New Windows chief explains why Microsoft redesigned Windows

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.

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.

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

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

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

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...

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.

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.

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.

"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?

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.....

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.

"...and find the start screen all in the first session"
I didn't realise OS design was a "Where's Wally" challenge?

A key on a piano is how wide? You have a margin of what? 15-20mm? How many DPI is your monitor? 100-200? So a pixel width is say 0.254mm. Do you think you have 0.254mm of control using your fingers? I'm pretty damn well sure I can do a LOT better with a mouse than a finger.

Sorry there Guest, bad assumption; Professional programmer for three decades & 4 grandchildren - - HATE the thing.
Yes, the only constant is change - - so what? A parochial design team that breaks the user's work flow is D.O.A. and slows
adoption of the new product. There is more to life that Texting, Facebook, Twitter and chat. Those are kiddy applications and
business needs many other services.

It's incredibly insulting that she says touchscreen will never be as efficient but users will get used to it. That's sounds like Apple arrogance! Who wants to be forced to get used to it!

Julie can access my hard drive any time (I have a thing for middle-aged geek girls). As far as W8 goes, I'm already getting bored with it, and also with all the "heated discussion" about it. it's already yesterday's news - it's here, it works, logical next step for mobile, blah blah blah, if you don't like it, don't use it, now let's move on! Windows 9 Desktop Power Edition - that's something to talk about! In a way, I've already transformed my Win8 Pro installation into a desktop power edition - I never have to see "Metro" unless I get bored, and all my file types are associated with real programs, not "apps", so I can go for days without even seeing it. If I get REAL bored I might see what happens if you delete ALL your "apps" at once. People get all worked up about the smallest things, really, just take a chance, learn a little for the 3 hours or so it takes, and MOVE ON!!!

Yes interesting perspective. I think that having a touchscreen 24"+ display is retarded. Seriously who wants to sit close enough to touch a screen that big? And I want the efficiency of mouse and keyboard. They should find a decent substitute rather than a gimick!

Really MS, what has been the best thing about touchscreen? Angry Birds? Serious question there...

Except it's already functional. Did <I>you</I> hit your head or something?

Windows 8 is selling just as much as Windows 7. Get your head around that fact; yes, it might not feel "right" to you, but remember Microsoft is not selling the OS to you, but a horde of <I>consumers</I> who are willing to take the change.

There are no facts proving otherwise. I have facts to prove Windows 8 is successful. What facts do you have? Your friends? Family? Neighbors? Co-workers? People on the Internet? You and who you know are nothing but a pixel in 4K display.

Let me give it to you straight: Windows 8 is better than 7.

You don't like the Start Screen and anything Metro-related and that's completely fine. I'm offering you a way to bring back the Start Screen and not see Metro, but all you want is complain because you don't like it, and you desperately hope other people don't like it so that it fails and Microsoft goes back to its "roots."

Which is noble and all, but it won't happen. Leaving alone the fact that Windows 8 so far is successful and that this marks the first time Microsoft has a hardware offering to match its software offering, people, and by that I mean the hundreds of millions of people <I>not</I> around you--or your neighborhood, city, country or even continent--don't mind the change as much as you do. We are talking about the people that are willing to take the change because they were never used to what was there before; we're talking about the kind of people you see fighting in malls over $2,000 HDTVs at 4 AM on a Black Friday. Your regular consumer. Microsoft is <I>set</I> on Metro, as official statements, interviews, and rumors have concluded.

They way I see it, if you don't like Metro, you can get the architectural benefits and still remain on the desktop and have a native Start menu. Whether you choose to or not, it's irrelevant to me, "bro."

Yes. And not only it that, it can also remove (or enable) the charms bar <I>only</I> on secondary monitors. Useful is you perhaps want your second screen to be your "Metro" screen all the time, while your primary monitor being your desktop screen. Or you could have no such thing. You can also remove the hot-corners (which I loathed) from all screens.

Seriously, I've been recommending this to friends and family reluctant of Windows 8 and they have no problems (I use it myself too). In fact, I've seen people use both "worlds" just fine.

In response to tekman42, per the bold section, you suggested that you shouldn't be tasked to find third-party apps if you're not happy with the Start Screen (e.g. Metro). As you could read, all I asked was why, then, would you complain of such thing if you knew, before buying the product, that you wouldn't like the very feature that would inevitably task you into finding those third-party apps? Perhaps I misread, if so, feel free to elaborate.

Also, that's fine. Just know that <I>there is</I> a way to remove everything Metro and get your Start Menu back. In essence, it'd just be a better version of Windows 7. But that's up to you.

"

This, in a nutshell, is what Metro haters are talking about.

There is simply no excuse for leaving the code in Win8 and having a Metro on/off switch in control panel.


Edit:

These quotes are gold. I nominate these for tech failure of 2012:

"Touch is the most direct and natural way to interact with computers"
"We didn't want you to have to make a choice"

The arrogance of this person astounds me. I really stopped reading at that point, my rage qas so high.

Really, wouldn't your arms get tired of reaching for the screen all the time? Unless the screen is positioned about where your keyboard is now...no wait, then you'd have Surface or Tabletop or whatever you want to call it - just a big clumsy touch screen, either built in or laying on top of your desk. Of course then there's no room for a real keyboard, so you'd have to use the on-screen glass keyboard, which would get old rather quickly, I think. And it would be difficult to kick back a bit to watch a movie; you'd pretty much have to stay hunched over your desk to see it well. Touch may be the thing for tablets and such, since most of what you do on a tablet is just selecting something and letting it run - it's just a big super-remote with the TV and stereo built in! But how can you get seriously productive and do real work on such a toy? You can't, and shouldn't try. They always show, on the fancy, futuristic commercials, some photographer or artist, flipping quickly and gracefully through their portfolio with just the barest wave of a finger, or an architect putting a building together with just a few gestures, but that's not what working is for the other 99.99% of us.

There's no excuse. There's a reason.

Whether people agree with the reason or not is their prerogative. I personally could not care less.

I'm also not that immature to think Microsoft owes <I>me</I> anything. If there is an alternative, I'll take it. I'm not going to hate on Windows 8 based on the ethicality of Microsoft's decision. There is a way to get a native Start Menu back and still enjoy the benefits of Windows 8? Well, sign me up.

Otherwise then stick with Windows 7. Criticism is fine, but most haters now sound like those Jehovah's Witnesses that knock on your door trying so but so hard to convince you that what they preach is the truth.

(No offense intended if you happen to be a Jehovah's Witness.)