Metropol

I tried the developers preview a few months back. The controls are horrible for a mouse and keyboard. If you're one of the few people who has a tablet that runs Windows 8, then its probably great to use, but using a mouse to drag the lock screen to unlock... it's very annoying. I don't know if this is the same in the consumer preview.

I think it's too big a jump to work successfully. If you think it's only been 3 years since Windows 7 has appeared, and some people are still on XP (especially in schools or businesses where upgrading is not an option for employees/students), it's very radical.

Philip wrote:I tried the developers preview a few months back. The controls are horrible for a mouse and keyboard. If you're one of the few people who has a tablet that runs Windows 8, then its probably great to use, but using a mouse to drag the lock screen to unlock... it's very annoying. I don't know if this is the same in the consumer preview.

It is the same. There have been lots of improvements over the developer preview, but there's still work to do. The dragging stuff in particular needs work.

Philip wrote:I think it's too big a jump to work successfully. If you think it's only been 3 years since Windows 7 has appeared, and some people are still on XP (especially in schools or businesses where upgrading is not an option for employees/students), it's very radical.

But is it as big as the jump from 3.11 to 95? Or even the jump for Apple when OS X came out. I don't think it is, and both of them were massive successes.

I can't say I ever saw 95 as a truly "working version".

As I've always said, alternate versions seem to be good and bad with Windows, so I suspect this is likely to continue.

Good, 1, 3, 98, XP and 7. Bad, 2, 95, ME/2000, Vista and probably 8.

Hope you don't mind me wading in here as a fairly irregular poster but I have to say I completely disagree with most of you on this and I think you're all being a little too reluctant to make some very minor adjustments. The "I'm getting a Mac" response to Windows 8 is not all that different to the "I'm quitting Facebook" shitstorm every time they make a minor interface tweak.

Let me go through some of your points:

Dr Lobster* wrote:the stupid start screen kills productivity, you need so many clicks and right clicks to get to your regular apps.

There is no right clicking involved. Hit start, type the first few letters of the app you want and hit enter. I'm running Windows 8 on a fairly low spec 2 year old laptop and doing this is lightning fast, the Start screen doesn't slow things down at all. This is the quickest way to open any app and has been the quickest way since Vista.

If you prefer to use your mouse and you are a power user (to use that awful term), then I don't see why you'd be using Start in the first place. It's far quicker to pin your regular apps to the taskbar. That's what it's there for.

if most of your work involves sitting in a browser or single window, then i reckon it'll be fine... anybody else who needs to work with multiple windows and applications it's a killer.

I don't see how working with multiple windows has been affected. Taskbar, Alt-Tab and Aero Snap are all still there.

getting rid of the start button has made the interface a horrible mishmash.

The start button is basically still there, it's just hidden.

Philip wrote:I tried the developers preview a few months back. The controls are horrible for a mouse and keyboard.

This has been improved vastly in the Consumer Preview. Still some minor issues (inconsistent horizontal scrolling in Metro apps being a good example) but I'd imagine these will be resolved in the final release.

using a mouse to drag the lock screen to unlock... it's very annoying. I don't know if this is the same in the consumer preview.

Hit any button on the keyboard to unlock.

Gavin Scott wrote:It doesn't sound like it will suit me at all. Touch tablets should be for Facebook and angry birds, but there has to be a full application environment for all that video and image editing etc.

There IS!!! Very little has changed in the desktop environment.

cdd wrote:Meanwhile, the 10% of people who want to do PRODUCTIVE things on their computer have to suffer because of the design compromises of this "Metro UI" that nobody in their right mind would use. And anyone who doesn't think it is a design compromise is either blind or lying.

Suffer?!! Overdramatic much? If all of your time is spent doing productive things in desktop apps then pin those apps to the taskbar and you'll never have to interact with Metro. Which would be a shame, as it's lovely, but it's your decision.

Philip wrote:...it's very radical.

It's anything but. Like everything Microsoft does, it's extremely conservative, maintaining complete backwards compatibility so as not to piss off existing customers. As I've explained above, anyone who only uses desktop apps will experience Metro as an app-launcher, and an easily avoidable one at that.

After a day spent working hard in desktop productivity apps, those who aren't completely set in their ways can launch the Start screen, download some Metro apps and enjoy them for what they are: a fluffy, more aesthetically pleasing way to read the news, check your personal email, IM, check train times etc. It's the best of both worlds really.

My main complaint really is the lack of classic Start menu - if that option was there, I'd be happy with Windows 8 because it is indeed faster at doing most jobs. The Metro interface is great for tablet computers, but using a mouse and keyboard at a desk, the normal Start menu is much less clunky and is definitely quicker to use. I prefer having the taskbar there at the bottom too for switching programs more quickly.

woah wrote:My main complaint really is the lack of classic Start menu - if that option was there, I'd be happy with Windows 8 because it is indeed faster at doing most jobs. The Metro interface is great for tablet computers, but using a mouse and keyboard at a desk, the normal Start menu is much less clunky and is definitely quicker to use.

Have to say I disagree entirely. If anything the Start screen is quicker. You don't have to mouseover All Programs and then scroll through an interminably long of folders and shortcuts squished into a corner of the screen. Instead you have big, colourful tiles with your most-used apps all presented to you immediately.

I prefer having the taskbar there at the bottom too for switching programs more quickly.

The taskbar is still there on the desktop. Its replacement in Metro (move mouse to top left then down) is only a fraction slower and allows apps to occupy the whole screen

eoin wrote:Suffer?!! Overdramatic much? If all of your time is spent doing productive things in desktop apps then pin those apps to the taskbar and you'll never have to interact with Metro. Which would be a shame, as it's lovely, but it's your decision.

The problem is that, even ignoring the inefficiency, you have to put up with the entire screen changing colour just to launch a program. That's ridiculous - the interface should get out of the way. I have dozens of appplications - should I pin every one to the bloody taskbar!?

And apart from anything else, applications should be launched from the environment you are in. It's ridiculous to have to go to the Metro UI to load an application destined for the 'classic' Windows Desktop. When the user clicks the "Desktop" tile, Windows 8 should take the hint and sod off. Why can't there just be a metro "icon" next to the conventional start menu if you actually want to go back to the Metro UI? It's clunky to force people to switch between these fundamentally incompatible interfaces.

Most people can control the mouse within about 1mm. A slight extension of that required precision level is always welcome (the sweet spot for easy clicking without wasting space, if you look at things on your screen, is about 1cm^2) but you don't need an interface designed for fingers on a computer with a mouse and keyboard. It's just a ridiculous waste of space.

**Disclaimer alert** - I have not used the W8 Beta (only the Developer Preview). If things have changed from what I've written above please say!

I understand MS's motivation for the whole thing, and I wouldn't care if their promise of 'no compromises' held true. It's a usability nightmare - "it's not gone, it's hidden" makes me want to smash my face through another face. Most galling though, is exactly this:

cdd wrote:And apart from anything else, applications should be launched from the environment you are in. It's ridiculous to have to go to the Metro UI to load an application destined for the 'classic' Windows Desktop. When the user clicks the "Desktop" tile, Windows 8 should take the hint and sod off. Why can't there just be a metro "icon" next to the conventional start menu if you actually want to go back to the Metro UI? It's clunky to force people to switch between these fundamentally incompatible interfaces.

Fine, have the two interfaces, but I don't believe for one second people will be jumping between them intentionally. The context switch is ridiculous - and according to one write-up it's a complete mess on multi-monitor setups where screens black out/flit between apps in a completely unpredictable way as you jump context. When I read...

eoin wrote:After a day spent working hard in desktop productivity apps, those who aren't completely set in their ways can launch the Start screen, download some Metro apps and enjoy them for what they are: a fluffy, more aesthetically pleasing way to read the news, check your personal email, IM, check train times etc. It's the best of both worlds really.

...I mean, this just doesn't sound like a thing that would happen. That sounds like a made up user story to justify something retrospectively.

I think what's most disappointing about the whole exercise is that the resources ploughed into WOA and Metro have meant that for everyone else this will be the most incremental major Windows release since ME.

I completely understand the rationale for having the same underpinnings across both platforms, but then using the best interface for the job on each platform. I even understand keeping Metro on the desktop just for the argument of not stripping out features on a certain SKU....so I'm more baffled than outraged by its existence. I have literally no idea what problem it's solving on the PC, and if it exists it needs to be *invisible* to...you know...real people, who have shit to do.

The big issue I have is that the mere fact that the conventional aero interface lives on shows that whilst Metro has advantages for certain purposes it is not a developed enough UI for use across the board. To me, it sits in the same ilk as Windows Media Center - perfect (an advantage even) for a restricted subset of things to do with your computer, but by no means can you ever fully utilise a conventional machine without access to a conventional interface. So to my mind then Metro should have the same status as Media Center - essentially be an app which you can choose to use or not.

To make what seems to be a glorified task launcher the main UI only to then constantly be thrown back to aero in order to run any conventional software seems an incredibly messy cludge - the two just don't 'go' yet they are both needed in Windows 8.

Even if it does end up being a minority of people that even care, I don't see why they had to withdraw the option of just using aero and the normal start menu when the code is still there. If Windows 7 can still provide the WIndows 95-era UI for people who really want to use it I don't see why Windows 8 can't provide the option of not using metro and having a Windows 7 start menu for people who would prefer it.

It seems a great shame that Windows 8 seems doomed to banishment to the same stable as ME and Vista by so many people over the Metro cludge when there are so many reports of it being genuinely faster and more responsive than Windows 7 on the same hardware.

Microsoft have already created a hardcore of refusenicks (of which I'm one) who are unlikely to ever upgrade from Office 2003 because of their refusal to provide a conventional interface in newer versions even though the newer versions do have good features in them, and if they do upgrade, it will be away from Office altogether. This time they are likely to end up in the same situation over Windows itself, with Windows 7 being the line in the sand at which people will not upgrade further unless to move away from the Windows platform altogether, and all because you can't click the start button and see a start menu.

Nick Harvey wrote:As I've always said, alternate versions seem to be good and bad with Windows, so I suspect this is likely to continue.

Good, 1, 3, 98, XP and 7. Bad, 2, 95, ME/2000, Vista and probably 8.

I'd agree with you but for a couple of exceptions:

Firstly, Hardware & Software support is identical between Windows 1 & 2, but version 2 had a significantly more refined user interface (aswell as a less Garish default colour scheme!). In Windows 1, all windows had to either be maximised, minimised, or tiled with every other window on the screen and resizing/repositioning could only be done relative to other Windows. Windows 2 introduced the ability for things to overlap, be dragged to whatever position you want or resized into whatever proportions you want which has stuck ever since. Windows 1 did however include functionality identical to 'aero snap' which wasn't present in any version after until Windows 7 at which point Microsoft lauded it as an amazing new concept rather than something from a version of windows from 24 years ago.

Secondly, Windows 2000 and ME cannot be considered to be the same OS. ME was another development of Windows 95 and a bugridden mess, wheras Windows 2000 essentially the same as XP (until SP2 anyway), just with the old school interface.

also what is strange is that none of the tile apps work with uac disabled, a rather curious design decision.

problem is though, the operating system itself can only to do much and from an end user point of view windows xp is still sufficient for most purposes and microsoft do have to come up with these gimmicks to give the illusion of the next version of windows having more improvements than it really does.

to be honest, even for me, somebody that works with it all day windows 7 doesn't really have too many features that make it a must have upgrade from windows 7. i perfer the start menu, task bar and little button near clock to go straight to desktop and those things are improvements that make getting to things a little bit quicker but given the 10 years which have past since the two came out, it's hardly groundbreaking.

and actually, although at first i felt the search from windows 7 was better, using filter keywords rather than a gui to select search options is a definitely a step back, especially for the non-computer literate types. why not just give us both?

cwathen wrote:Microsoft have already created a hardcore of refusenicks (of which I'm one) who are unlikely to ever upgrade from Office 2003 because of their refusal to provide a conventional interface in newer versions even though the newer versions do have good features in them, and if they do upgrade, it will be away from Office altogether. This time they are likely to end up in the same situation over Windows itself, with Windows 7 being the line in the sand at which people will not upgrade further unless to move away from the Windows platform altogether, and all because you can't click the start button and see a start menu.

i use office 2010 at work and we are starting to roll it out globally, upgrading office 2003. it's a nightmare. people who are 'data managers', and it literate have no problem with it. the old timers, the typist type people really struggle and despite the notion that the 'ribbon' was supposed to make the functionality of the application more visible, it actually makes some things very difficult to find with users trying to remember what 100s of little icons do. i think icons are better than words when you have a small number of functions, but with something like office it's crazy.

if it wasn't for the fact that so many critical business processes are powered by vba and macros, i'm sure we would have moved over to libreoffice ages ago. i much perfer the interface. personally though, i find myself using google docs more now.