Windows 8

[MahrinSkel]

Well, I would have gone nuts, but I discovered the "Power User Menu" while trying to figure out how to bring up the control panel: Winkey+X, or right-click the otherwise useless "Start" button replacement.  At least that puts most of the hardware-related menus available without hunting through 16 different screens.

With an SSD and a good CPU, Windows 8.1 is not terrible as an OS for most purposes, except for all the stupid gesture stuff that's impossible to do properly with a trackpad.  Now, if I could only figure out how to get it to stop bringing up that stupid "Charms" menu every time I sweep from the right edge of the trackpad.

--Dave

[Yegolev]

Well, since now everything in the GUI for configuration (with like 2 or 3 exceptions across the whole OS) is just a graphical wrapper that runs PowerShell commands in the background it makes sense.

If this is true, I have a reason to get W9 eventually.

[Chimpy]

Well, I would have gone nuts, but I discovered the "Power User Menu" while trying to figure out how to bring up the control panel: Winkey+X, or right-click the otherwise useless "Start" button replacement.  At least that puts most of the hardware-related menus available without hunting through 16 different screens.

--Dave

If you right click on the start button it brings up that menu.

[Phildo]

Winkey+C brings up the amusingly named Charm menu on the right.  There's a Settings option.  Control Panel is in Settings.

[Numtini]

I don't remember where, but I seem to remember finding someplace to turn off the Charms menu.

[Hammond]

I just end up dragging the shortcut for the control panel to the desktop. As far as charms I used this walk through the one time I turned it off.

http://www.askvg.com/how-to-disable-hot-corners-charms-bar-and-app-switch-list-in-windows-8-1/

[MahrinSkel]

I don't remember where, but I seem to remember finding someplace to turn off the Charms menu.

I spent a couple of hours on this.  It's supposed to be in my touchpad settings, but it's not there.  I've tried various registry hacks, no luck.

--Dave

[calapine]

Some Windows 9 screenshots got "leaked" to various PC tech sites. Not all too interesting, but there is a glimpse of the new start menu.

[HaemishM]

The sooner they kill that "big blocks of primary colors with an icon on it" design ethos, the better IMO.

[KallDrexx]

Two videos of the new start menu.  I don't think it looks too bad, and you can have zero metro-ness in them if you want

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--wgAsHWNRE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4eDVlRvws0

[Morat20]

The sooner they kill that "big blocks of primary colors with an icon on it" design ethos, the better IMO.

Seriously, why is it taking up so much real estate on a PC? I'm not using my fat fingers to poke the screen -- I'm using a mouse.

Now, if Windows 9 is smart enough to switch to fat-finger friendly giant icon/buttons mode when you've got a tablet or are working with a touch screen directly, that's one thing. But there's no reason whatsoever to make desktop and laptop users WITHOUT a touch screen deal with that.

[Father mike]

Microsoft's internal metrics show that folks HATE it when they change interfaces.   So they are betting that the converse is true: if they can unify the PC/phone/tablet interface, folks will love it.  This will finally get them the traction they've been missing in the phone/tablet space.

Glaring Problem:  no one wants to use a phone interface on a PC.

[Lantyssa]

Statistics Problem:  Correlation is not Causation.  People hate when MS changes the interface because a) people hate change, b) detest change for change's sake, and c) MS usually makes the interface worse.

[Goreschach]

The sooner they kill that "big blocks of primary colors with an icon on it" design ethos, the better IMO.

I don't see anything wrong with it, since it's customizable and you can shrink the icons down. You should be able to empty it out, or just use it like a second taskbar.

[Hawkbit]

The sooner they kill that "big blocks of primary colors with an icon on it" design ethos, the better IMO.

I don't see anything wrong with it, since it's customizable and you can shrink the icons down. You should be able to empty it out, or just use it like a second taskbar.

Yep.  I actually like the skype icon size.  I can see myself putting a whole series of most used programs into the smallest sized icons. 

[Paelos]

Statistics Problem:  Correlation is not Causation.  People hate when MS changes the interface because a) people hate change, b) detest change for change's sake, and c) MS usually makes the interface worse.

It's mostly B for me more than anything. MS is just making changes because they have to sell more shit. It's not because the previous iterations are less functional, or the new iteration is more functional. It's an obvious cash-grab and we all know it.

[KallDrexx]

Statistics Problem:  Correlation is not Causation.  People hate when MS changes the interface because a) people hate change, b) detest change for change's sake, and c) MS usually makes the interface worse.

It's mostly B for me more than anything. MS is just making changes because they have to sell more shit. It's not because the previous iterations are less functional, or the new iteration is more functional. It's an obvious cash-grab and we all know it.

It has nothing to do with being a cash grab, and more that Steve Ballmer (and the people he had in charge of Windows) got totally freaked out by the iPad and reacted extremely poorly to trying to keep windows relevant.  Which is ironic since so far this year pc sales are up and tablet sales are down, so if they just proceeded sanely and executed on what Windows 9 is doing (Metro being full screen optional, current users can still stick with what's familiar to them, start menu that slowly transitions users into metro items slowly, tablets still getting full screen start menu, etc..) they actually would have been a lot better off and not nearly as hated.

[HaemishM]

The sooner they kill that "big blocks of primary colors with an icon on it" design ethos, the better IMO.

I don't see anything wrong with it, since it's customizable and you can shrink the icons down. You should be able to empty it out, or just use it like a second taskbar.

Yep.  I actually like the skype icon size.  I can see myself putting a whole series of most used programs into the smallest sized icons. 

I'm fine with their functionality, I just hate them as a graphic designer. Little too hipster douche for me.

[calapine]

The sooner they kill that "big blocks of primary colors with an icon on it" design ethos, the better IMO.

I don't see anything wrong with it, since it's customizable and you can shrink the icons down. You should be able to empty it out, or just use it like a second taskbar.

Yep.  I actually like the skype icon size.  I can see myself putting a whole series of most used programs into the smallest sized icons.  

I'm fine with their functionality, I just hate them as a graphic designer. Little too hipster douche for me.

I'd like to point out this very much an "optimal" picture. Imagine that screenshot with a bunch of icons that weren't designed for Metro; desktop icons being blown up to 256x256 pixels. That will look so ugly...

Personally I am not married to the start menu. I WANT progress in the field of GUI. But the Modern UI startscreen was a step backward for anyone who isn't a tablet user. MS tried to push it through, now they relented and we are basically back to something that was introduced with  Windows 95 - ie. 19 years ago. This is so sad. I wish MS would have some threatening competition in the OS field. Something to make them get their act together :(

[Ingmar]

Win8 doesn't blow non-MS icons up to fill the entire box, so I doubt Win9 will suddenly start doing that. They look fine in 8 and 9 appears to be using the exact same method.

[Rendakor]

There's no way Microsoft would actively make something worse in a new OS.

[MrHat]

Personally I am not married to the start menu. I WANT progress in the field of GUI. But the Modern UI startscreen was a step backward for anyone who isn't a tablet user. MS tried to push it through, now they relented and we are basically back to something that was introduced with  Windows 95 - ie. 19 years ago. This is so sad. I wish MS would have some threatening competition in the OS field. Something to make them get their act together :(

As mentioned previously, it's REALLY hard to get people to accept a new GUI input scheme using the same input hardware they've been using.

You have to develop new hardware to get people to accept new ways to interact with a GUI (biggest recent example: multitouch iphone).  Touch had been around for decades, but it took the right hardware package to get people to use it.  Upcoming, it seems a lot of hardware research is being pumped into iterations of touch/gesture systems using capacitance and camera detection, but really the future is pointing more towards AR/VR which, if accepted as reasonably affordable and usable, will open up a lot of novel GUI interactions for business applications.

Basically, you're right in saying there's really no point in developing a non-pointer GUI for the 30+ year old desktop metaphor WIMP systems, that have always been designed with pointers in mind.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Just add new window dressing and sell sell sell.

[Merusk]

I still don't see average people adopting AR/ VR until there's good holography tech. Telling people to wear a device is always a step too far, especially if its tethered.  We enjoy our ability to turn around and talk to people without things in the way.

The only other possibility is if the central office model dies. I don't see that happening any time soon, either. Maybe remote users, but that's a tech world thing.  Business owners still want to play feudal lord and have a group of people they can be important around.

[Goreschach]

The central office model will die the day after people stop slacking off the minute nobody is watching them.

[Merusk]

The central office model will die the day after people stop slacking off the minute nobody is watching them.

That's my position too, but tech sector folks seem to feel otherwise.

[Krakrok]

I found a screenshot from Windows 10.

[NowhereMan]

The central office model will die the day after people stop slacking off the minute nobody is watching them.

Even if people stop slacking off it won't die until business owners find some way to make themselves feel sure it's not happening. Maybe if employees consent to webcam monitoring during their work hours at home...

Welcome to the Panopticon

[Rendakor]

So, Microsoft is skipping 9 and just making Windows 10. Does that mean this one will suck too, and that the good one got skipped?

[Trippy]

The likely reason they skipped 9 is that too many programs were checking for Windows 95/98 by matching on the version substring "Windows 9" instead of "Windows 95" or "Windows 98".

[Chimpy]

They should have just gone straight to 11.

[Miasma]

The likely reason they skipped 9 is that too many programs were checking for Windows 95/98 by matching on the version substring "Windows 9" instead of "Windows 95" or "Windows 98".

Years ago I wrote an embarrasing bug similar to that.  I was checking for a minimum version of Internet Explorer, anything less than six was told to upgrade.  So that code sat around for over five years and was forgotten about.  Then IE 10 comes out and people are told their brand new version is too old, upgrade.  Turns out I was doing some idiotic substring where I assumed the number would only be one digit so my code essentially thought IE 10 was IE 1, which is less than six, and rejected them.

[Merusk]

We've got a laptop running the tech demo of 10 at the office.  It's pretty nice so far, but I haven't tried running any of my programs on it.  We've just been messing with files, browsers (Chrome works) and such.

[Rendakor]

On a scale of 1 to 8 () how ugly is the Start menu? Are you allowed to post screenshots or ?

[Merusk]

It's not terrible, but I haven't played with it more than 5-10 mins.  I don't know about screens, I'll ask when I'm back in the office tomorrow. It's more than likely a no.

[ajax34i]

If that start menu is the only change compared to 8.1 then they should call it 8.2, not fucking 10. 

Even 8 is just 7 with RT (touch screen crap) tacked on and better UEFI support, not much else.  Thankfully, though, they called it 8 rather than 7.1, which would have made it almost impossible to continue buying Windows 7 systems while Microsoft cycles through this shit.