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WOF: Windows 8 ditches Aero Glass -- will you miss it?
In a lengthy blog post, Microsoft has explained some of the logic behind Windows 8's interface. Much of the article discusses Metro, but a sizable chunk focuses on the desktop environment, including some significant changes that haven't been revealed in the Consumer Preview yet. Most notably, Microsoft says it's scrapping Aero Glass, the glossy, transparent border introduced with Vista, in favor of a flatter style that's less distracting:
"In the end, we decided to bring the desktop closer to the Metro aesthetic, while preserving the compatibility afforded by not changing the size of window chrome, controls, or system UI. We have moved beyond Aero Glass -- flattening surfaces, removing reflections, and scaling back distracting gradients...We want desktop windows to continue to feel light and airy, and we want a chrome style that doesn't distract from the content of the app."
Although I hope there's still a way to customize colors (the white default is too bright for my taste), I don't think I'll miss Glass at all. The transparency has distracted or otherwise misled me many times. A new track might play on Foobar or my desktop background might change and I mistake the activity for a new email or instant message. What say you? Is Aero Glass a tacky remnant or a reassuring familiarity of Windows Vista and 7?
User Comments: 104
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I don't know if they ditched all of Aero, but oh Microsoft. There were so many problems with vista and 7 (even lawsuits) because existing video cards did not support Aero, and even I didn't upgrade one of my xp machines due to it, and now they ditch Aero. What goes around comes around. I don't believe I'll ever upgrade a paid os on any machine anymore.
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Thanks Microsoft, for making the desktop experience an afterthought in Windows 8. Thank you so much.
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There has always been the white background. Why has Microsoft never made a black background theme?
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There has always been the white background. Why has Microsoft never made a black background theme?Because black was the color of DOS screen. Changing to a white background was moving forward from DOS.
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I prefer aero too. with transparency I can clearly see if there's a window behind something. but I guess some developers will enable transparency in Win8 for those who miss the aero (think of aero enabler in XP).
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VitalyT said:
The only way I surely wouldn't miss Windows 8 is if I had a bazooka. Who wrote the God damn thing, by the way?
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VitalyT said:<p>There was still no need to ditch the aero glass.</p>
...or its loyal customers, for that matter...
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The new interface looks just awful. No contrast at all, it seems like a chaos of icons and text. A blind GUI designer surely is cheaper, but perhaps M$ should cut costs some other way. Their constant lust for change for the sake of change is a sign of lack of understanding of what they are doing. No sense of direction - let's try this, oh no, users didn't like it, let's try that, oh no, sales dropped, let's see what Apple is doing and copy as much as we can without being sued... A company needs to have a vision and believe in what it is making, but wait a minute, it's M$, they are not making anything, they are making money! If they could do more by growing potatoes, they would grow potatoes, they don't care what is it, as long as they can profit from it... And yeah, for Steam and Chrome any OS will do, even Linux. Why not just make a SteamOS and be done with it once and for all. Any professional work is done on Macs anyway... because when you work professionally, you can't afford a tool that is unreliable or even uncomfortable.
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Does this mean I can run win 8 with my old computer/laptop? If I remembered correctly, one of the reason I upgraded my hardware was so that I can use all those FUN windows candy..so maybe we dont have to upgrade our hardware anymore to be able to use new windows..
Honestly I dont use window glass much often because it still uses a lot of ram..especially if I browse a lot of windows at the same time..I prefer using the classic theme..kept my system running stable for days of hard working..
Genuinely I still love win98 for its fast response...the only thing I dont like is when I have to wait long for a program to finish processing..tick tock tick tock..and prone to virus attack..
The new windows just have a lot of background processes
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I play to stay with 7 for now, but I think the change is okay. Let Microsoft zigzag all it wants, it's really just a superficial feature.
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I wouldn't care one bit as long as they add a 'deep black' color theme.
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NTAPRO said:
inb4stardockaeroglalsstheme xD
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tengeta said:
am I the only one that thinks this look just like a phone? its supposed to be apples job to dumb down computers...
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Marnomancer said:
I wouldn't care one bit as long as they add a 'deep black' color theme.Oh, even you're a Glossy-black fan? -Sweet-
Though I'm now beginning to like a industrial-steel theme.
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"It's a tablet OS, not a desktop one."
It's both a tablet and desktop OS version 1.0, hence the unifying intent.
Using win8cp as my daily driver, the main change was booting up to metro desktop first instead of desktop. Now there could be a future option to boot to straight to classic desktop (when it detects a desktop CPU) would be nice, but not critical for me.
I currently use the metro desktop to put all my application shortcut icons and folders location. I keep my classic clean and clutter free (not even any pinned taskbar.
Think of win8 as sort of a "desktop" that you can pin a whole bunch of shortcuts that you used to dump on your desktop or c:\users\username\desktop
Loving win8CP so far, and I do a lot of productivity/sysadmin/creating/gaming stuff. Looking forward to release date!
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I love the simpler/cleaner look. In reality aero glass is still there, just toned down a bit to better match the overall "theme" of win8. With aero glass, I felt it still clung to win7 style themes.
The flat look is in, just check out the latest ipad app for eBay, magnificent UI. Win9 will probably see further UI refinements/changes similar to eBay for ipad app.
As far as metro tiles, we already using them in apps like "pulse news" for ipad or android.
Live tiles is the future, you will see all OS incorporating them in some way or another.
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You know the funny thing is, if you use valve's "steam" or ebay for ipad app or pulse news app, they are all thematic with either the flat or live tile look already.
I would love for steam to have more live tiles like pulse news/win8metro.
The whole idea of live tiles is to present more information to the user requiring less switching around between menus.
Some people hate windows ribbon UI. But it's a natural evolution of moving from being shown menu options in vertical mode (having to drop down several layers deep wasting more clicks) to being shown menu options in horizontal mode. With today's widescreen mode LCD screens, it's a natural fit since more real estate is available horizontally. Ribbons also bring more UI consistency, instead of the old drop the toolbar anywhere I want it look. I can't tell you how many times people mess up their office toolbars, requiring to "Reset" them back to defaults because they mucked around so much they forgot what they did to unglue it.
Today in 2012 we are truly blessed. We have so many options to choose from in Operating systems and even CPUs (x86 vs arm). Choice is great, those of us who love our platform of choice (whether it be linux/osx/windows) should stop trying to force others to change, and appreciate what happens naturally in each ecosystem.
Frankly win8 metro is a breath of fresh air, the old win95 metaphor was getting kinda tired to (for me anyways) be honest.
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Ya OK, remove Aero to only charge you extra for it, later. It is obvious what there doing.
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Putting Aero Glass on Win8 would be akin to Polishing a Turd ... so whats the point?
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Mythbusters already proved you CAN polish a turd.
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....And it's not like you can't just "wait" it out, as many with XP have until Windows 7. For those that don't like the new change, wait several years until maybe Win 9 or Win10. By then the OS will have matured with further usability improvements.
..Just don't hold the rest of us back with the same tired Win95 metaphor by 2020. Touch and gesture is here to stay, this is Microsoft's first step, not the last.
Microsoft MUST evolve the OS, or risk getting left behind [on tablet]. I expect the tablet will supplant notebooks as it has netbooks already. You'll be able to "dock" the tablet, and use your normal KB/Mice, or external monitors. The future will have a hybrid of synced local storage and cloud. Corporate computers and servers will be a lot "greener". Desktops will still be around, but the meat of the action happening NOW is with tablets.
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I would definitely miss aero, but I plan on skipping windows 8 altogether.
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JC713 said:
It is the only feature in W7 that enticed me. This is the final nail in the coffin for Windows 8. I wonder if they disabled it for the sake of optimizing gaming, because before, W8 was lacking in performance in gaming.
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I hope windows 8 comes with a free tablet. That's what it's going to take for me to buy and use windows 8
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The catch here is that there are really few alternatives to Windows OS. We can ***** and moan, but our choices are:
1) get in line like the rest of the masses and buy Win 8;
2) skip it, and hope Win 9 is better;
3) go Apple (not a chance in Hell);
4) Linux (not ready for public consumption)
My computer is for general word processing/email/browsing, but I am a hard core gamer. So my choice is likely 2) (can't game on Apple or Linux consistently), unless there is some incentive for gaming (which I have not yet heard).
Microsoft does this because they can. They really still have little legitimate competition after all these years.
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