Shame no update will actually fix that mess of an OS.
Interesting note.
They had some nice fixes in place for multi-monitor setups and how the gestures didn't work properly (and added some half-assed implementation to allow modification of the tile start menu), in the preview build.
....... And then they stripped every single one of them from release.
all opinion, i personally like how windows 8 works, the start Screen is much more organized then the start Menu
Good thing Windows 8 sales don't reflect your opinion.
Microsoft added a "start button" but the fact is it doesn't at all reflect the point the old start button served, it just opens the same ugly as heck full screen menu. It's not about a button, its about the fact the interface sucks and Microsoft didn't even give the option of choosing one or another, its forced.
Good thing Windows 8 sales don't reflect your opinion.
Microsoft added a "start button" but the fact is it doesn't at all reflect the point the old start button served, it just opens the same ugly as heck full screen menu. It's not about a button, its about the fact the interface sucks and Microsoft didn't even give the option of choosing one or another, its forced.
you know, not everyone hates it :/ there are quite a few people that like it :/ also, if you really hate it that much:
you know, not everyone hates it :/ there are quite a few people that like it :/ also, if you really hate it that much:
For most people, its a terrible design, especially people that are not used to computers. It's so cryptic to find anything and that article I linked summed it up well, why does everything need to be spread out between a billion different popout-of-nowhere menus? It doesn't, that's a fact.
In terms of sales Windows8 is selling worse than Vista, and although I think the talk about Vista being terrible is just nonsense, the fact is it didn't sell well at all and Win8 is selling -half- as well as Vista. That's really bad no matter what perspective you look at it.
Maybe someday you'll realize that people shouldn't use software they don't like just because they have the option of having to download some hack to it that adds in something that Microsoft went out of their way to remove.
I shouldn't HAVE to download anything to have a not-retarded UI.
"if you don't like it, turn it off/ignore it/mod it" is one of the dumbest arguments on the planet.
Good thing Windows 8 sales don't reflect your opinion.
Because consumers or companies always pick the best products that happen to sell well. Betamax was superior to VHS yet VHS won. Hyvrid cars are better then normal ICE for most applications yet they sell like crap. HVDC can send electricity over longer distances then AC yet we still use AC for long range electric transmission.
It is a failure from a sales perspective, but that says nothing about the product its self.
I shouldn't HAVE to download anything to have a not-retarded UI. "if you don't like it, turn it off/ignore it/mod it" is one of the dumbest arguments on the planet.
You right everything ever should work out of the box and never have any config options to fit more then one use case. I assume you think other browsers are stupid and you don't ever install anything but the stock applications on your phone?
Microsoft is doing exactly what Apple and Canonical are doing convergence of the user experience across all the platforms. I actually like the user interface and so do many other people. Just like to some extent I like Unity on Ubuntu.
That's completely opinion based, VHS is widely cited as having won the format war because of a few reasons, one of which being the fact you could record two hours of content on VHS vs betamax. There was more important things to people and companies than just "it looked better."
Is that bad? Who knows, honestly thats as opinion based as anything else, but it happened, so oh well.
Hyvrid cars are better then normal ICE for most applications yet they sell like crap.
That's a completely pointless and flawed view. Hybrid cars are more expensive to manufacture, more expensive to service and replace parts in and often suffer from limited travel distance depending on design. They're not a universal solution like you pretend they are and yet they ARE being adopted, it takes time for things to become mainstream.
HVDC can send electricity over longer distances then AC yet we still use AC for long range electric transmission.
Again, expense, I'm start to notice a pattern here of you being clueless to economics or the fact that it isn't simple to just instantly swap something or that it might actually be -worse- to use it in certain situations as was the case with betamax.
DC transmission is significantly more complicated than AC transmission and replacing entire powergrids with it would cost even more money for no real significant financial gain. Why tear something down and replace it if you won't get something better? Oh, that's right, you don't.
It is a failure from a sales perspective, but that says nothing about the product its self.
It's a failure from a sales perspective because people do not like the product, there are a myriad reasons why a product may not sell well and Win8 is not selling well because people do not like it. You're using the same dumb argument Linux fanboys do for the adoption of Linux as a mainstream OS. "Oh, its better than Windows, people are just blind." No, it's called you being -wrong- and not at all understanding the points of the problem.
You right everything ever should work out of the box and never have any config options to fit more then one use case.
I like how you're using a comparison of flipping a few config options to someone telling me to download a 3rd party program that basically imitates the start menu feature from earlier versions of Windows, not to mention it doesn't fix the fact the UI still sucks by itself.
This is my prime issue with the argument "change it" it's like having a car, you buy the car, the design of the car sucks, someone says "well go have the car changed, pay for a mechanic to modify it." Do I really need to explain why that's a bad argument? Why does the car have said problems at purchase? Why should I consider it the same car if I modify it to not even resemble the original car? Why does my changing the car to resolve its problems suddenly make it a good car? to me that sounds like the design of the original car is a failure and I'm going out of my way to fix the car and might as well sell a new car myself.
Obviously this doesn't translate that well to an OS but the point remains that the argument that you should fix something for someone else, is a tired and pointless one and has no real backing to it other than your own personal affection for the "car."
I assume you think other browsers are stupid and you don't ever install anything but the stock applications on your phone?
Oh I love people who passive-agressively assume things because they're upset their argument is so full of holes. Personally I use Firefox because I tried Chrome and -didn't like it- shocker, people can find problems with programs other people like! Astounding!
I fail to see how any of this has relevance to the topic at all besides you looking for mud slinging points.
Microsoft is doing exactly what Apple and Canonical are doing convergence of the user experience across all the platforms.
Yes, that's one of the most widely cited reasons for their failure, they're trying to copy and then steal Apple's mobile market by being lazy and attempting to make a "one size fits all" OS, and there are so many practical problems with that idea that it is almost pointless.
Apple has made it perfectly clear the only thing they care about is the mobile market anymore, realistically they barely make anything from desktops or even laptops anymore, a good 80% of their profits come from phones and tablets. The fact Microsoft is sacrificing their user experience to try and force design views on the public is a good example of a reason to -why- Windows 8 is crashing hard. When my mother, or my little brother picks up a laptop running Windows 8 and says they cannot figure out how to use it, you know it sucks.
I actually like the user interface and so do many other people. Just like to some extent I like Unity on Ubuntu.
Yes you've made your personal bias quite clear, whereas I'm just explaining my problems that I ran into while using the stupid thing. I'm not a conformist, if something is awkward to use it is awkward to use, simple as that. No opinion is going to make it suddenly simpler to use.
Oh and if you like the design so much, I challenge you to use Win8 without using the search bar -at all- because that is what the above article pointed out very clearly, when you have to use the search bar to find something you are failing as a UI designer.
That's completely opinion based, VHS is widely cited as having won the format war because of a few reasons, one of which being the fact you could record two hours of content on VHS vs betamax. There was more important things to people and companies than just "it looked better."
Is that bad? Who knows, honestly thats as opinion based as anything else, but it happened, so oh well.
That's a completely pointless and flawed view. Hybrid cars are more expensive to manufacture, more expensive to service and replace parts in and often suffer from limited travel distance depending on design. They're not a universal solution like you pretend they are and yet they ARE being adopted, it takes time for things to become mainstream.
Again, expense, I'm start to notice a pattern here of you being clueless to economics or the fact that it isn't simple to just instantly swap something or that it might actually be -worse- to use it in certain situations as was the case with betamax.
DC transmission is significantly more complicated than AC transmission and replacing entire powergrids with it would cost even more money for no real significant financial gain. Why tear something down and replace it if you won't get something better? Oh, that's right, you don't.
It's a failure from a sales perspective because people do not like the product, there are a myriad reasons why a product may not sell well and Win8 is selling well because people do not like it. You're using the same dumb argument Linux fanboys do for the adoption of Linux as a mainstream OS. "Oh, its better than Windows, people are just blind." No, it's called you being -wrong- and not at all understanding the points of the problem.
I like how you're using a comparison of flipping a few config options to someone telling me to download a 3rd party program that basically imitates the start menu feature from earlier versions of Windows, not to mention it doesn't fix the fact the UI still sucks by itself.
This is my prime issue with the argument "change it" it's like having a car, you buy the car, the design of the car sucks, someone says "well go have the car changed, pay for a mechanic to modify it." Do I really need to explain why that's a bad argument? Why does the car have said problems at purchase? Why should I consider it the same car if I modify it to not even resemble the original car? Why does my changing the car to resolve its problems suddenly make it a good car? to me that sounds like the design of the original car is a failure and I'm going out of my way to fix the car and might as well sell a new car myself.
Obviously this doesn't translate that well to an OS but the point remains that the argument that you should fix something for someone else, is a tired and pointless one and has no real backing to it other than your own personal affection for the "car."
Oh I love people who passive-agressively assume things because they're upset their argument is so full of holes. Personally I use Firefox because I tried Chrome and -didn't like it- shocker, people can find problems with programs other people like! Astounding!
I fail to see how any of this has relevance to the topic at all besides you looking for mud slinging points.
Yes, that's one of the most widely cited reasons for their failure, they're trying to copy and then steal Apple's mobile market by being lazy and attempting to make a "one size fits all" OS, and there are so many practical problems with that idea that it is almost pointless.
Apple has made it perfectly clear the only thing they care about is the mobile market anymore, realistically they barely make anything from desktops or even laptops anymore, a good 80% of their profits come from phones and tablets. The fact Microsoft is sacrificing their user experience to try and force design views on the public is a good example of a reason to -why- Windows 8 is crashing hard. When my mother, or my little brother picks up a laptop running Windows 8 and says they cannot figure out how to use it, you know it sucks.
Yes you've made your personal bias quite clear, whereas I'm just explaining my problems that I ran into while using the stupid thing. I'm not a conformist, if something is awkward to use it is awkward to use, simple as that. No opinion is going to make it suddenly simpler to use.
Oh and if you like the design so much, I challenge you to use Win8 without using the search bar -at all- because that is what the above article pointed out very clearly, when you have to use the search bar to find something you are failing as a UI designer.
You said the person was wrong about windows 8 being fine as an operating system, because it did not sell well. That is not an argument against it. Notice how you could bring up other issues with them rather then just they sold well therefore bad.
You missed my point I am saying that your claiming windows 8 is bad because it is not selling well is wrong.
I did not passively aggressive assume something. I was simply taking your line of thinking and applying it to other parts of the OS.
'windows 8 is bad because I have to download something to fit my usecase.'
Windows 7 is bad because I have to download firefox to get a decent browsing experience
Windows is bad because I have to download separate office applications to get a decent office experience.
Windows 8 is not selling well because it is not worth the upgrade from Windows 7. Heck most of the world is sticking with Xp still it does not make Windows 7 an awful product.
The fact Ubuntu ships with a decent built in office and browser does not make it superior to Windows 7.
I like the start screen and I don't think it sacrifices anything, Windows 8 has done well mixing a touch component and allowing me to use the desktop.
I have seen some users pick up Windows 8 and not have an issue. You can't always pick up a new UI and work it 100% efficiently, I used Gnome 2 up until this year when I switch and am perfectly fine with Gnome 3. I am faster with Gnome3 then I was with 2.
It took some relearning, I also had to relearn Firefox a bit to use tabs on top. I fail to see if the UI is faster to find things with why it is a problem to get used to it.
Yes clearly both Unity and Gnome 3 are awful UI because both rely on the usage of a semi-search bar to make finding applications faster. I actually would rather Win8 worked more like Gnome or Unity I hardly use the search function in Windows 8 so now who is making assumptions
Good thing Windows 8 sales don't reflect your opinion.
Windows 8 sold more copies in it's first month than Windows 7 did in three. And that's ignoring Windows RT since there are no numbers released for that.
Microsoft added a "start button" but the fact is it doesn't at all reflect the point the old start button served, it just opens the same ugly as heck full screen menu. It's not about a button, its about the fact the interface sucks and Microsoft didn't even give the option of choosing one or another, its forced.
Really? it's forced?
Did a Microsoft representative come to your house with a group of thugs and force their way into, and hold you at gunpoint and force you to install Windows 8? No? Then how did they Force it?
Alternatively, some might also say, "I bought a New PC with Windows 8, it was forced on me"
Really, it was "forced on you"? They forced you to buy it? How so? Did they force your money out of your wallet, force you to purchase the laptop or PC? Or maybe it was a case of you having this whimsical idea of what you were buying and refusing to do basic research on what you were purchasing, and just making assumptions about what you could and could not do with it, then deciding that instead of blaming it on the person who actually made the decision to purchase it- yourself- that you should try to somehow blame the manufacturer. This is the equivalent of buying a pizza and trying to complain that it's not a burrito. The fact that you didn't do the research to learn that a Pizza is not in fact a Burrito doesn't suddenly mean that they forced you to eat Pizza.
That whole "Microsoft forced upgrade" FUD is downright ridiculous. The fact that you are probably not running Windows 8 is a testament to how ill-conceived the entire argument is. "Microsoft forces users to upgrade.... except for the people that don't want to" sort of defeats the entire definition of the word "forced" which means there is no choice.
if there is a choice, it's not forced.
As far as I'm concerned the Old Start Menu in 7 and Earlier was a usability joke. Let's see what it has- You can pin applications (which you can either pin to the taskbar itself or create your own quick launch bar) and it shows a list of recently used applications. On the right are a bunch of buttons that simply open shell namespaces (My Computer, Documents, Pictures, etc.) Wow, that's useful.
More or less the main thing people used the start menu for was to use the All Programs list. Which was pretty much useless once you got more than a dozen applications installed in terms of making things usable. When you can launch a program faster using Windows Key+R and typing the full path to the file you know something is wrong with the UI. Win2K tried to "fix" the problems of the Start Menu by adding the idea of highlighting new items. But that is just a band-aid to try to fix the problem which at it's core is the fact that you have to sort through too much data yourself.
With Win95 and 98 it made sense for performance reasons that there wasn't any performance indexing or other considerations to make things easy to use. Drives were small and slow and Processors weren't very fast.
But at some point you have to wonder why, when you have a Dual Core Processor and an SSD, your Operating System is practically requiring of you to find what you want yourself (XP and earlier). That's why we now have Search- which was copied to most major Open Source software as well. (how many people actually use the items directly on the mint menu? Very few. Most probably use the Applications Menu. The rest is just frosting to make that Menu look meatier. "Wow look at all these Doodads!" just like the Win7 Start Menu has a crapload of doodads most people won't ever use. Are there people that Use Start->Connect To to connect to their VPN? Maybe. Most probably use the network icon. Particularly after they use the "Connect to" option the first time and see that all it does is pop out the same menu. Wow, that should totally be on the start menu. Why don't they have a button on the Start Menu for Alt Tab?
It's a legacy of old crap that has been carried over since Windows 95 not because it works but just because. Anybody who tries to say that the Windows Vista or Windows 7 "All Programs" Menu is either faster or even more usable than the Search Bar is painting themselves into a corner, because the former has no redeeming qualities over the former and is a vestigial organ that has been preserved since 1995.
If Linux distributions had the same usability compatibility they would all require you to manually install a Desktop environment. If OSX had the same usability compatibility they would... well, actually they would probably be less crap since the classic Mac OS was not the cluster of bad design considerations and bad application of skeuomorphic design that resulted when trying to combine the diametrically opposed design considerations of nextSTEP and Mac OS into OSX. Point is, these things are not only old, but we've fundamentally outgrown them in terms of what the computer can do. The Start->Programs menu from Windows 95 pretty much needed to work that way because there was no way to keep performance reasonable as well as defer the actual searching of what you want to start to the computer itself, so they basically had it- "Hardware isn't good enough to search, so for the start menu the user does it". This extended to XP which was quite a bit after there was already Indexing on most consumer drives and systems were plenty powerful to at least index the Start Menu contents themselves. Win Vista tried to reimagine some of the usability considerations in terms of modern hardware. It got a licking for it. How many people can name off the top of their head the biggest complaints about Vista? Because I personally cannot think of any off the top of my head. And Vista still kept the old "All Programs" menu- albeit in a lobotomized form to try to encourage the use of Search, but it was still there. Windows 7 kept it as well. Windows 8 was more or less a realization that "crap, we've been carrying this thing forward for 20 years and it's been pretty much vestigial since Vista, let's rework how the Start Menu works to better accentuate the features we want to encourage".
It works. Whenever I use XP, I feel as if I'm missing an appendage and have to compensate. That's what software usability features are supposed to feel like- extensions of yourself- Tools that you utilize and tools that you miss when you don't have them, but that you otherwise do not necessarily notice. Start->Search is one of those.
Some people for some reason still think it's "better" for them to scroll through a tiny window of Folders and manually find what they want. "I need to start Program X... Start.... All Programs... Then search through possibly hundreds of folders, ahh, here it is Manufacturer B!... they made Program X... Or was it Manufacturer A? Hmm it's not in this list, maybe it was Manufacturer A.... Oh, I see, they have two Program Groups, one is Manufacturer B Industries and the other is Manufacturer B... Here it is, now what was I starting the program for again?" compared to "Start->Type "Program X" and press enter.
The fact that not only are people actually still using the old-style Start/Programs Menu but actually think it is something that didn't stop being very efficient once people got more than maybe 12 programs installed is mind boggling. The Start Screen is only slightly better but the fact is that they are both altogether useless because you should be using them anyway. And the "Start Screen" is altogether better for search since it provides more real estate to display search matches when using the desktop search feature. I'm not even really sure I can even say it's a matter of preference, since that's akin to saying that some people prefer to use scissors instead of a lawnmower- that is, it might be true, but anybody who has that "preference" may as well be branded crazy.
The fact is that using the Search is ALWAYS going to be faster than using the Programs Menu. it takes fewer clicks, it takes fewer keystrokes, and it's faster and more intuitive. It is objectively a usability improvement, the only people that would say "oh, I start things with the start menu" would be somebody clinging to 25 year old skeumorphisms, such as having "folders" that you have to manually search through to find what you want when the computer can, you know, Search for you. Searching is one of the things a computer is practically designed for, but no, they cling to the idea that "doing it manually is more usable". I mean, sure, fine- go ahead, do it that way, but don't go crowing that the developers of the software aren't pandering to the subset of people who are purposely confining themselves to a sub-par workflow.
I love how so far my idea that anybody that calls the Modern UI "Metro" can be pretty easily dismissed as using out-dated information. Particularly since it hasn't been called metro since the Beta. I mean, let's look at his arguments! They are HILARIOUSLY bad:
The first problem comes when you try to find the application you want to run.
Why do you need to "find" it? Isn't a Computer designed for Searching? I don't have to "find" any application I run on any of the systems I use. When I want to start gnome system monitor on linux, I press the Windows Key and type "gnome-s". gnome-system-monitor appears as a highlighted result, I press enter, and I've launched it. I don't have to find the application I want to launch, I tell the computer what program I want to launch and it does it.
Every version of Windows since Windows 95 has trained us to scroll through a vertical list looking for the applications we want to launch
I like how he says this as if it's somehow positive. Like, yeah, scrolling through that list to manually find what you want to launch! YEAH! that was some good stuff! Not to mention that "vertical list" was pretty much removed in Vista.
but with Windows 8, Microsoft has thrown away this concept and instead adopted a system called the Start Screen where the links to all your apps are spread across the screen.
Or you can, you know, use the Search feature that was introduced 8 years ago. Was 8 years not a long enough time? Have people actually used the Vista/7 Start Menu All Programs list and NOT found the Start-Search capability?.
As a result, rather than keeping your attention focused on a small part of the screen
I like how this is encouraged as a positive. Not ot mention it's actually downright wrong. Observe how little screen space the XP start menu takes:
Even if we double the resolution that would still take about a quarter of the screen. AND that is with like 5 applications installed. Most systems used for any duration of time will have a start menu that completely fills their screen. So what "small part of the screen" is he talking about? He must be talking about the lobotomized All Programs list introduced with Vista. Well there goes his idea that it's been this way since windows 95. That's journalistic integrity for you, I suppose.
The last thing I want is for my PC to force me into playing "hunt the app" every time I want to get something done.
And yet that's EXACTLY what he just said "Windows trained us" to do. I repeat his quote above:
Every version of Windows since Windows 95 has trained us to scroll through a vertical list looking for the applications we want to launch
How is that not searching and hunting for the application you want to run when you open the start menu? The difference is that now you don't have to play that stupid game and can just type what you want. and have the results listed and choose one. Same semantics as the Windows 7 and Vista Search too; the only thing that changed was thr All Programs list which has no usability benefits over the search.
Microsoft has offered users an escape chute, given that you're not going to be able to find anything, and added a search feature that allows you to filter the apps by typing the name of what you're looking for.
Yes. They added that feature in 2006. It exists in Windows 7, and Windows Vista. And you can even get it as an optional desktop add-on for XP, though that was discontinued if I recall. Great job! I can see he really put together his evidence and information here, since he's claiming Windows 8 adds a feature to Windows that was actually added 8 years and two versions ago.
Another annoyance with the Metro Start Screen is that all roads lead to it.
I like how he calls it metro again. That has yet to be proven to not be evidence that the person talking about Windows 8 doesn't know what they are talking about.
Almost everything you do ends up throwing you into the Start Screen.
This is outright false. He is confusing the "Start Screen" with some of the changes to make some configuration and option pages displayed using the Modern UI style.
I find it utterly crazy that I can go from clicking on a tile on the Start Screen and then be unceremoniously dumped into things like a Classic Control Panel applet or Windows Explorer. Then, to do the next thing, you're back to the Start Screen again.
If a Tile represents a desktop application it will run that desktop application. Which shows the desktop. I don't recall off hand what Desktop-available applications will actually cause you to get jumped back to the start screen. Or the Modern UI config pages, for that matter. Why if I didn't know any better I'd think he was making this up.
Not only did someone at Microsoft think that it was a good idea to make Metro the primary user interface in Windows 8, but they also decided to destroy the 'classic' user interface experience too by also 'Ribbonizing' most of the applications. These Ribbon toolbars are packed with small user elements and are fiddly to use with a mouse, and even more fiddly -- at times bordering on impossible to use -- when driven with a finger.
The whole Ribbon debate was closed with Office 2007. Ribbons are more usable than CommandBars and the only people that "suffer" from the change are the people that memorized the idiotic usability fiobles of those CommandBars. When you have an application and a user can misclick and hide the entire menu bar than that's not exactly "usable". Pair that with the fact that they were just a bunch of icons with no descriptive text half the time and the icons seldom made any sense unless you actually memorized them and I find it difficult to believe that anybody could say with a straight face that CommandBars were more usable than the Ribbon.
Not to mention he is basically reiterating a argument/debate that was closed 6 years ago. Not to mention his argument that "the ribbons are packed with small user elements that are fiddly to use with mouse or touch" makes little sense when you realize that every single element is actually larger than it's equivalent predecessor. It's almost as if he is pulling these arguments and notations out of his ass after using Windows 8 for ten minutes to draw his paycheck.
The Ribbon toolbars, which we first saw in Office 2007, weren't developed with touch in mind
Unlike the older CommandBars introduced in 1995 which... Oh, right. Not to mention that according the Jensen' Harris's Powerpoint slideshow on Office 2007's Ribbon design speaks of touch during the presentation having been considered during the design process... So it's wrong too.
Another problem is what's called 'mystery meat navigation' where you're really not sure what anything is or what it does. While Microsoft has moved stuff about and added a whole raft of features, there's nothing that gives the user any clue that these new features exist, or how to find them. Unless users are guided to these new additions, the only way they are going to figure things out is through trial and error.
Ironically these are the exact problem descriptions that the Ribbon was intended to solve and which according to expansive usability tests succeeded at doing. He also does not seem to address the fact that outside your learned behaviours you don't really have a damned clue what things do in Windows XP either. Not to mention the "clue" that the features exist is probably presented since most of those new features have pop-ups that display when they are relevant. eg, the new UI for managing default programs, which was hidden away in the Add/Remove Programs dialog in Vista/7 now presents a pop-up advertising it's existence when you install a program and it adds file associations. Same for a number of similar features. So the irony is that everything he is saying applies to the previous systems but some of the issues are mitigated in the very system he is trying to detract.
That article is old as hell and yet here we are with the same exact problems over a year later, guess we should have seen it coming!
The article was wrong when it was released. The only problem here is the fact that journalistic integrity in IT journals and magazines takes a backseat to sensational headlines with content that basically just tries to predict what the readers might think and try to make up arguments to back it up. The problem is that when you actually read and research what is said you find they are talking out their ass all the way through.
You said the person was wrong about windows 8 being fine as an operating system, because it did not sell well. That is not an argument against it.
I don't see how it isn't when he cited reason in many articles and reports for it selling poorly is that users don't like it. How is that any factually less relevant than you just spouting without any evidence that "oh no, people do like it, you can't bring up sales."
Notice how you could bring up other issues with them rather then just they sold well therefore bad.
You missed my point I am saying that your claiming windows 8 is bad because it is not selling well is wrong.
I pointed out exactly why people do not like Windows 8, in fact I pointed out that sales reflect that opinion because there is nothing otherwise wrong with the OS in terms of performance or even stability(it's pretty stable in the long line of Windows OS's.) I'm not sure whats so hard to understand about the point being made.
I did not passively aggressive assume something. I was simply taking your line of thinking and applying it to other parts of the OS.
Except you went off on a tangent and asked about completely unrelated things like browsers or stock phone apps. You're trying to draw a thin line comparison of the fact that "well this guy doesn't want to modify win8 so clearly he doesn't want to modify anything else." To me, that's a simpleminded view of the situation and just shows to me that you are just arguing for the sake of arguing and not actually understanding the issues present. You might as well be going "oh this guy doesn't like the color of his house, clearly he never would paint anything else in his life, and thus the problem must be that he is a strange fellow that cannot understand how to paint things."
Not only is that a complete off tangent point but is totally inaccurate.
Windows 7 is bad because I have to download firefox to get a decent browsing experience
Except your argument is completely flawed because instead you should be saying that IE is bad because I chose to download Firefox. But thanks for trying anyway. Because guess what? That would be the reason I download firefox, because I find it better than IE, shocker.
Windows is bad because I have to download separate office applications to get a decent office experience.
Unfortunately this is just you pandering your childish opinions all over the thread, the fact is that Windows 8 is not bad because people are "too lazy to fix it" the fact is that its bad because it has to be fixed at all. If you really cannot understand that logic then i think you might just be too dense to actually have a sane argument with.
Windows 8 is not selling well because it is not worth the upgrade from Windows 7. Heck most of the world is sticking with Xp still it does not make Windows 7 an awful product.
Windows 8 has had half the sales of Windows Vista, your comparison is poor and does not even reflect the actuality of the sales. You're comparing the fact a giant portion of the world is using Windows XP and again are completely oblivious to the reasoning that most computers running XP still are corporate and they choose not to upgrade for monetary reasons, those people are not brought into play in debating sales numbers.
The fact Ubuntu ships with a decent built in office and browser does not make it superior to Windows 7.
The fact you think of everything as modular and that Windows 8 is fine if you treat it like Linux and customize everything with a thousand programs basically completely invalidates your argument to me anyway. We have enough Linux fanboys and I deal with them every day, I really don't need to hear more of it. Windows is not and will never be Linux, so if you're going to defend Windows 8 as a platform then offer up some reasoning other than "it should be more like Linux." Because guess what, the public has demonstrated that it shouldn't, and that is why Linux is not popular.
It took some relearning, I also had to relearn Firefox a bit to use tabs on top. I fail to see if the UI is faster to find things with why it is a problem to get used to it.
Because it isn't. It ISN'T faster to find things with. It also is not easy to learn. It fails in every possible way-shape and form regarding UI design.
Yes clearly both Unity and Gnome 3 are awful UI because both rely on the usage of a semi-search bar to make finding applications faster. I actually would rather Win8 worked more like Gnome or Unity I hardly use the search function in Windows 8 so now who is making assumptions
I'm making assumptions because the majority of people i've met that use and prefer Windows 8 do not even use the start screen and rely solely on the search bar to basically "bypass" the horrible problems with the interface.
The interface is not optional and unless you are the particular person that loves to use search to find and browse -everything- then you are stuck with a UI that is absurd to use.
alrighty, just finished installing the update, the start button actually is a hinderence now, as i keep going to click a program i have pinned to the taskbar, and ill end up clicking the wrong thing, because im used to not having a stat buttno (ive also noticed that my lenovo black silk usb keyboard is suddenly not working correctly (it doesnt seem to read some of my key presses correctly, so if there's any typo's, its because of that, also, my numlock lights and such dont seem to work either) but other then that, its sl as gret as ever
(also, before someone comes and says that thats another problem with windows 8, is that my keyboard doesnt work correctly, thats actually on lenovo, but see, lenovo has already released an updated driver for the keyboard, for W8.1)
Windows 8 sold more copies in it's first month than Windows 7 did in three. And that's ignoring Windows RT since there are no numbers released for that.
ignoring your completely childish and off on a tangent rant, Yes, it is forced. Unless you specifically use a third party program there is no option to get rid of the "metro" Windows 8 UI, unlike previous version of Windows where you had options regarding making the interface look like "classic" version, the entire interface is forced on you and without going outside the channel of Microsoft and the basic features of the OS, you cannot get rid of it.
How is that not forced? Can you honestly tell me that third party software should be a -required- solution for an operating system? I really hope not.
As far as I'm concerned the Old Start Menu in 7 and Earlier was a usability joke. Let's see what it has- You can pin applications (which you can either pin to the taskbar itself or create your own quick launch bar) and it shows a list of recently used applications. On the right are a bunch of buttons that simply open shell namespaces (My Computer, Documents, Pictures, etc.) Wow, that's useful.
Funny, because I use every single one of those buttons almost on a daily basis, I find myself needing to delve into the hard drive internals more often than not, I have easy access to the control panel if I ever want to change anything and I also have a simple -list- of programs to run and a search bar just underneath if I need it.
It's simple, compact, and doesn't throw things you NEED to use on a regular basis in 15 different "hidden" windows that serve no practical purpose.
More or less the main thing people used the start menu for was to use the All Programs list. Which was pretty much useless once you got more than a dozen applications installed in terms of making things usable. When you can launch a program faster using Windows Key+R and typing the full path to the file you know something is wrong with the UI. Win2K tried to "fix" the problems of the Start Menu by adding the idea of highlighting new items. But that is just a band-aid to try to fix the problem which at it's core is the fact that you have to sort through too much data yourself.
Honestly I've never had a problem locating anything in the start menu, it's alphabetically sorted and barely takes up any screen space so you can display quite a large amount of programs.
If anything the XP style one was my favorite and I actually do not prefer the "pop in" style that Windows 7 uses where everything is contained inside the start popup instead of cascading across the screen. But I find it tolerable, it doesn't really bother me to use UNLIKE WINDOWS 8.
With Win95 and 98 it made sense for performance reasons that there wasn't any performance indexing or other considerations to make things easy to use. Drives were small and slow and Processors weren't very fast.
But at some point you have to wonder why, when you have a Dual Core Processor and an SSD, your Operating System is practically requiring of you to find what you want yourself (XP and earlier). That's why we now have Search- which was copied to most major Open Source software as well. (how many people actually use the items directly on the mint menu? Very few. Most probably use the Applications Menu. The rest is just frosting to make that Menu look meatier. "Wow look at all these Doodads!" just like the Win7 Start Menu has a crapload of doodads most people won't ever use. Are there people that Use Start->Connect To to connect to their VPN? Maybe. Most probably use the network icon. Particularly after they use the "Connect to" option the first time and see that all it does is pop out the same menu. Wow, that should totally be on the start menu. Why don't they have a button on the Start Menu for Alt Tab?
Except your point is completely flawed because you're using a "one or the other" argument for the search bar. The search bar has been in windows for quite awhile now, it's here in 7 and in 8 it was simply moved to the charms popout. What, if anything does that have to do with the design of the start screen and the tile menu that people find so obnoxious and pointless?
Oh that's right, nothing, it has -absolutely nothing- to do with it, you're blowing hot air here. The search bar HAS BEEN HERE, and could just as simply WORK THE SAME in a carbon copy of windows 7 that used the internal searching of windows 8. I really just challenge you to give me any sort of reason why the location or presentation of the search bar would be any less effective by getting rid of the windows 8 tile design.
It works. Whenever I use XP, I feel as if I'm missing an appendage and have to compensate. That's what software usability features are supposed to feel like- extensions of yourself- Tools that you utilize and tools that you miss when you don't have them, but that you otherwise do not necessarily notice. Start->Search is one of those.
Again, i don't understand why you're bringing up the search bar as if the windows 8 metro design is required for it to exist.
I love how so far my idea that anybody that calls the Modern UI "Metro" can be pretty easily dismissed as using out-dated information. Particularly since it hasn't been called metro since the Beta. I mean, let's look at his arguments! They are HILARIOUSLY bad:
Could your argument be any more pointless and off topic? Really? Oh he didn't call it Windows 8 UI therefore his argument must be bad. Myself, I went out of my way to call it "metro" because that, in my opinion, is the best explanation of what it is, the same garbage that it was during the windows 8 beta, that article calls it metro because its an article from 2012.
Amazingly I had to snip the ENTIRE rest of your page long rant because all it discusses besides a few points about the ribbon system, is you panning the search bar as an improvement in every regard, except you're making yourself look like an utter fool by still making the point that the search bar's existance has any relevance whatsoever to the fact that the menus like charms and the start screen are bad to use.
Who is this giant rant even aimed at? The only thing you even say in a few massive paragraphs is: "I feel the old start menu is outdated, and the search function is good." You don't make any sort of comparison between the old start menu and button and the new screen, nor the terrible relocation of buttons between multiple "hidden" menus. In fact you can't even access the control panel in a sensible way without figuring out there is a MAGIC right click shortcut where the start menu -should be.-
Did I ever even SAY the search bar is bad? oh right, i didn't, you just invented that thinking yourself.
Go into the windows store and you should see it.
Or if you don't, copy/paste this into your URL bar and go to it:
ms-windows-store:WindowsUpgrade
Downsides
They add the start button.
Most applications don't add shortcuts to the start screen anymore
Upsides
none
This is just for me however I recommend everyone stay on 8.
lol, i like it, downloading now (i actually found out about it before FM87 posted it, thank you facebook :D)
my website- http://pcbuilds.site...orums/index.php -Looking for Admin's, pm for more info
It is "free" after all, and NO ONE checks the store for things like this.
faster upload speed's on the windows store server's mabey?
my website- http://pcbuilds.site...orums/index.php -Looking for Admin's, pm for more info
Both windows update and the store's repositories are hosted by Digital River.
They had some nice fixes in place for multi-monitor setups and how the gestures didn't work properly (and added some half-assed implementation to allow modification of the tile start menu), in the preview build.
....... And then they stripped every single one of them from release.
No explanation.
all opinion, i personally like how windows 8 works, the start Screen is much more organized then the start Menu
my website- http://pcbuilds.site...orums/index.php -Looking for Admin's, pm for more info
Good thing Windows 8 sales don't reflect your opinion.
Microsoft added a "start button" but the fact is it doesn't at all reflect the point the old start button served, it just opens the same ugly as heck full screen menu. It's not about a button, its about the fact the interface sucks and Microsoft didn't even give the option of choosing one or another, its forced.
In fact: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/final-thoughts-on-windows-8-a-design-disaster/20706
That article is old as hell and yet here we are with the same exact problems over a year later, guess we should have seen it coming!
you know, not everyone hates it :/ there are quite a few people that like it :/ also, if you really hate it that much:
http://www.classicshell.net/
restores the start menu to windows 8
my website- http://pcbuilds.site...orums/index.php -Looking for Admin's, pm for more info
For most people, its a terrible design, especially people that are not used to computers. It's so cryptic to find anything and that article I linked summed it up well, why does everything need to be spread out between a billion different popout-of-nowhere menus? It doesn't, that's a fact.
In terms of sales Windows8 is selling worse than Vista, and although I think the talk about Vista being terrible is just nonsense, the fact is it didn't sell well at all and Win8 is selling -half- as well as Vista. That's really bad no matter what perspective you look at it.
Maybe someday you'll realize that people shouldn't use software they don't like just because they have the option of having to download some hack to it that adds in something that Microsoft went out of their way to remove.
I shouldn't HAVE to download anything to have a not-retarded UI.
"if you don't like it, turn it off/ignore it/mod it" is one of the dumbest arguments on the planet.
Because consumers or companies always pick the best products that happen to sell well. Betamax was superior to VHS yet VHS won. Hyvrid cars are better then normal ICE for most applications yet they sell like crap. HVDC can send electricity over longer distances then AC yet we still use AC for long range electric transmission.
It is a failure from a sales perspective, but that says nothing about the product its self.
You right everything ever should work out of the box and never have any config options to fit more then one use case. I assume you think other browsers are stupid and you don't ever install anything but the stock applications on your phone?
Microsoft is doing exactly what Apple and Canonical are doing convergence of the user experience across all the platforms. I actually like the user interface and so do many other people. Just like to some extent I like Unity on Ubuntu.
That's completely opinion based, VHS is widely cited as having won the format war because of a few reasons, one of which being the fact you could record two hours of content on VHS vs betamax. There was more important things to people and companies than just "it looked better."
Is that bad? Who knows, honestly thats as opinion based as anything else, but it happened, so oh well.
That's a completely pointless and flawed view. Hybrid cars are more expensive to manufacture, more expensive to service and replace parts in and often suffer from limited travel distance depending on design. They're not a universal solution like you pretend they are and yet they ARE being adopted, it takes time for things to become mainstream.
Again, expense, I'm start to notice a pattern here of you being clueless to economics or the fact that it isn't simple to just instantly swap something or that it might actually be -worse- to use it in certain situations as was the case with betamax.
DC transmission is significantly more complicated than AC transmission and replacing entire powergrids with it would cost even more money for no real significant financial gain. Why tear something down and replace it if you won't get something better? Oh, that's right, you don't.
It's a failure from a sales perspective because people do not like the product, there are a myriad reasons why a product may not sell well and Win8 is not selling well because people do not like it. You're using the same dumb argument Linux fanboys do for the adoption of Linux as a mainstream OS. "Oh, its better than Windows, people are just blind." No, it's called you being -wrong- and not at all understanding the points of the problem.
I like how you're using a comparison of flipping a few config options to someone telling me to download a 3rd party program that basically imitates the start menu feature from earlier versions of Windows, not to mention it doesn't fix the fact the UI still sucks by itself.
This is my prime issue with the argument "change it" it's like having a car, you buy the car, the design of the car sucks, someone says "well go have the car changed, pay for a mechanic to modify it." Do I really need to explain why that's a bad argument? Why does the car have said problems at purchase? Why should I consider it the same car if I modify it to not even resemble the original car? Why does my changing the car to resolve its problems suddenly make it a good car? to me that sounds like the design of the original car is a failure and I'm going out of my way to fix the car and might as well sell a new car myself.
Obviously this doesn't translate that well to an OS but the point remains that the argument that you should fix something for someone else, is a tired and pointless one and has no real backing to it other than your own personal affection for the "car."
Oh I love people who passive-agressively assume things because they're upset their argument is so full of holes. Personally I use Firefox because I tried Chrome and -didn't like it- shocker, people can find problems with programs other people like! Astounding!
I fail to see how any of this has relevance to the topic at all besides you looking for mud slinging points.
Yes, that's one of the most widely cited reasons for their failure, they're trying to copy and then steal Apple's mobile market by being lazy and attempting to make a "one size fits all" OS, and there are so many practical problems with that idea that it is almost pointless.
Apple has made it perfectly clear the only thing they care about is the mobile market anymore, realistically they barely make anything from desktops or even laptops anymore, a good 80% of their profits come from phones and tablets. The fact Microsoft is sacrificing their user experience to try and force design views on the public is a good example of a reason to -why- Windows 8 is crashing hard. When my mother, or my little brother picks up a laptop running Windows 8 and says they cannot figure out how to use it, you know it sucks.
Yes you've made your personal bias quite clear, whereas I'm just explaining my problems that I ran into while using the stupid thing. I'm not a conformist, if something is awkward to use it is awkward to use, simple as that. No opinion is going to make it suddenly simpler to use.
Oh and if you like the design so much, I challenge you to use Win8 without using the search bar -at all- because that is what the above article pointed out very clearly, when you have to use the search bar to find something you are failing as a UI designer.
You said the person was wrong about windows 8 being fine as an operating system, because it did not sell well. That is not an argument against it. Notice how you could bring up other issues with them rather then just they sold well therefore bad.
You missed my point I am saying that your claiming windows 8 is bad because it is not selling well is wrong.
I did not passively aggressive assume something. I was simply taking your line of thinking and applying it to other parts of the OS.
'windows 8 is bad because I have to download something to fit my usecase.'
Windows 7 is bad because I have to download firefox to get a decent browsing experience
Windows is bad because I have to download separate office applications to get a decent office experience.
Windows 8 is not selling well because it is not worth the upgrade from Windows 7. Heck most of the world is sticking with Xp still it does not make Windows 7 an awful product.
The fact Ubuntu ships with a decent built in office and browser does not make it superior to Windows 7.
I like the start screen and I don't think it sacrifices anything, Windows 8 has done well mixing a touch component and allowing me to use the desktop.
I have seen some users pick up Windows 8 and not have an issue. You can't always pick up a new UI and work it 100% efficiently, I used Gnome 2 up until this year when I switch and am perfectly fine with Gnome 3. I am faster with Gnome3 then I was with 2.
It took some relearning, I also had to relearn Firefox a bit to use tabs on top. I fail to see if the UI is faster to find things with why it is a problem to get used to it.
Yes clearly both Unity and Gnome 3 are awful UI because both rely on the usage of a semi-search bar to make finding applications faster. I actually would rather Win8 worked more like Gnome or Unity I hardly use the search function in Windows 8 so now who is making assumptions
Windows 8 sold more copies in it's first month than Windows 7 did in three. And that's ignoring Windows RT since there are no numbers released for that.
Really? it's forced?
Did a Microsoft representative come to your house with a group of thugs and force their way into, and hold you at gunpoint and force you to install Windows 8? No? Then how did they Force it?
Alternatively, some might also say, "I bought a New PC with Windows 8, it was forced on me"
Really, it was "forced on you"? They forced you to buy it? How so? Did they force your money out of your wallet, force you to purchase the laptop or PC? Or maybe it was a case of you having this whimsical idea of what you were buying and refusing to do basic research on what you were purchasing, and just making assumptions about what you could and could not do with it, then deciding that instead of blaming it on the person who actually made the decision to purchase it- yourself- that you should try to somehow blame the manufacturer. This is the equivalent of buying a pizza and trying to complain that it's not a burrito. The fact that you didn't do the research to learn that a Pizza is not in fact a Burrito doesn't suddenly mean that they forced you to eat Pizza.
That whole "Microsoft forced upgrade" FUD is downright ridiculous. The fact that you are probably not running Windows 8 is a testament to how ill-conceived the entire argument is. "Microsoft forces users to upgrade.... except for the people that don't want to" sort of defeats the entire definition of the word "forced" which means there is no choice.
if there is a choice, it's not forced.
As far as I'm concerned the Old Start Menu in 7 and Earlier was a usability joke. Let's see what it has- You can pin applications (which you can either pin to the taskbar itself or create your own quick launch bar) and it shows a list of recently used applications. On the right are a bunch of buttons that simply open shell namespaces (My Computer, Documents, Pictures, etc.) Wow, that's useful.
More or less the main thing people used the start menu for was to use the All Programs list. Which was pretty much useless once you got more than a dozen applications installed in terms of making things usable. When you can launch a program faster using Windows Key+R and typing the full path to the file you know something is wrong with the UI. Win2K tried to "fix" the problems of the Start Menu by adding the idea of highlighting new items. But that is just a band-aid to try to fix the problem which at it's core is the fact that you have to sort through too much data yourself.
With Win95 and 98 it made sense for performance reasons that there wasn't any performance indexing or other considerations to make things easy to use. Drives were small and slow and Processors weren't very fast.
But at some point you have to wonder why, when you have a Dual Core Processor and an SSD, your Operating System is practically requiring of you to find what you want yourself (XP and earlier). That's why we now have Search- which was copied to most major Open Source software as well. (how many people actually use the items directly on the mint menu? Very few. Most probably use the Applications Menu. The rest is just frosting to make that Menu look meatier. "Wow look at all these Doodads!" just like the Win7 Start Menu has a crapload of doodads most people won't ever use. Are there people that Use Start->Connect To to connect to their VPN? Maybe. Most probably use the network icon. Particularly after they use the "Connect to" option the first time and see that all it does is pop out the same menu. Wow, that should totally be on the start menu. Why don't they have a button on the Start Menu for Alt Tab?
It's a legacy of old crap that has been carried over since Windows 95 not because it works but just because. Anybody who tries to say that the Windows Vista or Windows 7 "All Programs" Menu is either faster or even more usable than the Search Bar is painting themselves into a corner, because the former has no redeeming qualities over the former and is a vestigial organ that has been preserved since 1995.
If Linux distributions had the same usability compatibility they would all require you to manually install a Desktop environment. If OSX had the same usability compatibility they would... well, actually they would probably be less crap since the classic Mac OS was not the cluster of bad design considerations and bad application of skeuomorphic design that resulted when trying to combine the diametrically opposed design considerations of nextSTEP and Mac OS into OSX. Point is, these things are not only old, but we've fundamentally outgrown them in terms of what the computer can do. The Start->Programs menu from Windows 95 pretty much needed to work that way because there was no way to keep performance reasonable as well as defer the actual searching of what you want to start to the computer itself, so they basically had it- "Hardware isn't good enough to search, so for the start menu the user does it". This extended to XP which was quite a bit after there was already Indexing on most consumer drives and systems were plenty powerful to at least index the Start Menu contents themselves. Win Vista tried to reimagine some of the usability considerations in terms of modern hardware. It got a licking for it. How many people can name off the top of their head the biggest complaints about Vista? Because I personally cannot think of any off the top of my head. And Vista still kept the old "All Programs" menu- albeit in a lobotomized form to try to encourage the use of Search, but it was still there. Windows 7 kept it as well. Windows 8 was more or less a realization that "crap, we've been carrying this thing forward for 20 years and it's been pretty much vestigial since Vista, let's rework how the Start Menu works to better accentuate the features we want to encourage".
It works. Whenever I use XP, I feel as if I'm missing an appendage and have to compensate. That's what software usability features are supposed to feel like- extensions of yourself- Tools that you utilize and tools that you miss when you don't have them, but that you otherwise do not necessarily notice. Start->Search is one of those.
Some people for some reason still think it's "better" for them to scroll through a tiny window of Folders and manually find what they want. "I need to start Program X... Start.... All Programs... Then search through possibly hundreds of folders, ahh, here it is Manufacturer B!... they made Program X... Or was it Manufacturer A? Hmm it's not in this list, maybe it was Manufacturer A.... Oh, I see, they have two Program Groups, one is Manufacturer B Industries and the other is Manufacturer B... Here it is, now what was I starting the program for again?" compared to "Start->Type "Program X" and press enter.
The fact that not only are people actually still using the old-style Start/Programs Menu but actually think it is something that didn't stop being very efficient once people got more than maybe 12 programs installed is mind boggling. The Start Screen is only slightly better but the fact is that they are both altogether useless because you should be using them anyway. And the "Start Screen" is altogether better for search since it provides more real estate to display search matches when using the desktop search feature. I'm not even really sure I can even say it's a matter of preference, since that's akin to saying that some people prefer to use scissors instead of a lawnmower- that is, it might be true, but anybody who has that "preference" may as well be branded crazy.
The fact is that using the Search is ALWAYS going to be faster than using the Programs Menu. it takes fewer clicks, it takes fewer keystrokes, and it's faster and more intuitive. It is objectively a usability improvement, the only people that would say "oh, I start things with the start menu" would be somebody clinging to 25 year old skeumorphisms, such as having "folders" that you have to manually search through to find what you want when the computer can, you know, Search for you. Searching is one of the things a computer is practically designed for, but no, they cling to the idea that "doing it manually is more usable". I mean, sure, fine- go ahead, do it that way, but don't go crowing that the developers of the software aren't pandering to the subset of people who are purposely confining themselves to a sub-par workflow.
I love how so far my idea that anybody that calls the Modern UI "Metro" can be pretty easily dismissed as using out-dated information. Particularly since it hasn't been called metro since the Beta. I mean, let's look at his arguments! They are HILARIOUSLY bad:
Why do you need to "find" it? Isn't a Computer designed for Searching? I don't have to "find" any application I run on any of the systems I use. When I want to start gnome system monitor on linux, I press the Windows Key and type "gnome-s". gnome-system-monitor appears as a highlighted result, I press enter, and I've launched it. I don't have to find the application I want to launch, I tell the computer what program I want to launch and it does it.
I like how he says this as if it's somehow positive. Like, yeah, scrolling through that list to manually find what you want to launch! YEAH! that was some good stuff! Not to mention that "vertical list" was pretty much removed in Vista.
Or you can, you know, use the Search feature that was introduced 8 years ago. Was 8 years not a long enough time? Have people actually used the Vista/7 Start Menu All Programs list and NOT found the Start-Search capability?.
I like how this is encouraged as a positive. Not ot mention it's actually downright wrong. Observe how little screen space the XP start menu takes:
Even if we double the resolution that would still take about a quarter of the screen. AND that is with like 5 applications installed. Most systems used for any duration of time will have a start menu that completely fills their screen. So what "small part of the screen" is he talking about? He must be talking about the lobotomized All Programs list introduced with Vista. Well there goes his idea that it's been this way since windows 95. That's journalistic integrity for you, I suppose.
And yet that's EXACTLY what he just said "Windows trained us" to do. I repeat his quote above:
How is that not searching and hunting for the application you want to run when you open the start menu? The difference is that now you don't have to play that stupid game and can just type what you want. and have the results listed and choose one. Same semantics as the Windows 7 and Vista Search too; the only thing that changed was thr All Programs list which has no usability benefits over the search.
Yes. They added that feature in 2006. It exists in Windows 7, and Windows Vista. And you can even get it as an optional desktop add-on for XP, though that was discontinued if I recall. Great job! I can see he really put together his evidence and information here, since he's claiming Windows 8 adds a feature to Windows that was actually added 8 years and two versions ago.
I like how he calls it metro again. That has yet to be proven to not be evidence that the person talking about Windows 8 doesn't know what they are talking about.
This is outright false. He is confusing the "Start Screen" with some of the changes to make some configuration and option pages displayed using the Modern UI style.
If a Tile represents a desktop application it will run that desktop application. Which shows the desktop. I don't recall off hand what Desktop-available applications will actually cause you to get jumped back to the start screen. Or the Modern UI config pages, for that matter. Why if I didn't know any better I'd think he was making this up.
The whole Ribbon debate was closed with Office 2007. Ribbons are more usable than CommandBars and the only people that "suffer" from the change are the people that memorized the idiotic usability fiobles of those CommandBars. When you have an application and a user can misclick and hide the entire menu bar than that's not exactly "usable". Pair that with the fact that they were just a bunch of icons with no descriptive text half the time and the icons seldom made any sense unless you actually memorized them and I find it difficult to believe that anybody could say with a straight face that CommandBars were more usable than the Ribbon.
Not to mention he is basically reiterating a argument/debate that was closed 6 years ago. Not to mention his argument that "the ribbons are packed with small user elements that are fiddly to use with mouse or touch" makes little sense when you realize that every single element is actually larger than it's equivalent predecessor. It's almost as if he is pulling these arguments and notations out of his ass after using Windows 8 for ten minutes to draw his paycheck.
Unlike the older CommandBars introduced in 1995 which... Oh, right. Not to mention that according the Jensen' Harris's Powerpoint slideshow on Office 2007's Ribbon design speaks of touch during the presentation having been considered during the design process... So it's wrong too.
Ironically these are the exact problem descriptions that the Ribbon was intended to solve and which according to expansive usability tests succeeded at doing. He also does not seem to address the fact that outside your learned behaviours you don't really have a damned clue what things do in Windows XP either. Not to mention the "clue" that the features exist is probably presented since most of those new features have pop-ups that display when they are relevant. eg, the new UI for managing default programs, which was hidden away in the Add/Remove Programs dialog in Vista/7 now presents a pop-up advertising it's existence when you install a program and it adds file associations. Same for a number of similar features. So the irony is that everything he is saying applies to the previous systems but some of the issues are mitigated in the very system he is trying to detract.
The article was wrong when it was released. The only problem here is the fact that journalistic integrity in IT journals and magazines takes a backseat to sensational headlines with content that basically just tries to predict what the readers might think and try to make up arguments to back it up. The problem is that when you actually read and research what is said you find they are talking out their ass all the way through.
I don't see how it isn't when he cited reason in many articles and reports for it selling poorly is that users don't like it. How is that any factually less relevant than you just spouting without any evidence that "oh no, people do like it, you can't bring up sales."
No, really, I can, fortunately.
I pointed out exactly why people do not like Windows 8, in fact I pointed out that sales reflect that opinion because there is nothing otherwise wrong with the OS in terms of performance or even stability(it's pretty stable in the long line of Windows OS's.) I'm not sure whats so hard to understand about the point being made.
Except you went off on a tangent and asked about completely unrelated things like browsers or stock phone apps. You're trying to draw a thin line comparison of the fact that "well this guy doesn't want to modify win8 so clearly he doesn't want to modify anything else." To me, that's a simpleminded view of the situation and just shows to me that you are just arguing for the sake of arguing and not actually understanding the issues present. You might as well be going "oh this guy doesn't like the color of his house, clearly he never would paint anything else in his life, and thus the problem must be that he is a strange fellow that cannot understand how to paint things."
Not only is that a complete off tangent point but is totally inaccurate.
Windows 8 is bad because the interface sucks.
Except your argument is completely flawed because instead you should be saying that IE is bad because I chose to download Firefox. But thanks for trying anyway. Because guess what? That would be the reason I download firefox, because I find it better than IE, shocker.
Unfortunately this is just you pandering your childish opinions all over the thread, the fact is that Windows 8 is not bad because people are "too lazy to fix it" the fact is that its bad because it has to be fixed at all. If you really cannot understand that logic then i think you might just be too dense to actually have a sane argument with.
Windows 8 has had half the sales of Windows Vista, your comparison is poor and does not even reflect the actuality of the sales. You're comparing the fact a giant portion of the world is using Windows XP and again are completely oblivious to the reasoning that most computers running XP still are corporate and they choose not to upgrade for monetary reasons, those people are not brought into play in debating sales numbers.
The fact you think of everything as modular and that Windows 8 is fine if you treat it like Linux and customize everything with a thousand programs basically completely invalidates your argument to me anyway. We have enough Linux fanboys and I deal with them every day, I really don't need to hear more of it. Windows is not and will never be Linux, so if you're going to defend Windows 8 as a platform then offer up some reasoning other than "it should be more like Linux." Because guess what, the public has demonstrated that it shouldn't, and that is why Linux is not popular.
Yes, the 1%. And that's being generous.
Because it isn't. It ISN'T faster to find things with. It also is not easy to learn. It fails in every possible way-shape and form regarding UI design.
I'm making assumptions because the majority of people i've met that use and prefer Windows 8 do not even use the start screen and rely solely on the search bar to basically "bypass" the horrible problems with the interface.
The interface is not optional and unless you are the particular person that loves to use search to find and browse -everything- then you are stuck with a UI that is absurd to use.
7 Is the most used now?
Hey everyone, I'm back!
(also, before someone comes and says that thats another problem with windows 8, is that my keyboard doesnt work correctly, thats actually on lenovo, but see, lenovo has already released an updated driver for the keyboard, for W8.1)
my website- http://pcbuilds.site...orums/index.php -Looking for Admin's, pm for more info
A completely non-sensible point that doesn't at all relate to total sales.
http://www.zdnet.com...ail-7000016222/
ignoring your completely childish and off on a tangent rant, Yes, it is forced. Unless you specifically use a third party program there is no option to get rid of the "metro" Windows 8 UI, unlike previous version of Windows where you had options regarding making the interface look like "classic" version, the entire interface is forced on you and without going outside the channel of Microsoft and the basic features of the OS, you cannot get rid of it.
How is that not forced? Can you honestly tell me that third party software should be a -required- solution for an operating system? I really hope not.
Funny, because I use every single one of those buttons almost on a daily basis, I find myself needing to delve into the hard drive internals more often than not, I have easy access to the control panel if I ever want to change anything and I also have a simple -list- of programs to run and a search bar just underneath if I need it.
It's simple, compact, and doesn't throw things you NEED to use on a regular basis in 15 different "hidden" windows that serve no practical purpose.
Honestly I've never had a problem locating anything in the start menu, it's alphabetically sorted and barely takes up any screen space so you can display quite a large amount of programs.
If anything the XP style one was my favorite and I actually do not prefer the "pop in" style that Windows 7 uses where everything is contained inside the start popup instead of cascading across the screen. But I find it tolerable, it doesn't really bother me to use UNLIKE WINDOWS 8.
Except your point is completely flawed because you're using a "one or the other" argument for the search bar. The search bar has been in windows for quite awhile now, it's here in 7 and in 8 it was simply moved to the charms popout. What, if anything does that have to do with the design of the start screen and the tile menu that people find so obnoxious and pointless?
Oh that's right, nothing, it has -absolutely nothing- to do with it, you're blowing hot air here. The search bar HAS BEEN HERE, and could just as simply WORK THE SAME in a carbon copy of windows 7 that used the internal searching of windows 8. I really just challenge you to give me any sort of reason why the location or presentation of the search bar would be any less effective by getting rid of the windows 8 tile design.
Again, i don't understand why you're bringing up the search bar as if the windows 8 metro design is required for it to exist.
Could your argument be any more pointless and off topic? Really? Oh he didn't call it Windows 8 UI therefore his argument must be bad. Myself, I went out of my way to call it "metro" because that, in my opinion, is the best explanation of what it is, the same garbage that it was during the windows 8 beta, that article calls it metro because its an article from 2012.
Amazingly I had to snip the ENTIRE rest of your page long rant because all it discusses besides a few points about the ribbon system, is you panning the search bar as an improvement in every regard, except you're making yourself look like an utter fool by still making the point that the search bar's existance has any relevance whatsoever to the fact that the menus like charms and the start screen are bad to use.
Who is this giant rant even aimed at? The only thing you even say in a few massive paragraphs is: "I feel the old start menu is outdated, and the search function is good." You don't make any sort of comparison between the old start menu and button and the new screen, nor the terrible relocation of buttons between multiple "hidden" menus. In fact you can't even access the control panel in a sensible way without figuring out there is a MAGIC right click shortcut where the start menu -should be.-
Did I ever even SAY the search bar is bad? oh right, i didn't, you just invented that thinking yourself.