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: heres an idea @Grepnix
the thing is, most users are idiots who cant be trusted with anything complicated. The mere fact you are here suggests you fall outside of that bracket but the overwhelming large proportion of computer users do fall in to that.
Simple sells and whilst it is painful for more experienced users to get used to, we have to get used to it.
I was messing about with old SX2 50 based system I had in a loft the other day, the lack of math coprocessor is a bit of pain for anything even remotely modern but I fired up Windows 3.11 and spent a good deal of time remembering what things used to be like, and yes it was great having all the power in the world, gritty settings and command line options, but actually, now, I couldn't give a funk about them, I just want it to work there an then, no hassle, no fuss
In my humble opinion that is where Linux needs to be to gain any traction in the desktop market, yes android is based on it but look at how simple that has been made, on the face of it its dumb as funk, where android has at least partially got it right is that some of the higher level functions (or lower depending on your perspective) are still there just kept out of the way
Re: heres an idea
@David Dee - "... please remove it and install Linux"
Yes but by then you have already paid the Microsoft tax. Also you might be forced to use it at work. In any case, what are you suggesting, that if a bad product comes out, no one should point this out?
Re: heres an idea
@ Pat 4 - Linux mint has a Gnome 2 fork - it is excellent.
Re: @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..."
Well it's the only operating system out of all the ones I've tried in the VM that funks itself up after doing nothing whatsoever to it.
"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..."
Err, where? You mean I unpinned all of the animated, garish, useless unused shite that it seems to spew all over TIFKAM by default? I suppose I could pin every single app to the start screen again, but then we have the problem I've already mentioned, of TIFKAM being a ginormous flat list of tiles that turns what should be an heirarchical tree, into an exercise in information overload. Same thing applies to pinning a ton of stuff to the taskbar.
Let's get this straight, in case you haven't seen any of my other posts on the subject: Faster is good. Leaner is good (though it really isn't THAT lean). TIFKAM is utter bollocks.
Give me my desktop back, with the start menu and the automatic commonly-used-programs bit, and it'll be like WIndows 7 but better. As it is, it's a piss-poor attempt to turn a desktop computer into a phone. They've created a supermodel, then promptly taken it out back and purposefully smashed its face in with a brick.
Re: @M Gale
I see what your saying, but a properly constructed "start" menu aka metro aka modern UI is much more efficient.
Do I use it for metro apps? no, not really, there are a couple that are ok but by an large everything I do is back in desktop. However what it does do very well is give me an update of anything I want updates on very quickly, a single push of a button or click of the screen gives me updates on dozens of things and shows me the most frequently used programs I want quick access too, on my task bar I have a couple of other ones I have pinned, these tend to be the ones used when already on the desktop, the metro ones tend to be the initial turn on and launch programs
regarding VM yes a VM may support other OSs but that doesn't mean your VM is bug free with the most modern windows available, there can be all sorts of complications and conflicts that may only affect certain hardware configurations, all im saying there is don't assume its Windows, I have it running on hyper v without issue, from within win 8 so it does work at least in this instance.
Re: heres an idea
@Pat4
In that case, KDE? XFCE? Plenty of other alternatives too.
To be honest, I share your pain as I just killed my attempt on openSUSE 12.2 to regress to 11.4 because of the screwup I perceived in the GUIs there. I really can't fault Torvalds on that one.
My next attempt might be to try 12.2 with TDE (a branch of the older KDE3 GUI) as the native KDE3 is severely cacked IMHO. In a virtual system, of course!
Like I've always said...
Before I buy this box of Bold 3, tell me now what Bold 4 will clean that Bold 3 won't.
Mixed Feelings
I recently set up a shiny new Win8 laptop for two OAPs who were used to XP on an old desktop machine.
For them TIFKAM gives them easy access to everyting they need. It sure as hell got in the way of what I needed to do though. How are you supposed to get into the Control Panel or 'My Computer'? The biggest embarrassment came when we inserted a CD that had some simple card games on it. A message appeared for about three seconds that said "click here for more options" but it disappeared before OAP#1 got the mouse pointer onto it. I then struggled for ages to find out how to 'explore' the disk before giving up, ejecting it and then re-inserting it. That did not inspire them with confidence that I knew what I was doing.
My assessment.....some tricky things have been made simpler, but a shedload of simple things have been made trickier. I was very impressed when I enabled the wireless option on their printer, entered their password and and by the time I turned back to the laptop it had found it and installed the drivers without me having to do anything.
Would I buy it? Not as an upgrade. I love Windows 7 too much now. Would I buy a laptop with it pre-installed? Possibly, but only if it was cheap and had a touch screen.
Re: Mixed Feelings
Jesus, seriously? How old are you? Six?
"How are you supposed to get into the Control Panel"
WIN+R - type "control panel". Press Enter.
'My Computer'
WIN+R and type 'explorer', then press Enter. Or you can just enable the usual Desktop icons through the Personalize command (in the context menu).
Exactly the same as in every previous bloody version.
HANDY TIP FOR THE IGNORANT:
Do you still rely heavily on the mouse / trackpad for accessing everything? If so, I have some bad news for your "IT Credibility": By definition, you are not an advanced user! WIMP-based GUIs were designed for beginner and early intermediate users, who are supposed to learn the keyboard shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts are the "advanced UI" for all GUIs based on the 1960s-era WIMP metaphor.
That's the whole POINT of WIMP-based GUIs. It's right there in "GUI Design 101" textbooks, so you really have no excuses for all this incessant whining and moaning about how MS have mucked about with the Start Menu yet again. (The same Start Menu that they've been mucking about with in almost EVERY Windows release since Windows 95.)
NONE of the keyboard shortcuts have changed. ALT+TAB still works as before. The Windows key will usually switch between the launcher and the last-used app. WIN+D will bring up the Desktop.
The Windows key on its own still brings up the Start Menu (or its tiled "ModernUI" incarnation on Windows 8). Again, this behaviour has not changed. Why on earth anyone who considers themselves any kind of expert or advanced user still drags their mouse pointer all the way down to the bottom-right corner in this day and age escapes me: that key's been on every PC keyboard for over 15 years now. After all these years, do you still need a coloured picture to aim at?
Even ALT+F4 will close apps and bring up the usual "shutdown / sleep" dialog in the same contexts as it did before. WIN+R will still pop up a dialog to type app names into. (Many advanced Mac users use Spotlight in a similar way. Others run a launcher called "Alfred", or use some other method.)
Christ, if you think Windows 8 is "hard", you clearly never tried to play around with Intuition on an old Commodore Amiga 1000. (And people said the PC's old CGA graphics palette was hard on the eyes.)
Pipe, slippers, rocking chair, pretending to be deaf, "kids these days", etc.
Seriously?
GUI Design 101, make it possible to perform common actions BOTH by keyboard and Mouse. Power users may like the accelerator keys and typing stuff, but switching between keyboard/mouse input is at best a distraction.
It's almost as bad as being told "hey idiot, all you have to do is start a DOS command prompt and type this gibberish in". If you need to start typing to hit something as basic as control panel (and, for reasons that pass all understanding, Microsoft seems to have two different versions under 8) then they've got it badly wrong.
Re: Mixed Feelings (@STB)
Even easier for 'My Computer': WIN+E
Also WIN+X for the menu most power users will find useful. Control panel is there
Or press WIN then start typing control panel
Totally agree too many people here seem to be having problems with it.
Re: Mixed Feelings
It's not mostly about the start menu.
It's about... I have a powerful PC, with a nice, bright, large 22" screen....
Metro--- full screen single window...
eww...
Doesn't sound like you did know what you were doing...hopefully next time you will learn a new OS before claiming to others to know what you are doing with it...just a thought
Re: Mixed Feelings
"Do you still rely heavily on the mouse / trackpad for accessing everything? If so, I have some bad news for your "IT Credibility": By definition, you are not an advanced user! WIMP-based GUIs were designed for beginner and early intermediate users, who are supposed to learn the keyboard shortcuts."
Scrathpad. Xerox Parc. Older people. Chunky buttons.
PS: I invoke these concepts as one who spent most of the summar using vim in a full screen terminal session running Bayou typing book chapters in LaTeX.
Re: HANDY TIP FOR THE IGNORANT
If you really believe that WIMP is just a crutch whilst you learn the keyboard interface, like you are "supposed to" then "by definition" you are a rubbish UI designer.
Sorry Sean, but after 30 years of using WIMP interfaces, no-one (not even MS with their stonking market share) can turn round to the general user population and say "You should have finished learning the keyboard shortcuts by now.".
On the wider issue of why the El Reg readership is so split on this, perhaps the explanation is that half of us use computers to get our own job done (and are perfectly willing to learn new tricks if there's a benefit) and the other half use computers to help everyone else get their jobs done (and therefore we are hugely sensitive to how they will get on when the interface is placed in front of them).
Give it 12 months and (with the typical PC upgrade cycle) there will be a sizable fraction of "my" end-users wondering how to get their job done with this wierd new interface where everything familiar has been hidden. It won't be MS who have to answer these questions. And all so that Steve can have another crack at the phone market. Gee, thanks!
re; Sean Timarco etc....
"Why on earth anyone who considers themselves any kind of expert or advanced user still drags their mouse pointer all the way down to the bottom-right corner in this day and age escapes me"
Not all shortcuts are easy with one hand, and I like to hold my cock in the other.
Mines the one with the pack of tissues in the pocket.
Re: Mixed Feelings
@ Sean Timarco Baggaley
You say,
Jesus, seriously? How old are you? Six? "How are you supposed to get into the Control Panel" WIN+R - type "control panel". Press Enter.
Your suggestion, "WIN+R - type "control panel": that requires expert knowledge (how would a new user know that?) and is inefficient for many (mouse to keyboard back to mouse)
Remember all the FUD trolls lying that you need to know the command line to use linux? Well it seems to me that what you have just described is a command line mechanism, and not even a very good one.
Re: re; Sean Timarco etc....
Hmm... brings back the whole comparison thing. We were comparing TIFKAM to Windows 3 earlier in this thread, weren't we?
Anyone remember how you typed a program in on a Sinclair ZX computer? The display isn't the only thing that is regressing, methinks!
Re: Mixed Feelings
You know, I thought this thing called a GUI (Graphical User Interface) was supposed to make the basic operation of a computer easier. Instead of remembering lots of esoteric commands that had to be typed in, you could point at things to select them, and click them to activate. That is the point, is it not ?
Windows 8 is basically a waste of time
Yes, I have used Windows 8 for some time, although I readily admit I fully discarded any worth Metro may have.
There are a few useful desktop improvements, for sure, but the startup speed improvements are exaggerated - if you have an SSD (as you should), it makes little to SFA difference.
Essentially, if you're willing to work around some of the issues in 8, perhaps by installing a Start Menu alternative, then it's decent enough.
But there's literally nothing that would make you want to go through the hassle and expense of installing 8 when you have 7. Even if that expense is only fifteen dollars, or whatever the cheapest price was touted as.
Re: Windows 8 is basically a waste of time
>But there's literally nothing that would make you want to go through the hassle and expense of installing 8 when you have 7.
I'll take your word for it, as I'm happy enough with Win 7. That said, I haven't any USB 3 hardware, or any need yet to explore Storage Spaces. Lots is written about the Win8 UI, (I'd just assumed that technical users will use 3rd party tools modify it to their liking... surely 'power users' have their own pet tweaks they like to make to any GUI?) but less about the 'under the hood/bonnet' new features/bugs.
I kind of get the impression that MS knew many people would be happy enough with 7 not to bother with 8, so they have been more experimental with 8's UI, with a view to implementing the resulting feedback into 9. This view is deliberately optimistic, though!
Re: Windows 8 is basically a waste of time
USB3 works fine under 7 - and I've heard Storage Spaces had problems of its own.
Not saying 8 is a total waste of time - but if you already have a well established setup with 7, I can't imagine you'll find much to love.
£££££
Hey Alistair,
How much did the Reg pay you for that insightful article? I'm sure I too could write well researched, expletive articles too. Slow news day?
Internet Explorer – the worst web browser in the world
In the 90s it was hardly the worst browser in the world.
Re: Internet Explorer – the worst web browser in the world
OK, I admit that maybe for a specific period of 10 months during that decade it might have been OK, but that was only because Netscape got worse.
Re: Internet Explorer – the worst web browser in the world
So it was the worst out of 2?
Re: Internet Explorer – the worst web browser in the world
So it was the worst out of 2?
In the summer of 1994, I was involved with selecting the web browser to install on my University's PCs. We tested at least five: Mosaic, Netscape, Opera, Lynx, and a DOS-based graphical browser whose name escapes me. When I did first try Internet Explorer a year later, it was worse than those five had been.
Re: Internet Explorer – the worst web browser in the world
'Worse' of two, not 'worst'. I hope you're not in a public sector job.
Multi video windows
"I’m reminded of a demo soon after the launch of Windows 95 at which a slick presenter opened three video files (postage-stamp size, admittedly) in separate windows and ran all three simultaneously. It was a striking example but quite useless when you think about it."
Err.... porn?
Win 8 FTW
First off, yes I am using win 8. 2nd off, I think it's great. I can use apps instead of web browsing so with either 1 or 2 clicks at most I am getting my tech news, BBC news or whatever else I choose.
It is easy to use and fast, the search feature is sooo much better than W7. Everything is at your fingertips very quickly.
For the "power user" who was comparing boot time...your not a power user if you turn off your PC on a regular basis, hibernate or leave on. I could care less when I only reboot my PC once every couple of weeks how long it takes.
Sad that Reg writers and a lot of you bloggers can't appreciate something good and lol @ anyone still using windows XP on a home computer...what r u doing here!!!!
Re: Win 8 FTW
I'm following all this with interest as I know what Santa is bringing me.
Current limptop takes a hell of a long time to boot up - it was cheap 6 years ago- so for me it's a new machine and new O/S to play with.
As long as its not as fucking annoying as Vista I won't mind at all.
Re: Win 8 FTW
"As long as its not as fucking annoying as Vista I won't mind at all."
ive something to tell you, you might want to have a seat.
Re: Win 8 FTW
Vista would force restart your computer every so often, to install updates, wiping unsaved documents (avoidable) and killing any long tasks like batch rendering or downloading (unavoidable). This behaviour couldn't be turned off in the Home versions. Personally, I consider that to be more annoying that having to bat some coloured squares out of the way on start up.
Re: Win 8 FTW
"I could care less when I only reboot my PC once every couple of weeks how long it takes."
At the usual per-KWh electricity prices, enjoy your expenses. Also some of us like having a clean environment that hasn't been toggled between standby/smart hibernate/whatever theyr'e calling it these days, and had the chance to build up enough entropy to truly bugger things up.
Also it's "couldn't care less". "Could care less" means you at least care a little bit, in order that you could care less. Here, allow David Mitchell to explain in nice, simple terms that you might understand.
Re: Could care less
You appear to have missed something......
allow me to introduce... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm
Re: Win 8 FTW
I didn't know we were attending a grammar 101 class and clean environment wtf are you talking about, my computer environment is the same whether I have been running my pc for 5 minutes or 5 days......
If you are gonna come with something at least have something better than David Mitchell for me!!!
Re: Clean environment
It doesn't matter how well-coded your OS is (and being Microsoft, it won't be THAT well coded). Keep starting programs, ending programs, saving state, reloading state, starting more programs, ending more programs, shuffling data into and out of memory, day after day after day...
It'll happen. Slowly perhaps, but out of those gazillions of operations you're asking the OS to do, SOME of them will bugger up. Sure, you might not notice it at first.. it'll just be having to click on an icon twice instead of once. However, slowly but surely, entropy will build up. Things will break. Stuff will slow down. Eventually, and I've seen it happen so many times on so many Windows machines of every version, you'll be flying along in some application or game, and *CRASH*. It's not a virus, it's not malware outside of maybe Microsoft's shitty DRM being tripped, it's just a simple consequence of thinking you can keep going forever on an OS that is not totally and utterly bug-free.
That's why it's nice to reboot every now and then. But hey, it's your machine. You do what you like with it. Go ahead and waste electricity by leaving the thing on. After all, it's your electricity bill. But don't accuse me, or anybody else, of being somehow inferior because we like to cold-reboot sometimes and make sure the OS has started up cleanly. Or perhaps we just don't want to burn through the MTBF of the various components for no good reason other than not being bothered with a power switch. Or, maybe, we don't want to die in a fire caused by an exploding power supply?
Of course, you can do all of the above if you like. I could care less.
Re: Win 8 FTW
"Vista would force restart your computer every so often, to install updates, wiping unsaved documents (avoidable) and killing any long tasks like batch rendering or downloading (unavoidable)."
- that's true of all modern windows systems (for the average user without expert knowledge).
Re: Clean environment
MS systems need rebooting so often due to a file system that locks up files when something is using them, hence the need for a reboot all the time.
This causes a lot of problems with re-installs not working correctly, even for techies.
Unix solved this issue in the 1970's so MS have no excuse.
Re: Win 8 FTW
Now there's a couple of possibilities here.
The first, of course, is that you are actually happy with W8. Fair enough. If it does what you want it to do when you want to do it, then that's fine and dandy. Chalk one up to Microsoft and all is fine with the world. (Just don't expect me to join you any time soon).
The second possibility, however, came to mind because of the throwaway line at the end. "Sad that Reg writers and a lot of you bloggers can't appreciate something good and lol @ anyone still using windows XP on a home computer...what r u doing here!!!!" The thought that came to mind doesn't bear repeating, but I really hope that I'm wrong on that count. Let's just go with the "fanboi" label.
As for defining a "power user", you have a weird idea of what constitutes a power user if you gauge them by how often they switch their computer off. Generally, a power user is defined by what they do when the computer is switched on, not just by the use or otherwise of the shutdown command.
Re: Win 8 FTW
Ah, now I see. Thoughts of fanbois, possibly over-enthusiastic noobs, shills and the like are no longer applicable.
What we have here is the lesser spotted troll.
Back under your bridge with you!
The running 3 video's at once trick I saw on an SGI in either 96 or 97 - Still not seen it work as well on a pc ever since. (Important part being no tearing and smooth).
If there was a free adblock plus thing that worked as well then I would use ie10.
(The Metro version being so locked down is something I would like to use for such as online banking).
You should try the video thing on OS X.
Even on an old Dell Latitude D610 with the crappy GMA900 graphics, a very particular build of OS X works well on it - and videos scale smoothly, without stuttering, as you resize and so on - something I can't seem to do well on Windows, but that's mainly because most apps still call for GDI+, which has pathetic acceleration these days.
@h3
I think they were trying to emulate Acorn's Replay.
That was launched in 1992. I'm not sure if it was that year or later when I saw it running 4 simultaneous windows of the Space Shuttle take off. I seem to remember that was on an A5000 (25MHz ARM3 4MB RAM), but it could have been an early RiscPC (30MHz ARM6 8MB RAM 2MB VRAM), which probably meant it was 1994.
I've actaully used win8, unlike presumably several of the people that have replied here. I like it. It's quicker, boots fast, shutsdown fast too. I dont quite understand the problem others have with the start menu. I hit "start" then I begin to type the name of the thing i want, then hit enter. Same as I did in 7. Who *really* navigated through the start menu? Don't lke the fullscreen apps? Don't use them then.
Re: Who *really* navigated through the start menu?
/me raises hand.
Warming...
I hated it when I tried the W8 consumer preview. I swore I'd never use it. As I've bought my kid a shiny laptop for Christmas I thought I'd better be able to use it when he asks questions so decided to put it on my laptop (not desktop) for the cheap as chips upgrade price.
I am ashamed to admit I am warming to it. I still wouldn't want metro ^H ^H ^H whatever its called on my desktop but I've found myself using it for casual things on my laptop. Email. The web. Apps I've downloaded. General non-worky stuff. I could see my Mum using it, or people that generally do one thing simply and then do another. Yes, not people that use a computer day in day out and run up multiple spreadsheets and stuff, but the iphone, tablet generation who are really consumers.
I've put back the start button for when I'm in "desktop" mode so I launch all my full apps from that. I use tiles for quick updates, quick emails, browsing, casual stuff and it feels nice and clean. Maybe it's because since the preview I bought a tablet so am used to the tablet way of "this is taking my full attention". I'd love it to have an "official" start menu to allow for the fact that yes we do work two different ways, but its not as awful as I thought, and its quite painless when my brain isn't in techie mode.
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