Microsoft should stick to its guns and keep the Start button gone

Op-ed: If Redmond wants Metro apps to succeed, it needs education, not capitulation.

Read the whole story

 

[Cartigan]

Is this article defending Metro? Why? Well, a better question is why for the desktop. Metro is bad for the same reason Windows for Mobile was bad - you can't design a system for one device and expect it to apply to every device. Metro apps are awful for the desktop - it's a step backwards. Raise your hand if you ever looked at your computer and thought "You know what is terrible about this? Multitasking." Or "You know what would be great? Making it harder to access my installed programs."

I will agree that bringing back the start button without the start menu is a spectacular missing of the point, but at least they aren't standing there going "There is nothing wrong here!" in the face of a cacophony of disagreement. Microsoft doesn't need to stand its ground for Metro; it needs to get a bunch of engineers, UI experts, and social guys in a room and have a round table on why people don't like Metro. If they can't figure out why applying a mobile operating system designed get up to a desktop is a bad idea and getting so much poor feedback, they are idiots and deserve to fail.

Trying to drive innovation is one thing. Pretending you are driving innovation by slapping the "operating system of the future!!!111!" on the desktop of today is completely different.

 

[Cartigan]

Bengie25[/url]":1h2t3rvn]

riverlaw[/url]":1h2t3rvn]I installed win 8 for games. I had to google how to shut it down. That was awesome. Way to force crap on you customers just so you can catch up on touch screen apps.

You couldn't find the power button on your case?

Microsoft said almost no one used the shutdown in the start-menu and almost exclusively used the one on their case. Congrats, you're unique.

Has anyone ever met anyone that used the power button on the case to instigate normal shut down procedures?

 

[Cartigan]

Geminiman[/url]":2jwuhep1]
By doing this with Windows 8, everyone would have gotten a clear message. Desktop apps would have been relegated to legacy but would have worked perfectly within the metaphor of Modern UI and there wouldn't be 2 messages. Given that the VAST majority of legacy apps are opened full screen on the vast majority of computers, this would have eliminated all of the confusing in one shot.

What it would have done is pissed off multi-monitor users because it wouldn't have worked well for them. However, 8.1 fixes this with multiple apps allowed per screen with splitting and multiple apps open at the same time on multiple screens. This eliminates that argument.

Epic design failure.

Windows 8 has the same problem. Tech geeks don't like it. I personally get little value, because I spend my days in Visual Studio with 150 browser tabs and windows open because of my job. But I just got my wife a Surface Pro. SHE LOVES IT. Thinks it's the best computer she's ever used and just loves the Modern UI and how she doesn't have to worry about windows Explorer and where to store her files and native integration of skydrive and the only thing she uses that isn't metro is Word and Excel. Her only comment to me was to ask why there was a different background and the "silly bar" at the bottom when she opened Word. Heck, she doesn't even notice the faults with the Modern Email client and calendar that tech geeks do, and she LIVES in email, and calendars and One Note and her browser for her job. And yes, she had an IPAD and hated it because it was so limited, and LOVES the surface because "it just makes sense". Why? Because she's not a tech geek and doesn't use a computer like a tech geek, but still needs a real computer, and not a toy (i.e. Ipad/android pad).

Windows Surface is what the god damn OS is designed for. Give her a Keyboard and Mouse desktop and Windows 8, see what she says. It's like you are comparing square pegs and round pegs and declaring round pegs best because they fit in round holes while ignoring the fact that square pegs don't fit in round holes at all.
Also, how old is your wife? How has she avoided using computers for the past 20 years?

 

[Cartigan]

Quixote2961[/url]":2t72dyxm]Peter, thanks again for writing a brave opinion piece that speaks the truth.

To all those who don't like the Metro interface -- either stick with Windows 7 or move to another OS. It's a simple choice. Just make your decision and stop trying to speak for people like me who fully support the direction MS is taking with Metro and Win8. Thanks in advance.

Microsoft is moving towards a cloud-centric computing model and Metro will be the gateway interface to cloud-based applications and services. Traditional desktop computing will still be supported - but it will be a legacy environment that will not see any further improvement in functionality. This is an OS _migration_, people. Probably the biggest OS migration in history. Kudos to MS for being brave enough to attempt it.

Developers will eventually adapt to this new model and redesign their apps to fit it. Those that don't will be replaced by others who do. Microsoft realized a while back that they don't need to monopolize a market to be highly profitable. They are giving space for the rest to come in. Let's see if Google or Apple have what it takes.

Eventually, people will realize that Microsoft is building what is going to be the best integrated computing ecosystem available to consumers. Neither Google nor Apple are able to give the breadth of integrated applications, devices and services that Microsoft now offers -- and Microsoft is actually increasing its lead. Me and my family are "all-in" with the MS ecosystem... and what I've seen is that the improvements being made to the ecosystem are accelerating at an amazing rate. I'm genuinely excited to see where we will be a year from now.

Then Microsoft is run by morons and will die cold death. Metro will never work in the corporate space - it isn't designed for productivity. Full screen apps with no ability to navigate otherwise? Ok, great, now how am I going to compare two things side by side? How am I going to copy a piece of data from one program to another? Etc. etc etc.

In an environment where touch programs like Android are moving towards multitasking, you are giving Microsoft the thumbs up for giving multitasking the finger? Right. I hope you aren't Microsoft management.

 

[Cartigan]

Bengie25[/url]":2uar20mu]
Not that nobody "wanted" it, but that nobody used it. Based on feedback, almost no one used the start button for anything other than search.

I demand to see these studies.

Guess where they got that info? You know when Windows's installation prompts you if you want to give feedback on your usage patterns, everyone who is complaining opted out of sharing their usage patterns.

It's called "voting". If you don't want to vote, then don't complain when the voters vote for something you don't want.

Then Microsoft can't complain when their share values tank. Microsoft is a business, not a democracy. You sell to people that buy your product - corporations and "techies." What fuckwit at Microsoft thought a bunch of people too stupid to opt out of sending Microsoft their usage data constituted the kind of people they should design their system for as opposed to the corporate world?

 

[Cartigan]

Tundro Walker[/url]":ht028hai]
I think once internet gets faster and cheaper (hopefully via Google's push on ATT, Verizon, et.al.), we'll see the PC market pick up again as companies or people buy newer computers to use for work-from-home jobs. I really just see it being pointless for lots of folks to come into a physical work location these days when their personal phone and computer can be utilized for their job. Save personal time not commuting. Save gas money. Company cuts costs on office space and perhaps hardware expenses. There's incentive on both ends, but the internet in between is current prohibiting wide adoption.

Work from home has 100% of nothing to do with internet speeds. I have no idea where you are going

 

[Cartigan]

ror[/url]":33j3uq7b]Preach brother Peter, preach!

it's too late now, but their approach should've been 1) education, 2) visual cues, 3) an ability to add a Start button to the taskbar. the 3rd option being for admins and fussy "power users."

they have acknowledged the terrible tutorial and I hope 8.1 includes a useful walkthrough that runs after the 8.1 upgrade or when a new PC is turned on.

also, re: Metro apps, I already use Weather, Mail, News, Sports, NY Times, and The Big Picture regularly on my desktop.

Microsoft has made weather, mail, news, etc available on the desktop since Vista, when they introduced the Sidebar.

How, exactly, do you, and Peter, expect "education" to solve the problems of an OS being designed for a completely different type of computer set up? No one doesn't like Windows 8 because they aren't "educated;" they don't like it because they are educated. See your own bullet 3. Very entertaining cognitive dissonance though

 

[Cartigan]

JGoat[/url]":3t5fy16b]
Education helps people get over the misguided idea that Win 8 was "designed for a completely different type of computer set up."

Oh, so we are talking about "brain-washing" not "education." Win 8's UI is demonstrably designed with a touch screen interface in mind. Which is what? At most 20% of people not using dedicated tablets/smartphones? Where keyboard/mouse systems make up like what? Minimum 75% of people with a Win 8 OS?

If you can look at me with a straight face and say Windows 8 wasn't designed with a primary concern for touch screen systems, you are either the most gullible person ever or working for Microsoft's PR team.

 

[Cartigan]

JGoat[/url]":1opn5att]

Cartigan[/url]":1opn5att]

JGoat[/url]":1opn5att]
Education helps people get over the misguided idea that Win 8 was "designed for a completely different type of computer set up."

Oh, so we are talking about "brain-washing" not "education." Win 8's UI is demonstrably designed with a touch screen interface in mind. Which is what? At most 20% of people not using dedicated tablets/smartphones? Where keyboard/mouse systems make up like what? Minimum 75% of people with a Win 8 OS?

If you can look at me with a straight face and say Windows 8 wasn't designed with a primary concern for touch screen systems, you are either the most gullible person ever or working for Microsoft's PR team.

I'd be happy to say that Metro is designed with a focus on touch, but not Win 8 as a whole. I spend 99% of my time on the desktop, like many others. I don't use Metro apps, but I like the start menu just fine. I find Win 8 boots faster, uses less memory, and offers a slew of minor improvements that I appreciate. I'm neither particularly gullible or working for Microsoft, I'm just a happy user.

That's a fallacy; don't give me that crap. No one needs education to use the parts of Win 8 that have been standardized for years. The only parts needing "education" for are the Metro parts, which are the parts designed for touch interface systems.

 

[Cartigan]

drfisheye[/url]":39n4gd39]

Cartigan[/url]":39n4gd39]No one needs education to use the parts of Win 8 that have been standardized for years.

No one? Try working on a helpdesk and you'll learn that the desktop feels like an absolute mess for lots of users. The iPad feels liberating for them.

I'm generalizing here. The conversation was clearly about the Metro apps of Win 8 (it's most defining feature) and "education" needed to teach people it wasn't designed solely for touch interfaces. Then he goes and spins a tale about how the backend of Win 8 is just the same as it ever was!

You are contributing to the red herring hunt.

 

[Cartigan]

drfisheye[/url]":23eahvis]This is somewhat resolved with touch mice and extra buttons, but of course most of us don't have those.

Which is what I said and is basically the point of almost everyone who doesn't like Windows 8.

 

[Cartigan]

JGoat[/url]":fazm285l]

Cartigan[/url]":fazm285l]

JGoat[/url]":fazm285l]

Cartigan[/url]":fazm285l]

JGoat[/url]":fazm285l]
Education helps people get over the misguided idea that Win 8 was "designed for a completely different type of computer set up."

Oh, so we are talking about "brain-washing" not "education." Win 8's UI is demonstrably designed with a touch screen interface in mind. Which is what? At most 20% of people not using dedicated tablets/smartphones? Where keyboard/mouse systems make up like what? Minimum 75% of people with a Win 8 OS?

If you can look at me with a straight face and say Windows 8 wasn't designed with a primary concern for touch screen systems, you are either the most gullible person ever or working for Microsoft's PR team.

I'd be happy to say that Metro is designed with a focus on touch, but not Win 8 as a whole. I spend 99% of my time on the desktop, like many others. I don't use Metro apps, but I like the start menu just fine. I find Win 8 boots faster, uses less memory, and offers a slew of minor improvements that I appreciate. I'm neither particularly gullible or working for Microsoft, I'm just a happy user.

That's a fallacy; don't give me that crap. No one needs education to use the parts of Win 8 that have been standardized for years. The only parts needing "education" for are the Metro parts, which are the parts designed for touch interface systems.

It takes some adjustment to realize that Win 8 on a desktop is not that different from Win 7, my point was and remains that they should have shown people that more clearly. I bumbled around a bit with Win 8 until I learned my way around, a tutorial would have made it smoother for people to transition.

That the backend is Windows is beside the point. What they are trying to sell people is Metro.
Besides, you said "but it wasn't designed for [touch interfaces]" and that is false, false, false. Metro - the first thing you see and what they are actually trying to sell your ass - is designed for touch screens. The up-front UI is 100% designed for touch screen driven systems

 

[Cartigan]

Can I say that I hate the hot corners for completely inverse reasons? Every try to use a maximized (not full screen) application with the hot corner? Arrrgghhh

 

[Cartigan]

Voldenuit[/url]":vz4dwd93]

Cartigan[/url]":vz4dwd93]
Besides, you said "but it wasn't designed for [touch interfaces]" and that is false, false, false. Metro - the first thing you see and what they are actually trying to sell your ass - is designed for touch screens. The up-front UI is 100% designed for touch screen driven systems

So why are some settings metro-accessible and others are only available through the desktop control panel interface (to be fixed with Blue)? Try hitting touch targets in the traditional windows interface with your fingers - it's not fun.

Better yet, tell me how to get to the Power User Menu (Win+X) with just the touchscreen. Because surely one of the first things you'll want to do when you get a new win8 device is to configure it. Not impossible without win+x, but a whole lot more annoying, which pretty much sums up win Windows 8 exeprience so far. Windows 8 can do everything Windows 7 can do, it's just a whole lot more annoying to do so. Like when I had to regedit to be able to launch an explorer window with admin rights so I could delete injection malware from questionable websites that auto-download executables onto your system.

I have no idea what you are arguing.

 

[Cartigan]

Geminiman[/url]":1zw15h8t]
Yes, it's designed for touch, but it works fine with a mouse and keyboard.

But not remotely as well as had it actually been designed for a keyboard/mouse. Sure, I can play golf with a baseball bat, but why should I accept that as a solution?

 

[Cartigan]

TomXP411[/url]":86rh8cmp]

candlesayshi[/url]":86rh8cmp]I really find it hard to believe that people are needing to Google how to shutdown Windows 8. I don't actually believe that for one second.

Just sounds too hyperbolic.

Really? I've been a computer professional for 20 years, and I had to look it up.

I ended up using Alt+F4 on the desktop until I installed a start menu replacement

 

[Cartigan]

WaveRunner[/url]":3t3i42mr]Peter: I much prefer the term "luddites". Just cause you own a PC and read Ars doesn't exempt you from that classification. "whiners" or "complainants" is too indirect when it comes to the goal of reeducation. These people just refuse to put any effort forward too learn something new. It's the same with the cloud... you mention it and everyone thinks of what could go wrong, even though Amazon and Windows Azure both are ISO 27001 compliant and PCI-Level 1 compliant for multi-tenant hosting. Yet they ignore the fact that nothing they have on premise or anything they do even comes close to meeting that level of security. So reeducating these luddites is hopeless, they're just going to burn down the factory anyways.

Impressive trolling, sir.

 

[Cartigan]

DrPizza[/url]":2biea1wt]

superslav223[/url]":2biea1wt]
Peter the problem isn't education and that can be seen endless number of poor user reviews from adept users. They want the start menu back and not Clippy 2.0. Metro is gawdy, distracting and poorly organizes program files when compared to the start menu. The "fear of change" argument falls flat when Android and iDevices are selling like hotcakes despite having a different UI. Yes Peter there is such thing as poor UI design. You and Sinofsky don't seem to get that.

Adept users that can somehow cope with no on-screen Start button, and a launcher that's full-screen. If Windows 8 is as bad and unusable as you claim, why are other operating systems that do the same thing proving so successful?

Name one of these operating systems.

 

[Cartigan]

scotts13[/url]":ebc6r83c]

saru-kun[/url]":ebc6r83c]

POP3 has been obsolete for almost 30 years... IMAP came out in 1986. So you should really complain to Time Warner, not MS. I have to assume their webmail interface isn't very good, or you would be using that. A web browser is the standard email protocol at this point.

REALLY? The introduction of IMAP is not an indicator that POP3 is "obsolete"; they're different ways of doing things. Don't have figures handy as to number of users, but most people I know who are serious about email, including attachments and such, use POP3 through an email client, not a web page browser.

And what does that have to do with IMAP? If you were "serious" about email, I have no idea why you would use POP3. Unless you only ever accessed the mail from one location. Or are making unnecessary copies.

 

[Cartigan]

has[/url]":sh6jvhcm]
Absolutely correct. Correlation != causation, no matter how much the anti-Win8 hysterics would like to pretend otherwise. Other factors to consider: great honking recession hitting consumers in their pockets, reducing the frequency with which they replace their existing PCs, and the ascendance of Android as the new 'safe choice' for the great mass of non-techie consumers,

No matter how much the people, who I am 100% certain are trolling, keep going "look at Android!", Android is not a desktop OS, Win 8 is. Android and iOS being popular have all of fuck all to do with a drop in PC sales corresponding to the release of Windows 8.

has[/url]":sh6jvhcm]
Then, somewhere around the turn of the century, the size and cost of consumer-grade hardware finally dropped to the point where the processing power of, say, mid-90s PC could be packed into a compact, task-specific device like a mobile. Such a device didn't need to do everything, it only needed to do a few popular tasks significantly better than a PC at a sufficiently low price point in order to attract a mainstream audience. And once mass consumers realized that the PC was not the only way in which they could do personal computing, the wedge was driven and the Windows PC hegemony broken.

Just like consoles have been killing PC gaming for the past 20 years.

 

[Cartigan]

Meathim[/url]":35aqmg9s]
The second part is trolling.

The second part is a reference to the repeated argument that console gaming is killing PC gaming. Yet, PC gaming is still here. To say that the generalization of technology is killing PCs is equivalent to saying consoles are killing PC gaming.

 

[Cartigan]

lordcheeto[/url]":iv35nutp]
Desktop users are not harmed by the start screen, even if they never use Modern Apps, and cohesion between desktop and tablet interfaces is desirable in an OS.

I know when I think cohesion, I think of something designed for one interface used on a completely different type of interface.

That's why I often kayak on my street. For cohesive travel options.

 

[Cartigan]

jackstrop[/url]":3e35236g]

lordcheeto[/url]":3e35236g]
Desktop users are not harmed by the start screen, even if they never use Modern Apps, and cohesion between desktop and tablet interfaces is desirable in an OS.

I find it humorous that we've come around full circle back to the idea of full screen single task computing being labeled as "Modern".

Especially as it is being put in place to overwrite the 20 year old capability to multitask while Android is working in multitasking into the system.

 

[Cartigan]

has[/url]":2k72ud80]
Microsoft doesn't have to do a damn thing here: the traditional Windows desktop already does an excellent job of alienating the great majority of non-technical users. However, until recently they had no better option, so they bought it and suffered it not because they liked it but because it was a 'safe' choice.

Then Android came along, initially selling itself to them as a better phone but then, having gained their confidence, revealing to them that it could provide for many of their other daily tasks too. And now the same folks who bought Windows PCs because that was then the 'safe' choice are now buying Android devices, and now it's Android that's becoming the safe choice for all the non-geeks. So they don't renew their Windows PCs as often as they used to, and more and more of their electronic lives gravitates away from Windows to Android.

This is the audience MS has to serve now; not the complexity-loving nerds who adored and indulged traditional Windows desktop's baroque intricacies as a personal playground for demonstrating their mastery over the machine, and proving their superiority over all the 'little people' who were barely staying afloat. Now MS has transferred all their ass kissing over to those same 'little people', the nerds who traditionally ruled the roost are feeling seriously unloved, and responding with a level of pique and venom that goes well beyond what Win8's genuine flaws actually merit. Congratulations; now you know how all the non-techies must have felt wading through the Windows morass for the last two decades.

Seriously, the number of techie types that truly believe the world of Personal Computing wholly rotates around them beggars belief. Once again, it's basic math: if geeks make up 5-10% of the Windows user base and non-geeks make up 90-95%, which of these audiences does Microsoft most have to please in order to ensure its future as a quarter-trillion tech company, and not a quarter-billion one?

That was the most ridiculous collection of things I have read, and probably will read, today.

How about you people go ahead and state what you are beating around the bush of? Windows 8 has no problems because Android is a popular mobile platform.

Does that make sense? No, and neither does your argument. Form a coherent argument that addresses very obvious complaints about Windows 8 and don't say "Android" or "iOS" anywhere. You know, answer why a touch-centric interface was implemented on primarily keyboard-mouse devices. Explain how the "hot corner" for primary functionality was a good design decision. Etc
And since you are making the point, explain how things that are evading "technies" are perfectly understandable to "non-techies" who, over the past 20 years, have grown 100% used to the classic Windows UI.

 

[Cartigan]

rtechie[/url]":3j6fngar]
Large business can't abandon much of their Windows infrastructure.

And they won't update to shitty nonintuitive operating systems that aren't largely backwards compatible.

 

[Cartigan]

rtechie[/url]":1azdq74p]

Microsoft does not care much about existing desktop users. Microsoft knows that you can bitch all you want, but the overwhelming majority of Windows users have no choice but to stick with Windows.

If Microsoft is so stupid as to think "stick with Windows" means "keep buying Windows OS they don't like," they deserve to go under.

They can't just magically switch all their apps. And people who abandon Windows are likely to go to Android or iOS anyway, not Linux or OSX.

Uh no, they are not "more likely." They are "just as likely" because Android and iOS are not desktop platforms. No one is tossing out their desktop or laptop and switching to a smartphone as their primary computing device. I want to see the study supporting the assertion that they are.

So stop whining and deal with your problem.

The problem is a failure of Microsoft to design and deploy a coherent UI. I can't deal with that because it's not my damn problem.

 

[Cartigan]

rtechie[/url]":2067ukcz]

Cartigan[/url]":2067ukcz]If Microsoft is so stupid as to think "stick with Windows" means "keep buying Windows OS they don't like," they deserve to go under.

You keep talking like you have some sort of choice.

Very few people buy Windows at retail. Those sales are almost completely meaningless to Microsoft.

Almost all consumers get Windows with a new PC. Every single OEM is now shipping Windows 8 with almost all new PCs. If you buy a new PC, you're getting Windows 8. That applies to business as well as consumers. And there's a lot of new hardware optimized for Windows 8. Businesses can still purchase relatively conventional laptops and re-image them with Windows 7, but that won't last. Eventually driver support will get them if nothing else. And small businesses without their own IT departments and license agreements? They're stuck with Windows 8.

Lol. I'm work in one of the biggest companies in the US and we are just now rolling out a Windows 7 transition. Not finishing it, starting.

http://www.zdnet.com/idc-global-pc-ship ... 000013839/

Windows 8 is unpopular and it is hurting sales PC sales for the very reasons you are trying to argue for its expansion.

as for your last retort, I'm in no mood to talk to trolls. Talk to yourself from here on out.