HP really wants people to buy a Windows 7 PC instead of a Windows 8 machine. The PC maker has been emailing customers over the weekend noting that “Windows 7 is back.” A new promotion, designed to entice people to select Windows 7 over Windows 8 with $150 of “savings,” has launched on HP’s website with a “back by popular demand” slogan. The move is clearly designed to position Windows 7 over Microsoft’s touch-centric Windows 8 operating system.
Windows 8.x is just fine. Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s all the users’ fault. Windows 8.x is just fine. Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s all the users’ fault. Windows 8.x is just fine. Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s all the users’ fault. Windows 8.x is just fine. Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s all the users’ fault.
Yes, there’s nothing wrong with windows 8 and 8.x. Unless you’re using it with a keyboard and mouse on a desk for serious data entry and or content creation.
You know what? You are absolutely right. To be honest, I kind of got excited about Windows 8 when I first heard about it. I figured I could just take 2 minutes to install a start menu replacement to bypass the hot garbage that is metro, and take advantage of all the benefits that Windows 8 has to offer. You know, like native USB 3.0 support, native ISO mounting, a much improved task manager, taskbars on multiple monitors, a startup manager (that was apparently in Vista but ripped from 7), hyper-v support, a host of other improvements, plus it runs faster and smoother than did Windows 7.
But then the horrible reality set in when Microsoft sent someone over to my house, put a gun to my head, and now forces me to use metro every single day. So, I can’t imagine what I had originally been thinking when I thought Windows 8 could work just fine as a desktop OS.
/s
So you’re OK with installing a start menu replacement, but installing WinCDemu mounter, process explorer, USB driver etc. is a pain you’d like to avoid? What’s the criteria to apply?
The trouble with 8.* is that it is built to cater for Microsoft’s needs (i.e. to make money off an app store), rather than those of the users.
Why should we, the users, bother with it? For native ISO mounting? Yeah ok.
Edited 2014-01-21 01:54 UTC
My biggest problem with it isn’t the new interface. As has been said, it can be avoided with third party solutions.
My issue is that Microsoft is increasingly trying to tie everyone to a Microsoft account. It’s bad enough I have to have one for my phone*, but to try to force a power user into a mandatory “cloud” account when a local account is all one needs is bordering on ridiculous on desktop/workstation hardware. Even on a laptop it’s out of the question as far as I’m concerned.
I know there’s an easy way to get around it if you search online for the solution, but the average user either isn’t going to notice, or is going to give up in frustration and just create the account. Either way, Microsoft has their advertising and data mining hooks all the way in. Meanwhile, they also made it mandatory for the latest Office release and likely all future releases. It’s getting really annoying.
—
*I normally use a Lumia 521, but I’ve been testing the N900 as a daily phone over the past few days after fixing some long standing issues (thanks Maemo community!), and it has proven to be just as useful as my Lumia so far, without the ball and chain of Microsoft keeping tabs on everything. But, that’s a story for another day.
Fair point, but I like it, since it seems to remember some of my settings with new installs.
Google do just that with their Android phones, Google Chrome browser and ChromeOS.
Why not Microsoft?
Everyone pollute, beat its spouse and goes at war, so why not me ?
Pluh-ease….
Kochise
Yes, and I’ve been slowly weaning myself off of Google’s offerings for a while now. I keep my gmail account for those few people who haven’t started sending stuff to my self hosted address, and it’s very hard to quit Drive apps. Hopefully OwnCloud will continue improving on that front, to the point where it becomes useful for every day tasks. This is one of those times I wish I was a programmer; I’d work on the project to help them get there faster.
Like Apple, Google, Canonical, Samsung, HTC, …
If one wants privacy from the OS vendor, the only way is to get a BSD or Linux distribution that caters for user privacy.
Edited 2014-01-21 06:54 UTC
Exactly. One of the reasons I’m trying out my N900 again as a daily phone. I still haven’t missed the Lumia, which is interesting considering how much I like Windows Phone in general.
You have no idea how good it feels to be using my Jolla, knowing it’s not tied to any huge corporation. The feeling of helping the only non-huge-company-owned mobile operating system only adds to it
.
You realize you’re only making me more jealous! I’m eagerly awaiting the day I can get a Jolla phone here, and using the N900 is feeding that eagerness.
Why does that even matter?
Because if I’m Bassbeast Phone Systems and you are 1 of 10,000 or even 30,000 customers? Then I need to try to treat you right as bad word of mouth can slaughter a small to medium business, but if I’m MSFT,Apple,Google and you are 1 of half a billion? Well as we say down here in the south you can pee up a rope for all I care.
And if you look at how many plain customer unfriendly moves done by Apple, Google, and MSFT lately? Its easy to see that large company pee up a rope attitude.
I think I’m going to get the benefit of both.
As I have a Firefox OS phone, I’m not tied to Apple, Google or Microsoft.
And when FirefoxOS gets account synchronisation, it will be tied to my own domainname and the data will be encrypted before it is uploaded.
So you are not sharing your information with the Mozilla guys?
They currently have Firefox Sync, which can sync between desktops and Firefox Android.
You can host your own server to store that data. Obviously that doesn’t work for most regular people.
So they do have a storage for it, but they actually don’t want to have the information.
For those people they have to store it for, they’ll only store it in an encrypted form so they or an attacker of their systems can’t get access to the information (which means also no government authorities to deal with).
The next version they are change it to support other web-based storage systems like WebDAV and Dropbox.
A search warrant can open lots of doors.
But not crypto, it’s probably easier to work around it.
Why do you think Mozilla wants to create a system for verified builds of Firefox.
So, that route is also closed.
Eh? I just installed Win 8 Pro and there’s no mandatory Microsoft account. On the screen during installation where you have to register/sign in, there’s a small link I think near the bottom to opt out.
That’s interesting, I never saw a link on that page and instead had to do a workaround. Perhaps you installed Windows 8 and not 8.1; that’s the version I was referring to.
This “feature” was originally only in the preview release of 8.1, but ended up being mandatory in the final release as well. This is the article I used to get around it:
http://www.infobyte.hr/blog/337/windows-8-1-preview-how-to-install-…
You’re right, I did install Windows 8 instead of 8.1. However, I think that I still used method 1 outlined in the article that you linked to.
Since I didn’t need to install Deamon Tools, USB 3 drivers, Process Explorer, or Ultramon anymore with every install, it seemed like it was worth the upgrade, esp for the Pro version. At any rate, I didn’t need a start menu replacement, since I use a custom launcher anyway.
Right, and this is why I was stunned when that gun was forced to my head and I could only use metro apps that were downloaded from the store.
Once again, what’s the criteria?
And also in the “again” vein… winCDEmu mounter. Really. Not the horrendous, name-calling-instigating infested daemon tools.
I don’t know what you mean by that question. But to me, having to install less apps is always a good thing. Would it have been worth the cost of a full upgrade price not having to install 4 extra apps? No, probably not. But for $40 and to get the Pro version? Sure. Esp since it has a few other little extras here and there as well.
Oh yes it is which is why I haven’t used the app store and why I don’t have a Microsoft account*. Wait – what?
I will say this in a very clear way: you are an idiot.
In no way is the only improvements in Windows 8 “native ISO mounting” – there are kernel level improvements everywhere and there are power improvements. There are improvements in screen handling. There are improvements in graphics handling. And more – it isn’t hard to find out.
Your idea that installing a start menu replacement is in some convoluted way worse than installing a lot of other software – some of which are very bloated is ludicrous!
(* in fact I do have one – 1/2 a decade old. It isn’t used though)
Yeah, call names. You win. Here’s your prize for winning:
http://is.gd/AKYysh
[Sarcasm]
Kernel improvements, power improvements, screen handling… ohh… so shiny, so beautiful. They’re so obvious that one cannot ever doubt their use, if “presence” would be so strong a word in this context.
We would certainly be idiots not to embrace the stupid charms bar for the sake of these “new clothes”.
[/Sarcasm (I really feel you may need the tags)]
Edited 2014-01-21 17:34 UTC
Sorry but the bolted on mess that is Metro is a deal breaker to many and if you are one of the millions of laptop owners whose touchpad driver doesn’t support gesture disabling? IT WILL DRIVE YOU MAD because that moronic “charms” bar can’t tell the difference between just moving and a swipe and will “charm” the focus constantly away from your control, especially maddening on text input,AKA a good 70% of what folks do on the web…and what I’m doing ATM.
I could write a treaty on why Win 8 sucks but ya know what? HP isn’t doing this because Win 7 makes them happy, its because the public has spoken and Metro is MSBob. Here is a vid that frankly says it better than I ever could..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLTE_bvlWUE“>Windows
The problem with Metro is not that it can’t be learned…the problem is that it has a learning curve to new users and is not consistent with the desktop side. You are running a dual-headed creature of an OS. Yes Metro apps do suck and the Windows 8 release was botched. But if you forgo the Metro apps and just use the start screen as a launcher for desktop apps, finding shit on tiles that are setup in the order that I want them for apps that are secondary to the quick launch bar in the desktop seems faster to me than digging through the hierarchy of the Win 7 start menu. Also typing the first few letters of the app or object on the start screen is really convenient. I am actually not looking forward to Windows 8.2 because they are going back to a smaller start menu…i hope that this will be optional. Leaving metro alone, there is a lot to like on the win 8 desktop…just not sure why the charms bar even has to come up in the desktop because it doesn’t do anything that is needed! All in all people don’t like change, and Windows 9 will be like the transition from Vista to 7.
Edited 2014-01-21 12:56 UTC
This feature has been in the start menu since Vista (possibly XP?). People keep trotting it out as some killer Metro feature, but it’s nothing new.
Have you considered that people think it is new because it is much more obvious to use it this way.
The fact that it is far quicker than manually scanning an alphabetical list (or worse in XP, it didn’t order stuff by alpha unless you specifically told it so) and works for all intents and purposes like Google Instant Search of MacOSX Spotlight. As for the full page splash being distracting, I find it more distracting having to manually search a list of programs when I can just type and press enter.
Edited 2014-01-21 14:10 UTC
The problem with the Start Screen is that you *have* to use “type-to-search” in order to find anything; it’s really not optional. The Start Screen is the epitome of bad visual design, especially on large screens.
At least with a Start Menu, your eyes only have to scan a couple of horizontal inches. With the Start Screen, your eyes have to scan over the entire width of the monitor.
There’s a reason newspapers print stories in 2-4″ columns, and not across the entire width of the page.
There’s a reason websites are designed with stories in 2-6″ columns, and not across the entire width of the screen (or, at least, the good ones are designed that way).
There’s a reason that people don’t maximise word documents on 24″ screens, to keep the text they are working on to under 8″ horizontally.
Our eyes and reading ability is optimised for short side-to-side movements and vertical scanning. The exact opposite of what the Start Screen forces you to do on a 20+” monitor.
Not to mention, we need visual cues to separate and group items. The Start Screen fails there as well as everything appears at the same level, with the same colours, with icons that almost all the same, no separation of items, no indications of what’s clickable. It’s a poor design all-around.
And the fact that everyone keeps harping on about “just start typing what you want, wait for the screen to reduce to a single square, then hit enter to load that program” is the perfect illustration of everything that is wrong with the Start Screen.
Citation needed.
Its organized alphabetically. I’ve understood alphabetical ordering for some time now.
Hate to break this to you the search items are organized into column much like your newspaper example.
I have 2x23inch monitors and this isn’t a problem for me and I must have imagine the titles over each program grouping … apparently the following screen shot doesn’t exist.
http://imgur.com/2XXj1uM
As to “what is clickable” lets compare my screenshot (Windows 8.1) to
http://cdnipad.i-culture.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Screenshot-2…
Apparently you would have no idea which icons you could open an application. Apparently millions of people manage to work that out just fine, but you state that it isn’t obvious. Ridiculous.
Except that is exactly how people use Google and Spotlight and nobody complains.
The results feedback is iterative, so the closer you get to what you are looking for the more accurate the the list of items that are displayed match your search query. The feedback is instantaneous, this is exactly how spotlight works … nobody complain about Spotlight. Damn this is how Intellisense systems works, I doubt I would hear anyone complaining “I wish I could go back to manually grepping through the code”.
It is whining plain and simple.
Edited 2014-01-21 18:20 UTC
You’re cheating a little bit. You’re talking about the list of ALL applications underneath the actual Start Screen.
Fair point, I did screenshot that because that is the area of the start screen that is directly closest to the start menu.
Well the start screen itself can be ordered however you like and you can put your own labels on there if you want to change it.
EDIT: The point I suppose I am getting towards is a lot of interfaces we use both web, phone, tablet and desktop are half way between CLI and GUI.
In BASH I press tab and it gives me a list of things that match the start of what I have typed. In CMD.exe I can iterate through the options using tab.
In Spotlight, Google Instant Search and Start Menu since vista … it is half IMHO CLI, you are typing to launch a program (it not to different than using start > run), but there is a visual aspect to show you are on the right path.
Edited 2014-01-21 18:35 UTC
Exactly – which is not what the OP was talking about. He’s talking about the *actual* Start Screen.
THEY ARE GROUPINGS YOU CAN CHOSE. The other apps display is there for those less commonly used programs.
FFS. I give up. No pleasing you lot. No point in having any sort of discussion, because you are refusing to see the other side of the coin, I honestly don’t know why I bother.
Edited 2014-01-21 18:41 UTC
Dude, relax – I’m just pointing out you two are talking about different things, that’s all – to make sure the conversation goes straight. No need to get all uppity.
Both the Apps Menu and the start screen have columns with titles.
http://imgur.com/XDLFBN2
It just that this you can organise how you like, I dunno if you can do this in Win 8, but you certainly can in 8.1
At the end of the day Lucas what you, he, and I say really don’t matter because folks have voted with their wallets and said Metro is a DO NOT WANT.
It doesn’t have a thing to do with being “unwilling to learn” because millions are picking up Android and that is completely different from Windows, its not about “just not liking the look” because site after site has shown that people return their metro machines more than Windows 7, which if you’ve ever tried to return anything you know its a PITA.
Nope at the end of the day the simple fact is that for the majority? Its just not a good experience. I had no problem picking up Android, OSX, or even some of the funkier Linux distros but after a month of Win 8? I just really find metro to be irritating, it feels to me like a cellphone bolted to a desktop.
So if you like it? Fine and dandy, I’m sure when Win 9 comes out and metro is no more you’ll be able to get Metro skin for Win 9, just as i have “Vista Black” as the skin for Win 7 (looks nicer than Basic without sucking up resources for effects I REALLY don’t care about) but at the end of the day nobody is buying metro, it has worse numbers than even Vista (and to be fair they fixed Vista by SP2, it was just too late by then) and THAT is why HP and company are moving away, it is dragging down sales.
Win 8 has 10% of web traffic now, so it can’t be that bad with success.
Dude at this time in its sales life Vista had better numbers. I mean I can post site after site showing that sales went down worse than expected both after Win 8 and 8.1 but do I REALLY need to?
Look I know its hard to accept that something you like is gonna bomb, hell I bought a Dreamcast on release day so I know. I also know what its like to think the product that is bombing is better, after all how could people prefer the PS2 over the DC when the DC was online?
But at the end of the day Lucas you know in your heart what I’m saying is true, hell HP wouldn’t be abandoning it if it were in any way popular. Its getting abandoned because its Vista and New Coke, its just not what the folks buying want. As someone who doesn’t have a touchscreen and don’t want to type every time I launch a program? Well I’m sorry but I understand where they are coming from, as with breadcrumbs and jumplists I only need 4 icons in my quicklaunch to cover my whole system, but with Metro? I’m afraid I gotta call it like I see it and it felt like a great step backwards.
I’m sure its great on a phone or a tablet, but since that is less than 3% of Windows sales? That ain’t gonna help it. Just be glad Windows is easily skinnable so you’ll be able to get a Metro skin for 9 just as I have my Vista skin on 7.
It is slowing PC market, also of course 8 wasn’t going to sell as well because most IT departments were going to move to 7 as that is a pretty sensible move.
Edited 2014-01-24 18:01 UTC
That’s a jumbled mess to me. Looks like someone loaded icons into a shotgun and shot the screen. How you can think that is better than a single hierarchical column of folders is beyond me. Especially if that’s on a 23″ screen. Even when it’s resized to only half of my 24″ (1920×1080) screen, it’s very hard to find anything.
That’s also the “all apps” screen which shows coloured icons, not the default Start Screen that just shows coloured squares with two-tone icons (unless they’ve changed things in 8.1).
Your screenshot is not the default Start Screen, so your comparison is useless for this discussion.
Except that is exactly how people use Google and Spotlight and nobody complains. [/q]
Google Search is a text-entry search page. The main input focus is a single textbox. How else would you use it? And we’re not talking about MacOS X.
Talk about non-sequitor and changing the subject. Yeesh!
The Windows 7 start menu has this feature too, and it doesn’t take over your entire screen and knock you out of your workflow.
Neither does the 8.1 search charm. And it searches more places.
That’s good to know! I’ll keep that in mind next time I have to use a Windows 8 machine.
Which places would that be?
Bing, and programmatically anything you’d like through the various WinRT APIs available to app developers. You can index various abstract concepts in an app (Movies for a movie app, Contacts, Recipes in a food app, etc) and feed it into the indexer.
Could this have been done via some obscure Win7 API? Maybe, maybe not I never came across such an API and a brief search didn’t bring up anything.
Now its in an easy to use API/Search contract for apps to use.
Bing web search is not something I even *want* when I search my *computer*. It just dilutes the things I’m *really* looking for. Considering nobody wants Bing anyway, I’m pretty confident when I say few people actually want this.
And the WinRT stuff is silly – you can already do the exact same things with regular desktop search, and Windows does exactly that. Movies, contacts and recipes are not “abstract”; all it needs is metadata. You can already search for all those things with desktop search (save for perhaps recipes, but as I said, all that requires is metadata, nothing more. Does not require any new features or special APIs).
Edited 2014-01-21 13:55 UTC
And of course that assumes the movies, contacts, etc are physically on the disk, which for streaming services isn’t the case. But those were just examples, I’m sure you have an imagination.
and your opinion on Bing is irrelevant to it being an additional place, and also a generalization in your part as far as what others think of it.
Even if they were streamed movies, Windows desktop search can index those just fine, as long as the desktop application feeds it the required metadata – the same way Word, or any other desktop application can feed it metadata. This does not require special APIs at all, and is not an exclusive WinRT API feature, so I have no idea why you would think so.
It’s not really an additional place, since you can pass Windows Search queries straight to your favourite search engine on the web. Much better and more flexible than being force-fed Bing.
Edited 2014-01-21 14:09 UTC
Do you complain about Google force feeding you Google services in Chrome OS and Android? Because that is exactly the same thing.
I have no problems with Windows coming with Microsoft services. I have issues when these services are pushed in the wrong place.
When you get a new Android phone it asks you similarly to sign into Google the same way Win 8 asks you to sign into a MS account. The default search is Google, the same way in Windows it is Bing.
Apart from that the Bing results are almost always ordered after your desktop search items in any case.
I think you are whining over nothing.
I’ll just repeat myself: I have no problems with Windows coming with Microsoft services. I do, however, dislike it when they are pushed in the wrong place, e.g. like Bing results in desktop search, or ads in my Windows programs, even though I paid for Windows.
Stuff like that is annoying, whether Microsoft, Apple, or Google does it. Apple shoving iCloud in my face at every turn, or Google pushing Google+ (which I loudly complained about only a few items below!) are just as bad.
Let me answer this for you: No he doesn’t. He complains about search UI including results from a search engine. Can’t make this stuff up.
I haven’t had any ads in my Windows programs except for 3rd party programs I downloaded from the store.
The web searches are always displayed either after the desktop items or there are no matching desktop search items.
It was one of the things I thought I would be sick of in seconds in 8.1 and it hasn’t bothered me once.
I think you are whining.
MSN internet used to be in Vanilla Windows XP (had to be removed from the Control Panel as a Windows Component) and the home page for IE has always been MSN (You have to set the home page again). They have always done this and it trivial to turn off.
I would pissed off if this was something say in a Linux distro (Ubuntu) after much of their marketing spiel is criticizing their competitors product.
Go through all the Metro apps that ship with Windows. Update them via the Windows Store. Voila! Banner ads. I believe it’s the mail and music apps that do it.
Does it search the web by default when you do a search? Or does it only search the web when you click the “search the web” option like in previous Windows versions? I believe the complaint is that it does a web search everytime your search, even if you are only wanting a local search.
MSN was a separate web browser app installed alongside IE. And the home page was only viewed when you wanted to go online. IOW, online stuff was a conscious activity.
Getting online search results from the search tool when you are looking for local stuff is not “consciously going online”, and is forcing online stuff upon you.
If you can’t see the big difference between the two …
The point is that companies pushing their own products is normal. The search can be turned off. Microsoft pushes Bing by default in IE already.
Firefox and Chrome both push Google search (Firefox gets a lot of it income via Google). Yet it isn’t complained about nearly as much as when Microsoft does it.
You are being obstinate and wilfully ignoring the main issue.
Nobody is complaining that a web browser includes a default search engine *for the web*!
The complaint is that the local, desktop search tool returns *web-based search results*, by default!
Can you honestly not tell the difference between those two issues, and why the second one *is* an issue?
Yes I can. But in Chrome OS and Android it is part of the OS.
The web results (on the desktop search btw) are only displayed when there are NO desktop results.
Desktop results have priority. Privacy concerns, I would understand, UI in this case, I don’t agree with.
Also Microsoft aren’t say pushing some other persons products that you definitely don’t care about i.e. Ubuntu’s search.
The Bing search integration is something that is potentially quite useful, Ubuntu’s search is an affiliate scheme to make money.
The latter maybe useful if you were a shop-a-holic, the former is potentially useful depending on what you are trying to achieve the vast majority of the time.
The option is there if you want to turn it off and if you don’t know I am sure you can use the search functionality to search how to turn it off.
I honestly don’t think it is unreasonable (when web search is as prevalent as it is today) to include it when the basic logic it is apply.
1. Search for String
2. Display Program matchs
3. Display File matches
4. Display Bing matches
Personally I do, and I will replace the Android phones in my home with iOS phones as they fail.
Or maybe with the Nokia reborn phone, who knows…
But that’s a topic for another article.
Edited 2014-01-21 15:23 UTC
I took more of a look on how to accomplish this on 7/Vista. Its ugly. No managed code allowed, obscure COM interfaces, registry editing, and poor documentation.
versus two API calls in WinRT.
So there you go.
Yes it is, you just don’t want to admit it. Its cute.
So, you agree with me that it’s perfectly possible in Desktop Search. In fact, many, many applications support Desktop Search just fine. Whether or not it’s “ugly” is a different matter altogether – and not the point we were arguing. Judging by how many applications support Desktop Search just fine, I’d say it’s not nearly as bad as you make it out to be, but I’ll just trust you on that one.
I’m sorry, but it’s not. I can search the web from Desktop Search. It’s right there. So, no, it’s not a new location. However, and this is crucial: web results do not clutter up the results from my computer. When I want to search the web, *I’ll search the damn web*, preferably with a search engine that doesn’t suck – but that’s a different matter altogether.
Edited 2014-01-21 14:31 UTC
That doesn’t sound like something the average user would even think of doing, but it does seem like a great power user feature. The question is, how many app developers would bother with implementing it, given the average user might not even know about it?
No, but the point is that its more flexible and app developers can surface content there if they want.
I’d integrate with the platform because its another way to get users to come back to your app, akin to having a live tile.
No offense but the simple fact that you are using “app” when talking about a desktop/laptop OS just shows why Windows 8 is a fricking bomb and doesn’t work.
Apps are for PHONES, they are frankly little more than what we used to call widgets back in the day, have SEVERELY limited functionality, phone home waaay too damned much, and even an average desktop program makes them look like something from geocities.
I don’t WANT to send my data to Bing when I search my desktop, which is exactly what you are doing, just FYI, I don’t want a fullscreen cellphone style “app” sucking up real estate on my nice 22 inch widescreen, what I want is frankly what a desktop OS should be SOLELY doing which is making the actual work I need to do easier by making the tools I need to get my task done as easy as possible to reach and then getting out of my way..Windows 8 doesn’t do that.
One last thing, rant coming up…I fricking HATE when people say “Oh just use the searchbox” because you know what you are doing there? you might as well say “DOS was the superior OS” because you can use the search IF and ONLY IF you know EXACTLY what its called in “MetroSpeak”. For a perfect example the “charms bar”, never has it ever been called that before by ANYBODY, it comes from the exact same place that the sidebar was in Vista 7, where your gadgets were…does it show up under searches for sidebar? gadgets? Last i checked it will ONLY come up with the relevant info if you look under charms..if I don’t know its actually CALLED the “charms bar”? Just like if you didn’t know the name and location of the .com or .exe in DOS you were SOL.
Search will be a usable replacement ONLY when OSes get smart enough to allow you to use real language and get the answer right at least 3 out of 4 times. If I type in backup, or restore, or boot disc, or recovery CD and the OS “gets the gist” of what I’m going for and gives me the relevant info? Fine i agree with you 100%, but as it is now? Nope, sorry, I shouldn’t have to take a fricking course to find out what MSFT calls things, or keep a Win 7 PC to Google WTF term my Win 8 PC wants to do what I want it to do, that is simply unacceptable.
I think from an engineering perspective that its not true, sure a lot of traditional programs are more complex, but often needlessly so. A lot of for example tightly coupled programs which do heavy RPC are just over engineered blobs of garbage. Another example are large codebases with legacy GDI stacks and a lot of owner drawn controls.
Complex? Sure. Needed? No. There’s nothing functionally precluding a Metro app from being more than a consumption app, for example Project Spark by Microsoft is a pretty competent world builder for games which works on my laptop and my Surface Pro.
I know what I’m doing, but I don’t really care. This seems to be a strange issue for some of you so the good news is you can turn it off.
You don’t have to. Windows 8.1 lets you snap multiple apps across the screen. In my use cases I generally deal with 3-4 applications at a time, so the workflow works very well for me. I was a heavy Aero Snap user in Windows 7.
Last you checked? You didn’t check because you don’t search for the charms bae, given it needs to be open to search for it. It returns zero results.
Now, Windows 8.1 actually searches for more than the app names. It searches metadata the apps provided and custom data stores (which is why you can find individual deep linked pages within the Settings app for example)
Thanks for proving my point, you open the charms bar, use the search, and get NOTHING. great, so go hunt down the MSDN website to learn how to tweak the damned thing, wonderful. And you wonder why Win 8 is MSBob the second coming?
SEARCH SUCKS IN WIN H8 because you have to know EXACTLY what its called in metro speak FULL STOP. How do I backup? Well I CAN’T because if I look under backup I DON’T GET THE INFO because that is under RECOVERY, the exact opposite of what I want to do…fuuu&^%*&%!
Nope, sorry, bombed for a reason, its awful. Millions agree with me, HP dropped it because the majority agree with me, if you like it? Good for you, I have a couple guys that loved WinME too, didn’t keep MSFT from abandoning the turkey. For a perfect example of what real users go through, please enjoy this video…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLTE_bvlWUE
In 8.1, there’s an option in taskbar properties to disable the charms bar (not sure about 8). Just about everything having to do with Metro can be turned off. And why do that? Because 8 is a better OS on the desktop side than 7.
Similar to you, I use Debian GNU/Linux daily for both personal life and work. I cannot understand how come some people claim that Linux are not user-friendly.
I did have problem with my USB wireless card at first. So what? I just download the driver source code, compile it and install the complied module. Then I download the binary firmware and copy it to the proper location. And everything works like a charm. How hard is that? Even a plant can do it!
Can you get rid of the Charms menus as well? Trying to do things with a trackpad tends to make background windows jump to the foreground, and weird things just inexplicably happen for no good reason at all. It’s fantastically bad UI design for laptops. I wonder who came up with the idea of switching applications without the user actively doing something, i.e. clicking. Trying to find the mouse pointer should not be interpreted as a user action.
I work at a college, helping lots of people with computer related stuff, and Windows 8 is the only OS I’ve heard middle-aged women volunteer their opinion on. It’s not positive. Younger students will of course say what they please about anything, and they all seem to agree.
In a way, the apologists for Windows 8 remind me of Linux advocates in the late 90s: if you don’t like it, you can just configure it as you please. But that’s not good enough. Defaults matter. The difference is just that Linux didn’t have downright insane defaults.
This is a bit of a troll post, but seriously? earlier in this thread people are getting excited about native ISO mounting? Welcome to 1998 Linux people. Microsoft haven’t innovated anything in the last decade. If it wasn’t for the productivity/business apps, Windows wouldn’t even have the market share they currently do. Watching people get excited when Microsoft rip off another feature Linux has had for a decade is getting silly.
Right, you mean like the primary reason why most people use a desktop OS, vs those that live in their parents’ basement and love to jerk off while staring at their uptime statistics? As a friend of mine once said… I don’t like Windows. I like what I can run on Windows.
Back in 1997-ish, it took me 3 days just to get a GUI up and running, after screwing with those X config files. But yay for ISO mounting, when nobody could actually use the f**king thing.
Windows does well over other OS’s for a few major reasons. 1. Obviously the largest software library, 2. Best driver support, 3. Great development tools and technologies baked in like Visual Studio and .NET framework, 4. Stable and upgrades don’t break your setup for the most part…and if they do you can roll them back, 5. NT kernel is still amazing, 6. Solid compatibility with old software, 6. (arguably) SQL Server rocks!, 7. Even Windows 8 with it’s polarizing interface blows the doors off of the software and desktop managers that come with desktop Linux. Comparing any distribution to even Windows XP is not even a contest and XP is dead man. UNIX is old technology.
Edited 2014-01-22 02:30 UTC
Do you actually believe that your self? If so i have a couple of bridges you might be interested in. One of them is red
In Windows 8.1 (not sure about 8), you can disable the charms menu.
I do all kinds of data entry/content creation. Windows 8 has never been a problem.
As far as I’m concerned Windows 8.1 is Windows 7 with a fullscreen start menu and Metro apps (should I ever want to use them).
Edited 2014-01-21 01:31 UTC
And that is how virtually everyone who has come to terms with it views it (including me), but that doesn’t make it ok…
Its like Microsoft is selling candied apples with razor blades in them, and people are defending it because its easy enough to avoid the razor blade, and.. well… the apple is still pretty good…
Hello? Can we stop apologizing for MS and acknowledge that Windows 8 has a f–k*n razor blade in it??? It seems quite literally no one wants it on the desktop, and it isn’t doing so stellar even where it does make sense (tablets). The very best that can be said at this point is the majority of its rather small user base (relative to Windows 7) is tolerating it by ignoring Metro’s existence… Not so high praise.
So yeah, Windows 8 still has all the good stuff from Windows 7 – but HP is simply recognizing the fact that the lowest common denominator of their user base simply doesn’t want to deal with avoiding the razor blade, and there is virtually nothing to gained from bothering.
I won’t argue whether they are right or wrong for doing this – but I will say this doesn’t bode well for Metro in the long term… Things seem to be getting worse instead of better for it after almost 1.5 years. If Microsoft doesn’t figure out how to steer this in the other direction the defining feature of Windows 9 or 10 may well be relegating Metro to a truly optional feature (or its complete removal)…
I think Microsoft is on the verge of their own “Coca-Cola Classic” debacle… Hopefully it works out as well for them as it did for Coke.
ps. This is from someone who was initially quite a fan of the idea of Metro. But the reality is simply too far from the idea… It’s passable on tablets with touch screens, and well that is the best I can say about it. If it was really going to work for desktop users we would have some compelling Metro desktop apps by now. Where are they?
Edited 2014-01-21 03:44 UTC
It’s more like they stuck olives on a pizza. I had to get used to the olives, but now that I have I actually like them.
You guys can sit around and whinge about about the start screen if you want but it really isn’t that bad. And missing out on all the other improvements to the desktop just because of the start screen is plain old stupid.
Edited 2014-01-21 07:16 UTC
Ok, lets use your analogy instead, maybe razor blades are a bit harsh… Wouldn’t you rather be able to order your pizza without the olives if you really don’t like them?
If Pizza Hut decided tomorrow that all of their pizzas now came with olives whether your want them or not I don’t think it would go over so well… Especially if they spent a whole lot of marketing effort trying to convince everyone of the wonders of olives while behind the scenes it just so happens they own all the olive farms.
The problem is Pizza Hut used to be in the business of selling pizza, but they are now really in the business of selling olives – they just don’t want anyone to notice…
Why is complaining about Microsoft doing the same thing “whining”?
Edited 2014-01-21 07:53 UTC
Well, should you be allowed to order Windows without explorer.exe? Or without Internet Exploder? Or maybe without Windows Update installed in, because you just don’t like the way it works?
You can’t order a TV without that horrible stand, or irritating blue stand-by light, because a TV is a whole atomic product. You MAY be able to choose another model without those disadvantages, but it’s an entirely different model.
MS is selling an atomic product as well. Windows 8 is a product with Metro. You can’t just cherry-pick features you like, because that’s not what they’re selling. If you don’t like it, then stay with Windows 7.
I can’t believe why on earth people think MS is bringing enlightenment and progress to the masses, all in good faith. Bringing improvements is their method of defeating their competitors so you can give them money, and nothing more. They’re money-making company, since day 1. Can anyone blame them for this? I think not.
Why you’re so against Metro? Because it hurts your current sense of aesthetics? But your current image of a perfect UI was crafted by the very same company years ago. So how to justify your acceptance of their past influence on your image of a good interface, compared to your rejection on them trying to alter this image by using today’s Metro?
(sorry for bad english)
Edited 2014-01-21 08:36 UTC
If a large enough percentage of customers asked for that, then yes, Microsoft would be fools not to offer it to them and take their money.
I gave Metro enough of a chance. While I can see it somewhat work on tablets (not my Surface RT though, which is a piece of shit), it’s hell on a 24″ desktop monitor that just gets in the way.
Worse yet, though, there are no good Metro applications. This, to me, indicates that developers, too, really dislike Metro and are apparently unable to craft good applications with it. Even Microsoft’s own are terrible!
So, my Windows 8 PC has been purged from all that crap. I’ve used Metro since the very first test release, and I gave it its fair shake. Sadly, it’s just really, really bad software.
I should be getting a Windows 8 laptop, with touchscreen, and a Windows 8 tablet.
When we meet after that I will have an opinion too.
Server Core is an available option, from Microsoft, if you feel like shelling out for the server edition. So yes you are able to order/install Windows without it. Windows Update has supported, easily visible options to disable it entirely.
Many/most models have removable stands (for wall mounting) as a supported user customization.
Um. Actually they’re selling a product in various SKUs with varying feature sets (which are enabled/disabled by license key rather than by missing binaries). They’re selling a product that’s inherently configurable. And they have gone out of their way to push certain choices on users that should be customizable.
You know, I’ve always actually believed that if companies don’t serve some purpose in existence beyond pure profit, they shouldn’t be granted legal personhood and limited liability in the first place.
That aside, many consider some of the choices made by MS in Win8 to not actually be improvements, and not made in order to simply compete, but in order to mistreat customers – which is rarely considered good form, even if legal.
Can’t speak for others. Personally I believe
– Metro is another “fad” choice for Microsoft, that will not have longevity and therefore is a waste of time to learn/suffer through. (Someone within MS will in a version or two decide it’s dated and replace it with something ENTIRELY different and incompatible again, wasting users time and money)
– The Metro/desktop incongruity breaks workflow and therefore costs time and money
– Aesthetics yes – its simply a poor interface with poor discoverability and poor clarity when interacting on a classic desktop computer. It also deals poorly with having hundreds of installed programs.
– More, but it’s twenty to midnight and I’m running out of steam
All good. Made sense to me
You have hundreds of installed programs?
Yep.
105 .lnk files (shortcuts) in my personal start menu
975 .lnk files (shortcuts) in Public start menu
————————————————-
1080 .lnk files (shortcuts) total in start menu
Replace ‘olives’ with ‘shit’. Do your opinion still stands?
doesn’t make it wrong either. There is nothing wrong as far as I can see with the start screen
I agree, windows 8 is fine and I also make serious content with it.
I’ve told it, I’ve told it, I’ve told it…
http://www.osnews.com/thread?580591
Kochise
The saddest thing is, to make Windows 8 great for desktop use, you basically have to overcome all the “innovations” introduced by Windows 8. Finding the ‘boot to Desktop’ option and installing Classic Shell made it usable again.
But, silly me, I just program, write and play games on my system, I don’t sit there with Facebook or Netflix running fullscreen 24×7.
No you don’t, because I haven’t had to change anything in fact Since Win 7 I haven’t made many changes to to the OS.
I was window shopping for a new laptop last week and noticed Dell seems to be doing the same thing. While HP’s site was mostly proclaiming “everyone gets a touch screen”, the Dell site was pretty big on making Windows 7 available. I think this isa good sign, maybe OEMs are starting to realize their sales will go up if they offer a product people actually want.
I didn’t know Dell had started doing that for the consumer lines. I had seen them recommending Windows 7 to business customers a while back when my boss had me looking to upgrade some of our workstations. We’ve pretty much always been a Dell house with an active support contract (since long before I started working there) and I was happy to see them still offering Windows 7 on business workstations.
Yep, Dell is still selling 7. I saw in their ads until the fall, now I don’t see it in their ads but it’s still on their website for various products. See Dell 7 PC’s here — http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/windows-segment-se…
Classic shell + disable start screen on start-up = windows that works almost exactly like windows 7. Plus you get nice features like improved dual-screen support which I enjoy very much. Although if it wasn’t for free windows 8.x key from MSDN subscription, I would still be using 7.
But can you see the weather from two cities when it wakes up from standby?
It depends on the usage – tiles are for bathrooms – and kitchens at times.
There’s nothing wrong with Widows 8, and it is the User’s fault. It isn’t meant to be used. Only pushed.
Source: http://www.zdnet.com/hp-bringing-back-windows-7-pcs-not-so-fast-700…
but I suppose this is just this weeks red meat Verge repost.
Basically, HP never stopped selling Windows 7 machines, is in fact selling less of them, and prior versions of Windows being available at retail is something Microsoft has always done. Tempest in a teacup.
Oh come on… That isn’t the point. No one said HP ever stopped selling Windows 7 PCs. And sure, they are selling less of them now – because they are selling less hardware (everyone is – except Apple…).
HP doesn’t much care what OS you buy – they sell computers not operating systems…
The point is they are selling less hardware, and they seem to think that, at least in part, some of this is attributable to people avoiding an upgrade because they don’t want to deal with Windows 8. At least enough to bother marketing to these people…
Im sorry but I think it is noteworthy for an OEM to so blatantly market like this – to consumers at that, not business. There is historically always a trailing curve in the enterprise on new versions of Windows, but in the consumer space a new version of Windows is supposed to equal a sales spike…
Where is the spike? Apple released Mavericks, and they got a huge spike… so Its possible, even in this economy. Windows 8 may not be hurting sales, but it sure isn’t helping…
Edited 2014-01-21 04:10 UTC
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2086561/lenovo-widens-lead-as-pc-mar…
Lenovo just grew its volumes 9%, Dell grew its volumes 5.8%. Not every PC OEM is doing as bad as Acer or HP.
The problem isn’t that Windows 8 hasn’t given PC shipments a shot in the arm (which is difficult to prove given we don’t live in a parallel universe without Windows 8), the problem is that PCs just aren’t a growth market for the time being.
Windows was always carried by two things, a strong market position and a growing market. Now one of those things is true, and the other, while significant can’t stem the decline.
Windows 8 is now on 10% of PCs, its really just an eventuality. When/if PC shipments rebound, it will only be to Microsoft’s benefit. At the moment, being the dominant player in a declining market isn’t the same as having a sales failure.
The spirit of my original post was the tone with which this news item was posted, implying that because Windows 7 was still being sold (and back by popular demand!) , that it meant Windows 8 wasn’t doing just fine. As my link has shown, its not quite so simple.
I find it amusing when the same people who argue for a traditional desktop operating system also scream about the death of the PC. Which would seem to imply Windows 7 would be faring much better in the space, when the main reason for Windows 8s (relatively speaking) slow up take is a slowing PC market.
It is extremely convenient, the PC market matures around the same time Windows 8 (a more mobile, transitional release) hits shelves and people lose their shit.
So while you might’ve responded with a better observation than Thom did in his article title and lead in, I wasn’t originally replying to you, so “the point” isn’t one that was made clearly prior to my post.
Edited 2014-01-21 12:19 UTC
I get that people prefer the start menu to the start screen. I probably mildly prefer the start screen, basically because it’s pretty and I really am that easily pleased.
But really, I don’t care. I have all my favourite applications on the taskbar, like Chrome, Evernote,Paint.NET,FlashFXP,MobaXterm,REBOL,Windows Media Player,iTunes,Visual Studio, Powershell,VueScan,UltraEdit,VNC Viewer,NeatImage,Skitch,Photoshop Elements,Amazon Cloud Player,Netbeans,HeidiSQL,SketchUp,Adobe Reader.
That covers 99.999% of what I ever use. What it does not cover can be covered by pressing the Windows key, and entering the first few letters of the application name.
Let’s say you don’t like that, fine, but seriously how much time do you really spend opening applications, rather than actually working in them?
I don’t like how one erases a widget in Android, but it’s something I rarely do, and the rest of Android is pretty decent, so I just live with it. It’s easy to do.
That is exactly the main issue with Win8. If you have a 23″ screen, a full screen start menu is plain stupid. Every time it pops up, your brain is distracted. It takes your eyes and brain 5 seconds to grasp the contents of a full 23″ screen, while a win7 start menu is read in less than half a second. On top of that, you lose the view on the content you had on your screen, when the win8 start screen pops up. This means again that your brain has to work harder to resume working on your content
So the Win8 on a 23″ desktop reduces your productivity. And it also makes clear that the win8.1 start button is useless as it launches the win8 start screen iso the win7 start menu.
Of course for a 10″ tablet the difference between a start menu and a start screen is not that relevant, and that’s why the metro interface is acceptable for smaller screen.
I normally use a huge screen — (38-inch) 3200×2400 virtual on 30-inch 2560×1600 physical.
Or actually, ten virtual screens, each with that resolution. Let me tell you: on that size screen, a “start menu” button way in the lower left corner is plain stupid. But the Metro interface is beyond idiotic.
What works for displays like that is a window manager that gives you access to the menus by just clicking anywhere in the background–don’t have to hunt for that little bitty start-button. And when you learn to use that kind of system, the effective control of a literally-desktop-sized display improves your productivity hugely, at least for software-development tasks.
FWIW
The move is clearly designed to position Windows 7 over Microsoft’s touch-centric Windows 8 operating system.
I doubt it. The move is clearly designed to sell a few PCs.
If you put Classic Shell on Windows 8.1, set it to disable all active corners and boot into the desktop, go into the group policy and disable the pre-login/lock screen (which irritates me because you’ve got to click to get rid of it before the login prompt will appear), then Windows 8.1 is actually quite usable on a desktop with a keyboard and mouse (mainly because you never see the Metro interface).
Unfortunately, the vast majority of users won’t do any of the above and end up suffering in the Metro interface, which might be OK with a touchscreen, but is a complete disaster with keyboard and mouse. First-time boot of a brand new PC should ask which interface you want (Windows 7-style or Metro style) and also allow you to later on change that setting for the next reboot.
Microsoft failed to offer that option and everyone got dumped into Metro default. If Windows could detect if you had a touchscreen (not sure how easy that is!), then the first-time default interface should have been based on the presence of a touchscreen (if you have one, you get Metro first time, otherwise a Windows 7-style desktop). And, yes, Microsoft would have had to provide the equivalent of Classic Shell to match how Windows 7 behaves.
Microsoft shot itself in the foot completely by not providing a Windows 7-style desktop as a possible default in Windows 8, so it’s hardly surprising HP have taken the step they have – people just don’t like Windows 8 Metro on a desktop PC (where few users have a touchscreen).
They could do it with device IDs, which could be kept up to date with the regular system updates. Yours is a great idea and I would love to see them implement something like that in the next version of Windows.
When I bought my laptop in late 2012 it was $250 cheaper than the identical Windows 8 model. Maybe the Windows 7 model should have cost more not less.
I get Microsoft’s strategy (ducks….) don’t throw rocks.
But, Microsoft wanted to confuse touch with mouse/keyboard precisely because if they didn’t they didn’t have much chance in the world of tablets.
And they can’t let that market slip away, as the world goes to tablets.
Of course if its all for naught, then – it’s quite the colossal mistake.
But I get why they did it. What choice did they have?
So I get it, and I agree, WIndows 8 isn’t the great desktop OS – and that is what its primarily used for – but, I still think that if I was Microsoft, I’d have tried the same thing.
They have to gamble – even at the risk of angering customers – they have to collide their desktop world with the world of touch and tablets, and be a player.
Edited 2014-01-21 15:53 UTC
I really am enjoying watching each MS camp here explaining why the other MS camp is wrong. All the while believing MS to be a software company when the reality is that MS is a software licensing company; a fine but important distinction to understand. MS figured out long ago that there is only money to be made in features and not fixes or performance. So in order to keep their revenue stream (licensing) going, they just add sparkle. I say let MS shine like the glittering jewel that they are. It keeps me entertained.
The problem with Windows 8.x is that it’s absolutely great for touch enabled devices. Unfortunately for Windows 8.x it’s not so great for traditional desktops and laptops. I can’t understand why the developers didn’t simply have the OS detect whether touch was enabled and then offer the user a choice for Metro or a traditional Windows 7-like desktop complete with start menu. In desktop mode, Metro apps would simply be confined to a window instead of taking full screen which is confusing for users accustomed to the desktop paradigm. Such a simple, common sense approach would have prevented a lot of headaches and made the transition to Windows 8.x much less controversial for everyone.
I don’t think people would like if car manufactures change the number of pedals and their functions every 5 years, even if they keep changing dashboard and steering wheel buttons. It’s pretty annoying too, but at least not so disastrous.
I remember once Microsoft boasted about the main Windows advantage being its compatibility and adherence to standards. Following their promises, they should fork touch screen windows manager from the master branch w/o breaking it. For desktop productivity applications Metro GUI does not look promising.
And finally who actually cares about GUI on phones or smartwatches? They are more like toys.
I don’t feel there something wrong with Windows 8, since I use it dayly for work and is 90% the same as Windows 7, my problem lies in other aspect, the fact that laptops now come with “The single lenguage edition”, that means I cannot format my laptop because there is no ISO, and license won’t work, when I got this new HP laptop with Windows 8, it came with a lot of crapware that was making it slow, in a Window 7 machine all I have to do is format it and put the license number, but with the Windows 8 single language is just not posible, so, now I have to live with the uninstalled crapware that is still making it slow.