Windows 8: At least it's better than ‘not very good’
By the pricking of my thumbs, and by the noisy crowd booking out half the pub, the wickedness of office party season has kicked in big time. Certainly, 'tis the season to be jolly and to suffer the indignities of itinerant workers debasing themselves in order to get invited. Another year at the Cheshire Cheese The importance of …
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Re: Have they ...
"Wonder if the EULA for Windows 8 includes a cop-out absolving Microsoft from responsibility for the neck and shoulder strains people will suffer when they spend all day reaching out to touch their screens. "
WTF are you talking about?
Why would you do that?
Heard of a mouse/keyboard?
I'm struggling to understand why people are so stupid when it comes to Win8.
No wonder MACs are so popular now, the fisher-price OS is needed as society seems to become more stupid as the days roll by!
Re: Mouse-follows-focus for Win8
From reading the comments on the registry hacks it seems it doesn't work. It screws up other windows and only works for certain types of window so I'd would have to say that it doesn't have focus follows mouse.
Re: Obviously!
That's a whole new level of stupid from you. And as if TIFKAM isn't the most Fisher-Price desktop out there at the moment! Typical fanboy play to try and deflect attention by slagging someone else off.
Re: Mouse-follows-focus for Win8
It has focus follows mouse and indeed has since the days of NT4 at least. Pretty much nobody uses it though and lots of applications make all sorts of assumptions about mouse usage and focus that simply don't stand up with it enabled.
Not this again!
Haven't we beaten this subject into the ground yet? Or is it just that somebody wants to keep it rolling until enough people scream "Enough already, I'll buy it if it will keep you quiet!"
Whatever the Microsoft apologists might say, the battle lines were drawn on this subject a long time ago and there's little sense in dragging it out now. We know that there are people out there, possibly a large number of them, that don't like the unholy wedding of TIFKAM and the more traditional interface minus its "start" button because it doesn't work the way they want it to in the desktop environment. Likewise there are folk out there that like W8, especially in the touch environment which is pretty much where it was targetted anyway, so it's likely that most desktop/laptop users will go to W7 instead (or Linux).
We also know that the tablet and the smartphone are being taken on by more and more folk in the home, in quite a few instances as a replacement of a PC rather than as an addition as they don't use a PC for anything over and above what they can do with a tablet, and W8 is a latecomer here in comparison with Apple and Android.
And before we bring up the thorny subject of Windows 3, consider how long ago that was, what we had to run it on and all the effort that has gone into improving the front end, including Windows in its various guises since W3, Apple's various revisions since System 7 and all the various GUIs on Linux. (Yes, and RISC OS too!) W3 was pretty much a menu system, the equivalent of the Start menu on its successors, and nothing more, so it's a bit pointless to compare it to any of these.
W8 has its benefits when it comes to a touch screen environment, but it will struggle to beat the systems that are already dominant in that area. It may be years before Microsoft makes a dent in the fondleslab market and will only do it with an intuitive front end, something that W8 fails at in some areas. As far as the PC market goes, however, W7 and WXP are tough acts to follow and W8 just doesn't cut it.
There. I said it again!
Re: Not this again!
@chika - you make a very good point. At the time your choice of desktop GUI was Windows 3, Mac or, if you afford the hardware, X-Windows. We ran X-Windows on the workstations but they were way too expensive to dish out to grunts, Mac was an utter bitch to code for compared to Windows (yes! really!), so Windows 3 it was and we felt damned lucky to have it. When you got 3.11 there was much less messing around with Trumpet and the like and we thought that we were in clover. It was Windows 3 that really put a PC on every desktop.
MS did a really good piece of work with the Win95 interface - it basically saw them through until now - but with Win8 they seem intent on anatagonising with that PC on their desktop. Yes, things have moved on, but when there are still so many desktops sporting PCs this does seem rather inept.
X-Window
It's X Window (or "X Window System"), not X-Windows. Really.
Re: Not this again!
Downvote for the bullhorn!
I think people are still talking about this, because Microsoft hasn't heard...
Re: Not this again!
More likely they have decided not to listen. We shall have to wait to see what happens with sales, much as we did with Vista, then see what excuse they come up with if and when W8 chokes.
Thank you for the down vote, though. Anything is better than voter apathy! ;)
It's working here.
Finally took the plunge last week. Don't regret it. Using keyboard shotcuts as a crutch until I get used to the gestures. And I'm shopping for a touch screen, though multi-touch is too pricey at the moment. I'm looking at some HP-branded monitors rated for Windows 7 Touch that might be cheaper.
The list of working apps I have includes Roxio Creator 2011 despite their best effort to botch it up, the Mass Effect series, Goldwave despite that author's efforts to botch it up, Office 2007, Virtual Clone Drive, MAME 64, a couple flavours of Descent Rebirth, both Halos, Steam, even a $5.00 copy of Duke Nukem Forever. All working. Even got Mail working with an Exchange 2003 server and ActiveSync.
Re: It's working here.
$5.00 copy of Duke Nukem Forever?
They should have paid you more to take it off their hands!
Bought for the, "Oh Yes, I Hate This! It's Revolting! More, Please!" factor.
...come to think of it, maybe some pundits will figure DNF and W8 were meant for each other.
/me ducks
Re: It's working here.
Ohh, thank you for bringing Descent Rebirth to my attention. I had the original on my old 486, and was later happy to see a Mac version turn up at school in a suite of networked PowerPCs, multiplayer fun!
Some saddos will like Win8
In the same way some people love abusive partners.
Re: Some saddos will like Win8
And knobend kids will make shitty sweeping comments with no fking basis, demonstrating just how stupid our youth are!
Well done son, now back to your iPad.
Re: Some saddos will like Win8
I like Win8. It runs a lot smoother than my former system (WinXP, a bit long in the tooth by now), I didn't have any problems with incompatibilities yet, and the Classic Start Menu had me back to the good old user interface after about half an hour of playing with the new world order.
Saddo? I don't think so. I just want a system that does not get into my way and runs a bunch of legacy programs.
Re: Some saddos will like Win8
@Shultz but only after you hacked the system to change the UI - which presumably means that the Win8 out of the box failed your needs and will fail others.
I dont understand how supposed "clever, technical" people are so bamboozled by Win8?
Whats so hard to understand?
Instead on deaktop and start button, you are presented by a start screen. Applications open and the screen orientation can be adjusted.
What is so fking difficult?
*sigh*
Not been paying attention in class, have you....
C-. Reading skills need improvement.....
Difficulty vs annoyance
@Obviously - to take an example, the Ribbon interface. It's not difficult, but it slows you down, requires more concentration and thinking, and is generally unpleasant to use, especially for experienced or power users. Ditto with Metro.
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
"@Obviously - to take an example, the Ribbon interface. It's not difficult, but it slows you down, requires more concentration and thinking, and is generally unpleasant to use, especially for experienced or power users. Ditto with Metro."
Doesn't slow me down! Is it maybe because I know what I'm doing??
Whats so wrong with "concentration and thinking"? Is this too much?
You know yourself, the more you use something and LEARN, the easier and faster it becomes to operate.
But the whinging masses in 'ere today shames us all!
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
EHRMAGURD AHH CANT USE ICONS OR BUTTONS, WIN8 IS TEH FAIL . WIN 3.1 WAS PERFECT WHYYYY DID THEY EVER CHANGE?
Is what I hear, I've been using RTM since it came out. Yes it is different, no people don't like change but if you have an open mind and a mmodicum of intelligence it is *really* easy to use and get on with.
The kernel changes as have been stated before are terrific, the speed it runs on older hardware is also impressive. Storage Spaces is also great and the server admin apps are really good too. It's not perfect, in typical MS way some functions are half developed and not entirely thought through, the amount of clicks to shut a PC down is irritating, Alt+F4 is my new preferred method - also annoyingly alt+f4 won;t shut cmd windows down.
Yes it's not for everyone, if you can't stand change and like things to remain exactly as they are it won't be for you. As Thurrott says try to approach the OS and embrace the changes - http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/windows-8-tip-embrace-change
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
"an open mind and a mmodicum of intelligence it is *really* easy to use"
Using this kind of "argument" to belittle people who have real, serious gripes with the new UI actually makes you sound like a stupid, retarded, arrogant a$$ h0le...
Metro is NOT intuitive, NOT practical, NOT a step forward on non touch-screen devices and users should be allowed to completely opt out of it if they want to.
You enjoy it... good for you... but really... liking Windows 8 more than others does NOT make you... smarter.
And obviously... it doesn't make you nicer either.
"What is so fking difficult?"
...having 3 windows open at the same time? Yes, my desktop does ALWAYS have at least 3 open, usually more. And more on the 2nd screen.
I'm also a little puzzled about this 'hit the Win key, type a few letters' thing: I can type the entire 'MediaPortalFS1' shortcut name (to open it Fullscreen on screen1) and search never finds the shortcut... also can't understand why pinning them to the taskbar but getting completely identical icons makes any sense.
...or why ejecting a removable drive should close the explorer window, among many other annoying little errors in the UI.
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
I'm with you on this. Never have I witnessed so much moaning pathetic bullsh*t in my life as folks who just wont pull their bottom lips from over their heads.
The reality is the Start button is largely redundant since the Win7 taskbar change. If you have an HD capable screen you can add 20+ applications to it which covers most folks. Shortcuts on the desktop or just using the winkey does the rest.
Change the default apps to all desktop ones and you rarely need to venture into metro land. You can delete most of the metro apps anyway.
You can add Control Panel to the taskbar from a winkey search. Not difficult.
Takes about five minutes to adjust it if you dont want to fully go 'metro'.
But any time anyone not sulking tries to point all these simple steps out to supposedly clever tech types....oh dear...heresy. Lalalalaaaa they just aint listening.
And folks tell people to switch to linux without sensing any irony.
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
"The reality is the Start button is largely redundant since the Win7 taskbar change."
Uhm, it's my default method of firing up programs, thankyou. You do know that thing in the Win7 start menu, how it puts your most used programs on the first thing you see after the Windows keypress? That's useful. TIFKAM is not.
"If you have an HD capable screen you can add 20+ applications to it which covers most folks."
Have you ever actually used Windows Vista/7? Having 20+ things pinned to the taskbar would be an exercise in masochism. Especially when your most commonly used programs are automatically under the winkey. I'm just glad you can still hack Quicklaunch in and have things work "properly".
"Shortcuts on the desktop or just using the winkey does the rest."
So.. the WIndows 3.11 paradigm in Windows 8. Makes sense. Frankly I like having a relatively clean desktop. You'll notice the screenshots I posted in this very thread? That's actually quite messy for me, it needs a little sorting, and I hate it when programs dump shit all over the desktop without the option to tell it not to.
As for the winkey.. you mean the winkey that works in Windows from '95 onward, right?
Nobody yet has shown me how TIFKAM provides any kind of useful improvement.
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
> the speed it runs on older hardware is also impressive.
Downvoted you for lying.
I've yet to have any incarnation of windows run at any reasonable speed on any system that it has been installed on, and configured for automatic updates, for more than six months. I don't know what it is with the fuck up you call Windows but if I use it daily for six months it takes forever to power down and to start up again and running anything on it is a joke. If I re-install with exactly the same system it runs fairly fast for a week or two and then slows to a crawl. I've had this with XP and Windows 7. Windows is basically crap.
Just in case anybody thinks the PC is getting infected, it isn't. The disk has been removed and scanned on other systems.
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
Mr. Thurrott also says that they should have split the personalities into two OS' - one for tablets/phones and the other, without TIFKAM, as desktop. Read what he says is the danger about Microsoft's gamble:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/windows8/windows-8-failure-tech-industry-chain-reaction-141284
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
Once again a classic example of someone making things stubbornly difficult.
Having items in the taskbar is no less difficult than having to go to the start menu, in fact more useful. I have zero difficulty handling many items in the taskbar. Are people suddenly getting tunnel vision or something?
As for metro, I dont use it. All I am saying is, for most 7 users the Start button isnt needed or used as much and with a bit of tweaking Windows 8 in desktop mode works pretty much the same as 7.
Just not worth all the pant wetting I'm seeing here over and over.
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
@Jack - "As Thurrott says try to approach the OS and embrace the changes " - Thurrott is a well known microsoft promoter.
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
@Obviously
You say, "Whats so wrong with "concentration and thinking"? Is this too much?"
UI experts know that if a UI makes the user think then it is has failed. The UI should be intuitive and also, like the menu/toolbar system, promote muscle memory. The Ribbon and Metro UI violate both principles, they make the user have to put concentration into using the UI. If you're thinking and concentrating to operate the computer, then you will be less productive than someone who is using a UI that does not make them think. All their thinking will be doing their job or hobby.
You say, "You know yourself, the more you use something and LEARN, the easier and faster it becomes to operate."
However with the same amount of time learning, Ribbon and Metro *still" make you think and slow you down - hunting for commands and other artefacts that you use 5% of the time, hiding information, that kind of thing. Even if you learn ribbon and metro inside out, they still slow you down compared to other UI paradigms.
You say, "But the whinging masses in 'ere today shames us all!"
I'd argue that your propensity to insult people who are talking to you politely shames you.
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
@Jason 7
You say stuff like, "Change the default apps to all desktop ones and you rarely need to venture into metro land. You can delete most of the metro apps anyway. You can add Control Panel to the taskbar from a winkey search. Not difficult. Takes about five minutes to adjust it if you dont want to fully go 'metro'."
--
Sounds to me like you are trying to take a dog "Win 8" and turn it into a cat. Then you are praising Win 8 for being a cat.
As for your attack on Linux - try Linux Mint - works out of the box with an intuitive UI that is a joy to use. Linux Mint much more user friendly than Windows 8 and you don't need a virus checker.
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
"Once again a classic example of someone making things stubbornly difficult."
Yes. Metro is.
Really, how is "all of your commonly used programs automatically under a winkey press" harder than "manually fuck about pinning all kinds of shit to the taskbar and rearranging TIFKAM every single time you install something"?
The comment about attempting to turn a dog into a cat is pretty witty, come to think about it.
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
Actually, he does have a point. A fair amount of the kit that support was dropped for under Vista and 7 was dropped because it just didn't have the grunt for things such as Aero. Under W8, Aero is a thing of the past, so we shouldn't need all that extra new powerful stuff.
Ah, but if that is the case, where is the support for this older kit coming from? Oh well...
I will say one thing, though, about AC's system problem. While I will admit that Windows can and does slow down over time, especially when it is mucked about, it isn't always the OS that is responsible. Some antivirus packages can really choke the crap out of the system resources, especially if you insist on installing all the bells and whistles rather than just sticking to the basic task at hand. The same can be said for some applications too. And that isn't just Windows either!
Re: Difficulty vs annoyance
"The comment about attempting to turn a dog into a cat is pretty witty, come to think about it."
Never heard that one before. Heard the one about turning a cat into a dog, though. It involves a can of petrol and a lighted match. "WOOF!" ;)
heres an idea
anyone who doesn't want to use Windows anymore or doesn't like it, please remove it and install Linux, or give it to someone else and buy a Mac.
I fail to see the point in buying something you dont like and then spending months moaning about it
or worse not buying or using something you don't like and spend months moaning about it.
seems like an awful waste of time and energy
Re: heres an idea
I didn't buy it. Dreamspark FTW.
Ultimate Edition of Win8, in a VM jail where it belongs. Why? So I could evaluate it and see if it was as bad as people say it is.
It is.
Re: heres an idea
As bad as some people find Windows 8, they sure as hell will hate a modern Linux distro even more.
Even the designer of the kernel hates the Linux desktops:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/05/linus_torvalds_reviews_kde/
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linus-torvalds-finds-gnome-3-4-to-be-a-total-user-experience-design-failure/11127
Re: heres an idea
I use Windows in large part because that's where the applications are.
Macs attract certain types of applications. Linux attracts certain types. Windows attracts a rather larger set, given the network effect of having more users. Stuff I use often is only on Windows. Plus I rather like XP. And I suspect that by using Classic Shell to hide the idiotic, hopeless fondleslab advert of a start screen, I can make Windows 8 look enough like XP. I may actually try to do that soon. Classic Shell looks great on my son's new laptop.
Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie had it right in their old song:
From Macintosh to Microsoft to Lin-lie-lin-lie-nucks
Every computer crashes
'cause every OS sucks.
Re: heres an idea
@AC - (AC shills are busy today) the controversy for the Linux Window managers is that some of them have gone down the Metro road of dumbing down. However, with Linux you can use any window manager you like (unlike Windows which locks you into one).
Take Linux Mint, this uses the Mate UI (a fork of Gnome 2) and has the best UI of any operating system out there, IMHO.
Re: heres an idea
Tell us Dave are they allowed to whinge if someone else - a purchasing department say - buys it for them? I suspect that may be most people.
At home I have moved to Linux (LXDE for the most part but I get to pick at logon). At work I've just finished giving my lot Win7. I won't move them to Win8 unless I have to - if for no other reason than I don't want to put up with a fortnight of moaning while they relearn everything for no readily apparent reason.
Is there such a thing as Windows 8 Ultimate...? Or are you another one of those people who hasn't really tried it?
I run it on my Mac in Parallels, also on my desktop machine, my workflow as a .Net developer hasn't been slowed down in the slightest
If I didn't like it I would use Windows 7.
Re: heres an idea
To be perfectly honest... Gnome and Unity on Linux are in fact... just as bad as Metro is...
Yuck.
I've been postponing updating from Fedora 12 for ages because of that sh1te...
Re: heres an idea
@Pat 4
Suggest looking at Centos 6.3/Scientific Linux 6.3/Springdale Linux (aka PUIAS)!
These are free/libre clones of RHEL 6, the Red Hat release that was based on a mix of Fedora 12 and 13 packages. Both Gnome 2.x
Similar kernel and applications, but with basic security updates until 2020, and application version updates until 2017. Firefox ESR.
There are live CD images to try on your hardware.
PS: I quite like Gnome Shell and I have Fedora 18 and the Gnome Ubuntu Remix floating about
"Or are you another one of those people who hasn't really tried it?"
Of course I haven't. I absolutely did not just fire the VM up to prove you wrong with a screenshot, only to be told that WIndows 8 has fucked up all by itself. I am lying through my teeth when I say that it's still thrashing the shit out of the hard drive doing whatever the hell it's doing and showing me that blue windowtiles logo.
So I got the edition name wrong. It's Windows 8 64 Professional, for fuxache. Hardly a major crime when you consider how many stupid editions Windows comes in these days.. perhaps I should refer to them as crippled, half-crippled, little-bit-crippled and not-crippled-if-you-have-a-volume-license editions?
Oh by the way: FINALLY!
But hey, maybe I faked those screenshots and drew them in MS Paint, eh? Perhaps I'm a Google shill? Here, throw a few "freetard" comments around as well, if you like. It's all the same bullshit. Just like TIFKAM.
Re: heres an idea
> I fail to see the point in buying something you dont like
The point being that they don't know they don't like it until after they buy it - how hard is that to understand ?
In many cases it is the _only_ option in the shops, because MS want to force it down everyone's throat, how hard is that to understand ?
Re: heres an idea
Linus Torvalds may have designed the Linux kernel but hes just one of us when it comes to liking or disliking a UI. The review you post of his opinion on KDE is far from the truth as it pronounces only his criticisms of KDE and none of his positive feedback.The thing with KDE, is that it doesn't treat its users like infants who can't be trusted with control of their own computers. Linus has switched back to it, so the KDE developers must be doing something right...
@M Gale
of course running Win 8 in a VM immediately makes any and all issues a Windows problem and nothing what so ever to do with your VM server...
and then once you do get it loaded you go to great lengths at removing just about all the good bits you can find from it making your experience limited to say the least...
and there isn't really hundreds of "stupid editions"
lets put aside the idiocy of "N" given that was not a choice of Microsofts they were forced in to doing it in the EU
we have Win 8 and Win 8 pro on X86, we have the same again on x64 and RT on ARM
you have enterprise on VL and.....that's it
essentially that means for 99% for home & SMBs you have 3 versions
Win 8
Win 8 pro
Win RT
add enterprise if that's your business and that makes a grand total of 4
that's not terribly complicated even for the great uneducated.
yes I removed x86 x64 differences because at this stage its more academic then anything, OEM versions are again academic, they ALL fall in to one of the 4 versions above
its curious that you actually acknowledge there are for versions too, I presume that pro is your little bit crippled and yet enterprise is classed as not crippled? using your logic I don't completely understand as there are only half a dozen extra features on Ent, many of which are directly tied to Domain level usages. they sure as hell do not make up the overwhelming part of the OS for the user
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