Here's the $4.99 utility that might just have saved Windows 8 Veteran software outfit Stardock has offered Microsoft an elegant way to escape its Windows 8 Metro Notro dilemma. With Windows 8, Redmond foisted a new and radical touchscreen-driven user interface on a desktop PC market that was already in a once-in-a-generation slump - and both consumer sales and enterprise interest have …
And then you went to desktop mode and tried to find control panel, and then couldn't and went to the TIFKAM and typed in control panel, only to be rushed back to desktop mode and found it was loaded up in there. And you thought "Wow that is such a logical place, how I have loved adding three actions and a loading of typing to get to the basics? Why didn't it open in TIFKAM, or let me open in desktop mode."
And then you added Administrative tools to TIFKAM and realised every single icon that has been there since windows 3.1 is still there, and you guffawed at how ugly they look in their 8bit pixelated look compared to the flashy new (and ugly) squares.
And then you tried to alter the general feel of TIFKAM and found yourself going round in circles because of the confusing terminology change, or the fact some personalised features can only be edited from within the desktop features.
And then you ran IE and found out JAVA isn't supported in TIFKAM and you then have to close that and go to the desktop mode to open IE and try again.
Or how you love the 24 inch monitor in 1920 x 1200 and the constant muse movements on my small mouse mat to be able to drag my stupid little mouse across MASSIVE tiles to get to the one I want because I don't have a touch screen... Or the fact I have dual screens and it takes TWICE as long.
Oh how you loved it.
No? Oh only me then,
Or how you love the 24 inch monitor in 1920 x 1200 and the constant muse movements on my small mouse mat to be able to drag my stupid little mouse across MASSIVE tiles to get to the one I want because I don't have a touch screen... Or the fact I have dual screens and it takes TWICE as long.
You have a 24 inch monitor and no mouse wheel?
Metro for me is a glorified start menu, and with the keyboard support they added after its first appearance, I use it like I use every other menu these days. Hit the windows key, type a bit of what I want, hit return. It's what I did in 7 and it's what I do in Kubuntu. I see Metro for about a second, then it's gone again.
And to get to the control panel? I hit the charms menu and it's right there. That's way easier than it was in 7!
we've said it once, we'll say it a million times...
How many 'average' users do you know, that know start menu keyboard shortcuts...
hell i'm a techy, and wasn't really aware of them until the consumer preview of Win 8...BECAUSE I'VE NEVER EVER EVER NEEDED THEM
If you have to revert back to using the keyboard...how is that advancement?
I installed Win 8 over a Win 7 install about 3 days ago or so, got to say that so far i actually like it. All of this rampant "it's rubbish" type speak is a complete nonsense. It took me all of about 30 mins to learn how to use it, since it largely works exactly like Win 7 did, and it is faster (or at least it seems to be on my machine).
As for the start menu, in between pinning to the desktop and windows + r what exactly do you need? If anything, for the type of user who needs to use the start menu that much, i'd think the visually appealing large interface would be helpful.
Downvotes, etc.
... by adding the features Microsoft stripped from it? Infinite facepalm!
Great program, this should have been a feature of windows 8 from the start.
Picture is what I expect Microsoft's development team to look like (either by force from management's poor decisions, or choice?)
(about introducing Metro in some sort of "Battering ram" style)
"When you think about it, it’s not a bad strategy.
I have to disagree there. Because this strategy does not account for one major aspect: the fact that consumers have many options to simply ignore the environment all together. Even more than in the days of Vista.
Microsoft needs to realize that they're not in a position where they can simply dictate the market any more. Tick people off enough and they're going to look and find alternate solutions. And then you'll have lost them as customer.
"Microsoft needs to realize that they're not in a position where they can simply dictate the market any more. Tick people off enough and they're going to look and find alternate solutions. And then you'll have lost them as customer."
Indeed, Microsoft hasn't figured this out yet. But in less than a year, they will, as Windows 8/Windows RT/Metro UI will have completely crashed and burned by then, taking down a lot of Microsoft's "partners" with them as well, and permanently reducing the pool of customers for Microsoft products as they finally move to other alternatives and decide the word "Microsoft" really means "Radioactive". The only question at that point is whether the board will fire Ballmer.
"Microsoft needs to realize that they're not in a position where they can simply dictate the market any more. Tick people off enough and they're going to look and find alternate solutions. And then you'll have lost them as customer."
Indeed, Microsoft hasn't figured this out yet. But in less than a year, they will, as Windows 8/Windows RT/Metro UI will have completely crashed and burned by then, taking down a lot of Microsoft's "partners" with them, and permanently reducing the pool of customers for Microsoft products as they finally move to other alternatives and decide the word "Microsoft" means "Radioactive". The only question at that point is whether the board will fire Ballmer.
Ya mean like Mint Linux? Yeah probably the One of the better decisions I've ever made, was ditching XP for it. The only time I ever missed or felt slightly nostalgic for it was when I actually read up on this Months line of Hotfixes due up next Week. Then it slowly downed on me whooooo I'm not using Windows anymore, why the Hell am I reading this for?
Really though I have to give Mint Linux real credit though for making me suspend my disbelief of actually not running a Microsoft OS. I can only encourage others to try it out for themselves. Pretty much covers all the tihings that made XP great, and no TIFKAM cruft!
Absolutely. For someone used to XP migrating to Mint (mate) will be way easier getting used to than Win8. So if you must reinstall your dads or moms PC then give them Mint. They will complain the first few days but much less than with Win8. Office tools and multimedia players etc will be included with the initial install so much less work for you too.
I moved to PCLinuxOS about 5-6 years ago and have never looked back. Love it. Use it for everything. I still try different distros regularly though on other machines and just loaded Mint 14 Mate on an old basic laptop.... and it flies!
Meanwhile, back to the topic... I teach Physics in an Independent school and am known as a techy geek (I run Computer Geek club...). Because of this I have seen first hand that the children I meet are already very, very anti Windows 8. One guy has it on his new laptop and the others laugh at him! This is actually quite important, as it shows that even youngsters hate the sh**e that is Win8. They are never going to warm to it.
Similarly, in my job, I probably see 100+ mobile phones a day clutched in the hands of our pupils... and I've never yet seen ONE Windows phone. This isn't me being a Windows hater, it is just the truth. If I see a new phone I haven't seen before I ask to play on it to see what its like, and have actually been looking for a Winphone8 so that one of the kids could show me what its strengths are. I'm still looking. Seems the kids of today laugh at Windows8 on a laptop, and won't buy Winphones either.
This signifies trouble ahead for Microsoft.
Good.
From the looks of it, this is not far from a panacea for Win 8, but the trouble for SB is he can win the battle or the war but not both.
A lot depends on your view of W8 as a long term contender *with* metro. I know architecturally W8 is more or less W7 in a flash jacket, but MS have decided that the classic interface has to go - in the same way that say, Coke decided New Coke was the way to go (and back tracked) or Apple decided OSX was the way to go breaking the linage with Classic Mac OS.
Balmer now has to choose between "rescuing" W8 in this way or letting it ride. About face and he's sending really clear messages about his roadmap (and his ability to organise a drinking party in a brewery). On the other hand if he stands fast, in "Balmer's New Clothes"(tm) he's risking the undercurrent of dissatisfaction with W8 tainting the OS in the same way Vista did and OSX and Free alternatives gaining just that little bit more ground on the desktop and MS losing that little bit more credibility.
Choices eh?
I guess that's why he's (presently) paid so much more than me... :)
Looks messy to me. In the video, he opens an app and the window size isnt big enough.
We cant go on with a windows 2000 start menu and UI forever and ever. There is definitely room for improvement, especially for users who dont have a touchscreen but I think most people will just get used to it.
Why can't we? Now I wouldn't go as far to say that Cinnamons (i.e. Mint Linuxs'), Start Menu is an exact copy of that in say XP. It isn't! But, I'm not there left scratching my Arse going bloodly Hell WTF is going on here either. Of KDE, Gnome or Unity I really do kinda feel at home with the Cinnamon GUI.
So... No Microsoft should have left the Start Menu (Button) thingy alone.
I tried a selection of both free and paid for start button replacement programs, so far I've found 'Start Menu 8' (from iObit iirc) to be the nicest to use and has the added bonus of being free:)
It takes a while to get it configured (ie get rid of metro etc) but I'm rather enjoying Windows 8 for the moment...
So this is for people who want to run Metro-style apps but in a window, which is who exactly?
Anyone who hates the Metro-style interface even 10% as much as the author does just won't bother with metro apps and will just use the fully fledged Win32 equivalents instead (which are actually designed to run in a window)
For everyone else having Metro apps be full-screen is kind of the point (pretty much the only app I ever use is the Netflix one because it works well in full screen mode)
A big thank you for highlighting the product. Will help my wife use her PC as she hates Win8. Everything is too different and it gets in the way of doing tasks. Multiplicity from Stardock will be dead useful at work for me. I can now have three monitors even though my PC can only handle 2, just use a spare PC. Offloads processing power on to the spare PC too.
Use Classic shell which is really good.
Did use ViStart which is a crapplet which take over your search engines choice and generally messes your browser up.
I really like windows 8, its quick and fast, but Metro offers less functionality than the comparable browser app. The mail client is a joke and its stuffed with crappy games and trial versions of crap. I deleted them all and stuck on classic shell.
Remember its call "WINDOWS" with Metro you only get a single "WINDOW" , should it renamed ?
I'd like to have a word or two* with whoever thought that 1280*720 was "too low" of a resolution for Metro- I have my HTPC hooked up to a 720p native projector which does quite nicely for 99.9% of the stuff I push to it. (that .1% is the few metro apps I've played with, after setting the HTPC's resolution to 1080p and coping with the projector scaling the quality off the resulting image)
Seriously Microshaft- the difference between 768 and 720 is all of 48 pixels. Your shiny new UI wastes more then that in empty space.
*And by words meaning "my steel toed boots in their nether regions, repeatedly"
I've started stocking up on W7 install licences as some big suppliers no longer sell them - just as a precaution. The users are currently happy with XP - so they won't want to move to the next OS until XP stops getting updates.
W7GUI will need some selling to them - and they might need a dual boot to retain an offline XP for treasured applications. However they would hate the current implementation of the W8 GUI.
Even if W8 suddenly has a change of style it will be too late - my tech refresh budget will have been spent.
If ya have to stick with them, then this is a sensible precaution!
Personally IMHO although the difference between XP and 7 seems huge, its really just a cosmetic One. Yeah it got on my nerves a bit too. After about a week of using it though I never thought twice about it. So this Ones not the problem your looking for. Destroying 18 years of user experience out the window with no rhyme or reason, just to SPAM the Hell outta your new all-singing & all-dancing GUI however is. Especially when that GUI is hardly tailored for a proper Keyboard & Mouse environment. Like say on the Desktop, where everyones having a bitch about it. No doubt TIFKAM is nice enough on Touch Devices e.g Surface Pro & RT + WP7 and 8. But it simply does NOT belong on any Workstation OS and or, Server OS.
Take away the context-switching torture feature, and Windows 8 is probably the best version of Windows that Microsoft has produced. The performance and storage improvements alone are worth the upgrade. But the UI is keeping punters away.
THIS
Under the silly UI (which on a Surface or phone works great), Win8 was worth the 15 quid I paid to stay up to date. It's bloody fast, and I mean bloody fast. On this tri-booting MacBook Pro it's easily the fastest operating system of the three, booting in seconds, and absolutely wipes the floor with Mac OS X (stick that in your tuned-to-the-hardware pipes, fanbois). The little enhancements lying around here and there also make it worthwhile, and it means I'll have the latest DirectX available.
So for me, this system continues to be:
Linux: Primary system, for work and getting shit done.
Windows: Secondary system, for games and media Linux can't handle (pretty rare these days).
Mac OS X: For when I have to, otherwise never booted.
I use Windows 8 on several desktops and my Laptop, I have them configured such that Metro is not there. I have no other issues with the OS, it is fast, it boots very quickly, it seems to work better on lower specced hardware than W7 does and it is very stable. M$ were pretty stupid to bundle Metro in there but the basic OS is very good. Bring on the downvotes.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
