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

 

[SolidOak]

JGoat[/url]":1leooc5x]

Stuka87[/url]":1leooc5x]

JGoat[/url]":1leooc5x]

Stuka87[/url]":1leooc5x]So the author thinks that Windows users should suffer with a poorly implemented touch interface on the millions of PC's that DON'T HAVE TOUCH!

Not to mention all of us with large, multi-monitor setups have arguable the WORST user experience with Windows 8.

And then don't let me get into the horrible search setup in Windows 8. You can no longer hit the windows key, type want you want, arrow down, and hit enter. Now it requires mouse clicks to do anything.

Sounds like the editor of this article doesn't actually work on their PC outside of typing. Try hooking up three 24+ inch displays and use 15 or so programs at any given time while having to do regular searches for other programs/docs/etc. Then come back and say Windows 8 is fine.

You've got to be joking, Win 8 greatly improves the multi-monitor experience over Win 7.

I search without using my mouse all the time on Win 8, wtf are you talking about?

I'm all for people having different preferences, I don't care if people like Win 8, but it sounds like you've got no idea what you're talking about.

When performing a search, the Start Menu (Windows 7) displays results from all applicable categories in an easy to read list. In contrast, the Start Screen's (Windows 8) Apps, Settings, and Files categories only display one at a time and require the user to perform additional mousing and extra clicks to view all the results from a given search.

As for the displays, *WHY* am I forced to have a full screen menu to display a handful of items? The menu is a joke when using a large monitor.

I respect your opinion about the full screen menu, I think it's quick and easy, but I get that some find it disruptive. I find the multimon support to be fantastic, I like having the programs on each screen appear on that screens taskbar.

Regarding search, you can choose which section you want to search with these shortcuts:
Apps: Windows + Q
Settings: Windows +W
Files: Windows + F

Apps is the default, so I don't bother with that shortcut, really just use Windows button, or Windows+F typically.

This just follows the illogical implementation of stupidity in Win8. Win+Q for Apps??? Wouldn't the logical hot key be Win+A?? Duh?! CRTL+W is Close Window, yet Win+W is Settings?? Huh??! What kind of dope are they smoking?

I would just prefer Win+D = Detonate...

 

[Tridus]

Quixote2961[/url]":crkvdbvd]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.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft's customers who don't like what Microsoft is doing have just as much right to speak on the subject as those that do. Microsoft certainly should be listening, since your advice of "just move to another OS" is really not what Microsoft wants people to do.

After all, this whole thing was done to try and stem the bleeding of people replacing Windows PCs with non-Windows phones and tablets. Given that Micrsosoft is still totally irrelevant in both of those markets, they really don't want to and piss off their PC users too.

After all, pissed off PC users are not going to go buy Microsoft phones and tablets when the competition in those markets is so strong.

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.

These things have nothing to do with each other. A cloud centric computing model doesn't require a UI that is schizophrenic and acts like it's designed for touch users when I'm on a PC with a mouse plugged in.

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.

Maybe, but that has nothing to do with Metro's defeciences as a mouse based PC UI either. Which is the subject we're talking about here.

 

[nibb]

JavaChilly[/url]":3nckb8m4]This is what happens when you try to make one OS service too different devices. Even if Apple ends up merging iOS with OS X, it's doing so gradually so it doesn't drive the car off a cliff before the engineers have attached the wings.

Making one OS for different devices is by itself a good idea. But its the implementation that failed. If the OS was able to adapt itself to small screens and touch and back on huge screens, then it would work.

Its the concept of trying to put the same GUI on different sizes and devices that fails. Developers don´t have problems making 2 versions, example Android, HD for tablets, and normal for phones. In the future if this can be packages in one simple software which detects its mode, then this can work.

If my phone changes GUI when connected to a TV but all programs still works I would not care if all the GUI is different, including the software ones. But this needs to be done only in the OS but also in each app.

So, developers would need to be forced to have at least 2 versions, small and big. Its the OS that should do its magic of being able to change or detect the best method.

Microsoft just did the implementation completely wrong. Android on the other parts seems to be moving into the right direction and now its already on tablets, how long until we see it on desktops?

 

[JavaChilly]

nibb[/url]":3d6386t5]

You have no idea what you are talking about. If users want a wallet garden app store, locked down OS they will use Apple, if they want a Cloud Centric OS they will use Google.

Power Users maybe, but not the masses. I got my mother a new touchy acer laptop. Took all of 5 minutes to get her using the corner for the start button. She like many others focuses on what she wants to do, not how the computer accomplishes that. She has no idea that the Microsoft App Store is a walled garden. It has Skype, it has games. She only got google chrome because I won't support her laptop if she uses "The E".

 

[Justin-Case]

windows 8 is the worst iteration of windows yet. 8.1 won't help it. windows is a bloated, patched, added-too, unstable, quirky OS. By its very nature,it cannot be anything better. Is it the mostly widely used OS on the planet, yes. Certainly not because it's the best. It's ARCHAIC. Cuter user interfaces masking an aging dinosaur. That's all Microsoft does. And they can't even do that very well.

 

[rex86]

Like it or not most PC users out there will be using Win8 in couple of years from now. There is just no other way. That is unless you're willing to buy a mac or go with the mole people.

 

[harmless]

Katana314[/url]":2zrvxl7c]No, when I SSH into a Linux machine, I do not know off the top of my head what the command is to turn it off.

It's "shutdown -h now".

 

[nibb]

JavaChilly[/url]":13z2kwf1]

nibb[/url]":13z2kwf1]

You have no idea what you are talking about. If users want a wallet garden app store, locked down OS they will use Apple, if they want a Cloud Centric OS they will use Google.

Power Users maybe, but not the masses. I got my mother a new touchy acer laptop. Took all of 5 minutes to get her using the corner for the start button. She like many others focuses on what she wants to do, not how the computer accomplishes that. She has no idea that the Microsoft App Store is a walled garden. It has Skype, it has games. She only got google chrome because I won't support her laptop if she uses "The E".

Power users are the ones that decide where technology moves. Every power user was your mother as well.

Everyone was a newbie once. The more they use a system, the more advanced things they need. Some not, some do.

So its the power users that know when a product sucks. If your mother would ever start to use her laptop more and more, like starting a home business, and she needs to work with it on a daily basis, she would end up moving to something better eventually or would be completely unproductive.

Companies are not going to spend on a OS that is unproductive, it could make them lose billions, if there users take 3 times more time to accomplish the same tasks.

Metro is nice for content, not for work. And I want an operating systems which works for both. If companies which move the world forwards do not support something, its pretty much dead. Your mother would not have Skype or any app on there. Just like its happening right now. Most developers and companies are not building anything to be compatible with Windows 8 because they don't see a point to something they don't use or their target sales based does not use either.

Also most consumers tend to follow techies. They ask techies what they use, and want to use the same, because they know "ohh, if he uses it, it must be good"

How many people ask techies what computer to get? Or ask them if this is good or not?

Well, I don't know about you, but I have a broad influence on what companies and users buy around me.

 

[BrunoReX]

Quixote2961[/url]":js9t1hbz]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.

There's no way you didn't use Corporate B.S. Generator for this.


Okay, let's put something on the table here.
Windows 8 apologists have their defenses based on a couple deeply flawed premises:
-Change is always good
-People who don't like change only take into account the fact something changed

That's why, whenever I come across such drivel, I just shrug it off, roll my eyes, and stop reading instantly.

 

[iniudan]

Bengie25[/url]":vjoea1gy]

DSF1942[/url]":vjoea1gy]

Katana314[/url]":vjoea1gy]And before you complain about remote desktop: No, when I SSH into a Linux machine, I do not know off the top of my head what the command is to turn it off.

>>shutdown

or

>>poweroff

Last time I used Linux, it took more than just the command "shutdown". I had to use the man pages to figure out which parameters to send to it, and if you did it wrong, it would default to waiting 5 minutes before shutting down..

"warning, root has initiated shutdown, you have 5 minutes".. WTF?! well.. something like that, it's been almost a decade.

The worst part is it wouldn't let me cancel it once started, so I had to wait the entire 5 minutes. Unless I decided to change virtual consoles and initiate yet another shutdown with the correct "now" parameter.

I assume they've changed it by now.

No it been "init 0" since even before Linux existed, somewhere in the 80s I would say, when System V was created for Unix.

Maybe even older then that, but I am not old enough to know anything that came before System V.

 

[LeaderlessByChoice]

The new UI is fine but MS mad a critical UX error, large changes all at once surprise, anger and terrify users. The 8.1 look should have been the original 8 look. Metro tiles and a Start button giving everyone something they could both identify with and enjoy.

Then somewhere down the line when people have become used to the Metro interface they could have removed the Start button with little or no backlash.

 

[Bengie25]

Tridus[/url]":k71zjjve]

Bengie25[/url]":k71zjjve]

riverlaw[/url]":k71zjjve]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.

Microsoft says a lot of things. Many of them aim to further MIcrosoft's own objectives and self-interest. Like how they also said that nobody wanted the start menu back, right up until they decided to give in and bring it back.

The idea that nobody uses the shutdown button in Windows is laughably stupid.

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.

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.

 

[CodedVentures]

I disagree with parts of this piece. I don't dislike windows 8 but I Microsoft has done a very poor job at explaining how to use the new interface. They should have done more.
Metro interface isn't bad, but I find it very troubling that I have to have this big context switch every time I press the windows key... I still prefer the start menu of Windows 7. Easier and simple in my opinion.

 

[harmless]

Martin Blank[/url]":2qp6jhct]

Nazgutek[/url]":2qp6jhct]In other news, Apple is finally merging Mac OS and iOS for all of its platforms and devices, said no reporter ever.

I seem to recall Apple saying a couple of years ago that the goal was to move their desktop and mobile OSes closer together. Maybe not a complete merging of the user experience, but there would be (IIRC) some significant overlap.

Apple is just adapting single features from one OS to the other if that feature seems useful on the other platform.

As a developer you are encouraged to tailor your application to the specific platform. You are not supposed to simply port an application from the desktop to iOS or vice versa.

Those two platform will not be merged in the foreseeable future.

 

[Nazgutek]

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

The thought of using a Metro version of the following fills me with dread:

Visual Studio, SQL Management Studio, RDP/TeamViewer/VNC, Firebug, Excel, Word, OneNote, A myriad of small testing tools, Skype, Outlook

From my point of view as a Microsoft-stack developer, no amount of education of Metro will make my job easier compared with not using Metro at all. Granted, there may be a case for the end-users of the web applications using Metro, but it's going to have to be a damn good case considering they usually have multiple application sessions open along with Word, Excel, email and PDF simultaneously. I've seen how well Metro handles multiple open apps with arbitrary positioning.

So Peter, I am going to have to disagree with you.

 

[Jabrwock]

"The problem with Windows 8's lack of Start button was not the removal of the button per se: it was the absolutely abysmal job that Redmond did of telling people what to do instead."

The number of arguments I've had with Windows8 proponents who say that finding a hotbutton corner you've never been told about or shown is "just intuitive" drove me bananas. Mobile devices swipe to change screens, or push a button. Holding your finger in a special corner is "new", and they couldn't explain how without telling a new user how they were supposed to figure it out on their own.

 

[dal20402]

drfisheye[/url]":ztpn8jeg]The leaked preview showed that Win+Q will let you search with just a sidebar, not a full screen context switch.

Is this actually correct? It's the first I've heard of it. If so, that might make me actually want to upgrade to Windows 8.

The full-screen context switch is the absolute deal breaker for me. The other issues related to the awkward integration of Metro and desktop are annoying, but I can live with them.

 

[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?

 

[Greho]

If Microsoft wanted consistency, they should have waited another year. That, or focused all their engineering efforts on Windows 8 and Surface Pro, and dropped Windows RT.

The differences between Metro > Settings > Devices and Desktop > Control Panel > Devices and Printers are so bad that I gave up on using Metro Settings, except to force Windows Updates.

I'm glad to hear that Metro Settings will have feature parity with the desktop Control Panel. I do believe that the Control Panel needed a rethink, and Metro Settings is the right direction, but the amount of detail and granularity left out of Metro Settings is absurd.

The file management dialogs in Metro are also jarring, and lack most of the visual cues that UI designers spent the last 25 years perfecting.

This lack of consistency and foresight, far more than the Start Menu, is what users found so off-putting and kept them from feeling at home in this new environment.

 

[flunk]

If Microsoft really wants metro apps to succeed they need to make it possible to sideload them. One app store only is only really viable for niche players. They'll never satisfy all users like that, this is one of the biggest reasons that Android is destroying iOS and why Windows was so successful.

 

[IceCub]

I'm sorry, but I just can't imagine Windows 8 in an office environment. I'm a sysadmin at a university and I am doing tech support as well. If I am ever forced to deploy Windows 8 that would be my worst nightmare and I'd rather quit my job. I can just imagine the phone calls pouring in asking me "where's Word", "how can I shut down the computer" or "where's the start menu"?

I'm not a "tech dinosaur" by any measure and I am the first guy when it comes to trying/implementing new technologies, but Metro is just too far from the classic Windows interface, and your average every day user is not that smart. The new interface may very well be intuitive when you're using it on a touch enabled device, but it pretty much sucks when when combined with a keyboard and a mouse.

Microsoft should have allowed users to chose between the interfaces during install.

 

[mindwerks99]

Windows 8 pretty much abandoned the desktop experience for the touch and tablet experience... I don't use windows tablets or am I interested in marking up my monitor with finger smudges so I'm not keen to use windows 8. There is no selling point for it other then to cause me to take longer to find the things I want to find and do the things I want to do.

I don't like my start screen to take up the entire monitor, excuse me for preferring a concise list that I can quickly find what I want. It's the same reason I have all my explorer windows set to show the detailed list instead of the default thumbnails with silly images. I don't need every computer interaction to be a journey of wonder and awe inspiring photos. I don't need paperclip animations showing me how to use a computer and I don't need my monitor to be full square photos of places and people I don't know every time I want to launch an application. Maybe that makes me boring, but I'd rather just focus on the task at hand and complete it as fast as possible. It's a core strategy that made Google what it is today so I doubt I am the only one that prefers it that way.

If they focused more on how to make things better instead of flashier they might start to see some success. I thought they were really going to see some success after windows 7 since they really made some improvements then, but nope.

 

[WaltC]

I don't understand the notion of forcing redundant UI changes and calling it "teaching." Teaching assumes the student is eager to learn, and that what he'll be taught is worth learning....

First, the start menu does not have to replace the start page--the people I've spoken to about this have no objection to the start page, it's just that they want the start menu, too. Obviously, this is certainly technically feasible as programs like Start8 and Classic shell conclusively prove. My third-party start/button-menu coexists peacefully with my Win8 start page.

So what is the "Metro" UI? It's a touch-screen UI! And that's all it is. Metro is distinctly unsuited for the Explorer desktop paradigm of a large non-touchscreen/keyboard/mouse. OTOH, the Win7 Explorer UI has the benefit of more than fifteen years of desktop UI refinement since 1995 (Win95.) Speaking of Win95--those changes made a great deal of sense and merely moved Microsoft Windows into the GUI province of C= with the Amiga Workbench OS. I remember being very pleased with the Win95 UI because it was immediately so familiar to me after eight years of Workbench iterations (still nowhere near as flexible and powerful as Workbench, though.) With Win95, Microsoft was just going where it should have been going, anyway.

But this RT GUI! As the vast majority of Microsoft Windows customers are not touchscreen owners, and have no plans to become touchscreen owners (like me), it doesn't make any sense to foist Metro on those people! They don't need to be "taught" Metro because they have no interest in learning Metro--and for the traditional paradigm of non-touchscreen computing, the Explorer GUI is clearly hands down the superior GUI choice over Metro.

Metro shines for touchscreens where those garishly contrasting colors and the overly large, simplified text make sense--on relatively tiny touchscreens. And that's where Metro should stay.

Yes, Microsoft should be consistent, and nuking the start menu for the start page is not being consistent. Theoretically a non-touchscreen Win8 computer owner should never have to see Metro unless it is by elective decision, and vice-versa. There is nothing remotely consistent about Metro as even internal Windows utilities like device manager execute in the explorer GUI, even though they are launched from the Metro start screen.

Also, be advised that not everyone chooses to leave the task bar on the bottom of the screen. Some people use it on either side of the screen, and some people (like me) use it at the top of the screen (a holdover from my Workbench days.)

So,imo, what a Windows GUI should be is what the people who use Windows want it to be. Microsoft has made a great show of explaining that it has secret knowledge of how "most Windows users" use the task bar--in that they pin programs to it.... (duh...) But the company seems uncharacteristically ignorant about how people use the desktop (affixing such oddities as "shortcuts" to it) or how they use the start menu (in that people actually do use it from time to time.) Enter: the Metro start screen as an affectation created by someone at Microsoft who doesn't personally like desktop shortcuts and for whom the start menu is a labyrinthine enigma. He simply talked himself into the start screen, whomever he ("she" is understood) was.

Yes, Microsoft is listening with 8.1 but not listening hard enough, apparently, as they are still talking themselves out of the start menu. What's so hard about giving people a choice? Microsoft has a perfectly rational reason to do this, and that's that most people do not now own and have no future plans to own...a touchscreen-equipped computer! Ergo, leaving the start menu as an *option* alongside the start screen would simply be the most sensible thing Microsoft could do.

 

[TechW]

It isn't that Microsoft did a poor job at training people on Windows 8. It's that most people do not see the need for the changes and do not want to have to re-learn everything for no perceived good reason.

 

[dal20402]

Geminiman[/url]":1aqlhcdn]What they should have done is make all apps run maximized and remove the min/max buttons and items from the control box entirely from all apps. For apps that are fixed dialogs and don't allow full screen, they should have put up a black background on them when they run (or keep the same background as the metro start screen).

If they did this, I would no longer use Windows on the desktop.

The whole point of a windowing system with multiple or large monitors is to see more than one thing at once, in a space arrangement that I determine (not a restrictive tiling arrangement). If I want to see one thing at once, I'll use my phone.

 

[Katana314]

vl_oka[/url]":2wqf3mln]

Katana314[/url]":2wqf3mln]
TO TURN ON OR OFF WINDOWS 8, PRESS THE POWER BUTTON.

Wrong (in terms of convenience). Imagine using a desktop that is tucked away somewhere deep underneath your desk. It is precisely the generation you're criticising (or even one before that) who welcomed the ability to turn off the power on a PC *without* having to press a button. You may not remember, or maybe even haven't see them at all, but PCs used to have power buttons that actually had On and OFF positions and you *had* to toggle them to completely switch off your machine.

How do you turn on said computer? And how exactly do you turn off a PC without clicking the button on your mouse or pressing a "button" on your massive letter-filled controller (keyboard)?

Also; indirect reply to someone who said that by default it Sleeps: Yes, Windows 8 is horrible. As is every single smartphone on the planet.
Sleep does exactly what I want it to; stops the computer from wasting power. It's a majority use case, and I'm sure plenty of people will change the default.

 

[Vampyre]

How about they get rid of Metro all together. That's what most of their customers would prefer.

Sometimes you just have to understand that it's less important what you want, and more important what your buyer wants.

 

[DrPizza]

My original copy did not include the word "whiners". That was a change made by an editor. I wrote "complainants".

 

[pjcamp]

Sorry, no. If you have to be told what to do to operate the system, that's a poor design. It has been a fundamental principle of HCI since Norman's The Design of Everyday Things that the device should make its functionality obvious, that you should not have to hold a library of that knowledge in your head. Violating this principle is the whole reason I don't care for Apple, and the further Microsoft goes down that road the less I like their designs as well. It was bad enough that the Start button became an unlabeled logo. I figured that out because it was in the right place, not because it said "click me to find stuff." But I hate to say how much time I spent looking for the print menu in Word, hidden under what I thought was a purely decorative logo.

 

[adoseoflos]

As a Windows Phone user, I like Metro, and as a general tech-fan I want Microsoft to succeed. But I think Windows 8 is a major fustercluck that could have been easily avoided in one of two ways:

1) The simplest: leave desktop Windows alone. Just leave it the F alone. Scale up Windows Phone to a tablet OS. In this case Windows users are happy because they can buy a computer and it works like it used to. People that really like Windows Phone (like me) and would want a tablet that runs all the apps already available on WP are happy because our apps work on phones and tablets. Because of UI and product use cases, Windows Phone and RT should be more similar to each other (as is the case with Android and iOS phone and tablet products) than Windows 8 and RT, but for some mysterious reason Microsoft decided that RT should be a neutered Windows 8 instead. So on RT you have an even worse app selection than Windows Phone. Metro on Windows 8 has done little to increase interest in RT and viceversa.

2) Make starting in Metro optional AND keep the Start menu. The Start menu has been the user's point of reference for using the operating system for damn near 20 years. Want to launch a program? Click Start find the program you're looking for (boom), click on it to open. Control panel? Go to Start. Etc. Expecting hundreds of millions of users with varying degrees of technical proficiency to just adapt/accept this change over night is silly. Metro at this stage in the game should be a sort of bonus feature, that should gradually entice users to use it more. Let's say: "Hey I like Netflix! Usually I'd go to the web browser, go to Netflix.com, look for the movie I want and start watching. But! This Metro app does it faster and looks better while doing it! Hurray!" Replicate this feeling on an app by app basis until the user WANTS Metro to be the default.

 

[Trencher93]

The Start BUTTON is not necessary if there is not a Start MENU. In fact, it takes up valuable space in the taskbar where things can be pinned so the user does not have to go to the Metro screen. Ignoring Metro is an option, and an attractive one for many people.

 

[Deleted member 1]

malor[/url]":gx2i2k08]They're not really bringing back the start button, they're just putting a Windows logo in the corner that starts Metro.

Metro is bad. It is full-out bad for computing. Ars, you are probably very, very dependent on free software, both for your business and your personal lives, and Metro is an existential threat to everything that has made your company and your livelihoods possible. Pushing Metro, telling people to add Microsoft-controlled DRM to their operating systems, is very much like telling them to add dioxin to their food.

Think, for a minute, just how little of the modern Web would even exist if, at every step, someone had been required to ask Microsoft's permission to make their software.

I have 20 free Modern UI applications on every single one my Windows 8 desktops all controlled by a single Microsoft Account.

Where is the threat exactly?

 

[WaltC]

DrPizza[/url]":16zvgizu]My original copy did not include the word "whiners". That was a change made by an editor. I wrote "complainants".

Ha! That's funny!... I had no trouble with the word you intended and I don't think anyone reading your article would have trouble with it, either. It's certainly a much more cerebral word than "whiners."

 

[LazarX]

firsttimeposter[/url]":2szuxn3u]
2) MS NEEDS to compete in tablets. Desktop PCs are going the way of dodo. Remember what happened when they focused on power users and businesses with Windows Mobile? iOS and Android came around and absolutely swept them aside. If MS doesn't get into tablets and mobile devices, they risk the same fate. What you are saying is that MS should just do nothing and sit on their laurels. Exactly what many of you constantly accuse MS of doing.

It's more accurate to say that Desktop PC's are no longer the growth industry they were a few years ago. It's more like that they've reached a plateau that's being taken more by serious usage, and that the casual uses for PC's (web browsing, casual games, document reading and sharing,) are migrating to the more Human friendly tablet space. It's a lot less cumbersome to pass a tablet around a group of people than a desktop PC, or even laptop. And the OS types are ones more geared for that kind of workspace.

 

[Paladin]

I kind of have to agree about dropping the 'Metro' environment. Having a well integrated app store for Microsoft standard applications is a good thing. One reliable and centralized source for applications, even ones that are developed by third parties and certified/sold by Microsoft is a really good thing.

Constraining how your desktop operating system environment works with all other applications (including legacy stuff) and user interface to foster use and growth of that app store is a very bad thing.

A lot of the 8.1 changes make me more likely to switch to Windows 8 on my primary computers but there are still a lot of things that make me unhappy and I will probably still end up doing whatever I find most effective to avoid the start screen. Having used it on my HTPC, I find myself actively avoiding the start screen and am ending up with stuff like Rainmeter and Rocketdock seeing more use for starting apps, and keeping 'smart tiles' on the desktop for interface and information display.

 

[Amorya]

firsttimeposter[/url]":lq703g08]
I find this hilarious because when MS didn't have hot corners, everyone was raving about hot corners about OS X.

[citation needed]

 

[Elrabin]

21mhz[/url]":3jet0daz]

riverlaw[/url]":3jet0daz]I installed win 8 for games. I had to google how to shut it down. That was awesome.

Try that power button on your PC some day. It's awesome. No, it no longer does what it did on a PC XT back in 1987.

Unless you're on a laptop where the default behavior for pushing the power button will be to sleep the PC........

Try having less snark, thanks.

 

[kc7gr]

Quoting ARS:

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

Pardon what may be stating the obvious, but isn't it the end users of a product who, ultimately, decide if it succeeds or fails? Anyone remember 'Bob?'

The UI MS started with Windows NT 4, and continued (in large part) through XP and 7, has been hugely successful for good reason: Everybody and their brother's dog knows how to use it! Find me someone today who doesn't know, for example, double-clicking on an icon to start a program or open it up, or right-clicking and selecting 'Properties' to tweak it. Even with Windows 7, the first thing I found myself doing was installing 'Classic Shell' (http://www.classicshell.net/) to get back functions I'd been using for years.

No one should have to install extra software to get something as basic as a desktop OS to be usable! If the Redmond Empire truly cares about "improving" the Windows UI, perhaps it would do well to actually LISTEN to the people who end up using it, rather than their actions saying "This is better! Really! No, you can't go back because we say this really is better for you."

The popularity of 'Classic Shell,' and the huge list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_al ... or_Windows) of others, speaks for itself.

 

[glap1922]

JSawyer[/url]":2e792gpt]

glap1922[/url]":2e792gpt]Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who didn't mind Windows 8.
...

These type of changes are usually met most people hating it, accepting it, getting over it, then loving it.

- they f***ed up the DPI scaling and deleted a bunch of settings from dialog boxes
- they removed a very useful keyboard shortcut for me, namely Alt V, D (View, Details) in Explorer

In addition to that, they removed a very visually appealing Aero Glass. Now, why would I WANT to have:
- ugly dialog boxes, because they destroyed DPI scaling subsystem? I mean, "retina" screens are becoming more popular by the day
- disabled perfectly working shortcuts, with no means to View | Details, other by using cursor keys and counting or by using a pointing device

I will never ACCEPT or LOVE the issues described above.

I'm writing this on Windows 7...

So much anger. They changed a visual thing you liked and removed some shortcuts that most people don't use/need/care about.
You don't have love it, but unless you plan to use Windows 7 for the rest of your life I don't see what other options you really have.

 

[wardred]

Overall, I believe the *WHOLE* Metro experience on the desktop is lacking. I don't want more apps metroized. I don't want to mess with gestures that were meant for fingers on much smaller screens. If I *choose* to have visual cues for things like my start menu, the shutdown button, etc., I don't want somebody telling me that something built for a tablet and a phone should be the way I want to experience my desktop. It doesn't fly.

While it's certainly nice to be able to run my favorite phone or tablet app on the desktop, for me that'll be the exception, not the rule. The simplistic, mostly consumption based experience of the tablet / phone is fine on the tablet or phone, but I want the full power of a desktop environment when I want to sit down and work.

The idea that I can't size my Windows - In Windows, of all OSes! - any 'ol which way I want is a huge step back in UI design. There is nothing compelling, to me, about full screen apps for everything. If I have the screen real estate I can put my minimalist media player up at the top right of the screen, near the close and minimize buttons.

I can have my browser and development environments open side by side, using one for reference, and maybe even slide one up a little bit so I can have a paint program open for creating or manipulating icons.