Windows 8 discussion

[Marnomancer]

Hmm..as cranky had once enlightened me, Win7x64 is meant to take better advantage of hardware capabilities than Win7x32. Could be something like that for Win8 maybe, for both x32 and x64 versions, along with the theory you presented? Better hardware and resource utilization?
Perhaps that issue needs more research and tests. I understood what you mean. I'm not trying it myself though. It would cause me excruciating mental pain to watch my Linux screwed again.

 

[captaincranky]

captaincranky: Yea, inflating the WEI index is very stupid actually.
It was hailed as a way to simplify the requirements of games and applications with Vistas release.
But if they change the numbers worth with each release of Windows it isn't going to make any sense.
Say Crysis requires a 5.0 (made up number)
In Vista your system only gets 4.0, so you upgrade to Win7 and there it gets a 5.0, and in Win8 it gets a 6.0.
Guess what, it's still gonna be too slow to play Crysis!

This logic is flawed for two very salient reasons. First, Windows 8 isn't even aimed at someone that can read benchmarks. The Fischer-Price toy interface is a dead giveaway there. And second, where exactly are you going to find a gamer who wants to play "Crysis", willing to tolerate minimum requirements?

And then there's this; my Core i530, (on the IGP), blows up a 5.2 (!) on the gaming graphics WEI score...! You look at that and say wow, integrated graphics have come a long way! (And in truth they have).The trouble is with the desktop @ 1920 x 1200, when you try to patch full 1080p to the TV, the Intel graphics driver starts pasting up warnings to drop the res or break something...

So, I wasn't actually wanting to play Crysis, just watch recorded TV. But, I was hoping to run 2 monitors at 1080p, no such luck. Although, I suppose I could assume Intel is just trying to save warranty costs and do it anyway.... I could tell them that my WEI said it was OK....!

So, let's say the WEI index is no different from that of Win 7. However now we're using an OS, (evaluation release), that doesn't have as many running processes as our day to day OS. Methinks, with less running, you might be able to pull a better score with less taxed hardware. (Not sure though). I'm still up for somebody's explanation as to exactly how Marnomancer's CPU score went up, with ostensibly the same CPU at the same clock. PLease tell me these were both 64 bit OSes used in the test. Pretty please.

I also realized another thing with Win8
They reduced the startup time by doing a hybrid hibernation of sorts when the system is shutdown (You notice this because it takes a little longer to shutdown vs Win7)
But thus when you install security updates that require a reboot, and shutdown your PC for the night.
The next day you boot it up it will automatically reboot when you login.
And that "clean" boot actually takes atleast as long as Win7 does for me to boot...
It's a very small nitpick of course, but it might be worth to keep in mind that if an application really requires a reboot.
Then you really need to do a reboot, not shutdown your PC on day one and start it on day two and think "presto done"

A while back, some rookie programmer with Mozilla, figured out a way to make Firefox seem as fast as Chrome. This involved changing the startup order of running processes or something. Point being, this Win 8 shutdown issue, prima facia, seems to be the same sort of charade. Perhaps he's moved on to bigger and "better" things. Say for example, M$ R & D.....

Despite my lack of true technical expertise, a while back I declared Vista a stinker. Got a lot of flack for that, and now here we are, Vista dead and buried, XP still going strong. Fancy that.

And BTW, this "hybrid sleep / stutdown" scheme sounds, in concept, very similar to Vista's pre-caching of memory for expected programs. That was an epic fail, if only for the fact that it showed very little "available memory". This is screwing with the whole boot process, for the same imaginary, or perceived benefits. Look how fast it wakes up. A few thousandths of a second only really matter in a gunfight. Or perhaps to a hedge fund computer.

 

[Per Hansson]

captaincranky: I love reading your posts
As for the WEI score I ran it in Win7 now aswell and SNGX is correct, the scores are not inflated.
The top attainable score changes tho, it is 7.9 in Win7 and 9.9 in Win8
That is totally illogical since if you have a system that scores 9.9 in Win8 it would score 7.9 in Win7 and I guess Vista is limited to 6.9 or 5.9

 

[SNGX1275]

Results:
In order of top to bottom presented score (Processor, RAM, Graphics, Gaming Graphics, Primary HDD)
Windows 7: 3.4, 4.5, 3.1, 3.2, 5.5
Windows 8: 3.4, 4.4, 3.2, 3.2, 5.3

Discussion:
I ran the assessment with the 'stock' drivers for the 6200, ie - the ones that Windows automatically installs. Then I updated to the 296.10 driver and re-ran the assessment. When doing this in Windows 8, screen corruption occured after running the assessment, so I rolled back the drivers and re-ran.

So in all I ended up running the assessment 7 times (3 in Win 7, 4 in Win 8). I noticed some variability in the scores between each run. Graphics would be a 3.1 sometimes and a 3.2 sometimes. Processor in Win 7 increased from the lowest score it ever had, 3.0, to 3.4, that is quite a difference, but it does match up with what Windows 8 scores the processor. My best guess here is the 3.0 occured as something was happening in the background unrelated to the WEI assessment.

HDD score is different between 7 and 8 because they are on physically different drives.

Conclusion:
WEI score has some natural variability in the scores, typically 0.1. Max possible score in Windows 7 is 7.9. Max possible score in Windows 8 is 9.9. The hypothesis of WEI being inflated from Windows 7 to Windows 8 as a result of the higher possible score is false. The score doesn't increase beyond the natural variability seen from repeatedly running the WEI assessment on the same hardware on the same OS.

All Microsoft did was increase the artificial ceiling that the hardware can score, they did not give your old hardware a higher number to make you feel better.

 

[SNGX1275]

captaincranky: I love reading your posts
As for the WEI score I ran it in Win7 now aswell and SNGX is correct, the scores are not inflated.
The top attainable score changes tho, it is 7.9 in Win7 and 9.9 in Win8
That is totally illogical since if you have a system that scores 9.9 in Win8 it would score 7.9 in Win7 and I guess Vista is limited to 6.9 or 5.9

It is not totally illogical. It is the Windows Experience Index. As I said above:

I've thought about this some (although I'm sure googling will provide the answer) and I don't think it makes sense to inflate the scores. I think the scores just allow a higher number because the hardware is expected to be better. It is a Windows Experience Number, so for Vista, if you get a 5.9 or in 7, if you get a 7.9 that is Microsoft's way of saying you are experiencing it as well as they imagined it could be. Now certainly this has its faults because putting Vista on the best hardware you can buy now is going to be faster than if you put it on a system that scores all 5.9s. But I don't think the WEI is intended to be a very sophisticated benchmark, its just a quick way to get a pretty good idea of how your system will do with whatever version of Windows.

So putting Vista (using this because of 5.9 vs now 9.9) on a system with today's fastest hardware will still get a 5.9. But I don't think the regular Windows expierence, the 'feel' of responsiveness, isn't going to be much different than a system with all 5.9 hardware. The biggest problem, as pointed out above, is gaming. So you guys are right, its a flawed system for gaming, but I think its pretty valid for how Windows 'feels'.

So, let's say the WEI index is no different from that of Win 7. However now we're using an OS, (evaluation release), that doesn't have as many running processes as our day to day OS. Methinks, with less running, you might be able to pull a better score with less taxed hardware. (Not sure though). I'm still up for somebody's explanation as to exactly how Marnomancer's CPU score went up, with ostensibly the same CPU at the same clock. PLease tell me these were both 64 bit OSes used in the test. Pretty please.

I'll give it a shot. I ran the test several times, my CPU score went from a 3.0 to a 3.4 in Windows 7, nothing changed, back to back assessments without rebooting. As you said, 8 has less crap running in the background than 7, so the chances of something screwing with 7's CPU score are higher than that in 8.

 

[captaincranky]

Oh rats, not only does it appear am I wrong about the inflated, "Whee" scores, but with 9.9 as a benchmark, I'll indeed have to buy a new computer. Don't want the kid down the block's experience with Windows being better than mine.

Just kidding, I'm still not coming on board with Win 8, simply because of the ugly a** new logo M$ paid somebody a million bucks to design. If they wanted to give money to Apple, they could have tossed at least a mil my way.

When you come down to it, "Metro" is just a touch screen knock off implementation of "Windows Media Center", as the desktop motif.

Vista failed without the slide show desktop option. That said, with Win 7 I am thoroughly immersed in an endless parade of skanks on my desktop. Of course, I do have a slight preference for those of either Slavic or Asian descent. For example, a bikini clad Anna Kournakova ,not a minute ago, was staring me down in a, "let's play some tennis", sort of way. If you know what I mean.

So, in conclusion, a 3 pack of Windows 7 OEM, sounds like a great investment right about now.

Let someone who isn't a hard core Luddite, put their greasy fingers all over their monitor, I'm happy just to kick back and watch it, "mouse" in hand.

 

[Per Hansson]

Yea I was thinking about this earlier today.
Does anyone see desktop PC computing going the way of touch interfaces?

Of course not! (Well, Microsoft might disagree)
Now I'm not talking about some ipads or other such systems.

Pure desktop systems, used for serious work like CAD/CAM, software development or simply office related work like excel or word will never ever work with a touch interface.
People working 8 hours a day for 5 days a week get mouse arm and other such problems as it is.
Imagine keeping your arm infront of you all day long instead! (Mine gets sore after 5 minutes)
And while I know that many industrial systems have implemented touch interfaces it is to me a very illogical step to take.
Because in an industrial environment your fingers are covered with crap, so as you touch the monitor you get grease and stuff on it, not very good for work now is it?
I can confirm this from my own workplace, actually on many such systems I now see a mouse and keyboard instead, it's much cheaper to put a transparent plastic cover over a keyboard and be done with it...

As for gaming I think I need not even clarify how stupid touch interfaces would be.

Infact I can't think of anything BUT tablets where the touch interface actually works.
How can Microsoft be so blind as to push it for all platforms, or am I just dumb, old and retrograde?

 

[SNGX1275]

I agree touch screen for desktop is no good. I came across a very brief blog entry that brings up how bad the current windows 8 ui is, even in metro, for a touch screen implementation on a desktop.

But I can see the metro apps working fine with a mouse and keyboard if they'd let a 'mouse gesture' work. In the Weather app, which is pretty nicely done, it would be great if I could just click and 'swipe' my mouse (like I would a finger on a tablet) to move to the next page. Right now its done by a mouse wheel scroll, grabbing the bottom scroll bar, or moving the mouse to the edge (requires a setting to be switched). None of those are good, and they don't translate to a tablet interface either.

 

[Per Hansson]

But I can see the metro apps working fine with a mouse and keyboard if they'd let a 'mouse gesture' work.

That would entail Microsoft copying something that Opera released 11 years ago, obviously that is waaay too cutting edge for them!
Thanks for the link btw, that blog brought up a very good point!

I'm really torn about Windows 8.
I really do think it would be a great OS without the stupid metro interface.
The search bar and start menu introduced with Vista and perfected with Win7 is one of the biggest factors increasing producitivity for me in Win7 when using it for work.
To remove that is simply an absurd thing to do IMO.

 

[SNGX1275]

How is the productivity increased with 7's start menu over XP/2000? Because it has several of your most recently used programs right there? Or is it the click/windows key and start typing?

Hitting the Windows key in 8 brings you a full screen environment to click, so it can hold a lot more apps there than the 5 or 7 in Vista and 7. Windows Key + typing an app still works.

It does seem excessive to drop out of the desktop environment to go to metro and then to go back to the desktop, so I agree there. I guess I'm missing how the version in 8 is worse for productivity than Vista/7..

Maybe Microsoft will do something like an Aero'd Metro for the desktop. Where when you hit the Windows key it just brings up the metro like interface, but instead of dumping you to a blue-green background with tiles, it will just have Aero tiles and blur whatever was on screen before.

Or maybe I'm missing the point completely?

 

[Marnomancer]

It is not totally illogical. It is the Windows Experience Index. As I said above:


So putting Vista (using this because of 5.9 vs now 9.9) on a system with today's fastest hardware will still get a 5.9. But I don't think the regular Windows expierence, the 'feel' of responsiveness, isn't going to be much different than a system with all 5.9 hardware. The biggest problem, as pointed out above, is gaming. So you guys are right, its a flawed system for gaming, but I think its pretty valid for how Windows 'feels'.



I'll give it a shot. I ran the test several times, my CPU score went from a 3.0 to a 3.4 in Windows 7, nothing changed, back to back assessments without rebooting. As you said, 8 has less crap running in the background than 7, so the chances of something screwing with 7's CPU score are higher than that in 8.

I agree with cranky and you on that. Though the physical appearence of the please would make no difference if I was to explain.
And as I've said, not all inventions are useful for us. So that makes it clear that Metro is for those out there who can't find the Control Panel without help in 7.
Apple is also a good example. Should I splurge for something white, purple and curvy when I can get something that'll swallow it whole for 3/4th that price?

 

[Marnomancer]

The search bar and start menu introduced with Vista and perfected with Win7 is one of the biggest factors increasing producitivity for me in Win7 when using it for work.
To remove that is simply an absurd thing to do IMO.

That was MS's way of tempting Linux users when 7 was launched. And now repelling them with 8.

To SGNX:
The productivity was increased, because unlike Ubuntu, in pre-7 releases, we actually had to manually locate the program we wanted, which could be a pain in the ar*e if there are too many installed.
To Linux (Gnome and KDE), that 'start menu search mechanism' (the search box right at the bottom) was native since times immemorial to me, so it wouldn't be wrong to call it "partially ported". Or maybe an "inspiration".

 

[SNGX1275]

I agree with cranky and you on that. Though the physical appearence of the please would make no difference if I was to explain.
And as I've said, not all inventions are useful. So that makes it clear that touch screens are for those non-gamers and designers out there. Though I still prefer Angry Birds on a touch.
Apple is also a good example. Should I splurge for something white, purple and curvy when I can get something that'll swallow it whole for 3/4th that price? And honestly, Lion was a disappointment, bigger than Win8.

Lion is bigger disappointment than 8?

Why? First, Lion is a released OS, 8 is still CP.

Also, why is Lion bad? It is a UI change for sure, but, its not near as drastic as blogs make it to be, make very few changes and it acts exactly the same as a prior OS. 8 is the same way. I use both almost equally (Win and Mac) so I'm not easily sold on either being better.

I may not be a staff member or an editor or whatever, but I'm a user of more OSes than a lot of people, and I've posted my thoughts and results of tests in this thread, I hope they hold some weight.

 

[Per Hansson]

SNGX: The startmenu in XP only shows installed programs, and only a list of recently used ones.
If I need to find an app among my 100 or so installed ones that I rarely use it's a real hassle.
In Win7 I can just type "putty" or whatever and press enter and it brings it right up.

In Windows 8 they removed that search bar, so I have to press the windows key to get into metro, or do so some other way.
Then type "putty"
Now it searches for apps by default, but as it happens to be "putty" is not regarded to be an app but a file (since it's just a single exe without an installer)
So I need to go down from the default of searching for apps, to files, wait a while (yup, even on an SSD) and then it comes up, click on it and get thrown back to the desktop.

Plus the search in Windows 7 is amazing, my productivity is very much increased because it not only searches for apps, it searches through mails (including attachments) and the whole filesystem via an index.
So say I have a problem of some sort that I have either written about in some text document saved on my PC, or that I have mailed someone about.
I just need to type some words and I get it right up.
I don't understand how removing this functionality from Windows can be seen as progress, it's beyond me.

 

[captaincranky]

.
I don't understand how removing this functionality from Windows can be seen as progress, it's beyond me.

If you think of Windows 8 as "the stupidizing of Windows for the inbred masses"....you'll have a better grasp of the situation.

I don't know why everybody is so gung-ho glass half full on Win 8.

Most of this thread has been spent trying to figure out how to get it to work like Windows 7. (Psst...this is Vista 2)

A wise sales rep once said to me, "you can wrap a turd in tinfoil, put a ribbon on, and somebody will buy it"!

Well anyway, this discussion on the consumer preview of Win 8, is starting to make me think M$ is expecting you to bring your own tinfoil and ribbon, if you want to take "Eight" to the Friday night dance......

 

[Marnomancer]

Lion is bigger disappointment than 8?

Why? First, Lion is a released OS, 8 is still CP.

Also, why is Lion bad? It is a UI change for sure, but, its not near as drastic as blogs make it to be, make very few changes and it acts exactly the same as a prior OS. 8 is the same way. I use both almost equally (Win and Mac) so I'm not easily sold on either being better.

I may not be a staff member or an editor or whatever, but I'm a user of more OSes than a lot of people, and I've posted my thoughts and results of tests in this thread, I hope they hold some weight.

Maybe you're right. I wasn't bold enough to buy-it-then-try it. I read the reviews only. Plus, the price label slapped on it didn't really seem worth it, now that I got the taste of an iPad. Anyway, that was irrelevent.
As cranky said, we've spent quite some time in figuring out how to make it work like 7. Maybe MS will do that for us? An option for switching it out like a theme added? The 'hot-switching' thing can be annoying. And a search box for Per and me? :haha:

 

[Marnomancer]

SNGX: If I need to find an app among my 100 or so installed ones that I rarely use it's a real hassle.
In Win7 I can just type "putty" or whatever and press enter and it brings it right up.

In Windows 8 they removed that search bar, so I have to press the windows key to get into metro, or do so some other way.
Then type "putty"
Now it searches for apps by default, but as it happens to be "putty" is not regarded to be an app but a file (since it's just a single exe without an installer)
So I need to go down from the default of searching for apps, to files, wait a while (yup, even on an SSD) and then it comes up, click on it and get thrown back to the desktop.

The same problem do I have. Finding Nmap, Host Monitor, Putty, Attacker, Wireshark, Cain & Abel, and JTR from the 63 apps I have can be a pain.

If you think of Windows 8 as "the stupidizing of Windows for the inbred masses"....you'll have a better grasp of the situation.

Most of this thread has been spent trying to figure out how to get it to work like Windows 7. (Psst...this is Vista 2)

A wise sales rep once said to me, "you can wrap a turd in tinfoil, put a ribbon on, and somebody will buy it"!

Well anyway, this discussion on the consumer preview of Win 8, is starting to make me think M$ is expecting you to bring your own tinfoil and ribbon, if you want to take "Eight" to the Friday night dance......

You got it man. "Stupidification/stupidizing of Windows for inbred masses". Nice phrase. Gonna use it now
Unix was once considered as complex, so Windows was the solution to that. Steve Jobs came to an even simpler solution, no offense, but a solution for e-illiterates (oh well, non-enthusiasts) like my sister. Apparently, MS attempted to compete with Apple, but Billy seems oblivious to the fact that the Gnome UI came out about a decade ago, and it whacked the sh*t outta both, while keeping its most loved features (launcher search box) throughout the releases. One you used Windows, you didn't go back to Unix. Once you use Mac, you don't go back to Win. Once you use Ubuntu, you don't like going back to either. Personal experience. Still, 7 made an impact on me, and that won't change for a while. Still, wake me, when Win9 is announced :zzz:

 

[Archean]

TBH apart from few changes and major emphasis on Metro, the OS is just an 'evolutionary' release underneath, so I think if they just allow users to select and stick with whichever UI mode they want to stick with i.e. either desktop or Metro, it wouldn't feel as bad.

On the search issue (which Per pointed out), why don't MS give us an option to have 'search bar' (just like address tool bar) which could be embedded in the Taskbar, IMHO that will be of lot more use than even the Start itself. As we are still at CP level, there is lot that can be done to incorporate couple of these little things and it will probably help lots of the folks out their in adopting new OS.

 

[Marnomancer]

TBH apart from few changes and major emphasis on Metro, the OS is just an 'evolutionary' release underneath, so I think if they just allow users to select and stick with whichever UI mode they want to stick with i.e. either desktop or Metro, it wouldn't feel as bad.

On the search issue (which Per pointed out), why don't MS give us an option to have 'search bar' (just like address tool bar) which could be embedded in the Taskbar, IMHO that will be of lot more use than even the Start itself. As we are still at CP level, there is lot that can be done to incorporate couple of these little things and it will probably help lots of the folks out their in adopting new OS.

That's exactly the point of this debate.

 

[SNGX1275]

I don't use Putty, but hitting the windows key and typing 'putty' and then hitting enter doesn't open it?

Also, if you use it so much, just pin it to the metro interface or pin it to the quick launch bar.

 

[Per Hansson]

SNGX: It was just an example, I use many different programs.
Some have been installed by an installer, others have not.
So in "Windows mind" some are apps while others are simply files on the filesystem.
As it is Windows 8 search is divided up in 3 different categories; Apps, Settings & Files.
It does not search in all of these, you have to select the category you want to search for.

I'm actually surprised, I came in with low expectations and thus was not really expecting to be let down very much.
But I find that the more I try to use Win8 the more I dislike it!

Archean: the search in the start menu is much better. (Like Win Vista/7)
I prefer to use only the keyboard for navigation when I can, so pressing the windows key and searching for what I want in Win7 is a great way to find stuff.
Btw, a search bar even exists for Windows XP, i tried that at work once a few years ago, I think it was Solidworks or Autocad that decided to install it.
It made my computer completely unusable, the reason for that is that in Windows Vista and later search indexing is done in the background at a lower I/O priority, Windows XP does not support that...

Edit: see this screenshot for the mess of my start menu in XP x64, finding something there sure isn't easy.
And that is after I've gone to all the trouble of placing most apps in a common folder, it's pretty much impossible to find anything with the default behavior of having them in different folders since all folder icons look the same!
It's heaven to be able to just type a few letters in Win7 and have it find what I'm looking for, and it's thus a great shame they remove that in Win8!

 

[Marnomancer]

I don't use Putty, but hitting the windows key and typing 'putty' and then hitting enter doesn't open it?

Also, if you use it so much, just pin it to the metro interface or pin it to the quick launch bar.

It does work. I had considered that option, but considering the sheer number of programs that I have to use, even locating them on the metro interface can be inconvenient.

 

[SNGX1275]

More inconvenient than finding them in a start menu like Per linked to above? I am really failing to see how finding them in Metro is any more difficult than 7 or XP or 2000....

 

[Marnomancer]

You got me wrong. In Metro it's easier than start menu, but more inefficient than the search function. Having to pin all 63 programs that way...and finding the one I want...urgh!

 

[captaincranky]

Gosh, you kow there's principles involved here. A desktop computer isn't some trash "mobile device". People actually do work with them, so the whole mess should cater to those individuals first, and not some nitwit who wants Windows to play angry birds while driving a 5000 lb SUV down the highway.

Windows Media Center is pretty cool, I absolutely do not want to boot into it, though.

So, why should the venerable Windows OS boot into some crap toy interface?

The whole thing is bass ackwards, the user should CHOOSE to open "Metro", not have some fool at M$ choose it for him.

I've seen BS like this before with Adobe Photoshop Elements. Elements has a "Welcome Screen", as the default screen. Basically it's a bunch of crap that anybody who's used the program for any length of time, doesn't want to be bothered with.

Up to version 5.0, you could select which screen you wanted the program to open in, "Welcome", "Organizer", or "Editor".

After version 6.0 they took that away, and you have to suffer the whole crap sales pitch every time you open the program.

The moral of the story is, everybody goes into the program folder, and creates a second shortcut to place them into the program where they want to be, not where Adobe herds them.

While it seems like apples and oranges, it really isn't. M$ is herding you to a place where they're trying to convince how, hip, cool, and "with it", they are.

Wake me up when you can buy a good fifty dollar voice stress analyzer, and Dragon's "Naturally Speaking" is , oh, about on version 30.01.` Then I won't need touch screen, or anything else, I can just talk to my desktop. Besides, I thought that was pretty much the end game for communicating with computers anyway.