New Windows chief explains why Microsoft redesigned Windows

[bugejakurt]

"Even if you?re a desktop user, over time there?s a cutover point around six weeks where you start using the new things more than the things you?re familiar with."

Unless they inject the same features of desktop version apps, metro apps are not worthy. Look at Skype for metro for example it is lacking many features from the desktop app.

 

[captaincranky]

Not only do I hope that Windows 8 fails miserably, but I hope the "Surface" tablet fails miserably as well.

The ads for the Surface are about as repugnant as you can get. So, wouldn't it be great to get rid of them both?

Nonetheless, first on my Christmas wish list, would be to be able to "unsee" Kanye West in his leather skirt.

Got ya,.....

(OTOH, if they could only get him to pitch a pink Surface tablet in the getup. Hm, maybe Dennis Rodman could dress up as his twin sister and slam dunk one).

 

[Guest]

I think the reason windows 8 is this way is for casual users, and people who use tablets and phones because latley they have been out selling laptops and deskstop pcs having this "user friendly" interface could help increase PC sales the only problem microsoft dont want to compromise and give us both. This feels simlar to the Kinect for xbox, just that they can say u can use your game handfree, they kinda limit them selfs to what it could do.

 

[meetu]

In other words typical MS. Late to the game but with billions to lose to get "competitive".
After Ballmer ridicules the whole touch thing and the market passes them by suddenly it's the "future".
Moneyball. That's what MS is really really good at.

 

[Pan Wah]

You mean aspects of the OS that you are purposely ignoring because you won't like them? Why, in such scenario, would you then complain you paid for features you knew you wouldn't like?
Ah, because you want the benefits of Windows 8.

I'm sure I'm not the only user who has paid for a license because they work in tech, and need to learn each OS that becomes popular (because the average non tech-savvy user buys the latest one on the assumption that it is best, and cool!). I couldn't find the benefits, despite months playing with the preview release, then the full one, when I downgraded sorry upgraded, so I reimaged my HDDs to Windows 7 and put Windows 8 in a Virtualbox, where it belongs (I still have it under observation, but it isn't fit to be let out yet).

People who hate Windows 8 hate Metro. Not the OS.

As far as I can tell (working to the shaky assumption that I am sane and not in a simulation or anything tricky like that) I dislike Metro and the OS as aspects of one another. Probably.

 

[Jim$ter]

Forcing Metro on you is all about $$ from the Microsoft store. If they gave you a choice of Desktop or Metro most people wouldn't come back to metro on a desktop. I gave Metro a chance. I work on my PC not play. If I had time to play and didn't care about being productive Metro is fine. I live to work and get things done so I installed Start8 and it's like heaven. It's the way Windows 8 should of been. I can still go into metro side if I so desire but with 95% of my day being work and productivity I just stay in desktop mode and things work great! Metro will be cool on tablets and phones...but on a desktop if your doing work...It's just doesn't work. Maybe a few years of tweaking and maybe windows 9. But for now it blows on the desktop. People who think it's great the way it is more than likely aren't power users.

 

[Guest]

"To all those complaining about Metro UI and the lack of Start button - you are holding it wrong."
sincerely yours
Julie Larson-Green

 

[Guest]

While all of you arguing about windows 8, MS itself is developing Windows 9, and they will even replace the DOS command prompt with 'metro style'

 

[Guest]

I don't use the metro ui and I don't use 3rd party apps to bring back the start menu so many seem to miss. There is no point for a start menu and the change had zero effect for my experience as the new menu that pops up when u right click in the very bottom left corner of your screen is all you will ever need.

Start menu is useless and you crybabies are funny

 

[temporae]

""We didn't want you to have to make a choice.""

"Even if you're a desktop user, over time there's a cutover point around six weeks where you start using the new things..." Oh really? So we have to wait six weeks to be able to efficiently manage our computer activities over what we've done previously for years, eh.

That is some serious, off-the-charts arrogance there. Why didn't she just say, "we're right, the consumers are wrong and they'll take this cake, eat it and love the hell out of it because we say so."

News alert to MS: Computers and software are all about having choices. That's what makes them so important to our daily lives and why we want to use them.

I've used Windows 8 and have helped out friends who have bought Windows 8 devices (not because they wanted it, but because they had no option as it came with the hardware), and I can't stand it. Even with an old-school shell it's annoying as hell because as mevans366 pointed out, it's the whole snapping back and forth between desktop and Metro that makes you want to scream. I've never seen a program that has so much "one step forward, two steps backward" built into it.

So true. For the past few months, ever since some issues on one of my pc's caused me to use a Linux-based boot CD, I have been entertaining the idea of switching to Ubuntu on it. Mind you, this from someone who's never even thought about using anything other than Windows (since 3.11). I actually loved that boot up disc (had Knoppix on it). I'll probably use it on that problematic pc and once stable, maybe switch over to dual-boot on my main's.

MS, you made a huge mistake with Win8. It is so sad your arrogance and presumptuousness won't let you see it.

 

[Adhmuz]

This -> "Larson-Green does acknowledge that a finger will never be as precise as a mouse and that an on-screen keyboard will never beat a real one" is exactly while I will never use windows 8. Come on people, they admit themselves that touch will never replace a mouse and keyboard, yet they still try to force it down our throats... Touch UI belongs on hand held devices where it makes sense, not on a desktop I sit at which may I add does NOT have any touch functionality. Microsoft, just go away with your bs, I'm not buying it.

 

[Puiu]

1 word: fullscreen

it's windows on a desktop with only 1 window......
I also found the normal start menu to be more useful than metro (no history for opened files... wtf ms?).

at least they did 1 thing good, the task manager.

 

[killeriii]

Forcing Metro on you is all about $$ from the Microsoft store. If they gave you a choice of Desktop or Metro most people wouldn't come back to metro on a desktop.

Agreed 100%!
I think it's sick how MS thinks they can bend customers to their will this way.
Like Capt' Crank, I want windows 8 to fail horribly. Then maybe MS will go back to the drawing board!

 

[TJGeezer]

Mint has taken Ubuntu's lead position in the Linux desktop, er, market precisely because Mint gives users a choice between the old-style UI and Ubuntu's Unity-style UI. It's about having the choice, being able to do something either way and settle on the way that suits you. It has been the PC's big advantage over Apple's products (other than much better bang for the buck) - that sense of having choices.

This Metro vs Start reminds me of a mouse vs keyboard squabble - give people the choice and they'll be happy, they'll join the squabble quite certain of their own superior position. Take away that choice and it's gonna piss people off. What, Microsoft didn't figure that out years ago?

I like Win 7 a lot but find myself spending more and more time in Mint simply because it is so clearly designed to give users all kinds of choices, and it's so much fun to play around in. Out of curiosity, I spent a week in Mint recently and found I could do almost everything in Mint that I can do in Windows 7.

So I seem to be shifting over to Mint simply because it's more fun and there are very few disadvantages. Switch to an OS that's less fun, more frustrating to use and less suited to the desktop? Not likely.

Microsoft is betting a lot on this change, though. I wonder if the betting sites have put any odds on Microsoft's success. Those sites are better than opinion polls at predicting disputed outcomes. Think I'll go check.

 

[captaincranky]

Windows is bad. That's why since beginning I'm using iOS (epic troll mode on, trying to provoke is in progress..)

There's no need for further provocation, your syntax is sufficiently annoying in and of itself....

 

[Steve]

Windows 8 + Start8 = Awesome product.

I have used Windows 8 since the early preview days and I spent heaps of time trying to get use to the new start menu. In the end I did find it painfully inefficient and turned to a third party app, in my case Start8. Other than the start menu I really like the OS, its super snappy and with old style menu back great to use.

 

[captaincranky]

I really like the OS, its super snappy and with old style menu back great to use.

As long as you're not using an SSD while at the same time giving all the credit to Windows 8 for the vastly improved boot and load times. There does seem to be an awful lot of that going around these days.

 

[Pan Wah]

Larson-Green does acknowledge that a finger will never be as precise as a mouse

This is arrant nonsense - how come concert pianists always seem to use their fingers, if a mouse is so precise?

 

[Steve]

As long as you're not using an SSD while at the same time giving all the credit to Windows 8 for the vastly improved boot and load times. There does seem to be an awful lot of that going around these days.

Honestly could not careless about boot times because I never turn my PC off. The OS is much snappier, much much snappier to use.

This is arrant nonsense - how come concert pianists always seem to use their fingers, if a mouse is so precise?

Having not read into what you guys are talking about I would imagine hitting a single pixel with a fingertip might be hard. Also trying to aim in a first person shooter such as Call of Duty might also be hard. Again not sure if I am off base here, just food for thought

 

[crabbos]

I still think the whole motivation behind the change for Microsoft was the app store. They saw how well itunes/ios/android apps were selling and thought it would be a good way to rake in extra revenue - right from the Metro desktop...

 

[yukka]

Ok the enterprise I work in (Education) has over 200 applications that are grouped in the start menu by faculty and delivered via App-V. We run Windows 7. If we put Windows 8 out instead you end up with 200 icons littering page after page of metro start screen. We can't group by faculty unless you think that we could have a page for each faculty.. its ridiculous.

Right now there is zero chance we will go with Windows 8 for that reason alone. Where the students can currently browse a list of applications for their particular faculty under a section in the start menu, they would have to scroll through page after page of metro start screen or search for the application which requires them knowing the name of the application in the first place. You can't put titles on individual metro start screen pages (we could name each page by a faculty) and organizing the different icons for each page and making them stay there is a management nightmare.

Screw the metro UI for business. They just haven't thought it through. You should be able to make the choice and rollback. Certainly I will be checking out the functionality of the free start menu utilities but I am quite loathed to roll out an operating system upgrade over thousands of computers relying on a third party utility that may or may not be supported in the future.

Microsoft have got metro UI marketplace dollar signs clouding their judgement here. For business, Windows 8 is the new Window ME/Windows Vista. Just waiting for Windows 9 now.

 

[fimbles]

Quote:

"This is arrant nonsense - how come concert pianists always seem to use their fingers, if a mouse is so precise?"

Pianists use a keyboard, An analogue keyboard at that.

 

[oldikes]

It takes less time to move your hand 2 inches than it does to move your hand 7 inches across the screen.

Food for thought.

 

[Guest]

"Larson-Green seems to firmly believe touch is the future."

Ummm, your a little late to the game darling. I've been touching my keyboard and mouse for the past 20 years. The got here future 20 years ago. The only thing Microsoft have changed is that now they expect you to channel "almost" every thought and user-interaction through a single finger versus ten fingers that I have been using on my keyboard for the past 2 decades.

So you want me to do everything I did with 20 fingers most of my life and restrict it to 1 finger? Okay, I got one finger for you Microsoft. Guess which one it is?

 

[captaincranky]

So you want me to do everything I did with 20 fingers most of my life and restrict it to 1 finger? Okay, I got one finger for you Microsoft. Guess which one it is?

You're being ironic, right? 'Cause the rest of us only have 8 fingers and two thumbs.

I'll play along though. I've got two fingers for you M$, one one each hand.....

 

[cliffordcooley]

This is arrant nonsense - how come concert pianists always seem to use their fingers, if a mouse is so precise?

How come your phone is not as big as a piano?

Edit: Let me expand.
Imagine shrinking the pianos keys down to where they all fit on a tablets screen and then see how precise your fingers are. A piano was designed for fingers not smaller pointing devices.