Microsoft Uturn on Windows 8

zenno

iMyself wrote: »

Well thanks for elaborating because yes your original post didn't make any sense. So obviously you need to stick with windows 7. Not sure how that is Microsoft's fault or how it makes windows 8 crap. It's one of two things, a) you don't have the right drivers installed or b) the drivers are not available, in which case the fault is with your software provider.

And no I don't know everything there is to know about operating systems but I do know a lot about them, it's part of my job to know.

I never said it was microsoft's fault or that it was crap in any of my comments. I said it seems like a good operating system but not for me at this time, because of unsupported software i use.

Same here, it was part of my job for 16 years, but as it stands now at this time, i will be sticking with win7

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/14/windows_8_point_1_free/

Microsoft has confirmed that it will issue its Blue update to Windows 8 without charge, with first code scheduled at the company’s Build conference starting on June 26.
...
Reller did not say what features would be wrapped in Windows 8.1, but last week she revealed that the company’s planning major changes to key parts of Windows 8 following “customer feedback".

A significant proportion of that feedback is centered on customers' difficulties with the fact that Windows 8 has dumped the classic desktop at startup in favour of the new, Metro touch-oriented UI.

200motels

The slide show gives a detailed view off what Windows blue will change.

http://www.infoworld.com/slideshow/101115/windows-blue-visual-preview-218703?source=IFWNLE_nlt_daily_pm_2013-05-16#slide1

Overheal

Hmm, not one image of a start box, just a whole lot of upgrades to the tile interface.

and ReFS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2012#ReFS

Capt'n Midnight

Overheal wrote: »

and ReFS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2012#ReFS

https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/69882/The_Road_to_Cairo

The year is 1992. Jim Allchin reveals Microsoft's plans to deliver a version of Windows NT, code-named Cairo, in 1994. Cairo is slated to use an Object File Store (OFS) as its file system. OFS is an object-oriented database designed to make it easy to search documents and other structured data by content.

Fysh

Yeah, I'm getting a touch annoyed by the number of tech blogs saying that Microsoft is specifically going back on the new UI and giving back the Start button when there's no statement to suggest that at all. "Taking on board user feedback" doesn't have to mean "rolling back all the changes we've made".

Hopefully there will be something in the Blue update to address the "automatic repair problem".

I actually liked Win 8 up until I got hit with this issue 2 weeks ago, the only way to fix it is the reformat your HDD. I've been onto MS about this and they've recommended I go back to Win 7 until further notice.

joebloggs32

Why are people using windows 7 and 8. Sure I had windows 95 nearly 20 years ago!

I'll get my coat.......

They're calling it 8.1, yet the kernel version will probably be 6.3. I know they'll use application compatibility as an excuse but it still makes no sense to have a real version number and a fake marketing one.

sentient_6

I for one am glad there now doesn't seem to be a massive turn around on the start screen.

senordingdong

I don't quite see the necessity of all this.
I wasn't wild on the tile UI at first but by pressing the windows key I was brought to a desktop home screen.

From there it was relatively easy to find me footing on the new system.

podgeandrodge

I was in the "burn it" camp but purchased a touchscreen Windows 8 laptop for a relation last week and set it up.

Have to say that, after actually spending some time reading the tips about how to actually use the interface, it is actually quite good - But, and a BIG BUT, - on a Touchscreen. I would not like to be messing with a mouse on it.

If everyone had a touchscreen and some patience I think it would work.

senordingdong

podgeandrodge wrote: »

I was in the "burn it" camp but purchased a touchscreen Windows 8 laptop for a relation last week and set it up.

Have to say that, after actually spending some time reading the tips about how to actually use the interface, it is actually quite good - But, and a BIG BUT, - on a Touchscreen. I would not like to be messing with a mouse on it.

If everyone had a touchscreen and some patience I think it would work.

+1 I came to terms with it a while ago and have only one issue. Using a mouse can cause a few minor headaches. They need a patch that allows me to disable touch screen swiping responses.
Such as everytime I move the cursor to a corner, I don't want some new menu to assualt my tasks.

200motels

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22714048

_Kaiser_

So it's confirmed the Start button is then just a link back to the Start screen then eh?

Don't think the likes of Start8 will have to worry too much so!

Fysh

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

So it's confirmed the Start button is then just a link back to the Start screen then eh?

Don't think the likes of Start8 will have to worry too much so!

I don't understand why anyone thought it would be anything else, tbh.

I know that a lot of folks don't like the new UI paradigm, but there is some sense to it in the context of trying to have a shared paradigm across various platforms. The range of available 3rd party solutions really do make this one a minimal problem.

_Kaiser_

Fysh wrote: »

I don't understand why anyone thought it would be anything else, tbh.

I know that a lot of folks don't like the new UI paradigm, but there is some sense to it in the context of trying to have a shared paradigm across various platforms. The range of available 3rd party solutions really do make this one a minimal problem.

There's an old phrase that comes to mind: "give the people what they want" or if you prefer "The customer is King/always right"

Don't get me wrong, on a Tablet or touch screen Metro isn't half-bad once you delete all the irrelevant crap that's dumped on the home screen by default and until it drops you back to the Desktop where the UI with tiny icons and buttons really doesn't suit stubby fingers, but the point is the CHOICE should never have been removed.

It might be a good idea for MS from a business perspective to unify the UI so there's a common interface, easier development and so on, but the feedback has overwhelmingly shown that in the main, the customers don't like it - and hence why they've made this half-hearted attempt to appease them. That in itself is admission of failure and ultimately who are they making this software for? Paying customers or marketing types/execs/developers?

As I've said before, all that was needed with Win 8.0 was the simple prompt "We've detected that you do not have a touch screen device. Would you like to use the new Metro/Modern interface, or the Classic Windows interface?"

That's it. No need for embarrassing row-backs, no "it's the new ME/Vista" feedback (and personally I think that unless they DO release a SP2 and give in entirely and restore the full Desktop UI, the damage is done anyway and most will stick with Win 7 until Win 9 comes out and look at it then - especially in the Corporate world), but MS needs to realise that telling customers what they want rather than listening to what they want isn't going to work for them.

Fysh

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

There's an old phrase that comes to mind: "give the people what they want" or if you prefer "The customer is King/always right"

Don't get me wrong, on a Tablet or touch screen Metro isn't half-bad once you delete all the irrelevant crap that's dumped on the home screen by default and until it drops you back to the Desktop where the UI with tiny icons and buttons really doesn't suit stubby fingers, but the point is the CHOICE should never have been removed.

It might be a good idea for MS from a business perspective to unify the UI so there's a common interface, easier development and so on, but the feedback has overwhelmingly shown that in the main, the customers don't like it - and hence why they've made this half-hearted attempt to appease them. That in itself is admission of failure and ultimately who are they making this software for? Paying customers or marketing types/execs/developers?

As I've said before, all that was needed with Win 8.0 was the simple prompt "We've detected that you do not have a touch screen device. Would you like to use the new Metro/Modern interface, or the Classic Windows interface?"

That's it. No need for embarrassing row-backs, no "it's the new ME/Vista" feedback (and personally I think that unless they DO release a SP2 and give in entirely and restore the full Desktop UI, the damage is done anyway and most will stick with Win 7 until Win 9 comes out and look at it then - especially in the Corporate world), but MS needs to realise that telling customers what they want rather than listening to what they want isn't going to work for them.

HAH! Nobody who utters the latter phrase has ever dealt with the general public. :P Seriously, the biggest single root-cause-of-problem I've encountered in 10 years working support at various levels and for various systems & services is "user/customer didn't know what they wanted, but insisted on doing/buying something anyway".

The thing about "customer feedback" is that what you're talking about is "people pissing and moaning on the internet". Which, because it has an almost zero cost, cannot be assumed to be directly related to the actual issues at hand. There's no point trying to cater to internet complaints, because for every single thing that exists, there are people on the internet who'll tell you it's The BEST THING EVER/WORST THING EVARRR and a bunch of things in between. Sometimes these are the same people.

Neither you nor I have, I suspect, seen any form of usefully-gathered structured feedback based on specific testing environments and training options to see how people respond initially, after 2 hours, after 48 hours, and after 2 weeks to the UI. Without that, we can't really say anything worthwhile about user feedback that's going to get taken in any way seriously by the kind of people who decide on business cases and strategies for these kind of projects.

And that's a good thing, because nothing will kill a project faster than trying to respond to unstructured nonsense disguised as "user feedback".

Besides which, it's a UI change that people are moaning about. As a former complainer, I can say with confidence that a large volume of the complaints are down to not spending enough time learning how to use and customise it.

In short, no I don't think that Microsoft should be "giving the customer what they ask for". They should be doing what every good company does, which is to figure out what the customer actually wants (or is likely to want) and deliver that instead.

Consider this - the netbook, already hobbled by MS' insistence that Windows be the OS of choice for many of them, has effectively been consigned to the scrapheap of history by the rise of the tablet. The worst thing Microsoft can do is to continue ignoring the tablet marketplace and let its audience think Windows = desktop. A common UI across desktop, tablet and phone versions makes sense in this context. I'm not arguing that they've hit the bullseye with their implementation, but I understand the idea and appreciate that this far into its deployment, people whingeing on the internet about it are not going to have any effect. Not least because those who upgraded from a previous version of Windows should've tried it out first, and should just bloody downgrade if they dislike it that much.

I do think they should allow us to disable certain touch gestures when not using touch devices. I don't think that should have to equate to a classic interface, especially not when dropping to the desktop already gives you about 80% of that. I just don't see Modern UI as that much of a BFD, to be honest.

Edited to add:

If you think the Modern UI is what's going to delay the uptake of Win8 in the corporate world, you've never done any work in Corporate IT. Corporates routinely operate 1-2 major versions behind the current release, because this facilitates rigorous testing to ensure correct functioning across their entire userbase. When you've got people using enormous legacy SAP systems, Oracle financial systems and so on, such testing is non-optional and can be the difference between "works as expected" and the kind of screw-ups that hit RBS and Ulster Bank over the last couple of years.

For large corporates that also have people doing stuff like fabrication eg using CNC cutters or engineering/architectural design work, such testing is even more important because it can be the difference between a design being safe or a design having a fatal flaw (if eg the handling of floating-point operations changes between versions, this can lead to different outcomes of the same calculation, which can be very problematic indeed if you're doing CAD work for a new skyscraper and are responsible for specifying depth of foundations, minimum tensile strength etc for supporting materials).

uncle_sam_ie

Fysh wrote: »

In short, no I don't think that Microsoft should be "giving the customer what they ask for". They should be doing what every good company does, which is to figure out what the customer actually wants (or is likely to want) and deliver that instead.

People are different and don't want to all be the same so, why force this stupid UI on us. Why not just give people the tools to do what they want from the start.

I don't care if the new UI functions better. I'm a minimalist when it comes to my UI and I don't what to be looking at that ugly metro interface all day.

_Kaiser_

Well to me it's very simple.. despite the big spiel that times had changed and Metro was the future, not 8 months later we are getting back a Start button (if not a start menu)

That to me means the idea failed. It says they delivered what they THOUGHT the customer wanted and the customer told them otherwise.

If MS wants to go after the tablet market then more power to them and on such devices (as I said above), Metro isn't half bad and is in fact a lot more useful than your iPad/Android equivalent in Pro form. RT I would class as a toy that similarly has been rejected by not just consumers but OEMs

But on a standard Desktop or Laptop WITHOUT touch functionality the keyboard and mouse is still where it's at and in that environment, forcing people to use touch-oriented UI's makes no sense, hurts productivity and generates extra support calls.

As you point out, many business/corporates are in fact still on XP for legacy compatibility reasons or in the midst of migrating to Win 7 or have just done so. Given all of that, I can't see any Finance type signing off on fancy touch screen devices for everyone when there's no real benefit to them over Win 7. You surely aren't going to contend that "live tiles" or the MS Store are are worthwhile business reasons to upgrade? If anything they're reasons not to with the potential security risks they pose.

For what it's worth I'm running Win 8 right now and have been since it went RTM on this machine. I spend 100% of my time on the Desktop, have Start8 on the machine so I never have to even SEE Metro and yes it works fine.. but it's no better than Win 7 in any respect in that context, nor is it any faster - it still takes the same 2/3 mins to settle down after I enter my login credentials (though that may be to the resource hog that is Office 2013, but who doesn't install anything on their machine anyway?)

Besides, I'm not saying Metro should be removed from Win 8/.1/.2 but it should be an option for users to use the FULL Classic Desktop interface if they so choose, especially as it shouldn't have cost anything to do this as the functionality was already there and removed.

Telling people that this is what they want/need based on a company's need to shift its latest product and marketing spin rather than listening to what the customer actually wants is never a good idea - and again, the customer actually wants their Start Menu back so while 8.1 is a half-hearted concession to this, I believe that it'll eventually be fully restored without the need for third party add-ons.

Overheal

I'm a minimalist when it comes to my UI and I don't what to be looking at that ugly metro interface all day.

For every 10 hours I use my Desktop, I spend >2 minutes in the UI.

I really, really don't follow your concept of "all day"

Well to me it's very simple.. despite the big spiel that times had changed and Metro was the future, not 8 months later we are getting back a Start button (if not a start menu)

That to me means the idea failed.

I would contradict that to say that adding a square button that takes you to the same place is simply an admission that the average plebian user became disconcerted that the button was gone, and ergo assumed the basic functionality was gone also. In addition, once on the Desktop the user was left unsure how to return to Start. In fact, if you ask a customer to press the Windows Key or the Start Button on their keyboard, 9/10 customers will say "?".

It's really rather depressing when you think about it, that most people can't grasp such a straightforward concept.

If MS wants to go after the tablet market then more power to them and on such devices (as I said above), Metro isn't half bad and is in fact a lot more useful than your iPad/Android equivalent in Pro form. RT I would class as a toy that similarly has been rejected by not just consumers but OEMs

But for Windows to succeed it has to bring the same OS to all platforms.

RT was simply a product aimed at the lower end of the tablet space, and it didn't do well in that regard. It was designed to support ARM processors for the sole reason that Intel's roadmap really wasn't allowing, for quite a long time, any expansion into ULV Processors for Smartphones and Tablets. Apple approached them originally about the iPhone/iPad and Intel told them to fcuk off. What a completely different world we would live in if our smartphones where x86 already, but now Samsung is reaching out to Intel to make the next generation (well the 4th generation) of Galaxy tablets run on Intel based processors. Given time I think you'll see a transition out of ARM processors unless they continue to produce very compelling and competitive gains in efficiency; given that the average smartphone can't operate for a day, Intel still has a lot of ground to cover.

Given all of that, I can't see any Finance type signing off on fancy touch screen devices for everyone when there's no real benefit to them over Win 7. You surely aren't going to contend that "live tiles" or the MS Store are are worthwhile business reasons to upgrade? If anything they're reasons not to with the potential security risks they pose.

New system recovery options, better search indexing, an upcoming "Kiosk" mode, not to mention the Surface Pro device itself does pretty much everything the average user would need a competing Android/iPad device for with the added advantage that it can run a full suite of Adobe, or AutoCAD, or Quickbooks, and if you need to create a legal document, even comes with a rather nifty digital stylus. It's not the "Live tiles" or the MS Store that are the closing features of why a business would want to use Windows 8, they just aren't major detractors. The Operating System works well even without Apps installed.

Telling people that this is what they want/need based on a company's need to shift its latest product and marketing spin rather than listening to what the customer actually wants is never a good idea

Build a time machine and tell that to Apple, quickly, before they release the iPhone. People will **** their pants when they find out the phone has no buttons, its not worth it.