admin app is a desktop app.
but instead of a start menu, server 2012 has a metro menu. which is obviously less powerful than the start menu. so that is bad.
Dunno about the title of idiot of the year, but Ballmer has already won the one of worst CEO of the year:
“Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today.” (forbes)
For those interested in the Forbes article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2012/05/12/oops-5-ceos-that…
It’s pretty harsh but I can’t say I disagree.
At least he’s also kinda awesome… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zEQhhaJsU4 ( http://www.last.fm/music/Steve+Ballmer much more popular than even purposeful works of http://www.last.fm/music/Richard+Stallman )
I agree that Metro has potential. Potential as a catastrophy for Microsoft.
I’m using it on a slate and occationally on my desktop, since I have to deal with it as a developer in the near future.
Basically, it’s mostly a piece of crap, both technically and as a UI. It kinda works on the slate, but on the desktop, it’s an absolutely nonsensical approach.
I tend to be pro-MS, but this is not going to be pretty.
I have installed Windows 8 on a tablet as well and while Metro works quite nicely on the tablet with the touch interface, using the desktop on the tablet is a complete PITA.
On the other hand, using Metro on a desktop computer with a mouse and keyboard is completely braindead.
Seriously, what where those people at Microsoft thinking?
Super-all-in-one solutions were never successful in the past. Or do you still see many people driving around with amphicars?
Adrian
It’s really just two people. The developers there would never vote for this crap.
It’s Ballmer giving full reign to this clueless Steve Jobs wannabe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1zxDa3t0fg
Two people are running Microsoft and that is why you have insanity.
Anyways, how long do you think Metro will last? Suppose, given it’s MS’s hopeless grab at trying to be Apple in controlling hardware, software and getting it’s percentage from all those bad-ass apps (presumably some might come along) and they, therefore, really really want to foist it on us. Back in the real world, even given it might work on tablets, I can’t see it lasting…but, how long before they’d be forced to dump it as it’s bound to sell as most new computers, as if by law, will come with it and the only ‘real’, apart from buying Mac’s, opposing power in the market is enterprises. I’m sure they’ll kill it but how long till that filters through to MS. Most enterprises will only be taking-up 7 in the next few years….
Edited 2012-07-16 01:23 UTC
I think Win7 will bomb with both consumers and developers but Sinofsky is the type of ego maniac who would rather take a bullet to the groin than admit he was wrong. He has the classic dictator personality type. He’ll have to be removed kicking and screaming. There is ZERO chance of him making metro optional on his on accord. ZERO.
The best hope is that Ballmer regains his sanity after overwhelming rejection and tries to place all the blame on Sinofsky within the first few quarters after release. Hang the guy below you and then give the people what they want.
But I suspect that Sinofsky has convinced Ballmer that forcing metro is needed at any cost.
It’s hard to say but if goes over a year with losses then shareholders will vote to remove Ballmer. He’ll be lucky if he can blame Sinofsky and keep his job. They have both gone off the rails into crazyland so a lot could happen. I’d say odds are that metro is made optional within a year but again we are dealing with crazies here. Apple has made Ballmer go bonkers and has doubled down on Sinofsky.
Edited 2012-07-16 01:49 UTC
too bad there isn’t a way to filter out all the windows articles from this site. But then again, if there were a way, there wouldn’t be hardly anything else except articles supporting Thom’s personal opinions. I still think this site should be renamed to microsoftnews.com
You have to filter out all the Microsfot AND Apple articles to reach the nirvana you desire.
I think if you are anti something, you will believe there is a higher proportion of that something than there actually is.
I have seen comments like this before, only that there were too many Apple articles and so on, honestly right now, MS would third on the list of articles in general, always after iOS and Android, but as Win 8 is a topic right now, you should expect more from MS up until early next year when no one cares and we go back to iOS and Android, with the occasional side track into how bad Nokia is doing.
I’m a Apple guy, and even I think there are too many Apple articles sometimes.
I’d love to see more home-brew OS or language articles, but as Thom has mentioned earlier, these are few and far between due to less home-brew projects of this type, but we do get the odd article.
I’d also like to see less articles with personal opinions in them too. I say this as it gives bias to our opinions, even if unintentional. A journalist should just present the “known” facts without injecting his or her own biases on them (unless it is presented as an opinion piece).
For instance, instead of
Patent troll XYZ is suing ABC over yadda yadda yadda.
you could write
XYZ is suing ABC over yadda yadda yadda.
In the comment section however, be as opinionated as you like 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM1TUdmuOeg&feature=related
Uh, you are aware that Windows is an OS, right?
There are also:
* too many Ubuntu articles
* too many Apple articles
* too many BeOS articles
* etc etc
So I guess we have to call it, uhm, osnews….
There are far too many Ubuntu articles.
Ubuntu is not the be all and end all of Linux distros despite what many fanbois would have us believe.
A little more balanced Linux reporting would not go amiss.
Sadly this problem is not confined to this site. Even many dead tree publications seem to think that Ubuntu is the only Linux distro worth talking about.
If people think Ubuntu is the only Linux, that would be a shame. I am typing this on a Crunchbang machine. Next to it is an older laptop on which I am installing Salix at this very moment 🙂 My “fast” laptop runs Crunchbang as well, but will be switched over to Arch. My old netbook runs on Ubuntu, but the newer Ubuntus are too fat for this machine. Think I’ll replace it with a non-linux: Haiku. Or else, staying in the linux family: PuppyLinux. To me, the essence of Linux is diversity
Edit – To go back to topic, a great thing about the linux world is also the diversity and choice in desktops and window managers. YOU, as the USER, decide how your computer looks and behaves. Why should some corporation decide how your personal computer should look like?
Edited 2012-07-15 19:41 UTC
What should they report on? Not a lot of Linux news lately that isn’t related to Android.
Considering Ubuntu has most likely close to half of desktop Linux users ( http://stats.wikimedia.org/archive/squid_reports/2012-06/SquidRepor… ), of course it will have a lot more groupies than most distros – yes, there are many of them, what is reflected in the news, and balanced in this sense.
(but you can always submit news about your favourite distros, I imagine; or even somehow make them more newsworthy)
I have never seen a Windows Phone they are that unpopular. I work with around 200 tech people and not one person uses the Windows phone. Most of them use Iphone or Android.
Poor quality “Metro” apps are just the beginning of the headaches Windows 8 users will encounter!
You also have a completely redesigned UI that is NOT friendly to keyboard and mouse operation. (just try “swiping” with a mouse! It’s ridiculous!)
You also have the depreciation of the desktop environment (no start button), poor multi-monitor support, locked down hardware that makes it next to impossible to dual boot your system to another OS, a “walled garden” ecosystem that locks out “unapproved” software from even RUNNING, and to top it all off you will probably have to buy new hardware.
This is shaping up to be a failure of epic proportions! Good job Ballmer! You just ensured your own early retirement!
Actually people are saying it’s better than in Win7.
On ARM-devices, yes. On x86-devices you can just disable SecureBoot or buy a motherboard without it at all.
This applies only to Metro-applications, not regular ones.
Windows 8 will run just fine on anything that runs Windows 7.
Actually the Windows 8 UI is much friendlier to keyboard users than it is to mouse users.
Need the Charms via the keyboard? Press WindowsKey+C and they are immediately there — you even have some hotkeys to jump to specific charms. Need to close an app via the keyboard? Press ALT+F4 and kiss it goodbye.
Need the Charms via the mouse? You have to hover on the right edge of the screen and wait for the darn things to appear. Need to close an application via the mouse? Move to the top edge of the screen and drag a non-existent border down. Seriously, Metro is like hell for a mouse user. Most of the time you’ll be waiting for stuff keyboard and touchscreen users can access immediately.
The sad thing is Microsoft is proving us right. All of us who said Metro was a crappy tabletized environment that could not handle serious tasks and as meant for Twitter posters and weather checkers… Well, not even Microsoft could make their serious programs (Office, Registry Editor, Windows Explorer, etc.) as fully-featured Metro applications, which is why we are constantly jumping back and forth from Metro to Desktop and back to Metro.
Edited 2012-07-16 19:51 UTC
With the latest release, I loved the simplified desktop and doing away with Aero. My beef though, was Metro. The apps might be good for small devices but on a laptop/PC they were just not suited.
I reverted to Windows 7 but more due to compatibility issues with equipment I was testing with.
If we could get start button back with the Windows 8 Desktop by passing Metro, I would be fine with that for an OS update.