back to article Windows Metro Maoist cadres reach desktop, pound it flat

The revolutionary dogma of Metro is sweeping through the old Windows desktop, too, a new leak of Window 8 confirms. The leaked build, newer than the public release of a fortnight ago, abandons the 3D design elements introduced into Windows in 1990 for a resolutely two-dimensional world. The 'legacy' desktop in Windows 8 is …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Oh sweet jesus...

    ...if that's real, what an utter fucking disaster windows 8 is going to be. I guess it might be finger friendly, but the vast majority of windows users are not going to be using their fingers any time soon. And besides, it's utterly retro, but not in a good way.

    1. jai

      Re: Oh sweet jesus...

      it's MetroRetro??? aka shite!

    2. Captain Hogwash
      Coat

      Re: Oh sweet jesus...

      You say retro, I say metro. Let's call the whole thing off.

    3. Circadian

      Re: Oh sweet jesus...

      "I guess it might be finger friendly" - where's the digitus impudicus icon when you need it?

    4. That Steve Guy
      FAIL

      Corporate suicide?

      That they are forcing this on the desktop makes me wonder what on earth they are thinking.

      Congratulations Microsoft, you have just pissed off the vast majority of your customer base in the vain hope to gain a puny market shart share in the world of Phones and Tablets.

      Is anybody taking bets on how long after the launch of WIn 8 Ballmer has to pack his bags?

      1. Zippy the Pinhead

        Re: Corporate suicide?

        I'm guessing somewhere about 3~6 months after initial sales figures come in.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Corporate suicide?

        No, this isn't really aimed at the corporate desktop, Microsoft will bring along a corporate aligned version very soon as is evident by the release candidate of Windows Server 2012 I've just finished installing.... hang on..... oh dear, that can't be right, ummm... nope, they're fucked!

    5. MonkeyBoyFan
      Happy

      Metro was designed by experts

      A good user interface is all about delivering content to the user, and the entire UI design team at Microsoft enthusiastically agrees that Metro provides a truly superior user experience. With regard to enterprise use, usability experts point out that productivity is impaired by trying to work on more than one thing at a time, and Metro is intended to prevent you from doing just that. 3D effects and the like simply distract from the app content, and aren't necessary when all applications run full-screen.

      Remember, Windows 8 and Metro were designed by Microsoft, the true experts in computing. While some users may initially complain about having to learn a better way to do things, Metro is poised to usher in a shiny new age of computing, merging the demands of content providers and enterprise managers.

      1. Doug Bostrom

        Re: Metro was designed by experts

        Remember, Windows 8 and Metro were designed by Microsoft, the true experts in computing.

        So -now- they're expert, having been ignorant for the past 20 years?

        Could use a dollop of coherence.

      2. Captain Save-a-ho
        Flame

        Re: Metro was designed by experts

        I predict that shortly after introducing Windows 8, Microsoft will fire every last, lousy, so-called expert who convinced them to treat all devices like a small phone screen.

        This isn't a new age of computing. It's fucking stupid.

      3. Tom Maddox Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Metro was designed by experts

        I see what you did there, unlike the people who downvoted you.

        1. Robert E A Harvey
          Happy

          @Tom Maddox Re: Metro was designed by experts

          Indeed. The nickname was a giveaway.

      4. Philip Lewis
        Devil

        Re: Metro was designed by experts

        The sarcasm is palpable

        1. Chika
          Devil

          Re: Metro was designed by experts

          Yeppers. That's why sarcasm works so well in text environments.

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Experts" at what?

        I certainly hope this was intended as sarcasm!

        "Delivering content to the user"? "Merging the demands of content providers and enterprise managers"? That may be what someone else wants for my computer, but it certainly isn't my objective!

        1. Infernoz Bronze badge
          Alien

          Re: "Experts" at what?

          Taking the Pea. Typically known as Pea Artists :)

          1. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
            Boffin

            Re: "Experts" at what?

            Marketing.

        2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
          Alien

          Re: "Experts" at what?

          Holy sh*t! In the darkness behind my LCD display, the rotating funnel of the near-marketing experience suddenly opened up and I could dimly see in its near-infinite depth, illuminated by the red color of glowing embers, a squamous yet ruguous arm, dressed in Armani, beckoning me on. Then I panicked and by utter force of will command my soul to return to base reality!!!

          I am afraid to go to sleep.

      6. Blitterbug
        Thumb Up

        Re: Metro was designed by experts

        Awsome trollage, MonkeyBoy!

      7. BitDr
        Angel

        Re: Metro was designed by experts

        WHEW! You almost had me there. Of course you weren't serious were you MonkeyBoyFan, you gotta be smarter than that. Perhaps the MS UI designers are frustrated GNOME 3.0 UI devs. It is so obviously a mistake to think that we came all this way, multiple windows, perhaps on multiple screens, just to return to one screen, one task.

      8. Mephistro
        Happy

        Re: Metro was designed by experts

        Some info for the downvoters.

        You're welcome.

        1. little

          Re: Metro was designed by experts

          fixed it for you : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

        2. Semaj
          Headmaster

          Re: Metro was designed by experts

          I think you meant: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/sarcasm?q=sarcasm

          Irony is great though and it's ironic how often it's misused.

      9. BernieC
        Thumb Up

        Re: Metro was designed by experts

        Crap, you had me there. I down voted and then realised I was an idiot. Well played sir, well played.

      10. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Metro was designed by experts

        How many of the downvoters on this comment think that irony is like gold-y or bronze-y?

      11. Grivas Bo Diddly Harm
        Pint

        @ MonkeyBoyFan - Re: Metro was designed by experts

        I've left a drink at the bar for you, sir, along with an upvote.

        I believe your favourite tipple might be *sake*?

        Cheers,

        G

    6. Wade Burchette
      Boffin

      Re: Oh sweet jesus...

      "I guess it might be finger friendly"

      Can you guess which finger I will be using with Windows 8? Since Microsoft seems to be soft in the head lately, I will give them a hint. It is the finger between my index finger and ring finger.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh sweet jesus...

        They already recreated Program Manager (new start menu) and now they've gone and recreated the graphics experience of Windows 3.1

        My prediction, they'll get rid of the task bar in the next release candidate.

        ; )

        1. RAMChYLD
          Boffin

          Re: Oh sweet jesus...

          Recreated Program Manager? More like took a few steps back from Program Manager. At least Program Manager supported grouping icons into categories. I don't see it happening with Metro.

          That said, without all the 3D bling, at least systems will run cooler and be able to put more juice into the programs running. I personally shunned Aero and still use Classic in the face of 7, because it frees up GPU cycles which I can then put towards getting more FPS out of the running game. Plus, I'm using 64-bit Windows. There's a nasty exploit that targets Aero on x64 platforms that MS wasn't arsed to fix.

    7. Turtle

      Re: Oh sweet jesus...

      "the vast majority of windows users are not going to be using their fingers any time soon"

      Having seen this, I can tell you which finger *I'll* be using...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How to make people use MetroUI

    Make classic desktop even crappier.

    Clearly, Microsoft NEED you to use MetroUI, as they want to sell you applications...

  3. Forget It

    Who needs gradients.

    It nice to have the raised button effect though - MS shouldn't kill that - especially for the top-right of the window.

    1. MD Rackham

      As long as...

      As long as the shutdown button is easy to find I'll be happy.

      1. Dale Richards
        FAIL

        Re: As long as...

        Finding the shutdown button took me about 10 minutes in the Win8 Consumer Preview. I'm still not entirely sure I'd found the right one, as it seemed to have been tacked onto some obscure settings pane hidden away in the darker recesses of Metro.

      2. Blitterbug
        Happy

        Re: Shutdown button

        ...I believe you'll find it on the front of your pooter...

        Seriously, why does everyone I know waste time and effort navigating to an off-screen control to do this?

        1. ChrisC Silver badge

          Re: Shutdown button

          Because it saves time and effort the next time you boot Windows, especially if it was expecting to have been shut down correctly in order to finish installing the latest round of updates...

          1. Matt 5
            FAIL

            Re: Shutdown button

            Are you complete novice? Hitting the shutdown button on the machine doesn't turn the machine off, it just triggers a normal shutdown as if you'd clicked the shutdown option anyway.

            Don't talk while the adults are talking little one, you'll keep embarrassing yourself. You and the idiots who up-voted you.

            1. ChrisC Silver badge
              FAIL

              Here's your fail icon back, I think you need it more than I do...

              Oh dear, would you like to try writing that again, after you've first learned some manners, and then refreshed your memory of the Windows control panel. Specifically that part of it which allows the user to control what a short-press on the power button translates into... clue, it won't always behave the way you seem to think it will.

              1. Blitterbug
                Meh

                Re: Here's your fail icon back, I think you need it more than I do...

                @ChrisC

                Power button = ordered shutdown since 1995(ish). Only Vista machines (pre-SP2) put the machine to sleep rather than power down when you hit the tit. MS did this during the early days of Vista when they had inadvisedly told everyone that Vista would boot faster than XP on the same hardware, then found this was actually impossible.

                They corrected this fail in Windows 7. tbh, any Reg readers who don't as a matter of course check their power settings (and those of family members, etc) to ensure they work as expected really deserve the extra effort to have to hunt for a UI shutdown option!

          2. Joe Montana
            WTF?

            Re: Shutdown button

            Pressing the power button once on modern machines sends an ACPI signal to the OS telling it to shut down gracefully... It doesn't actually remove the power unless you hold it down for 10 seconds or more.

          3. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

            Re: Shutdown button

            Because it saves time and effort the next time you boot Windows, especially if it was expecting to have been shut down correctly in order to finish installing the latest round of updates...

            Umm, you are aware that a short press of that button starts a normal shutdown by almost any modern OS unless you manually reconfigure that behaviour? Holding it in longer will indeed simply nuke the power, with all the consequences for any system that doesn't use a journaling file system..

            1. Blitterbug
              Happy

              Re: Shutdown button

              Thanks, Fred - shame you didn't upvote my orig comment! (only kidding, I love to bring on the hate etc...)

          4. Blitterbug
            Unhappy

            Re: Shutdown button

            @ChrisC

            Words fail me...

        2. Thing
          FAIL

          Re: Shutdown button

          Not on my laptop it ain't. Which means I have to walk over to my tv (I use a wireless keyboard/mouse) open the lid, press the power button, close the lid than replace the laptop.

          I for one used the sodding on-screen power button.

      3. Stoneshop

        Re: As long as...

        It's on the front of your computer.

      4. Robert E A Harvey

        Re: As long as...

        will alt-R, cmd, shutdown -s still work?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @REA Harvey - "shutdown -s"

          Yes.

          <WIndows Key>+R, "shutdown -s" does the job. That saved me some screwing around, thanks.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Windows

          @Robert

          That would be 'win-R'.

  4. JDX Gold badge

    I like Aero

    cool widgets and so on anyway. Have they removed the additional functionality Aero brought, or only the styling aspects of window themes?

    1. Malcolm 1

      Re: I like Aero

      It's only the theme that has changed I think - the benefits of the Desktop Window Manager are intact.

      Quite like the Metro look myself, but change always divides opinion..

      1. Blitterbug
        Meh

        Re: Quite like the Metro look myself

        ...me too, but only if I can kill it on demand

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I like Aero

      Me too

      1. hplasm
        Windows

        Re: I like Aero

        And me- I like the minty one.

        1. Robert E A Harvey

          @hplasm Re: I like Aero

          Green chocolate is WRONG!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Windows

      @JDX

      So far most articles state that MS has planned to remove Aero in its entirety in Windows 8.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: @JDX

        Yeah but articles just copy what MS say without delving deeper :)

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I like Aero

      I like Aero as well

      1. David Jackson 1
        Joke

        Re: I like Aero

        I like aero too, especially the peppermint variety, although the orange variety is very nice too.

    5. Wensleydale Cheese
      Happy

      Re: I like Aero

      FWIW I don't like Aero and I really detest transparent windows. My eyesight isn't as good as it was and I don't like stuff that reminds me of that fact.

      BUT both are easy enough to turn off in Windows 7, and that is how it should be.

    6. Chika
      Devil

      Re: I like Aero

      Never mind whether you like Aero or not. What about all the extra hardware and crap that people were forced into getting just to "enjoy the Aero experience"'?

      The only real irony I can find is that Microsoft have finally admitted defeat in their effort to emulate such transparent effects as existed in such environments as KDE, Apple iOS and so forth.

  5. jai

    wtf?

    Is there anyone actually doing anything at Microsoft? Or do all these design decisions get made by a computer algorithm and everyone is too scared to stand up and say "that's rubbish!!!"

    1. GregC

      Re: wtf?

      And if so, was that algorithm created by a disgruntled employee on his last day specifically to create least user friendly interface possible. First Metro, now this...

    2. Nigel 11
      Unhappy

      Emperor's new clothes?

      My guess is that someone very high-up is making these bad decisions and everyone under him is too scared to voice dissent, or too effectively silenced.

      They can pull back from the brink as long as we can choose to buy Windows 7. (Just as continued availability of XP saved them from Vista, although that was only bugridden not completely brain-dead). If they withdraw 7 so it's "8 or nothing", it'll be the beginning of the end of Microsoft.

      1. MonkeyBoyFan
        Angel

        Re: Emperor's new clothes?

        Desktops like OSX are so 1990. The WIndows 8 decisions are being made by a very talented design team who are not afraid to shake up the misconception that the Apple Lisa had the right idea about user interfaces. That team is enthusiastically supported by management, who realizes that every new Microsoft release is a tide that lifts all boats in the computing community, and that even users who are initially afraid to try new ideas will eventually embrace the new paradigm.

        1. Infernoz Bronze badge
          Devil

          Re: Emperor's new clothes?

          That must be some strong skunk you are smoking there or you are just being a cynical ass :)

          Me thinks they are trying to be the kind of boat that gets lifted up and broken in two by an iceberg, after ramming it because the captain is stoned or otherwise mentally compromised.

          The solution is sack Balmer and his yes men, and get someone in who actually knows what they are doing, and please not that found out bluffer developer and financial investment moron Bilge Gates.

      2. Joe Montana
        FAIL

        Re: Emperor's new clothes?

        Unlikely, while a small number of users will switch to Mac or Linux, the vast majority of users are either completely locked in, or are unaware that any alternatives exist... People will begrudgingly buy into the latest that MS shoves at them and eventually get used to it and accept it as normal.

        MS are very good at beating people down and lowering their expectations... Average people today think that computers are buggy unreliable junk that's always riddled with malware and gaping security holes, all thanks to MS.

  6. Zane
    Joke

    Deconstructivism

    Now is this deconstructivism, or just plan destruction?

    Is there any reason left to look at Win8?

    Zane

    1. Robert E A Harvey

      Re: Deconstructivism

      I paid for the full half hour

  7. Chris 3
    Coat

    Metro? more like Retro

    You see what I did there?

    I'll get me coat.

  8. tony72
    FAIL

    Loony

    The Windows folks at MS have completely lost it, haven't they? Taking a UI metaphor from the one-foreground-task-at-a-time environment on a phone where it kind of works, and applying it to a many-windowed desktop environment, where it patently doesn't. Of course, we already know that they don't want us using the legacy desktop in Windows 8, they want us to do everything in Metro, with one, or sort of two windows at most open. So maybe the desktop is supposed to be unpleasant.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      How many times

      You aren't forced to work in Metro Mode on the desktop. You are forced to use a Metro 'Start Bar' but that's it. If you don't have a touch-screen PC, don't use Metro.

    2. Infernoz Bronze badge
      Holmes

      Re: Loony

      Agreed; as I had to explain to a (sacked) mediocre developer, context matters; you can't apply concepts to contexts where they make no sense.

    3. BitDr
      Joke

      Re: Loony

      Run multiple Windows 8 Virtual Machines on your still multiple window-capable LINUX UI, there, fixed that for ya.

      Caveat: Anyone doing this will have to purchase multiple copies of Windows 8 to run them in multiple virtual machine windows, so it could be a little on the expensive side, but I'm sure MS won't mind the extra revenue.

  9. Joerg
    FAIL

    At Microsoft they are on some heavy drugs...

    MetroUI is a failure already with WindowsPhone having got around 2 to 3% of market share so far.

    Windows8 on tablets, phones and desktop/servers with MetroUI is going to be the demise of Microsoft. They don't have a clue what disaster they are causing to themselves.

    They are selling the most retarded nonsense interface ever created and it's 2012 not 1980 !

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: At Microsoft they are on some heavy drugs...

      WP7 isn't failing because of bad UI.

    2. Richard Plinston

      Re: At Microsoft they are on some heavy drugs...

      > MetroUI is a failure already

      Microsoft eventually saw that iPad was not just a short term fashion and had predictions that desktop was falling and mobile was the future of all computing.

      They had failed with their own pen and tablet products and saw WP7 failing. Redoing the same thing would fail again. They needed to create their own new future products. Copying Apple and Android would make them also-rans. They needed different and had spent millions on graphics consultants and UI specialists to get WP7. They saw the only problem as lack of familiarity.

      The solution was to make Metro "the most familiar UI" (as said by MS). The way to do that is to leverage the desktop monopoly and force Metro down users throats until they like it. Then they will _demand_ that their tablets and phones have the same UI and not that 'rubbishy old-fashioned Asomething junk'.

      Of course they forgot that making Windows 8 did not automatically update all the 7 an XP users, but a compulsory high-security urgent update will do that. SP8 will not be avoided, even if you have updates off and no internet access.

      You _will_ like it, by order.

      1. asdf

        Re: At Microsoft they are on some heavy drugs...

        Wow well said. Desperate times don't necessarily call for desperate seppuku though.

  10. Paul Shirley

    From 'meh' to tart then on to fugly

    The semi-official explanation for this travesty is they want to de-emphasis and minimise the chrome, to reduce distractions. They've sure de-emphasised it, to the point of making it harder to use. Not seeing any sign they've minimised its use of space though, just acres of empty space where controls used to be.

    They really are determined to cripple desktop mode so Metro looks irresistible :(

    All that gratuitous Aero shit deserves to go, pointless distraction. I can cope with a meh UI like XP. Not a chance in hell I'm putting up with this fugly mound of excrement.

    This looks worse than GEM on my Atari ST back in the 80's, where at least the edges of windows stood out and all the chrome was consistent. Hell, I had better windowed GUIs than this in C64 games.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Windows 1.0

    So we've finally gone full circle? :)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Windows 1.0

      Am I the only one who has noticed Windows 8 is actually Windows v6.2 (just as Windows 7 is v6.1 and Vista is v6.0). Microsoft really have lost the plot and are going to lose a massive chuck of people who decided now is the time to jump to Mac. And before you Microsoft Gold Partners chip in to say the version number is for compatibility.. one word: bullshit

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Amiga Workbench

    Amiga Workbench and Kickstart 2.0 with the Gadtools.library introduced 3D of sorts to the desktop interface. Ok no shadows, but windows had a 3D appearance to them, as did the Gadtools gadgets, icons and so forth.

    Funny how these things still stick with me after all these years after I owned an A3000 (which allowed me to flip between 1.3 and 2.04)

    1. Peter Johnstone
      Thumb Up

      Re: Amiga Workbench

      If only commodore et al had invested in the Amiga platform when it was at it's height, the computing world could have been vastly different (probably better!).

      Upvoting your post on nostalgia grounds!

      1. Infernoz Bronze badge
        Boffin

        Re: Amiga Workbench

        I was sad that Commodore made such a hash of the Amiga, they really were amazingly innovative machines, both for software and hardware, and way better that the Atari ST junk.

        There are still powerful concepts in AmigaDOS which Microsoft can't seem to fathom.

        It would have been good if the 680x0 architecture had been more aggressively developed rather than the fugly 80x86 architecture.

        I think the ARM proved that that similar ideas in the 6502 were far better than the fugly Z80 which the mediocre Clive Sinclair used.

        I hope that ARM eventually wipes out Intels' CPU business with a plain better base architecture.

        BTW: I used DirOpus on AmigaDOS and now use it on all instances of Windows I use (money well spent), Windows Explorer is just too annoyingly primitive; even the old AmigaDOS version makes all Microsoft file managers to-date look completely retarded.

        1. nematoad
          Linux

          Re: Amiga Workbench

          "I hope that ARM eventually wipes out Intels' CPU business with a plain better base architecture."

          Oh and condemn everyone to being forced to use Microsoft on their ARM machines? In case it has slipped your mind MS have dictated that UEFI will be locked in place on all ARM devices loaded with Windows RT without the possibility of running any other OS.

          Beware of what you wish for, they might come true, or do you really look forward to a MS monopoly, gained not through excellence and innovation but by bullying and sheer market muscle?

          Yes, I realise that not all ARM devices will come loaded with Win RT but how many non-mobile manufactures will be able to resist Microsoft's diktat?

          1. Chika
            Coat

            2D OS for ARM?

            Ah... now I see where we are going.

            Hangonamo. Even RISC OS was never that fugly!!!

        2. RyokuMas
          WTF?

          Re: Amiga Workbench

          You should get your mouse checked - the "troll" icon is one up and to the right.

    2. J. R. Hartley

      Re: Amiga Workbench

      I still haven't really gotten over the death of the Amiga. It's like when Concorde got decomissioned, technology took a step backwards when that happened. If OS4.0 had been released for x86 10 years ago then things might be a lot different today.

      Ah well. Blame Hyperion for burying it.

  13. DJV Silver badge
    FAIL

    In a word...

    U............U.........GGGG.........H...........H

    U............U......G............G.....H...........H

    U............U......G............G.....H...........H

    U............U......G....................HHHHHH

    U............U......G......GGG.....H...........H

    U............U......G............G.....H...........H

    ..UUUUU...........GGGGG......H...........H

    1. Rob Carriere

      Re: In a word...

      We're sorry, but the regression to ASCII art wasn't planned until Windows 9.

    2. Captain DaFt

      Re: In a word...

      Fugly POS, innit?

      Why doesn't MS just own up that they lost all their desktop UI software in a server crash, and they're just throwing this kludge out to keep Win 8 on schedule?

  14. fishman
    Joke

    Great ad copy!

    I can see it now - A picture of a car with a flat tire, with the slogan below it:

    Windows 8: It's flat, too.

    :)

    1. Nigel 11
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: Great ad copy!

      Same slogan, different images ...

      A roadkilled rodent

      A failed souffle

      A mediaeval map of the world

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Give it three months...

    ...& I'm sure Stardock or some similar company will come out with something that'll make it usable.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    How much deeper ?

    The closer we get to the release date of Windows 8 the deeper MS seems to be burying itself.

    Quite frankly I don't get it anymore.

    On one side we have people speculating that MS may very well be doing all this deliberately and basically expect the enterprise and business markets to skip Windows 8 and start looking at upgrading at the time Windows 9 or an even later version get released. Which IMO sounds very reasonable.

    Yet if that is the case it would also be safe to conclude that MS would then need to try and make Windows 8 as appealing as possible to the consumer market. But how do you do that by taking away all the eye candy ?

    Wouldn't that turn Windows 8 into a boring piece of software in the eyes of the common users ?

    Heck, even Apple keeps some form of eye candy on their desktops. I don't think they'd be doing that if they thought that it would only scare away people.

    The longer this story continues the more do I get the impression that MS is very busy making Windows 8 as unappealing as possible, probably thinking that they're actually doing the opposite.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How much deeper ?

      Getting the disappointment in early.

      Then when people start using it they can say - "it's not as bad as I'd heard"

      Though this process will only work if it isn't as bad as they heard...

      Or perhaps it's just the default is everything nice turned off.

      One can but hope. Unfortunately.

  17. gaz 7
    WTF?

    cant add anything to the first post

    so have upvoted it.

  18. Anomynous Coward

    "squaring off round edges with the designer's knife"

    Apple really has them rattled!

  19. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
    FAIL

    The '80s called....

    ....they'd like their GUI back.

    GJC

  20. Tom 35

    They have to gut it

    So it will run on a tablet.

    For years they have been adding flash to keep everyone on the wintel upgrade treadmill.

    Now they just want to get in on the iPad gravy and need to strip things to the bones so it will run on cheap hardware. They want tablets so bad they will do anything.

    1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: They have to gut it

      I'm a great fan of the 'classic' look from 95/98 and that ran well enough on pretty cruddy hardware by today's standards so I cannot believe it's simply to make it responsive enough.

      I have no idea what Microsoft's thinking is but it seems they are determined to discard everything they've promoted for years and gone back to the barest basics. So much so it looks like a prototype before the 'it will look much better when we finish it' promise. They really do seem to be travelling in reverse.

      Maybe it looks good, even feels good, on a tablet or phone, but I can't see many people being impressed with that on their desktop.

      1. Tom 35

        Re: They have to gut it

        One of the upper management types at work has a Dell Latitude ST tablet. It's a $1,000 netbook with no keyboard. Came with Win7 Pro and it's a slug.

        Installed the current Win8 release and it feels a lot faster, if only it had some useful aps it might be useful. Using Excel on it still sucks without a mouse / keyboard.

        But even with Windows 8 it's still way too expensive to be anything but a management toy.

    2. phlashbios
      Stop

      Re: They have to gut it

      No they don't.

      The version that is destined to run on ARM based tablets is Windows RT. Different version of Windows 8 than the Desktop version.

      1. Blitterbug
        Happy

        Re: No they don't

        Read some tech news... RT is pretty much identical, including the desktop. It is simply compiled for ARM, and therefore can't run any existing Win apps. The whole point of this debacle is that the tablet version is essentially being foisted on desktop users too.

        Who the hell is going to custom-pimp their PC with all kinds of liquid-cooled goodness and juicy graphics cards etc, only to shovel a pile of steaming horseshit like this in the top?

        1. nematoad
          Unhappy

          Re: No they don't

          Sadly you'll probably be surprised.

          On a contrarian note, it might just be the basic, pared to the bone OS that gets you where you want to be i.e. running the latest FPS or whatever without sucking up all those CPU cycles so you are faster on the trigger. Can't see it myself, though MS MUST have a reason for doing all this. Surely it's not some kind of corporate death wish, is it?

          1. Mephistro
            Meh

            Re: No they don't

            "...OS that gets you where you want to be i.e. running the latest FPS or whatever..."

            Errrmmm...

            FPS and most 3D games are usually played in full screen mode, and the complexity of the desktop's GUI shouldn't affect their performance at all. Other CPU-intensive apps shouldn't * be affected by desktop effects, unless the user is changing-resizing-moving windows at the same time.

            * For well designed GUIs, OSs and graphical drivers, if such things exist. Sigh...

    3. Chika
      Boffin

      So it will run on a tablet

      Probably a paracetamol.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Has this become a bankruptcy race between Balmer & Elop?

    I remember feeling proud of my drop shadows when doing a noddy menu system in Mode 4 on a Beeb in the mid-80s - seemed so grown-up & just like the photos I'd seen of a Mac. Ditto the overlapping windows. Unlike Aero these have both been clear & unfussy visual cues to the metaphor being presented on-screen.

    Now MS has boldly blazed a trail back to the dawn of Windows - it's as if the design team are using octal and it wrapped around from 7 to null.

    1. Allicorn
      Coat

      Re: Has this become a bankruptcy race between Balmer & Elop?

      Not only octal perhaps, but also Visual Studio with monochrome icons and ALLCAPS menus.

      MS have zero idea about interface design.

      1. Antidisestablishmentarianist
        WTF?

        Re: Has this become a bankruptcy race between Balmer & Elop?

        Sweet Mary I hope they don't keep that allcaps thing. It'll make me ANGRY everytime I see it.

        1. Wensleydale Cheese
          Happy

          Re: Has this become a bankruptcy race between Balmer & Elop?

          @Antidisestablishmentarianist

          "Sweet Mary I hope they don't keep that allcaps thing. It'll make me ANGRY everytime I see it."

          OK by me just as long as they give me COBOL back to complete that 80s look.

          :-)

      2. Doug Bostrom

        Re: Has this become a bankruptcy race between Balmer & Elop?

        Elop's the "Manchurian Candidate," same deal as the export to SGI was. Remember that debacle?

  22. randomHandle
    Pint

    Z-Buffer who needs it.

    The solution is simple. The active window is focused. Everything else is blurred-to-feck, thus making it obvious which is the top window.

    Yeah, that'll work. MS, wanna hire me as your next UI Guru?

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Glad I'm not a Windows fan

    Cos if I were, I'd be really upset at what MS are doing. It's interesting to note that the examples linked in the article suggest a deliberate policy to remove the word 'Window'.

    Slow, but accelerating, suicide.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Experience learnt from Vista

    MS have learnt from Vista that if you launch a really bad version of windows then the sales of the next "corrected" version are so much higher!

    1. Si 1
      FAIL

      Re: Experience learnt from Vista

      Until today I didn't think Microsoft could possibly fuck things up worse than they did with Vista, but it appears I was wrong...

    2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Re: Experience learnt from Vista

      Is this like the reasoning where government money printing and resource burning on warcrap is supposed to reinvigorate a debt-laden economy?

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "as if the design team are using octal and it wrapped around from 7 to null."

    I think the problem is much worse than that. You knew where you stood with octal. No one know where they stand with MS UIs any more.

  26. GettinSadda
    WTF?

    Great move!

    It looks like only way to make Windows 8 any less popular now is to make it automatically ban 9-year-olds from taking photos of their food!

  27. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    8? 3 more like it

    Welcome to Windows 3.0

    Big tiles to open your applications (Program Manager)

    No start button

    Flat controls

    Though at least back then windows on a phone was something you opened to slide the bit of paper in with your friends phone numbers written in biro. Wonder if they'll copy that next? Windows 8 notepad?

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think people are forgetting what Aero actually is, Aero is the glass imitation effect.

    you can still choose the color intensity and the lower the intensity the more clear it becomes, you still get a nice translucent effect. it will only look shite if you choose colors that dont work

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The reason for 3D was to sop up Intel processing power

    Each new version of Windows was designed to do essentially the same old thing, but to require more and more CPU and graphics processor power. In this way, the consumer could be driven to buy each new generation of hardware. Meanwhile processor wattage went from 10 watts to 100 watts, and graphics cards did the same. This worked for desktops plugged into the mains and for laptops, which most plugged into the mains most of the time (or used in docking station).

    But now that computing is being done on portable devices which are expected to be unplugged for days at a time, the software has to adapt to lower power processor and graphics chips.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The reason for 3D was to sop up Intel processing power

      ...then why do Android and IOS both look heaps better than Metro?

      Granted I wouldn't want either as a desktop OS, but you're still talking shit. I think more correctly, Microsoft have found an excuse (with Windows on ARM) to ditch the buggy awful shite they've built up as a legacy and invent some new buggy, awful shite that will run faster because at least it's not running atop 7 layers of buggy, awful compatibility layers.

      And for consistency, everybody's getting it, even on platforms where it really won't suit. Ho hum, nothing new. Just the other way around from when they tried to shoe-horn Windows CE onto portable devices.

  30. Timo
    FAIL

    Aero certainly drags everything down

    We got forced into Win7 where I work, and the UI is just sluggish.

    But I just found the control panel to change it back to "classic windoze" and that took care of a lot of the desktop latency. It isn't great but it sure is better. I'll take the performance over shiny shiny nearly any day. When I tried to turn off the eyecandy items in a different control panel it really hosed up the tray at the bottom and a lot of the notifications... so MS has a ways to go there.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Aero certainly drags everything down

      which control panel switch is that?

      1. pixl97

        Re: Aero certainly drags everything down

        Right click the desktop > personalize > Basic and High Contrast Themes > Windows Classic

    2. Gordon 8

      Re: Aero certainly drags everything down

      Have you tried removing the tablet components that are installed by default in W7? that helps with speed as well.....

      Classic is the first change I make, followed quickly by killing stuff installed that I will never use (such as tablet components)

  31. johnnytruant

    perhaps controversially

    I really like it. It's clean and simple and fresh - all things which a pleasant alternatives to the overload of saccharine candy my eyes have been subjected to since compositing window managers arrived (which, in MS world wasn't that long ago).

    I run a similar 'flat' theme on Gnome 3 and it's fine - I can tell which window is the foreground and so on, not a problem. Microsoft - maybe, just maybe - have UI testing labs which this style has done well in. Canonical's Unity interface, which you'd think was utterly despised if all you listened to was comments on the internet, scores really well with everyday non-techie users, I expect this is the same too.

    Amazed Windows isn't more themeable though. The people who don't like it could change it.

    1. keithpeter Silver badge
      Linux

      Re: perhaps controversially

      The teenagers I teach can switch from Windows 7 PC (College computers) to iPad to Blackberry and whatever and just complete the tasks they want to. When I hand out my laptop with Ubuntu/Unity on it they work out how to get on guest wifi and start Firefox straight away; log into Moodle and then download and edit the assignment files and re-upload them.

      I think johnnytruant has a point. The new stripped back interface meets the needs of 90%. The 10% will get stuff in Win9 and from 3rd party devs.

      PS: what Gnome 3 theme was that? (posted off a netbook running Xubuntu with Alt-F11 on the Web browser)

      PPS: surprise hit of the week, http://www.geogebratube.org/ on an interactive whiteboard. I'll hack a few up over the holidays to match the syllabus.

      1. johnnytruant

        Re: perhaps controversially

        My GTK/Shell theme is currently Elegant Brit, it's up on Gnome-look somewhere. It's not quite as polished as it could be, but the flatness does make a nice change from rounded corners and shiny FX, which I've been a bit bored of for a while now.

        I've noticed techie types are often very protective of their UI. I wonder if it's because we're used to having so much control over our computers, and building up lots of muscle memory about how to do favourite tasks (if I had a pound for every time I've typed ":w" into not-vi...) and then when someone else changes it we feel like our personal space has been violated, and our precious efficiency has been ruined.

        For the Normals, computers are just magic boxes. If one day you power it up and the magic looks and works a little differently - who cares? It's not like you can do anything about it anyway, you just hunt around for a vaguely familiar icon or two and click it until the internet or email or photo app or whatever is in front of you.

        1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

          Re: perhaps controversially

          "For the Normals, computers are just magic boxes. If one day you power it up and the magic looks and works a little differently - who cares? It's not like you can do anything about it anyway, you just hunt around for a vaguely familiar icon or two and click it until the internet or email or photo app or whatever is in front of you."

          Social skills of a thermonuclear device, there. You've just labelled every "normal" user of a computer (ie, 90% of the population) as a blithering half-wit.

          1. johnnytruant

            Re: perhaps controversially

            "You've just labelled every "normal" user of a computer (ie, 90% of the population) as a blithering half-wit."

            Interesting interpretation you made there. I've worked in user-level tech support and seen some of the ways people try to get control of their systems - yet I don't think they're stupid, they're just busy. Even the guy who called me out because his mouse wasn't working (it wasn't plugged in) - not stupid, just focussed on something else. He was busy brokering sales/purchases for the company I was working at - a task which, as far as I'm concerned, is high-level voodoo. For him, IT was something which either worked or you called someone to fix it - and how many things do you have like that in your life?

            You don't have to understand every aspect of a tool to be a tool user, and not doing so doesn't make you stupid. I don't. I can change a theme on my desktop, I can write a script to do x y or z, but ask me to write assembler or lay out transistors on a cpu die and I'm as lost as nearly everybody else on the planet. We all use magic, because lots of technology is sufficiently advanced these days - and that's perfectly OK.

          2. Blitterbug
            Happy

            Re: perhaps controversially

            @ Mr Hagan

            Actually, I have to agree with Mr Truant here. Sorry, but it *is* true. Puter nerds are really in the minority, and they (we) are really the only segment of the population who *get* computer. Trust me on this. I spend my life sorting out Joe Public's hardware. It ain't pretty.

    2. Blitterbug
      Meh

      Re: I run a similar 'flat' theme on Gnome 3 and it's fine

      But, Mr Truant, you don't have to wade through a lake of shit just to get to your desktop.

      1. johnnytruant

        Re: I run a similar 'flat' theme on Gnome 3 and it's fine

        Metro's search driven menu is actually very similar to Gnome Shell and Unity, so "hit start button, type, press enter" is pretty much the same operation for all three of them. Last time I used MacOS I ran quicksilver which was the same again. Fiddling around with the mouse just to launch stuff and find files isn't something I've done for quite some time. Obviously other people's milage varies, that's just me.

        On desktops - I keep pressing ctrl-alt-downarrow (new virtual desktop shortcut in Gnome) in Win8 to get to a new, empty, desktop and it keeps turning the screen upside down. I can't believe that inverting the screen is such a common operation there's a shortcut key for it.

        If Windows users don't like MS's shell, and particularly if they do like Gnome's one, I don't imagine it'll be long before Cairo is ported to Win8. http://cairoshell.github.com/

        1. Wensleydale Cheese

          Re: I run a similar 'flat' theme on Gnome 3 and it's fine

          @johnnytruant

          "I can't believe that inverting the screen is such a common operation there's a shortcut key for it."

          Inverting or rotating by 180 degrees? I could see the value of rotating for showing a screen to someone sitting across the desk from you.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: perhaps controversially

      Remember the eight million different "program launcher" and "menu system" applications written in the 1980s for MS/PC-DOS?

      We could have that again, but this time for Windows 8.

      1. Whitespace

        Re: perhaps controversially

        Where's Perfect Office when you need it?

  32. Piloti

    Don't care....

    ....as long as they spell "colour" correctly.

    1. Blitterbug
      Unhappy

      Re: Don't care....

      I know, it still grates even after all these years. And bloody 'favorites' too. Blech.

      1. nematoad

        Re: Don't care....

        Blame Noah Webster.

        An American who reportedly hated the British (he was alive during the War of Independence) so much that he deliberately used alternative spellings to those used by the British. i.e. program, center and so on.

        1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

          Re: Blame Noah Webster

          It's not fair to blame the idiot. The blame lies with the entire population who listened to his nutty views and agreed to follow them. (A bit like Steve Sinofsky and Microsoft, really.)

    2. hplasm
      Happy

      Re: Don't care....

      It won't matter- they are working toward full monochrome for the next release...

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No accounting for taste

    Well, I rather like that. (Queue auto-downvoting because, god damn it, it's the wrong subjective opinion.)

    I have no idea how it will impact usability because I find it's easier to try it rather than just look at pictures. Also, the only picture I can see is of a single window, so I wonder how it will look with several windows in the background.

  34. Pen-y-gors

    They're not actually go to sell any, are they?

    Ho hum, roll on Windows 9

  35. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Overlapping windows are so 90s

    If we went back to Windows1.0 on a tablet with a tilt sensor you could arrange all your windows by just shaking the tiles around - like those daft "arrange 15 numbers in a grid" toys.

    .... runs off to patent office ...

  36. Furbian
    Unhappy

    So less horsepower is used to render, due to more bloat-ware...

    The moment I first saw the new Windows Phones with their flat look, and the Xbox 360 update with flat tiles too, I wondered if it was so save the effort required to produce the '3d' look and free up horsepower so they can write more bloated bloat-ware.

    3D Aero was the only thing I liked about Vista (which we didn't use for long), and now enjoy on Windows 7.

    I know there's a big UGH already posted, but many, like me, just think it's ugly, ugly, ugly.

    It all looks so completely insane, it beggars belief that they, such an enormous company, are on this path to flatness, a stupid giant sized tiles interface etc. Have they not taken a moment to reflect, that when iOS and Mac OS upgrades are released, they don't quite attracted the hostility Metro has?

    1. nematoad
      Unhappy

      Re: So less horsepower is used to render, due to more bloat-ware...

      "It all looks so completely insane, it beggars belief that they, such an enormous company, are on this path to flatness,"

      Remember the supposed saying of Louis XIV "L'Etat c'est moi" "I am the state."

      When you have had almost absolute power for a long time you get to believe that what you say and do is all that matters. In MS case I think that they might come to realise that this is not always true.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A couple more moves like this

    and Apple might just get to buy Microsoft.

  38. toadwarrior

    They can do what they want. Consumers won't go to Linux, they'll just get win 7 instead and ms knows that so they're saying fuck you and making everyone a guinea pig.

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AND I BET

    And I bet this 'lesser' design will use more system resources to generate than Aero.....

    1. h4rm0ny

      Re: AND I BET

      And I bet it wont. Having tried both Win8 Release Preview and Win7 on the same hardware, Win8 runs very quickly.

  40. W.O.Frobozz
    Thumb Down

    "Jarring"...and ugly

    Been using *8 for the past couple weeks and the sheen still hasn't worn off my hatred for this crappy update. The Reg calling the experience "Jarring" is bang-on. I've avoided Unity and Gnome 3 on Ubuntu but the same criticisms I have read related to those UIs seems to apply to *8 as well. Why do I have to windows-key-right-click-click-click just to get to what formerly used to be called the "Start" menu? Why do I have to go out to Metro just to start "legacy" apps? It's ugly and migraine-inducing.

  41. David Simpson 1
    Unhappy

    This is definitely the most finger friendly version of Windows yet - I have spent weeks giving Windows 8 the finger for it's lack of logic and usability -

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Next up...

    Windows 9 built on the Athena Widget set (in full, glorious monochrome - none of that modern greyscale nonsense, now)

  43. Corborg
    Stop

    Nice

    I have no problem with the minimal design elements, the cleaner the better.

    But then you press the Start....sorry, Metro button, and I want to put my face through the monitor and my balls in the shredder.

    Abort Metro now!

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Thanks Microsoft

    After I had downloaded and tried Windows 8 I visited Distrowatch, did a bit of looking around and am now typing this via Firefox on Fedora 17 with KDE. Dual booting with Win 7, whicht I only now use a couple of times a week to play games. It's a few years since I used Linux and the current mainstream distros are brilliant. Thanks Microsoft.

    I know the majority won't do this and will swallow the Windows 8 crap, but Microsoft have slapped their core users in the face and they don't deserve any loyalty any more.

    I did try Gnome 3 and Unity, they're not my cup of tea, but they're nowhere near as dreadful as Metro.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Thanks Microsoft. One Word: Apple Mac

      ^^this

      Exactly! Apple Mac is seriously gaining traction in the consumer market and many people, having been burnt by Vista, will use the launch of Windows 8 to make the jump.

  45. MCROnline
    Happy

    Missing one funny point

    How many home users are going to buy WIn 8 at retail and return it complaining that it doesn't work with their screen? (Thinking the software will magically make their screens a touchscreen!)

    Can't wait to read the first story like that!

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Missing one funny point

      Carefull! I said something similar a week or two back and was accused of referring to "5 year olds" when I claimed certain people would expect a magical touch screen transformation :-)

      1. h4rm0ny

        Re: Missing one funny point

        "Carefull! I said something similar a week or two back and was accused of referring to "5 year olds" when I claimed certain people would expect a magical touch screen transformation :-)"

        Five year olds are probably smart enough not to think changing the O/S would turn a monitor into a touch-screen device. Really anyone that ignorant is a walking argument against the theory of evolution.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    we're right, your wrong..

    so shaddup and just accept what we're thrusting down your throat...

    ... or ...

    just keeping using XP/Windows 7 for the next decade.

    ... or ...

    switch to macos / linux

    As geeks, we've been here before - well, if your a Linux user you have.

    It's Gnome 3 / Unity but on a *massive* scale.

    Apple must be rubbing their hands in glee, as they watch Microsoft, with a chair throwing gorilla money-man at the helm let his designers and geeks run wild across the windows landscape, trashing familiarity in some wild gambit to force a touch-screen metro 'catch up with iOS/android' onto windows users via OEM tie-ins.

    It's madness, yet microsoft are so desperate to gain a foothold in the mobile market, they are willing to sacrifice the future of the desktop.

    It's a long game - lets face it, windows XP still reigns supreme in corporate land - an OS now over a decade old - but Microsoft risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

    I'd like to believe we'll all be wrong and will run to windows 8 with open arms, but then, I like to believe in unicorns being ridden by naked nympho firm bodied young ladies parading around my front lawn, brandishing kegs of beer and wads of cold hard cash.

    ... I probably should've left that last bit out ...

    1. Bob Asic

      Re: we're right, your wrong..

      my wrong?

  47. Tom Maddox Silver badge
    FAIL

    U-G-L-Y . . .

    . . . you ain't got no alibi.

  48. jim 45
    Go

    I think it looks cool and feels fresh. What's happened is that MS has finally put some people with design sensibilities in control, something Apple did years ago.

    All you guys who think Windows should look like 1993 until the end of time, you have nothing to worry about., Just go to Ebay and spend your Social Security checks on some 386s running 3.11, and you'll have your comforting, familiar 3D edges on everything to keep you nice and oriented. Myself, I like what's new and different, just because. By the way, I've been in this since before DOS. Maybe I'm in that 'second childhood' I've been looking forward to.

    I hope MS just tunes out all this noise and goes right ahead, and brings in a whole new generation of users who could care less about "Z-order".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Cool and fresh needn't mean a cup of cold piss

      Metro on a big screen is quite silly enough - every smartphone platform is hip with the fullscreen approach because generally there's only an itsy-bitsy display, but if when I've shelled out a hatfull of cash for a monitor that fills my field of view then for the love of Pete let my arrange my windows as I see fit and flick between them with my eyeballs - the fastest and deftest positioning system I have.

      But that's Metro; a woeful retrograde step for use on big desktop systems. Nobbling the Win desktop environment to make it more Metroesque just seems passive-aggressive. The removal of the full classic Win2K environment in Win7 was justified reasonably well as being the elimination of a whole bunch of old code that was little used and so a testing burden, but as described so far this seems no deeper than themeing.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      fail

      There's design sensibility in that microsoft have copious amounts of cash to throw at the UI.

      Alas, it's the UX where it all falls down - forcing a mobile interface upon desktop users is... dumb.

      But, hey, youngster, you hit them books a bit, go around the block a few times then come back to chat with the old fellas - one day, you may (if your lucky), grok it.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Dubstep is new and different.

      Wouldn't call it everybody's cup of tea though, would you?

      Will the advertisements be "Windows 8, now with 100% more Wub Wub"?

      Change for change's sake. Also known as "being a fashion victim". AKA "sucker".

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, when does this come out?

    I must remember to buy some popcorn.

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And the insanity continues.

    Clearly the product of the Early Learning Centre school of interface dedign. (Not intending to be disrespectful to ELC!).

    Now I'm going to be looking for the new "FingerPaint" application.

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    They're just trying to induce Stockholm Syndrome

    Every week brings even uglier peeks into Win8, probably culminating in a mock execution delivered personally to your cube - but the final release will actually be tolerable and the user base will overreact, sobbing with relief, and doubtless join them Patty Hearst-style on the next hijack of some worthier company or technology.

  52. Shane Kent

    I like the Apple buy MS...

    Buy MS, bury Windows, close Microsft Way, absorb the IP, sell off X-Box / Games to Sony for a sweet content deal that keeps filling iTunes for years to come. Oh ya, and the Office profits are all theirs:)

    1. M Gale

      Re: I like the Apple buy MS...

      Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss?

  53. Novex
    FAIL

    Minus One for W8, Plus One for Aero and W7

    Just a comment to +1 on liking Aero too. I really can't comprehend just how f*cked up Microsoft's ideas are at the moment, it seems they've chosen to alienate their core customers, the businesses (big and small). First it was Windows Phone 7 with no proper business version and no local sync for Outlook or full Exchange intergration. Then Windows 8 with Metro getting in the way on the desktop and being practially useless when remoting in. Then also Metro on Server 2012 (WTF?!). Now it's flattening out the desktop UI, dropping everything that made W7 feel a delightful and dare I say it, 'pretty' UI to look at. I sincerely hope Ballmer and Sinofsky get the boot because of these stupid ideas, and are replaced with people with a few brain cells to knit together!

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Minus One for W8, Plus One for Aero and W7

      I have to say I've also got to like Aero, if only because I'm able to have terminals running processes in the background and watch what's happening while doing something with another terminal over them.

      This, on the other hand, is pure nonsense, someone thought it was a good idea to make high-contrast the only colour scheme and theme available and there's a time and a place for high-contrast which is if you're partially blind. Other people either have found a productive use for Aero or just quite like their eye candy. And others don't want any of this Aero nonsense and set it to Classic.

      The desktop has always been about choice because desktop machines are powerful enough to offer it. If you take it away and you won't get people to upgrade and when they finally do get another computer, instead they'll go with one doesn't look like it was something knocked up by the programmer for use in testing until the real UI design came out.

  54. DN4
    Go

    Like it

    Looks nice.

    Mind you, I'm not going to use it because, well, I don't know what would make me switch to MS Win, anyway, I'm glad they got rid of all that 3D crap. Unlike The Reg which is unfortunately in the gradient stage of design development at present...

  55. croc

    My MS library just stopped accepting donations...

    I have a copy of every MS OS, and most versions of Office that have ever been released. I have a copy of ME. I have a copy of Vista. I have a copy of NT 4 SP4.

    I will NOT have a copy of Windows 8. And no, I will NOT accept donations.

  56. Bainshie
    FAIL

    Just the same for commentards

    Ah don't you just love commentards here?

    Microsoft introduces 500 layers of shiny crap that slows shit down:

    Micro$shit is bad. Linux happening, rabble rabble rabble rabble]

    Microsoft goes back to more standard design without the 500 layer of shiney crap.

    Micro$shit is bad. Linux happening, rabble rabble rabble rabble *Dies of stupidly and being a twat*

    Reading the comments on this website all follow the same sad pattern.

    Big company <X> is bad and terrible due to <badly thought out Y involving actually living in the real world>. Everyone will switch over to <Badly maintained and impossible to use open source program that nobody knows of> This honestly isn't a cry for help down to a crushing envy due to me dying alone and never having accomplished anything that amounts to even a 1/100th of worth that these companies have. Rabble rabble I'll get my coat.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: Just the same for commentards

      Living in the real world? Yes, Microsoft knows what it's doing and this will be a Great Success.

      Additionally, we will win the War on Terror any minute now, democracy is blooming under the protective wing of ground attack aircraft and this depression is over.

  57. Gerhard den Hollander

    they deliver what they promised ...

    ... When they said windows phone would be just as good and as succesful as windows 8 ...

    Although maybe not in the way people expected.

  58. Joe Montana

    AmigaOS

    AmigaOS versions 2/3 at least made some attempt at pseudo-3d, buttons and icons were given borders to make it look like they were sticking out, and clicking them reversed the border to make it look like they had been pressed in...

    It was 1.x that had a totally 2d interface, and a yellow/blue colour scheme that was designed to provide maximum contrast on poor screens (ie old/cheap tv sets as opposed to proper monitors).

  59. carlos_c
    Pint

    Start Menu

    Not quite sure what the fuss about the start menu is ....most users I work with don't notice it exists. If the outlook shortcut gets deleted I get calls with "Email has gone Missing" - they don't actually look for it in the start menu.

    MS have done a lot of metric analysis and probably saw that about 1% of users actually use it ......and most of those post on El Reg from what I can see.

    1. M Gale

      Re: Start Menu

      Well that's funny, because I know people with a similar attitude toward computers. Main difference is that if they can't find it after clicking the big "Windows" button and going through the menu or typing the name of the program in, then it's obviously not there.

      Myself, I detest the tendency of software to automatically assume you want a desktop icon, or a quicklaunch icon. I've seen too many computers with no room left anywhere because every available inch of desktop real estate is covered in icons. Usually owned by the same people who use the start menu because it's a damn sight easier than trying to scan through a desktop full of crap or a quicklaunch area that needs to be extended to ten times its normal size to see all the icons.

      Myself, I have one or two icons on the desktop, and a couple of choice apps in the quicklaunch area, which I've tweaked to work properly, and not like Windows 7's awful pinning-icons-so-you-can't-tell-the-difference-between-icons-and-running-programs shite.

      And Microsoft's answer to this is... to remove the start menu and replace with a bloody big cluttered desktop full of icons. Then make them look like Fisher Price designed it all, as if they didn't learn from XP. Then make it so apps are stuck in full-screen or 66/33 mode, because obviously my bloody big monitor can't fit more than two program windows at once on it!

      Wow. Thanks guys. That's really appreciated. I suppose at least I have a Linux partition so I can escape from some of this madness.

  60. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

    The old adage, now more than ever true..

    Windows 8, from the people that brought you EDLIN.

    Slight detour: EDLIN was still supplied with Windows XP, I stopped checking after that (mainly because Vista was just too much and I finally fled elsewhere). Anyone an idea when they finally gave up on this?

    1. Chika
      Alert

      Re: The old adage, now more than ever true..

      Don't know about Vista, but edlin is a gonner under W7. So is progman.

  61. Cyfaill
    Linux

    The new UI for Windows 8

    I am sure Glad that I am a KDE Linux user. It looks great and works pretty good too. The tower of the great Eye of Sauron is cracking and beginning to fall... watch it falling.

  62. BrownishMonstr
    Thumb Up

    why haters be hatin?

    Metro looks better than Aero. y'all ain't old, are ya? too 'fraid for change?

    1. M Gale

      Re: why haters be hatin?

      We used to be able to get from London to New York in about two hours, for the right price.

      Now we can't.

      What, too afraid for change?

  63. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I just want...

    Windows Classic Desktop. As fast as you can get it. Faster and faster as hardware improves.

    I don't want aero, I definitely don't want ribbons of stupid little pictures that mean nothing, I want menus

    I don't want stuff which checks content I own.

    I don't want loads of shiny tools which diagnose connections

    I want an up button.

    I need to have multiple windows open.

    When selecting other stuff, I want to be able to see what's there.

    I want it faster, and cheaper, and faster, and longer running, and faster, and longer running on batteries, and I want it faster, and cheaper.

    That's all I want.

  64. Mikel
    Go

    I love the new look

    I'm sure I will be happy with its reception.

  65. Snot Rot
    Thumb Down

    Animal Farm

    I've been using Win 8 as my sole OS since the RC. Its OK...now that I've installed that stardock or whatever its called (forces a Win7 style start menu button).

    Still annoys me that I have to shut down by mousing to the top right of the screen, waiting for a brief moment while the worthless animation takes place, bringing out the side bar, sliding down, making sure to keep to the right, then clicking 'settings' (is SHUTDOWN really a fucking setting???), and finally POWER -> SHUTDOWN.

    That fudges me off something rotten.

    I use a mouse setting of high speed, zero acceleration. Mainly so I have total control of the mouse, and it doesn't whizz about unexpectedly. Acceleration is a dick. To shut down windows, takes me from the bottom left corner (where I inevitably click - my mistake admittedly), 4 mouse swooshes (to make sure I am in the top right corner)....a pause......a rigid grip and slide down, settings/power.

    Absolute dump.

    Time for a Stella. 4.8% would you believe. Can't even consider that 'Wife Beater' these days....

  66. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    half finished job..

    So they turn off the bling but then don't resize any of the parent objects to remove the spaces that is no longer needed.

    Go for a pretty flat desktop by all means but tidy up the mess left behind by flattening it.

  67. Marty
    Coat

    there are a lot of nay sayers about hte GUI for windows 8, but to be fair, I do applaud some of the changes.....

    First of all, I have been running windows 8 on my netbook for a couple of weeks now, and find it not too hideous...

    one of the things I do as soon as I install windows on any of my computers is switch off the eye candy... the shadows, the 3d effects... I would sooner have all those wasted resources go to good use.

    the other thing, the start screen, or metro, or whatever its called... I quite like having a space showing the most common apps or shortcuts that I use ready for me....

    power up and shut down speeds are very quick, and its stable. !!

    its not all bad !

    where's me keys? where's me phone?

  68. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    Nirvana!!!

    I think, as a delighted and indeed enlightened, I may add (Sorry, Mr. Fry) Linux Mint 13/MATE user, I've attained that level of spirituality that few other fanbois and windows users have.

    In short, I haven't a fuc*k what the article is about (nothing derogatory about the article itself), nor why over 150 commentards think a windows interface deems a mention. Metro? Retro? Huh??

    Wonderful feeling.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nirvana!!!

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNYgNpAX__M

  69. Aitor 1
    Unhappy

    I hate to side with Andrew

    But this I agree with him, damn!!

  70. jim 45
    Happy

    it's all about tablets

    All you guys who want to barricade yourselves in your garages with XP and a shotgun are completely missing the point, which is that in a very short time 80% of the public won't even use the word "desktop" anymore and will be getting rid of that old tower PC sitting unused in the den. Everyone will be using tablets for everyday "computing" tasks and the Metro UI will suit them just fine. Having accepted that reality, MS knows there's nothing to be gained by forking this most massive of source bases and trying to maintain a historical "desktop" version. At some point they may have to appease corporate IT by giving them a way to boot to the traditional UI, but development no longer proceeds down that path.

    1. Doug Bostrom

      Re: it's all about tablets

      Shorter: prepare to squint.

    2. M Gale

      Re: it's all about tablets

      So you can spend £500 on this ickle diddy fondleslab that runs a few apps and lets you play Angry Birds...

      ...or £500 on this beast of a machine that lets you play Angry Birds, and Crysis, and lets you actually do some work as well. And print it out! And share it with people who have a different device to you! And use software that hasn't been pre-approved by the censors!

      Yeah, I can see the pirate-bay-loving, porn-reading, games-playing, working-for-a-living public ditching their desktops, honest!

  71. Scoobydoobry
    FAIL

    All bets are on

    Who wants to place a £10 bet that SP1 for Windows 8 allows you to turn off Metro and reinstate the Start button?

  72. Kubla Cant
    Happy

    Have you seen Windows 9?

    The window is almost black and it fills the whole screen. All the text is greyish-white. The cursor is a big flashing square thing. When you press a key it makes a loud click noise. When you move the mouse nothing happens.

    For Windows 9 Home, the interface is called VT52. If you're prepared to spend the extra money you can have the Professional interface, called VT100.

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