Thread: Windows 8 - I've got it, but I don't get it

I believe this is why other tablet providers have built a touch-screen version of the operating system- Using a tablet and using a desktop computer are completely different environments.

Intuitive isn't the word- it's affordance; the similarity between how an object is perceived to be used compared to how it is actually used. (Affordance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

It's Window 8, by the way. The Metro interface doesn't believe in multitasking so the 's' on the end of Windows is undeserved.

Install Classic Shell as this'll get you back the start menu. (you can disable 'smart corners' to get rid of that stupid 'charms bar' that pops up, too), skip the Metro screen and get straight into explorer, get rid of all references to 'Apps' and much more!

I only upgraded as the slow file transfer in 8 was really annoying me, and I used the 'Activate with free media player key' trick to upgrade for nix.

So I'm just callng it Service Pack 2 for Windows 7.

(You'll be happy to know that the sales volume so far for 8 is less than the equivalent time period for Vista, so it seems it's just MS's usual good-bad-good-bad release pattern)

I think Win 8 is just Microsoft wanting it's own app shop so it, like Apple, can get a percentage of every software sale!

Win 8 is for those kids that play with their phone all the time. They are not playing with PC's no more.
All the games and everything else is all on their phone/Apps.

Maybe they are hoping to win a few kids back to PC's with Win 8.

Yep, If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I've got many machines and they all run XP.
I was given a vista machine by a friend who upgraded but can't bring myself to use it.

I might (small might) go to windows 7 sometime.

7 is good, on par with XP and much better than Vista.

Like you, I tried Windows 8 before release. I tried to like it, I really did. I should add that I'm an enthusiastic early adopter, always up to trying out the latest and greatest. However, for the kind of day-to-day tasks associated with a conventional desktop machine (as opposed to a tablet), I just found Windows 8 completely counter-intuitive in every way.

Windows 7 (which I run on two machines in the house) is user-friendly, stable, fast (especially from an SSD) - what's not to like?

With Windows 8, Microsoft is expecting people to put a lot of effort into "relearning" the way they use an operating system. That's all fine and dandy, but the end result after doing this has to be increased productivity, or a better user experience to justify the effort of changing. Ultimately Windows 8 just doesn't seem to deliver these benefits.

The very slow take up of Windows 8 suggests that many others have also worked this out....

Work has given me a slate/laptop with detachable keyboard and tablet screen, running windows 8. it has taken me a couple of weeks together used to, but I'm liking it now as much as W7, and in tablet mode, I'm finding it easier to use than an iPad (having a dedicated Wacom-style pen also helps for drawing/ annotation too), and I am finding I am doing W8 specific swipes on the iPad, because they make more sense to me. Oh, and all the old keyboard shortcuts work fine on W8.

Wot Master Splinter said. If I want a tablet interface, I'll use my tablet.

I saw my IT neighbour using it & mentioned the carp interface, he quickly pulled up something like to old Windows interface, so it might become useable.

MS also seems to have missed the boat with the release of their new tablet, the first release is a cut down version using a stunted version of Win8 & Orrifice that can only run special versions of applications, the fully capable version is not due out for months. Strangely people aren't buying it.

Exactly. Microsoft has maybe forgotten that a lot of people use a desktop machine for actual work, as opposed to playing around on Facetube, YouBook, or whatever it's called....

What will be interesting is when the people who buy new laptop/desktop machines with Windows 8 pre-installed decide they'd like to go back to Windows 7 which they knew how to use. Lots of threads out there on computer tech sites about how to make Windows 8 look and behave like Windows 7, which is surely proof that MS has misread the market.

I'm running Win8 on this thing, and actually have no trouble with it at all.

(Thanks Classic Shell!)

I do not stumble into that metro carp, unless by accident or to make some adjustments only accessible through it. I have left the bottom right and top left hot corners in place, as they're needed to get into and out of metro properly.

The old lappy was running Vista, which unlike it's first incarnation, SP2 is very, very good. Practically an XP/Win7 hybrid. Fast, stable and a very light resource footprint. Pity it took them how many years to build Vista into something really good...

The big box runs Win7, and has done so with the first release of the 'proper' Win7. December just after it came out I think. Was scrabbling for drivers at that time, but now it's all ok. A bit of a learning curve, made easier by updates to Vista I was dealing with every day.

After a month or so with Win8, here's what I've found.

Under the bonnet, it's Win7/Vista. Pretty much any tweak that works in Win7 holds true for Win8.

Metro sucks on a real puter, would be awesome with a touchscreen or tablet. But while the interface sucks, the rest of it makes a heck of a lot of sense on a battery powered implement. Apparently this lappy gets 4 hours on it's battery on 7, maybe 5 if you turn everything off. Yesterday I was playing around on battery, nothing turned off and was seeing time estimates well into 6 hours.

But, I've got horsepower out the wazoo on this thing and I like the Aero interface. If MS can admit they made a mistake trying to force folks into some little touch-screen box and let us have some kind of eye candy when we use our computer "as a &^%^& computer" then I'll be quite happy with Win8 as an OS.

(I mean really, the CPU idles at 1%, ram is at 14% at idle with stuff running. Silly thing has 4 cores and 16G of ram, I don't mind actually using some of that when it's plugged in if it makes things more attractive...)

Also, it seems to be faster, more stable and very much a more polished evolution of Win7 in all aspects.

(Gotta love 11 seconds from switch on to Google.com too. Maybe that's because this computer has as much horsepower as can be crammed into a 'laptop', but even so, danged fast all round.)

Only real gripes are that I cannot get the scanner to work, but it's nearly 10 years old and Win7 doesn't support it, even with compatibility mode. Old Vista lappy does though.

Real bonus for me is that I've got this laptop with an in country warranty, and was able to, without too much trouble, to completely switch the language from Japanese to English. I can also do that with XP and Vista, but it's messy and Win7 wouldn't allow it. That was the biggest selling point for me personally.

(That, and the internet mob covered half the cost of this monster with a 2 year contract to their service. No extra cost for us over the old interweb service, much faster and a new computer to sweeten the deal. Throw in a $15 changeover to Win8, I'd have been nuts to let the opportunity slip by!)

Anyway, that's about it. I'm happy, Win8 works quite well and that's that. As supplied it's hobbled, but it's easy enough to fix.

Stu.

Originally Posted by Schtoo

I'm running Win8 on this thing, and actually have no trouble with it at all.

(Thanks Classic Shell!)

Well that's not true is it , having no trouble I mean, Otherwise why install a third party application to make it useable

Originally Posted by Schtoo

Under the bonnet, it's Win7/Vista. Pretty much any tweak that works in Win7 holds true for Win8.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Schtoo

Metro sucks on a real puter, would be awesome with a touchscreen or tablet. But while the interface sucks, the rest of it makes a heck of a lot of sense on a battery powered implement. Apparently this lappy gets 4 hours on it's battery on 7, maybe 5 if you turn everything off. Yesterday I was playing around on battery, nothing turned off and was seeing time estimates well into 6 hours.

There's still an awful lot of desktops and laptops out there without touch screens

Originally Posted by Schtoo

If MS can admit they made a mistake trying to force folks into some little touch-screen box and let us have some kind of eye candy when we use our computer "as a &^%^& computer" then I'll be quite happy with Win8 as an OS.

So you're not all that happy with it then?

Originally Posted by Schtoo

Also, it seems to be faster, more stable and very much a more polished evolution of Win7 in all aspects.

(Gotta love 11 seconds from switch on to Google.com too. Maybe that's because this computer has as much horsepower as can be crammed into a 'laptop', but even so, danged fast all round.)

Yes agreed. some basic benchmarking I have done would seem to suggest a 10% improvement

Originally Posted by Schtoo

Only real gripes are that I cannot get the scanner to work, but it's nearly 10 years old and Win7 doesn't support it, even with compatibility mode. Old Vista lappy does though.

Always to be expected with a new OS release and old hardware

Originally Posted by Schtoo

As supplied it's hobbled

I think this is where I came in.

Originally Posted by Schtoo

but it's easy enough to fix.

Maybe it is, but it will be interesting to see if, down the track, a MS Update trips over this third party "fix", and in any event there's something fundamentally wrong with having to modify a newly purchased item to make it "fit for purpose" don't you think?


Ian

I don't see why people rush and buy the latest OS for the sake of it - I work on the theory that if it isn't broke don't fix it.
I was quite happy with 95, only upgraded because I built a P4 box and 95 won't run P4 so I upgraded to Win2k.
Ran 2k for about 5 years only upgraded to (a bootleg version of) XP when I needed google sketchup for a teaching prac.
Upgraded to 7 last year because I wanted more than 3.2gig of ram, it's a legit copy and will do me fine until it gets that old I have hardware compatability issues.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Oh and weren't they saying that Win8 was designed primarily for the mobile PC rather than the desktop?

Originally Posted by Ian Smith

Folks, as the header says.

I've been puddling around PC's ever since they were invented and, whilst I'm no expert, I can usually find my way about.
I've never ventured into Linux or Mac territory so it's been a strictly Microsoft experience and I've been through all the versions of DOS and Windows and, with the exception of Windows ME and Vista, I'd have to say it's been a reasonably smooth ride...until now.


I downloaded a preview version of Windows 8 some time ago, and after I got over usual "where's the bloody Start button" reaction, the interface became usable, but I figured this was just a preview and things might improve. I understand that MS is trying to consolidate it's interfaces and wants to make it common to all technologies but I don't, nor have ever, used have a smart phone or a tablet, and touchscreens are not something I'm used to, although I guess they are the coming thing.


A friend called me recently all excited about his recently purchased upgrade to Windows 8. Now this bloke is not a techie by any stretch and, in his own words, he "was just getting used to Windows 7".
My response to him was : "Mate, trust me, you won't like it. Put it away for a while and we'll see how it all goes".


I now have my own copy of the real thing and I still just don't get it !!


Everything seems harder, less intuitive. The word "intuitive" is probably not accurate except in the sense of the traditional MS interface.

You might recall a Star Trek movie, the one where they went back in time to the 20th century to capture a whale. I still smile when I recall the scene where Scotty was trying to get a computer to respond to him and he picks up the mouse and speaks into it.."Computer!!" (in a scots accent)


I must admit to feeling a lot like Scotty at this moment.


Ian

I'll try and explain Windows 8 in a way that doesn't result in an essay being written.

Developers are the reason why you're in this weird place, in that since 2007 the notion of energising the developer & designers to work with one another on a UX solution has been the holy grail. There was a ton of energy/money invested in making the two parties work with one another in order to produce beautiful designed solutions for consumers, enterprise etc. In reality it didn't take, at best there were around 1million+ folks who adopted XAML (UX Platform inside Windows) and they really didn't make a loud enough noise to attract others.

Now when Windows Vista was launched it failed, mainly in around getting OEM driver makers enough time to reach parity with the release itself - that and the whole hardware legacy issue was a painful and obvious sign of why Windows XP would retain its position. As such it fumbled along for some time until Steve Sinofksy (VP) was given the charter to fix Windows Vista. That's how you got Windows 7, but the only reason you got Windows 7 was because Microsoft had to release an OS within a 3yr time frame or face more concerned looks as it faced with Windows Vista (after 2 code resets and 5yrs later + stock price plummeting).

Anyway, Windows 7 got its moment in the sun given it was pretty much the same as Windows Vista (in fact not a lot of hardcore changes were made and its technically Windows 6.5 ..Vista was Windows 6.0) it did however reset the market expectations whilst at the same time gave Microsoft a much bigger stick to hit Enterprise over the head with in terms of forced adoption (ie each company that gets enterprise agreements with Microsoft - cheaper prices - has to agree to upgrade each release in return for smaller price tags. Windows vista got ignored which Microsoft forgave, but with Windows 7 they pretty much loaded the gun and said upgrade or else) this in turn created a boost in number of units installed world wide - and the on flow was consumer adoption etc.

So Windows 7 was a success - meanwhile - back in the developer division in Microsoft, products like Silverlight/WPF weren't getting the numbers they needed in adoption. Furthermore Silverlight went from being a "web browser plugin" that worked on Mac/Linux/PC and started to now become a Desktop Client solution that also worked on alternative platforms - ie Windows developers didn't need to just target windows anymore, they could go broader. This in turn presented an opportunity for Windows team to "knife the baby" (ie get rid of these distractions and reset the developer/designer story again - for the 3rd time). In order to attract this type of crowd the company had to come up with a way to make it easier for both design & developers to work together whilst at the same time prevent / firewall situations like Silverlight from ever happening again.

While they were thinking on that, Apple & Google began to bleed the company in around the developer/designer share, given the reason you would buy a phone/tablet/device these days is for apps it makes sense to act quickly to stop that from happening.

In a degree of somewhat panic, the company took Silverlight and moved it onto Windows Phone 7 and used that as its UX platform for the way you paint pixels on screen so to speak.

So now Microsoft are stuck with Silverlight given its on the freaking phone as well ... enter Windows Team with Metro, the idea now is to extract the Intellectual Property from Silverlight and move it over to the Windows 8 code base, whereby it will act as the rendering engine for any / all XAML work that needs to occur within the Operating System. This will then help continue the story around Windows Phone 7+ and Windows 8 but at the same time negates the need for Silverlight to become a plugin but instead now becomes an operating system level solution - which wins developer/designer hearts & minds...yay!

Problem is they didn't explain that very well and to this day its a tyre fire of misery to what developers should and shouldn't do.

Now back to Windows RT Metro vs Windows Surface Pro.

The idea next was to strip Windows down to a min level of needs, by using ARM chips to help keep a tight reign over battery vs performance in a tablet solution whilst lowering the cost. They opted for an ARM vs Intel chip on the first tablet to solve that need - the catch though - was they couldn't let you install your normal solutions onto the RT tablet because people who made it compiled with x86/x64 as a target platform. This presented a further problem given they needed to also come up with a solution to also remove .NET itself onto ARM (basically cut down version remade).

That kind of worked from a technical developer/designer need standpoint. The problem however is that they needed to show what they were thinking here in a way that would stimulate / kickstart a market. Enter the Surface tablet itself, in that they needed to produce one to jump start a space that typically has a 1-2 year latency in making happen - by creating the tablet itself it put enough fear and uncertainty into places like HP, ASUS, DELL, Samsung etc into rushing their production schedules forward in order to compete with the tablet(s). Problem is they weren't interested in ARM, given it meant a whole logistics swap out that they simply couldn't absorb on an untested product - so - they went Intel thus you have a heavier / more expensive alternative today in most stores.

Microsoft then also has to consider the Intel issue in that to turn their backs on the enterprise companies world wide who are still starving for a tablet solution, they in turn pushed the Surface Pro ahead of schedule and as of two weeks ago (fumbled the crap out of it) released it to the world. This in turn will get them a ticket into enterprise where most tablets have not yet gone (apple has some moderate success but still lacking enterprise maturity).

So yes... Windows 8 is confusing... but you're only touching the UI surface of that iceberg (ok i had analogy going but it failed).

P.S
I should disclose I used to be a Product Manager of .NET in Seattle back in the day.

So.."It's Windows Jim ..but not as we know it"

Mossyblog, I'm so glad you fessed up to being heavily involved. I haven't seen so much tech speak, jargon, and acronyms in a single article since I left IBM
An interesting read, but that's the "how' and the 'why" of it all.
At the end of the day, I reckon the "what" remains a bit of a mystery to the average punter.

Ian

Originally Posted by mossyblog

So yes... Windows 8 is confusing...

So it satisfies the wanking needs of MS Windows developers and designers but its confusing state does not satisfy the average computer user.

A further reason to distrust Microsoft and not to upgrade but stick to my Windows XP.


Peter.