I'm really pleased to see an article like this at the top of HN. It's informative and side-steps both the marketing bullshit about the metro interface and all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that metro has engendered.
No no no no no. If Linux people had to put up with crazy shitstorms over Gnome 3 and Unity, Metro most certainly is going to get it's fair share as well.
It may be that complaints over Metro are inevitable, but that doesn't mean these "crazy shitstorms" are such worthwhile reading that they deserve a spot on HN.
Difference is that you are not even supposed to use metro on your workstation and that you still have the best window manager on the market alongside metro.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Gnome 3 or Unity. They seriously believe that you'd want that for everything.
There's one feature that keeps windows out of the running for me that almost every X Windows manager has in some form or another. Multiple desktops (not multiple monitors). I know there was an XP powertoy that sort of did it for windows but it ran slower than dirt on any hardware I had available. Without that, I can't help but see the Windows WM as hobbled.
Maybe this should be addressed elsewhere, but I wonder what you see as the benefit of multiple desktops. I've dabbled with them on occasion, and could never really see the point. Maybe my workstyle just doesn't fit well with it, and maybe I need to be more organized and/or disciplined. Obviously many, many people do like the capability, and I wonder what I'm missing.
If you're multitasking on a single monitor, all you have to switch between tasks is the taskbar, or alt+tab. Alt+tab switches between windows, but most tasks require a collection of different windows. Eg right now I'm stuffing about on HN and some other sites (1) while waiting for my code to compile (2) after which I'll be executing my app and testing it (3) while checking my mail and real-time IM (4)
Ideally I'd have four dedicated monitors - but on my one work monitor I'd settle for four virtual desktops that I can cycle through similar to alt+tab.
I find virtual desktops to be most useful on small screens. So on my laptop which has limited screen real estate I have a text editor on one desktop and by moving my mouse to the top left I switch to my browser desktop - v.useful
Only problem is that this has become so ingrained that I keep doing it on computers without this setup!
My best use case for multiple desktops is to have my fun stuff on one desktop and my work stuff on another. When the desktop flips, so does my mind. Also, when the boss walks by it's easy to hide HN and move to work stuff.
Hide away your email and other interruptions until you're explicitly ready to go look at them. Out of sight, out of mind.
Multiple projects. I have a legacy app I support and a new-development project I spend most of my time on. I can spread the work for each of these out across multiple windows on multiple desktops, and switch between them when I'm ready to context-switch. When I do, everything is laid out exactly the way I want it.
I'm back on Windows for now, but great multiple desktop support is the thing I miss most from a Linux desktop.
I use dexpot for virtual desktops. Very customizable. You can bind hotkeys, or screen hotspots (mine is top left pixel) for switching between desktops. I use it on an underpowered laptop with no performance issues.
OS X handles multiple monitors well enough, or did you mean Gnome? Windows UI is polished and has some good conventions, except that I keep trying to do things in terminal that aren't there...
If you full screen a video on one monitor in os x the other one blanks out. It doesn't stretch the video or anything, it just blanks it. I think vlc can prevent that, but it's still annoying.
It isn't just fullscreen video, it's fullscreen anything. Anything that doesn't exhibit that behavior is using a fullscreen "hack," i.e. the way they did it before Lion.
First of all, direct multi monitor support is handled in a different layer than the window manager. At best, maybe you meant the overall desktop environment, but again, I don't know how you can make such absurd, outlandish claims.
Please, name something you can do in Windows or Mac and I'll tell you how easy it is to accomplish with my setup in Linux.
And also, how is Windows better than Mac in this regard? You have a massive problem with "my opinion is obviously objectively right".
One thing that I hated about Windows pre-7 and Linux until Ubuntu was taskbar objects. Why do they need to take up so darn much space? I worked for hours laboring over Gnome 2 to get it to work like Windows 7, with icon based taskbar objects, trying every program and customization I could find. I finally got it just as Unity was announced. I was ecstatic that I could get rid of Gnome 2 and have a desktop that looked how I wanted right out of the box.
But let's not get into how slow Unity is on hardware that blazes with Gnome 2 or Windows... if I could easily get the same thing but much, much faster and something that lets me put that taskbar anywhere I want on the screen, I'd be happier.
If you wanted a dock aka icon based taskbar on Gnome, there were plenty of options before Unity came around. Out of the box they all work pretty much the same. They remain good alternatives if you want to customise. I used to use AWN, worked fine, but I'm fairly happy with Unity. It works very well for window management, and that's really all I want from a dock.
I think the old-school task bar is potentially more useful because it lets you see the window titles at one glance. But it just doesn't scale well beyond a dozen or so windows, either all the text is elided or you end up grouping windows by program at which point you might as well use a dock.
Not only that but there are plenty of options that are still better than Unity. Well, the newest Unity is even good enough for me to leave as default on my non-main machine. Cairo-dock, Docky and Plank (Docky's less functional successor) are all more configurable than Unity and more similar to what people expect from Windows 7 and OS X.
>One thing that I hated about Windows pre-7 and Linux until Ubuntu was taskbar objects. Why do they need to take up so darn much space? I worked for hours laboring over Gnome 2 to get it to work like Windows 7, with icon based taskbar objects, trying every program and customization I could find. I finally got it just as Unity was announced. I was ecstatic that I could get rid of Gnome 2 and have a desktop that looked how I wanted right out of the box.
Indeed.
And actually, after installing 12.10 on, to be fair, new hardware, Unity was just as fast as anything else.
I do despise GNOME 2 and especially its taskbar window list. I'm glad I've found someone else as pained by it as I.
On my laptop (windows or PC), I can walk into a new office with a monitor or projector that my computer has never seen before, plug it in and it just works. No configuration changes, no command line changes, my desktop pops up on the new device. I've tried to do this with Linux and failed - is there a guide to get it to work? And btw, if you have to muddle around with the command line or download a driver for the new display five minutes before a presentation, that doesn't suffice.
The best GUI is the one that works best for you, not me. That is the only true answear upon anying with even a hint of artistic creativity ( colours, shapes, movement of those shapes ) as there is no one answear. Some people like to use window layout and features in different ways for different tasks. For some Metro may be perfect and for others it is an offence to the pixels upon there monitors. Those are mostly going to be the ones that as long as they can pull up Terminal windows, or just plays open source games, or many other variations of how we use the tool we call a computer.
So in short for him he is not kidding, for you he is and your both right, lets not go down this path.
As a matter of fact, nothing even comes close to the balance of stability, backwards compatibility, consistency, robustness and flexibility that Windows offers.
What do you think is better and why? Perhaps "better" should be defined. I certainly don't think that shiny is better. I prefer utilitarian and flexible interfaces. Windows fits that bill swimmingly and I think most businesses would agree because I don't see many of them using anything else outside of Google.
I realize this isn't exactly what you asked for, but my personal opinion in terms of straight up window management is a solid tiling window manager like dwm or xmonad.
The Windows WM adds a bit to much shine to windows (for me) and doesn't have the efficiency that I love with tiling window managers. Mostly the ability to have everything I want viewable at once, along with keyboard commands to manage everything, is what makes tiling window managers so awesome for me.
Having said that, I do recognize that it's only this way for me. For many people, the default Windows WM provides plenty of power and flexibility to be awesome.
I'll ask you the same thing, how? How is it "better"? It has a feature? Waving your hands around and laundry listing things without any explanation is wildly unconvincing.
You like utilitarian and flexible and you're really sitting there telling me Windows is the sweet spot for that? Are you being intentionally ironic? That's the posterboy slogan for Linux if I've ever heard it. I guarantee there's no way that the Windows WM is "more flexible" than any linux WM. And utilitarian? I assume you have workspaces in Windows? You can activate/deactivate stick edges easily? You can do any dimensional grid system you like? You can have floating windows?
Those are features I use every single day. I feel like I've at least offered why I don't see how Windows's WM could possibly be "better" but then again I'm not the one making that claim. So far it's just you and other guy acting like it should be obvious why Windows' is superior.
> I'll ask you the same thing, how? How is it "better"?
It's consistent. It's been consistent for 7 iterations. 95, 98, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8.
It's stable. Everything shows up exactly where it's supposed to and works like it's supposed to. I have 4 high-resolution monitors set up and Windows handles it like no other operating system could.
Consistent + Stable = Win
However, what keeps me using Windows isn't the GUI. It's the driver availability, quality, and support. And that, of course, comes from market dominance.
Again, what are you talking about. Be specific. What is consistent? The behavior? The display of open windows? The performance? The appearance? Literally NONE of those are identical from version-to-version in Windows. I can tell you how it changed in almost every version in one way or another.
And besides, again, nothing to show how it's any better. You want <title> <minimize> <maximize> <close>? Guess what? You just described almost every window manager in existence, save for them having those switched around. They're all drag-and-dropable, they're all resizeable.
I don't think you guys have anything to hold onto other than lofty words and what you're used to.
As for drivers, that's a sad joke that just goes to show that you don't know what you're talking about. Go buy a Samsung Series 9. Works out of the box in Arch, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora. The: wired, wireless, display driver, chipset driver, memory card reader and touchpad were ALL broken in Windows 7 and Windows 8.
> As for drivers, that's a sad joke that just goes to show that you don't know what you're talking about. Go buy a Samsung Series 9.
You are restricted to hardware that works on your operating system of choice. You read forums and check to make sure everything will work the way you want to. Even then, you have to constantly worry that whatever solution you hacked together won't give you degraded performance.
I buy any hardware I want, with the full knowledge that it will work properly on Windows the way the manufacturer intended. Even Apple, the only major manufacturer out there that doesn't make hardware targeted at Windows, puts out drivers for Windows.
Oh, and I wasn't even talking about vanilla laptop/desktop hardware. I was talking about fingerprint readers, high-end or esoteric NICs, FM/AM radio receivers, brand-spankin-new motherboards, etc.
That doesn't apply to the majority of people, but it applies to me.
> I don't think you guys have anything to hold onto other than lofty words and what you're used to.
If we're used to something, then it must be consistent? Otherwise, how can you get used to it?
> Again, what are you talking about. Be specific. What is consistent?
The experience. Somebody who knows how to use 95, can use 98, 2000, XP, Vista, and 7 with ease.
That's why everybody's going nuts about 8. With 8, you have to click on a tile before you get that consistent experience.
So Linux doesn't run on specific hardware that require hand crafted drivers from the manufacturer. Off topic much? We were talking about consistency of window mangers.
Again, you've listed NOTHING about the Windows WM that you are "used to" or is "particularly consistent". Because, you and I both know what those things will be and that most Linux DEs have the exact same configuration.
You've yet to be specific about a single thing and spent most of this last post on a fool's errand about Linux drivers????
I really liked this comment war, even if you guys don't seem to like each other :P I'ma throw in my two cents because I like throwing myself amongst the lions. But I'm starting with comments from the top of tree though.
> I guarantee there's no way that the Windows WM is "more flexible" than any linux WM.
The new version of Nautilus is competitive for being less flexible!
> I assume you have workspaces in Windows?
I personally never used workspaces, I prefer alt-tab. When I have 2+ monitors workspaces seem clunky and just another layer of tab switching with different buttons. Monitors have gotten big, cheap, and plentiful enough that the original use case of workspaces is falling by the wayside. Not saying the option to use them is bad, just that I have no use for them personally, for the reasons above.
> It's consistent. It's been consistent for 7 iterations. 95, 98, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8.
The original explorer.exe was a wrapper on the DOS terminal and would regularly crash when trying to open something because the kernel wasn't preemptive. Wasn't really consistent UX at all. The old Windows 9X everything was always buggy, blue screen prone, and crash happy. The introduction of Aero in Vista also significantly changed a lot of the WM UX (start menu search, layout, composting, etc). The changing the of the start bar to a pinnable dock in 7 was also a pretty radical shift.
> Consistent + Stable = Win
I'd argue consistency doesn't matter as much in Linux world, because you can just use an old WM if you like it more than a new one. And if you like it more, it is probably stable. If it starts breaking, someone will probably fork it.
> It's the driver availability, quality, and support. And that, of course, comes from market dominance.
I haven't found many devices in recent memory that don't have some Linux support without the manufacturer going out of their way to obfuscate the implementation. A lot of people put in a ton of effort to make hardware work under Linux that the manufacturers don't care to properly document.
> They're all drag-and-dropable, they're all resizeable.
I get really annoyed in a lot of Linux WMs / DEs because of how they don't support drag and drop on the panel / launcher. XFCE requires writing obfuscated launchers, for example. I could get into why I'm not implementing that feature myself, but the intricacies of X drag and drop are something I don't have the patience or intelligence to dig into.
> You are restricted to hardware that works on your operating system of choice.
Windows won't run on a raspberry pi, anything based on powerPC, ARM (at least in a functional version, Windows RT is a trainwreck in my book by branding alongside Win8 without x86 emulation). If you are arguing that traditional laptop / desktop manufacturers are making sure their devices work with the pre-installed OS, color me shocked.
I never got on board with the crusade to make Linux run on every piece of hardware ever, because I think that is giving hardware manufacturers too much credit. Trying to reverse engineer everything is basically giving them a pass on making devices that don't work the way they are intended. If they don't want to give the kernel devs even the crumbs to replicate functionality, just telling people that company is an asshole is plenty in my book. There is nothing beholden to an OS to support everything you can plug into a usb port, even though it is neat when a wiimote works.
> I buy any hardware I want, with the full knowledge that it will work properly on Windows the way the manufacturer intended. Even Apple, the only major manufacturer out there that doesn't make hardware targeted at Windows, puts out drivers for Windows.
I have had plenty of printer / NIC / sound card driver issues under Windows, even in 7. Software doesn't suddenly become bug free, especially complex software like an OS, just because it has profit motive behind it.
> So Linux doesn't run on specific hardware that require hand crafted drivers from the manufacturer. Off topic much? We were talking about consistency of window mangers.
The argument devolved into Windows vs Linux when it is apples and oranges. Microsoft is a for profit company that incentivises you buying their OS (either prebundled or in a box) and Linux could care less, even though Ubuntu / Red Hat like supporting you for money when you use it. But Linux is developed because OSS developers want a desktop they like (or a server, or a seismometer, or a robot..) and Windows is developed to be sold to you. Different use cases.
> Again, you've listed NOTHING about the Windows WM that you are "used to" or is "particularly consistent". Because, you and I both know what those things will be and that most Linux DEs have the exact same configuration.
Some things I like about the Windows desktop:
Windows don't randomly open in strange places (a lot of gtk apps have a habit of launching half off screen depending on prevous resizing, Evince does it a lot). Windows has GUI based kernel hooks to recover from a bad process (if I want to do the equivalent of ctrl-alt-del in Linux, I need to switch off X to a TTY and try fixing it from the terminal, because there is no Gnome based (to my knowledge, at least) way to override a fullscreen openGL application that crashes, ex: Space Pirates and Zombies, recently).
The system tray in Windows is a lot easier to work with since you can select options right from it, rather than through system settings in some Gnome desktops, and I still don't know how to configure it under Cairo Dock, Docky, Cinnamon, or XFCE.
Windows had a really nice out of the box behavior where I could just stick the taskbar on the left side of the screen and have the entire screens worth of vertical space available. In something like Firefox, that would mean the maximized app would have tabs in the title bar, so I had an entire 1080 pixels of Firefox, and on a 16:9 monitor that is really useful. I still can't find a WM that lets Firefox (I think Chrome can do it in some) do the tabs in the title bar thing. I figure it wouldn't even be hard - I could imagine a WM just giving the application whatever space the title bar occupies to work with, with some statistics about where the navigation buttons are, so it can control the transparency and draw in the title bar as well, and just avoid those buttons. That was a tangent. Also not going to try to get that implemented in Muffin / Mutter or whatever, because it sounds hard.
Anywho, only KDE seems to allow the same UX (vertical panel on left with system tray, time, etc, built in, letting applications have the entire vertical pixels for the rest of the screen, with a panel like pinnable launcher bar, and they don't have neat mouseovers like Windows has previews of open windows or system controls).
Alt tab is nicer in Windows (even though some Compiz active corner effects are neat in Unity / Cinnamon with whatever they replaced Mendacity with I don't even remember now) since it shows the open Windows. Cinnamon has a smart corner that intelligently fills the screen with active windows though, which is also really cool. But alt-tab in Unity / Gnome (by default at least, I have even tried reading a bunch of manuals on these desktops and I still don't know 5% of potential configurations) just shows icons.
Another thing is the super-key behavior, Windows does it really well with the ability to just type and enter commands, or have a dynamic search that is intelligent by remembering your history, recent files, etc. Unity is similar, Gnome 3 is close, and KDE is close too, but respectively, Unity and Gnome have terrible / almost no configuration and dumb top bars as a result and KDE is slow as hell (at least on startup, but it even lags my i7 920 on some of its composting).
I do use Linux almost full time now - I have been transitioning off Windows for the last ~6 months, since Steam was announced on Ubuntu. I got SC2 / TF2 / League running under Wine since then, so I don't have any real reason to restart in Windows (except Darksiders 2 for a fwe weeks, that game was amazing and I'm too dumb to create custom Wine environments and find all the DLLs it needs without a playonlinux script).
Thank you for this comment. Instead of taking a doctrinaire position in the tired Windows vs. Linux holy war, you have articulated arguments for and against features of each system on a case-by-case basis, making for a fair critique and a refreshing read.
Unity and Gnome3 had maybe a year of shitstorms before it died down to some grumblings here and there. Metro has been around for two years, and one year for desktop Metro. It's getting on time to move it along.
It's been around for two years, but on a platform that nobody uses: Windows Phone.
It's only been around for nine months or so on a platform with an actually significant number of users: XBox 360.
It's coming soon to a platform with something like ten times the number of users the 360 has: Windows. So there's going to be a lot of people encountering it for the first time over the next few months.
But we here have known about it for a long time. The shitstorm might come from the average user. I guess that it won't. But seeing HN folks screaming at the walls every time some blog troll writes an article saying "Windows 8 Sucks!" really gets old. I'm getting sick of writing long-form comments pointing out the truth about Windows 8 rather than the lies that are being spread, having those comments get upvoted and some good comments on them, and then five minutes later there's another post that makes people scream and holler again.
It gets old. I'm getting tired of sounding like a Windows 8 fanboy (I'm actually fairly ambivalent) just in comparison with the ridiculous hyperbole and FUD being spewed here constantly.
The Windows Phone UI is not the same as the Windows 8 UI. They have similar visual aesthetics and some shared features, but the interaction conventions are actually pretty different.
Even better, it's an informative article from ExtremeTech. Perhaps their editors have been listening to my tirades here on HN every time a biased, unfair, and completely wrong article is posted.
Reading this article, I kept going back to the top of the page to make sure I was still on ExtremeTech and didn't get rerouted to a different site.
Also meta: i appreciate the irony of an informative article about a tablet-friendly OS on a site with the worst tablet presentation of pretty much all mobile-optimized sites I've seen (it took almost a minute to load on my ipad 1, and crashed the browser partway through).
Whenever someone talks about Windows 8, the question that pops up in my mind is: why include metro in the PC version?
Why would I use anything but the Desktop mode? I can already make apps fullscreen if I want, but I definitely don't want to be limited to only fullscreen mode.
So what advantage does Metro have for a desktop user?
To leverage the Desktop monopoly to force users to get familiar with the interface of Microsofts mobile offerings, which had no success to gain user acceptance on their own.
> Why would I use anything but the Desktop mode?
Because the start menu will be removed to force you to switch to metro to start desktop applications. You will use it (and get familiar with it) whether you want it or not.
> So what advantage does Metro have for a desktop user?
Nobody claimed any such advantage in the first place.
Replying to the your first point, 'getting familiar with the mobile interface':
How? Seriously?
I'm using both Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 (same .. thing, for this comparison) and I fail to see what you mean.
In Windows 7 I did these steps to launch an application:
- Press 'Windows' (Super, whatever) button
- Type application name
- Enter
In Windows 8 / Windows Server 2012 I need these steps:
- Press 'Windows' (Super, whatever) button
- Type application name
- Enter
Yeah, the UI is different while I type. But it's on the same level as moving from Launchy on Windows XP to just using the start menu in Windows 7: The interface is really just presentation and not that relevant.
Metro isn't good for anything else, for all I can tell. There's no bait. It's .. useless. First thing to do is Windows/Super+D to get to the desktop. There you need Windows/Super for the 'launcher', Windows/Super + w for a launcher for the control panel/settings apps and Windows/Super + x (neat shortcuts, thing lean start menu) and Windows/Super + i (uhm.. For .. shutdown? That's what I use that for).
So as a user of two 'metro' platforms I disagree heavily with your opinion. I don't think that this is happening, I don't think that this could happen and I really, really doubt that someone placed a bet on this, coming from their mobile platform.
This is great to hear, thanks. I've been using launchers exclusively on Linux the past few years and love not having to use the mouse anymore for that. Glad to see this isn't just a trend in the Linux world, but that Windows is now being built around the concept as well.
To leverage the Desktop monopoly to force users to get familiar with the interface of Microsofts mobile offerings, which had no success to gain user acceptance on their own.
FUD.
Because the start menu will be removed to force you to switch to metro to start desktop applications. You will use it (and get familiar with it) whether you want it or not.
FUD.
Nobody claimed any such advantage in the first place.
Incorrect.
Edit - While you're downvoting me, I'd like to point out the statements that I quoted from the parent. They're a slippery slope argument at best, and patently false at the worst. There is no indication that Microsoft will be removing the desktop. There's no indication that Microsoft is trying to unconscionably leverage their desktop monopoly into the mobile world via Windows (any more than any other company hopes to). And yes, people have claimed (and I think successfully) that Metro is useful for end users. Ask yourself if you agree with his statements, and then if they're backed up by any actual facts. I believe he's spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt just to settle a personal vendetta.
>To leverage the Desktop monopoly to force users to get familiar with the interface of Microsofts mobile offerings, which had no success to gain user acceptance on their own.
>FUD.
I'm not sure how anyone could consider that FUD. There is pretty much no other justification for this metro/desktop mashup possible. I've never even heard pro-ms bloggers talk about one. Why else would they do away completely with the start menu for desktop use and force the start screen? It's certainly not a superior experience for desktop use. Additionally, you didn't provide an argument to support your "FUD" assertion.
> There is pretty much no other justification for this metro/desktop mashup possible.
There are many, but one compelling reason is having the best of both worlds. You may disagree on whether it's possible or not, but that is the goal: two usage modes in one device.
> Why else would they do away completely with the start menu for desktop use and force the start screen?
Because it's better [1].
(I am an employee but these are entirely my own opinions and experiences)
> There are many, but one compelling reason is having the best of both worlds. You may disagree on whether it's possible or not, but that is the goal: two usage modes in one device.
With respect: I don't believe them when they say it and I don't believe your rehashing of it either. I find "we need to get people using this so they don't regard our mobile offerings as crap" to have much more of the ring of truth. I am of the mind that if your stated reason was actually the reason, there'd be a way to opt out of it. (Unless this is a fairly thoughtless attempt to mimic the Apple "this is what we're doing" mindset, which sort of hinges upon having a certain amount of taste. I don't believe this to be the case.)
> Because it's better [1].
I don't agree, and yes, I've used it. The conceit is junk. My desktop isn't a tablet. I can, as shocking as this may sound, multitask. I want to have nothing to do with something that decides it needs to take over my primary monitor (on which I may be doing other things while I call up Start search--ex. I may be watching something in a VLC stay-on-top window) against my wishes, and I refuse to be a party towards Microsoft's progression towards making their (poor, developer-hostile[1]) app store the Only Game In Town.
[1] - Apple's is both of these things, too. I don't use it and I'm not funneled towards a UI that doesn't let me go outside of it, though.
Because Microsoft wasn't trying to build a Tablet OS. They were trying to build a Desktop and Tablet OS, and a new interface that should (at least theoretically) work on both was to come with it.
Otherwise, why even call it Windows? Why not just call it Windows Tablet?
A separate interface that's optimized for touch based devices makes sense. But that doesn't explain why for one, did they have to use the tablet-optimized interface for the default, user friendly desktop mode, and secondly, why did they force the traditional desktop users to use a dumbed-down comprised desktop interface without a start menu?
The new one is user-friendly, it's just different from the old one. Also, the lack of "start menu" doesn't matter so much if you use search to find apps. And the start screen is great for info at a glance.
If you reply with one-word dismissals, you are going to get ignored (which is really what a downvote means).
The fact is, Microsoft hasn't given a real good reason why Metro should exist on the desktop.
Examples:
Some would say, for example, that Google's Chrome browser is evil because Google wants to monopolize the internet -- but Chrome is a very good browser, it's opinionated, but a successful product, so people can safely ignore concerns about Google's incursion into the browser space.
Another good example is Apple's iMessage which makes texts free for iPhone users to each other. Again, by offering cost savings to the end user, Apple bolsters iPhone appeal in ways that greatly offset whatever it costs them to get mobile operators like AT&T to provide this feature (I'm sure it's not free to Apple). Some would argue that this preferential pricing is unfair to smaller handset manufacturers like LG or HTC as it would be impossible for say, free texts from Android to Android and HTC to HTC is too small for anyone to care.
If you're so pro-Metro here, you need to explain what advantages it provides to the end user. Right now, it's looks like a giant roadblock to your average desktop user.
Let me quote a comment I left on another article. I'm getting tired of having to post the same thing over and over while everyone else gets away with just saying "Microsoft is being evil again!" without any strong argument to back it up. The thing that we in the tech industry seem hesitant to try to understand is that the desktop is a giant roadblock to average desktop users. That's why the iPad is outselling PCs.
Quote:
You're used to the old way. You're comfortable with the old way. You like the old way. So do I. That's not a bad thing, and Microsoft left in the desktop for people like you and me (and most others on this forum). Nothing has changed there. I run Windows 8 on my laptop and spend 99% of my time on the desktop like it's Windows 7 with some nice new features added on (and a better security model).
However, a great number of computer users seem to prefer the simplistic style of iOS or Android. It lets them focus on one task using a very simple menu to get from one app to another. They don't need multiple windows overlapping each other, and they don't need tiling window managers. They don't want multiple open windows distracting them. This is why the iPad was made, this is why Android tablets are made, and this is why Windows 8 and Windows RT were made.
For us, we'll complain about the limitations of the Metro UI then switch to the desktop and forget about it. For them, they'll stick to the RT components, possibly momentarily confused by the drastic change from Windows 7 to Windows 8, then settle in and forget they're using a PC. That's probably a good thing. The last thing these users need is their personal IT guy going on and on about how Windows 8 is awful and the RT components are awful and it shouldn't be used. How long have we all spent trying to teach our parents/grandparents how to get around in Outlook and Firefox, writing down a list of steps they'll need to take to get to their email, or how to bring up the new picture of their grandkids? I actually bought my grandma an iPad so I wouldn't need to do remote support over the phone anymore. 5 minutes of instruction and she was ready to go.
I think RT will be a good thing for your average user. I think it will be a mild grumbling point for power users, deserving no where near the current amount of vitriol spewed on the Internet. Think of the RT stuff as an iPad built into (and complimenting rather than replacing) your desktop. You don't have to use it.
They're attempting to bridge the gap between a tablet and PC using 1 operating system. If played right, it could be a huge advantage to people really only needing one device for everything. You can see this in the new OEM devices coming out (ASUS Transformers, Samsung, etc..)
Why would I want 2 different operating systems if the underlying goal is to reduce the complexities of needing 2 devices... one for 'play' and one for 'work'?
Because sometimes you want different operating systems for different purposes? Presumably you don't want a phone OS running on your website servers, and you don't want a server-optimized version of linux running on your phone.
My phone is supposed to be good at calling, texting, and browsing the web on the go. That's a much different purpose than my laptop, which is meant for coding, etc. So doesn't it make sense for them to have different operating systems?
There are different operating systems, or at least different use cases built into the same operating system. Sweet jesus, I have to abandon the Internet for the next few years until people realize the world didn't end with Windows 8. It's frustrating to see such uninformed words being written and accepted as fact by such otherwise incredibly intelligent people.
A different OS for a server than you run on a phone? You mean like the difference between Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 Server? Because it's a huge difference. Not even comparable. You're saying you can't code on a Windows 8 laptop? How am I running Visual Studio 2012 right now? In another window, I have an SSH session open to my VPS, editing some Golang files.
Here's the problem: Microsoft is basically giving you a free iPad bundled with the update to Windows 7. It doesn't hurt anything to have it there, but for a great number of people it really helps. Those people will likely never see the desktop, never care that it's there, and that's exactly what they want. For people like you and I, the only time we'll see Metro on our laptops is when we boot and when we hit the start button to search for a program via keyboard. The desktop is still there. It hasn't changed except for getting better. And yet people still seem to want to turn it into a negative with hyperbole, FUD, slippery slopes, and sometimes even outright lies. The world has not ended. It hasn't even changed. Window is Windows, your phone is a phone, your server is a server, and you still complain.
> To leverage the Desktop monopoly to force users to get familiar with the interface of Microsofts mobile offerings, which had no success to gain user acceptance on their own.
FUD.
Not FUD. I agree with that statement the parent said. Why else would Microsoft think of including the Metro interface with the desktop. It doesn't make sense.
I think it's pretty obvious that FUD is what the parent was saying. Objectively, you really don't need more than what the parent provided to understand this.
I still don't get the obsession with hidden controls. Why couldn't they have kept the start button, even with the current Windows 8 functionality. Instead you must guess that a hidden button appears if you move the cursor to one of two corners of the screen, and are careful to not move too far away from the screen edge as you move to click it.
It's not the only example of critical core functionality being hidden and undiscoverable by default, but it's certainly the most glaring.
The rule is that apps should have 100% of the screen devoted to them, and not persistent system chrome. It's a promise they want to be able to make to developers. The app gets every pixel, not the system.
You don't have to move to click the little start menu preview, you don't even have to wait for the preview to show up, you just bring your mouse to the corner and click. There's no aiming, just "throw mouse to corner and click".
Regarding point #1: I think that's the only thing going on for Microsoft. For instance, I have Windows 8 on a laptop. After using that for a while, my mom atleast appeared quite comfortable using a Windows phone at the mall.
Not to repeat the same point again and again, but this could definitely be Microsofts' moment of truth. Basically, I feel MS is going all in, double or nothing or whatever other comparison you want to pull out.
The problem is, if it works, people will laud MS for their bold move. If it spectacularly blows up in their faces, everyone will spare no words in saying "They should've known. It was obvious. People were complaining way before they even launched."
I personally feel MS is at that point in time where services and hardware each are taking value away from the software and they feel desperate to throw anything at the wall. I'm also pretty sure that they don't really expect the Enterprise folks to use Metro so I wouldn't be really surprised if somewhere down the line, they release an "Enterprise/Professional" only service pack that allows you to boot to Desktop.
Regarding your last comment about booting to Desktop: you can already access the full desktop and I'm guessing there's a preference to say "just boot me to the desktop".
There is no such preference, no such registry setting or group policy. You have to use an executable that's set to run on startup that will show the desktop. Or you can hack/replace the shell.
Well yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Right now, there's no actual way to directly to boot there.
So the best quasi-hack I do is move the desktop tile to the top-most position. When the computer has just booted up, this allows me to simply press "Enter" and go to the desktop since I'm too lazy to use the mouse.
In regard to #1, Microsoft wants to leverage their desktop monopoly to force users into the Metro ecosystem thus forcing developers to build Metro apps.
I don't believe it's to get users comfortable with Microsoft's interface on mobile offerings though that is clearly a side-effect.
I agree with points #1 and #2 but disagree with point #3. But that's not interesting, what's interesting is that it might actually work. Or at least, it seems very plausible to work.
I'm using various versions of Windows 8 on various machines: Release Preview at home and RTM at work. While most of my work is on the desktop, I have gradually reformed my start menu into groups of different concepts.
The different groups I'm using, in order, from left-to-right:
* The store, desktop and various super-commonly used tools such as remote desktop and web browsers.
* A few "neat to look at 'real quick" live tiles, including Finance and Weather.
* Development tools and communication programs, so Lync and Visual Studio and Fiddler.
* Misc SDET specific tools
* Another group with all of the repositories I work with
* Windows 8 apps that I've bought/downloaded from the store for various reasons
In all, I can see 41 app tiles without scrolling, both large and small, all of them are easily identifiable and relatively easy to reach. Since they are all large buttons (compared to your normal start menu shortcuts), I can swing my mouse over toward them, rather than dexterously follow a series of menus. It's different, but relatively easy. For my work, I would liken it to pressing [windows] + D to see the desktop, clicking on an icon and then having that different application load.
I'm still having a difficult time understanding why any user who has figured out how to hit the window key and start typing an application name would find browsing across oversized tiles to be a more efficient application launching experience on a desktop.
Window Key + "Su" + Enter -> Sublime Text 2 is open
vs.
Mouse over on the bottom left of the screen + Click + Wait for Metro interface to pan into view + Wheel over a horizontally scrolling screen of tiles scanning for a "Development Tools" group + Find Sublime Text 2 + Click -> Sublime Text 2 is Open
I don't mouse over to the corner of the screen in all but my laziest moments; but sometimes I happen to only have one hand on they keyboard (perhaps I was just closing a tab in Firefox, or upvoting a comment on Hacker News?). It so happens I'm right-handed, and so my mouse is on my right side, leaving my left hand in the perfect position for the windows key.
My common experience is to press the windows key and mouse around to click. While I proudly tout myself as a keyboard-primary user (and this is still the case. I use the keyboard as my sole tool in many more cases than some of my co-workers), I still happen to use the mouse from time to time and this is an example of it.
Also, when you're using an interface that has such accessible buttons, you tend to learn the general area of buttons, so it's not so much "scanning" as it is "oh yeah, that one repository is about here on the screen, let me swing my mouse over there and click it". The large buttons, again, help make that easier;* so, I don't quite have the same experience.* *
For my less-commonly used applications, I do follow the [windows key] enough text to load a program, usually the whole first word in its name because I type around 90-100 wpm and it's easier for me to type words than sub-sequences of letters [enter]; but it's rather surprising how much I've found myself actually adding apps to the start menu because I find clicking easier. Again, this is just from my personal experience, YMMV.
* I'm not a usability engineer, but I've read an article or two that talks about how difficult actions are for a user, and precision vs speed comes up.
edit:
* * As an example of this experience in progress, you probably know where commonly-clicked icons are on your desktop, if you happen to use your desktop to hold frequently edited documents or shortcuts. If someone re-arranged your icons, you'd be slower because they would no longer be in their previous, familiar locations.
>Mouse over on the bottom left of the screen + Click + Wait for Metro interface to pan into view
Please, please, please, please do something about that bottom left corner mouse crap. I use a Windows Server 2012 VPS via Azure and that is the one thing that drives me insane when managing the server. Not getting a response until my mouse disappears from sight seems so wrong. It sours me on the entire OS almost. I don't understand why the server OS was shackled with the Metro interface, it's horrible for that use case.
You don't have to move to click the little start menu preview, you don't even have to wait for the preview to show up, you just bring your mouse to the corner and click. There's no aiming, just "throw mouse to corner and click". as commented by sukuriant
Correct! I think I would have died if I couldn't still do my favorite win7 practices of "start, type, enter" for EVERYTHING. Ctrl + Shift + enter also works for running the program as an admin :)
One thing I've learned while designing UIs is that if it takes a techy X amount of time to figure something out, it takes between X * 10 to X * 100 for a regular person, so you really want to aim for a super super intuitive interface; and they won't try forever.
>> In all, I can see 41 app tiles without scrolling, both large and small, all of them are easily identifiable and relatively easy to reach.
In practice, I find seeing so much quite overwhelming. Is seeing 41 app tiles - many animated - actually a good thing? My ability to scan and make sense of the Start Screen is quite low. I find it grades on my senses as time passes and every visit to the Start Screen becomes less and less pleasant.
And regarding scrolling, on the desktop are we not used to vertical scrolling? I find it odd when my vertical scroll wheel action results in a horizontal scroll. It's harder to scan while scrolling.
Lastly, regarding have to "dexterously following a series of menus" using a mouse - is it really that hard? Did the MS research say users are unable to use a mouse effectively? I assumed the tiles are huge because a finger is much larger than a mouse pointer, and the Start Screen UI is designed as a touch-first experience.
My start menu has 2 live tiles, 3 if you count the store (it has a little number in the corner for how many apps have updates). I haven't tried with lots of live tiles; and I could see where having too much random activity on the screen could be a bad thing (unless you had them centralized or something; but I haven't tested this use case, so I have no idea).
That said, in my experience, I've only been confused/disoriented/had my senses degraded from looking at too much data when all the tiles are unorganized. If you have a single, giant group with 40 or 50 or who knows how many tiles, and they're all random, that would be, to me, a very confusing scenario. Indeed, if all the tiles I have on my start screen were all in the same group, I'd be confused; but, with groups, they're very easy to distinguish and differentiate. Again, it's like having many many icons on your desktop; or, having icons on your desktop grouped into clusters.
Scrolling. My start screen I try not to scroll. I personally feel that if you're scrolling on your start screen, you're taking too much space and you should tone down the number of quick-access apps you have -- you probably don't use all of them with regularity. That's my personal, private opinion. I am not on the team that worked on the Windows 8 user interface, so I have no idea. That said, I don't know why we're doing horizontal scrolling versus vertical scrolling and anything I said here would be pure speculation. In a column-friendly format, like the start screen, it's not that disorienting, though, because information naturally becomes columns versus rows. That could have been a design feature that came from the horizontal scrolling, I certainly don't know.
As far as the "Dexterously follow a series of menus" and the big buttons on the start menu are concerned, I have to put a disclaimer here: I only have as much knowledge on this as has been displayed on the internet from Microsoft, I wasn't a part of that team. BUT, I do have a grandfather; and I can anecdotal-ly remember him trying to maneuver his mouse and occasionally losing it in menus or miss-clicking because his hand would shake. As computer scientists and engineers and computer/modern-tech savvy people, our hands and fingers are more dexterous than others, I imagine, because we use them for these meticulous tasks all day long. For use cases like that, this new, large-button interface would probably be much easier. I have not had a chance to let him test the UI, so I can't say; and as my co-workers often remind me, my needs and wants are, often, not normal to computer users at large, so I could be very off.
I like the casualness of the Metro apps. It's easier and faster to click on the Netflix app than to open Firefox and then load the Netflix webpage. I also like some of the News apps, again it's fast and easy to catch up on some of the headlines, I also like the weather app, in two clicks(1.Hot corner start screen, 2.weather app) I can quickly see the forecast for the whole week. I also like some of the casual games.
I am about as a hardcore Desktop user as it gets, I have a custom build pc with 3 screens, custom mouse & keyboard shortcuts, steam, Photoshop & Dreamweaver user, etc...
I've been using Windows 8 since the Developer previews, and while some things have taken a while to get used to(like the hot corners), I'd have to say overall Windows 8 is a step up from Windows 7 in every way, I would hate to go back to 7. The Start Screen makes the Start Menu seem archaic.
Yeah but these are easier and fully featured/integrated(think for example notifications). Also given my heavy use of Firefox and Chrome, think 100+ tabs spread out in multiple windows & never ending sessions, it's many times easier with casual things to use a Metro app then open additional windows or tabs.
I'm not sure I follow. There is nothing preventing the desktop software from using a system-wide notification system.
FWIW, metro apps are not fully featured but rather feature crippled. Take Chrome's metro version for example. It is just the forced-fullscreen version of the desktop one. You can still open insane amount of tabs.
I think perhaps the issue is that there are more integrated "apps" available on mobile platforms. For example Netflix provide apps for iOS and Android etc but if you are using a PC they want you to go through the website.
This isn't a technical issue per se, since it would be possible to produce these apps for the desktop.
This is why I don't understand, say, the Verge's positive Windows 8 review. Sure, the desktop is still "usable." If you ignore Metro, it becomes an over-engineered full screen start menu.
And somehow, having the most massive upgrade to Windows be, at best, ignoreable on desktops and laptops doesn't make Windows 8 instantly a massive failure?
The usability of Metro is there for the tablet market. The people who don't need a PC and have decided they will not use a PC anymore. PCs are complex and confusing to many casual users. We thought it would get better with education, but we still have millions of young adults who grew up with computers yet are completely unable to function with any slight change. It's easier for them, for one reason or another, to completely jump ship to a tablet.
The Metro interface on a PC is designed to stem or reverse that trend. Why jump to a tablet when you can stay with the PC and use it like a tablet? Or better yet, when your tablet IS your PC, and your PC is a tablet. Metro is useful. Maybe not to me, maybe not to you, but we're a small subset of users. There are many who don't tolerate the desktop.
He was probably referring to work on power saving and system resource efficiency. Apparently Windows 8 uses less hardware resources than Windows 7, according to article.
I can only offer my opinion obviously, but I like the information that can be available at a glance. Launching my most often applications are also 1 click away instead of 2 or 3. However, that being said, my favorite part of Windows 8 (so far) is how keyboard friendly it is. I use OSX, Ubuntu, and now Windows 8 daily and I think they have all gotten to a state where if you like your hands to rarely leave the keyboard you can work within all 3 very well.
Back to your original point though, I would suggest trying it out for a week or so. I was hesitant as well, but so far it seems very natural and fluid to me. Even scrolling sideways to see more tiles just feels very natural.
>I use OSX, Ubuntu, and now Windows 8 daily and I think they have all gotten to a state where if you like your hands to rarely leave the keyboard you can work within all 3 very well.
Yes, this. I love that all are converging on a keyboard-centric UI. This is sort an unreported event, overshadowed by the Metro and Unity rucus, and probably not important to the mainstream, but as a power user I'm really glad to see it finally happening.
Because Microsoft is getting ready for the future, where non-PC computing devices will be far, far, far more important to most peoples' lives than PCs.
Windows 8 is the beginning of Microsoft's play to be on those devices. That means that design considerations to make it work nicely on "post-PC" devices take precedence over design considerations to make it work on PCs.
Windows 8 isn't a PC operating system with device-friendly concessions bolted on. It's a device operating system with PC concessions bolted on. The idea presumably is that the PC desktop piece of it will get smaller and less important as time goes on, then eventually become completely redundant and easy to drop altogether.
In other words, the plan is to do to the WIMP interface what they did with the CLI interface of MS-DOS. Its death will be slow, quiet, and (they hope) painless. But it is definitely going to die.
The only people really using the CLI are developers and people in related fields, who will be writing the apps that everyone else will run on their tablets/car/fridge/etc. PCs will not be going away in the foreseeable future for the simple fact developers will need them.
Perhaps it's more to do with application compatibility.
If they create 2 separate OSs with different UI systems then you require developers to create 2 different versions of their applications if they want to target tablets and desktops.
A big selling point of Windows has always been "use the same OS at home and at work". If MS are guessing that home users will largely go for WinRT devices over full on Windows 8 boxes they lose that advantage if there is too much fragmentation as you will have completely seperate app ecosystems for each.
It is also an OS for hybrid devices such as the Intel based Surface tablet.
Because Microsoft sees tablets as a type of PC, not an overgrown phone like Apple and Google. They want a unified experience.
Also? With the "metro" interface as part of the core OS, they're basically forcing manufacturers to start including touchscreens in laptops and to start selling touchscreen monitors. Which isn't exactly bad for manufacturers since it means people will want to upgrade.
Those are my opinions, at least. Personally, I agree that without a touchscreen, the new interface is annoying.
> Which isn't exactly bad for manufacturers since it means people will want to upgrade.
Just like people clamoured for 3D, right?
You can't force consumers to appreciate a feature by just insisting it's better. Touch screens won't move laptops just like they don't move all-in-one desktops right now.
Nobody wants to manipulate an upright screen with an outstretched arm. It's a completely unnatural thing to do, and the complete opposite of everything we've learned about the UX. Your hands need to resting when you're operating, or else all you're thinking about is when you'll be able to rest your hands.
> Nobody wants to manipulate an upright screen with an outstretched arm. It's a completely unnatural thing to do, and the complete opposite of everything we've learned about the UX.
Hence why some OEMs are offering convertible laptops and all-in-ones, which actually look pretty nice and should complement the new interface nicely.
You have to consider that not all desktop users are alike.
Everybody uses internet, mail, and a few other apps, maybe skype, facebook, netflix, office, things like that.
The metro UI is great for these tasks. It's easy to understand in the current tablet paradigm and those common uses across all users means Microsoft has actually simplified a large percentage of the use cases. Don't tell me you can look at a metro homescreen and not know what to do.
Now, for those of us on HN (I suspect the majority are programmers or sysadmins, or somebody else who wants/needs to get into the guts of the OS), they've got the old familiar WIN32 based OS behind the Metro UI.
Essentially, I suspect the challenge is that it will feel a bit like desktop stuff is virtualized, as I don't think you're running Metro & desktop apps side-by-side (but I don't know as I haven't used Win8 yet).
The important thing to realize is that Microsoft won't be around in a few years if they only catered to those people who are comfortable with the old desktop.
We're getting touchscreens on computers now, and Kinect interfaces I'm sure aren't far behind. The desktop will remain for the small percent of us that use it for work, but I wouldn't be surprised if I use metro much of the time. My concern is how am I going to feel jumping back and forth.
You kind of have to try it to see why. i like the new "start menu" in Metro - its easy to move things around to prioritize and search easily for apps by just typing the name of the app.
I want to hate on it but its actually pretty good.
This is the equivalent of a plain looking girl dying her hair some crazy color.
Personally I don't understand this concept of forcing a clunky and strange UI on people and having change just for the sake of change. Both suffer from huge amounts of backlash, yet their creators stand by it, for one simple reason: They have to change, so things don't appear stale. These interfaces aren't better, they're just new.
It's really that simple, we've had 10 years of the same type of interface in Windows, Linux and OSX and they need something new. Apple of course knows they have something good with OSX and are unwilling to slap their users in the face, and they generally don't fix what is broke.
> Personally I don't understand this concept of forcing [...] on people and having change just for the sake of change
Welcome to development, where anything over 24 months is old news and needs to be made different. Not better, just different.
It's kind of a plague in the industry. Things change just for the sake of it. I'm all for changing to make things better, but a large sect of development seems obsessed with new just because... new.
"In Windows 8, Metro apps run on top of a new application architecture called WinRT, which is a low-level set of APIs that run just above the Windows kernel. WinRT is the Metro equivalent of Win32, which is the API that Desktop apps use. "
Didnt we just read an article yesterday about how this isnt true? WinRT is built on top of win32, not parallel.
It's both. WinRT is an ABI as well as a set of tools. The WinRT API can be implemented as wrappers around Win32 APIs (as would make sense for functionality in the WinRT surface area that mirrored applicable functionality in the Win32 surface area) or new code (as would make sense for new functionality).
Neat, I've been using Win8 since the first preview was released and I still learned some new tricks. File History, for instance, looks handy if you can afford the storage space. And I wasn't aware you could refresh from a user-created image; how exactly does it differ from a system restore though?
My main issue with Windows 8 updates is that, yeah it's nice that it tells you when it needs to reboot for updates and when that is going to happen, but I don't feel in control of it at all. I was taking a test online for a class, and the notice popped up that it was going to reboot in 15 minutes. I explicitly did not reboot before the test because I figured I could delay the reboot. It didn't give me that option. I started flying through the test in the hopes that I could finish in time. I didn't. Halfway through the test, the PC reboots without ever giving me an option to make it wait.
There might be an option in the settings menu, but most time I want it to reboot automatically. Occasionally I would like to defer that for another 15 minutes.
Windows 8 gives you three days from the time it installs an update and until it forces a reboot, 3 days. If you don't like that then you have many options, to say "I don't feel in control of it at all" is pretty ridiculous when you have all these options http://i.minus.com/i4uIsZYCj4oek.jpg
Any reboot the user did not authorize is effectively a system crash. It's unplanned unwanted downtime. Forcing reboots is okay as a policy that can be enabled in enterprise environments, but it really shouldn't be a default.
Windows 95 could run for 45 days before crashing. Out of the box, it looks like Windows 8 won't be able to manage that feat, with Patch Tuesdays every month.
> The user did authorize it by having automatic updates turned on.
That is a tenuous description of "authorization." The user is asked once when they set up their computer whether automatic updates should be enabled and the downsides are not outlined. It is strongly "recommended."
On the plus side, Windows 8 is handling it much better.
"WU will consolidate all the restarts in a month, synchronizing with the monthly security release. This means that your PC will only restart when security updates are installed and require a restart. With this improvement, it does not matter when updates that require restarts are released in a month, since these restarts will wait till the security release. Since security updates are released in a single batch on the second Tuesday of every month, you are then getting essentially one restart a month."
Yea those days are gone thanks to highly developed malware and easily downloadable exploit packs. Once updates get released people quickly reverse them and use the new exploits before people get around to wait 15 seconds so their computer can reboot. Comparing rebooting to install updates to a system crash is ridiculous.
When I'm playing a game and my system suddenly restarts without warning it feels like a crash. Nag all you want, but a restart without explicit user approval is a terrible design decision. And if you are going to do it at least postpone it to a time when the user isn't actively using the machine.
Three days is too short. I should be able to prolong it forever, because it is MY computer. This should not require an option change. What if, just this once, I want it to reboot after 3 days and 15 minutes?
Then you set the updates from automatic to manual and install them when or if you ever feel like it.
Most people never update their Windows PCs and they end up using a PC with bugs and performance issues that have long been fixed and security holes you could drive a truck through, I'm glad automatic updates are now turned on by default and that you also have to option to opt out.
I work in information security. I've fought all-out wars with our desktop support team to get security patches forced to client machines, and to enforce a policy of mandatory reboots that can only be deferred for up to 12 hours. I don't have a problem with forcing a reboot. But if I need another 15 minutes, I want to be able to tell my machine to wait another 15 minutes.
Forcing a reboot is great. Forcing a reboot without letting me defer for a few minutes is not. A better middle ground, the one I fought for at work, is to defer the reboot until the user is asleep.
> ... I'm glad automatic updates are now turned on by default and that you also have to option to opt out.
That's fine and all, but if I want to defer a reboot, I should have that choice. The system can nag me all it wants, I'll eventually give in and reboot, but at a time of my own choosing.
Maybe I'm running low on battery power. Or taking a test. Or in a conference call with an important customer. Or just having a good ol' time raiding with my guildies. Its my computer, it should be my decision no matter what.
The problem is, previous versions of Windows and really all versions of every OS will allow you to defer the reboot. Windows 8 was the first I encountered that didn't let me do that. I don't want to not reboot every time, but I'd like the ability to defer it once. I was expecting that. Maybe that's my fault, but there wasn't a warning that this has changed.
Do those options help you when you find yourself unexpectedly facing a 15 minute to reboot deadline?
Microsoft gets a lot of UI policy stuff wrong, but the way the updates worked in Vista and 7 were just about ideal. It's so good, I wish the Vista/7 Windows Update mechanism could roll in updates for non-MS products as well, because the MS update works so much more seamlessly than (for example) the Adobe updater, the Mozilla updater, the Google updater, the Garmin updater, etc. And it would be far less irritating and confusing to have one update system running than five.
I don't understand how this "no-postponement is possible" scenario is an improvement.
I recently attempted to do this while burning an Ubuntu ISO to a USB stick - the restart countdown will still progress even if the update server is off.
There are a couple other methods too. There's a group policy setting (that you can define on a standalone system), gpedit.msc which says "No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations".
Local Computer Policy
+ Computer Configuration
+ Administrative Templates
+ Windows Components
+ Windows Update
+ No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations
+ Enabled
I hate to say it, but I'm becoming a but of a Windows FanBoi.
After using Win 8 for a few weeks now, this article confirmed some of the things I was seeing, but not sure if it was just me seeing a new shiny toy or it really was happening.
The two things I've already noticed are it starts up a lot faster, and comes back from sleep a lot faster as well. It's also a lot more stable. Almost no crashes when I was running several Adobe apps at the same time. I'm running with 4GB RAM and was impressed with the performance. I can only imagine how well it would run under a much faster processor and even more RAM. The real winners will be desktop users for sure.
Losing the Start button was not a huge issue. I use an app launcher and just hitting the WIN button takes you to the main metro screen with all your apps. It's not hardly as confusing as everybody is crying about.
One of the best windows 8 articles I've read to date. This actually has me considering an upgrade for the anti-virus/malware as well as the faster boot, leaner run-time, and Hyper-V included.
I'll definitely go check it out at some retailer to see if I think I can get over (or minimize) the horrid multi-tile slate touchpad-friendly floating window interface.
It's an obvious measurable performance indicator that shouldn't get worse without a very good explanation, and when it gets significantly better, indicates that the developers are capable of optimizing something. Often times, boot time improvements can be partially due to optimizations that help during ordinary use as well.
That's a fair question. Personally, I'm impressed with how fast my machine boots up. It's certainly better than minutes/near-minutes my old machine used to.
The same could be said about a few milliseconds when loading a web page; but Google Chrome does really weird (but awesome!!) network adapter/caching hacks to get those few milliseconds, and many people are grateful for it.
And, 5 seconds on newer machines is a lot more time on older machines.
(Disclosure, since the topic is on it: Microsoft employee. The remarks are my own, not the company's, blah blah)
"Incidentally, if you want to perform a full “cold” boot (without the kernel being hibernated), simply select Restart from the shutdown menu or run shutdown /s /full /t 0."
Why should it require a command line statement with three switches to simply shutdown?
Because something has gone wrong at a fairly low level of the OS and you want to reboot to clear it out.
I know theoretically this shouldn't happen, but it does happen all the time - I've not yet seen a system that I've really never ever needed to reboot (excluding my toaster), and previous Windows have not been the least offenders in this regard, so I have no confidence that Windows 8 will be the first where I don't need it.
In context the parent asked why you would need a full cold boot outside of the Restart command. The Restart option does a "full shutdown, followed by a cold boot". There is no need to throw command line flags around, at least not in the scenario you gave.
No he didn't, he just said "Really? Can you explain why you would need to do a full cold boot?". The grandparent was talking about the command line flags as an alternative, but neither my post nor the one I replied to were specifically referring to doing it from the command line.
Disk encryption comes to mind (ie you might not want the OS to persist keys that should only exist in RAM), although I haven't investigated this further on Windows 8 yet.
If you are using third-party disk (or anything) encryption tools, the keys would be stored in userspace RAM, which isn't saved to disk by shutdown. It only persists parts of the kernel, and presumably does not persist Bitlocker keys.
"By installing Windows 8, companies will implicitly force its employees to use a new interface that could severely dent productivity. "
This is, by far, the biggest issue with Windows 8. And, at least for me, the most confusing aspect of Microsoft's decision making process.
I would be surprised if ANY business with more than two employees willingly shifts their PC's to Windows 8. Imagine having one hundred employees grind to a halt due to the UI shift. Deadly.
I would really love to have the opportunity to hear from Microsoft on this one. Why is it that we don't even have an option to disable Metro (or tablet mode, or whatever they want to call it) on a desktop system? What was the logic behind that decision, if any?
It may actually turn out to be controllable via group policy. I swear you can control just about anything with GP. So, enterprise may have that option.
While there are many enterprises that have willingly adopted the iPhone and later iPad in their organizations. The lost productivity due to a different UI is a misconception. What is important is legacy application support which I think continues to be there in Windows 8.
Also, completely unrelated: I hope that 'single keypress' for resetting your PC to a blank slate is somewhat exaggerated. If it isn't, leaving your PC alone for seconds becomes truly dangerous (yes, technically there is no difference; giving anybody local access to your PC puts your files at risk, but having a system make vandalism easier? I sure hope it asks for your password first)
I tried the final Windows8 (64bit) from DreamSpark in the latest VirtualBox again today (after giving the RC a shot).
There were improvements, but it was slow as hell and finally crashed hard when I tried starting the Maps application. And it was gone as fast as it was installed.
Perhaps it is usable after SP1, but it certainly isn't usable (for me) now.
Unfortunately that is not an option right now, because it's my production machine with Windows7 as a host and some other VMs currently running. The machine should be powerful enough with a Quadcore i7 and 12GB RAM, though. Perhaps it really is a VirtualBox issue.
I'm suggesting the market for tablets is well proven, as demonstrated by the 100 million plus Apple and Android tablets out there. I have no doubt that were it well done, a Windows tablet could be a success. I'm not, of course, saying I have any confidence that will ever happen.
I'm really pleased to see an article like this at the top of HN. It's informative and side-steps both the marketing bullshit about the metro interface and all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that metro has engendered.
More like this please.