Take one for the team

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/99967-windows-8-is-microsoft-flailing

 

As with all UI changes there's usually a rationale behind it and it's usually the users who are too stubborn and ignorant to imagine that there could possibly be benefits to change.

Loving metro UI. I know most won't though.

 

If win8 is a step backward in usability like win7 was (for a power user anyway), then I might just keep win7 until I can no longer use it, then make the full switch to linux. I see no benefit to it any longer, as aside from gaming, M$ doesn't offer any more than linux now, except "familiarity".

Sul.

 

I had a different analogy in mind
But at least with Microsoft, you get backward compatibility.
Mrk

 

I might be missing something, but isn't the (horrible looking) 'Metro' interface for tablet type devices? Surely it can be disabled so that Win 8 can be used by people using more conventional computers. Just as long as you don't have to disable it on boot every time, I can't see what the problem is about.

I'll bet good money I'll hate it.

 

There is rationale behind it, there's even SCIENCE behind it: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/11/reflecting-on-your-comments-on-the-start-screen.aspx

But this is the perfect quote from a typical user, it summarized how people simply don't want to progress:

It's absurd to think 7 was a "step back" for the power user. You can have every program you want 1 click away on the taskbar, you can even right-click that program for advanced options (please don't tell me right clicking your browser in taskbar and clicking "incognito mode" is slower than opening the browser and looking through the menus to open a new incognito window), or you can simply type the program name in the start menu. Start > cmd > enter. Damn that was hard! It has never been simpler, and the same is possible on Win8.

But each to our own opinions I guess.

 

Yep, that is me, the typical user who gets very irritated when it takes more steps in a new version than the old.

Lets look at your comments, and see how absurd they might be

1. Programs 1 click away on the task bar - I assume you mean pinning them there?
A. Prior versions could do the same thing with the quick launch, but I guess that was absurd.

2. Right click for context menu for advanced options.
A. Context menus have always been around. Win7 integrates some options that you had to implement yourself in prior versions, but again, nothing you could not have done before, but that too was absurd.

3. Typing program name in start menu.
A. I concede, if the application is not in the path, then you must input the path in prior versions. It saves one small step there, although commonly used applications remain in the start bar 'history' for future use. Hmm, to think that a previous entry in a history list could be slower than typing the name in, must be... absurd

I don't see too much there to make it faster, nor slower really. One could argue that things are there by default now, which is better for average joe who doesn't do those things himself.

But, lets not worry about the small potatoes, those are nuances. Instead lets focus on how slow the disk access is, or the network throughput, or my favorite, the menus and explorer. All of those are a step back in performance or design, at least to me. I do not enjoy having to make 3 extra mouse clicks because of the new look. I do not enjoy have a roughly 25% less throughput on the network without tweaking things heavily (not that I mind tweaking, but a new version should be faster IMO). I don't enjoy many things that win7 (and vista in many cases) has changed. Yeah, I know, I can hear it now - "it is not slower". Well, with so many different ways to build a system, that is probably true. What matters to me though is that on all my computers that I have win7 on now, every single one of them ran faster using XP. I am talking pure hardware performance of read/writes or network throughput. The (IMO) idiotic way they redisgned parts of the GUI has nothing to do with hardware, but rather adding extra steps to do certain things.

I have a lot of gripes about win7, for sure. But, I do like it better than XP overall. I like aero actually, which I did not think I would. I like the gadgets (or at least the ones I use). I like the preview options and the alt-tab options. I like a lot of the features it puts in, many of them I use every day. I like the task manager and the stability better. There is a lot to like about it, at least for me. That is why I migrated to it. XP now seems "less" of what I want, although it is unquestionably faster.

But this is my favorite part here

Since I am the only one who ever complained about how stupid some of the changes to explorer in particular were, it is of course easy to conclude that I don't want progress. After all, a typical user such as myself must not be so typical if the new features are not what I like. With all the $$$ M$ went through to design an interface for the majority (aka typical user), it must be what everyone else wants, umm, does that mean us typical users who don't like some of those changes and would rather wallow in the old ways, or is it those typical users who don't even know the difference? Or is it the typical users who just take what they are given and don't question it? lol, I guess there is comfort in numbers

Sul.

 

I'll just skip straight to your QA.

No. Whilst prior versions of Windows could have shortcuts created on them, that was the extent of the functionality. Right-clicking it gave you useless shortcut options, no advanced options relating to that program itself.

Like..? Creating a shortcut on the desktop and using -commands? Yeah, a good way to a cluttered desktop. It's never been as simple to launch a program with a specific variable in mind until 7. Here's a few examples:

Steam - I can now right-click the pinned Steam icon and launch a game directly without ever opening a Steam menu. In previous versions of Windows I'd have to open the games menu and navigate my games to launch one.
Mumble - In previous versions of Windows I'd have to launch this VoIP client and browse a list of my servers, then select a server to connect to. Now I can right click it before I've even launched the client and select the server, launching the client directly into it.
Browser - Like stated before, I can now launch directly into incognito mode without having to open a non-incognito window first.
Spotify - I can select a song from a recently played list by right clicking the pinned icon, launching directly into playing that song.

If you want to consider IE pinning, I can pin Hotmail to my taskbar. I can right click that and directly access my inbox, calendar, contacts, or "send mail". I can launch the application directly into this mode before starting it.

Err, this is present in both Vista and 7, you've made no point here. You can either type the program name (which for me is faster than clicking) or select it from the history. Both fully functional Windows 7 features. Where exactly is this "step back" you speak of?

I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do about the fact your opinion differs from mine, but I simply cannot agree with your claim that the Windows 7 interface was a "step back" by any stretch of imagination.

 

Similarly, I simply cannot see how you think it was a step forward. But I understand, we both do different things, differently

For the record though, it isn't a claim when it is the truth, it is called fact. What, you think I am just spewing it because I want to convince you of it? Nope, I don't have an agenda like that. I like win7, and whether you like it or not, and whether you think it is better or not really is not my concern.

Rather, I am giving my input on what I see from using it. It is neither good nor bad, but fact. It is slower on all hardware I have tried it on (which I am positive you would agree to if you had my hardware). So, that is fact (without my hardware, there is no way to prove otherwise, even if your hardware makes it faster than XP for you). As for it being slower in other realms, it is maybe not easy to say slower or faster overall. As you suggest, some features make it faster (that is, some are faster, others are at least not slower) for specific actions, other features make it slower.

A point of example would be that using Explorer, you cannot turn off "full row select" without a reg tweak that is not exactly "documented", and further it does not apply to every directory, like libraries, and it periodically gets borked and you must merge the registry fix again. From a speed perspective, I can no longer drag/drop or highlight in a quick way as I must "seek" out a "blank" area rather than simply be in a column other than the name column. Again, this is not my imagination, but fact. For me, something so little as that is really quite a bother as I use explorer far more than any other application.

It is the myriad of small things like this that I call a step backward. Learning where the add/remove programs is located in the new control panel is not a big deal, as things change. I don't care really where they put it. Even though it requires a few more clicks to get there (thus slower), one does not uninstall something constantly. But other things (as the "full row select" example) do make a difference.

I guess the only thing that really matters is that we both prefer it over the other versions?

Sul.

 

I'm not upgrading (especially not spending money) for useless eye candy, although there are some good new features. Oh well.

I wonder how many XP diehards still want to upgrade to this.

 

I hope you already reported all your problems to Microsoft using the proper channels, lol.

Give them some feedback, sometimes they listen (speaking from personal experience).

 

This is me on Windows 8.

If someone can tell me how this is horrible unbearable please do.

The only time you see a noticeable difference is when you use your start menu, which is now fullscreen.

 

Also keep in mind that this isn't even in beta yet. This is a developer version and MS has already (even in the first post) stated that things will likely change - though the overall theme will likely still be the same.

 

Well, the problem isn't that things don't work. I mean, they do work, and overall fewer problems than with XP, although XP wasn't that bad either for the most part.

The problem lies elsewhere. By turning off services and preferences (and lots and lots of tweaks), I can get my hdd and network to be almost as much as XP, but not quite. I have to live with that although it should be faster IMO. Also, how do you go about convincing microsoft that they are idiots for things like not being able to turn off full row select? They have some sort of plan as to what is supposed to be "better" for the next version, I am sure it has been "well thought out". But it isn't broke, it is just not as efficient as it used to be.

I am not against change, if it is for the better. But I am against stupidity, where you redesign things to look pretty but lose efficiency. It doesn't seem like they really care much about such things, more like they want to clone a mac or make some sort of interface that is more about aesthetics.

Don't get me wrong about all of this. I am not saying 7 sucks. I am just saying there are a lot of things I think were not thought out fully and they do impact productivity, and I know it isn't just me that notices these things, others have mentioned it as well. Some people might not have used things in the same way, and don't understand what I am talking about, which is fine.

As I said, if win8 does the same sort of thing, they can keep it. I have tweaked win7 pretty heavily to make it "faster" for how I use it when much of it was already "fast" in previous versions. I am just saying, why totally change such things...

Sul.

 

I really need to try Win8 on my old netbook. It ran Win7 alright but not super well.

 

You just stated it on the second sentence.