Windows 8 will Fail Part 2 - Casualties of War

Renzatic said:

Just keep in mind that you are gonna hate it for about the first week. I know I did.

...but if you stick with it, you can navigate it faster than old Windows. Remember, left-clicking on the bottom left corner takes you to the start screen, right-clicking brings up this super handy thing...

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You never have to go to the Metro control panel unless you're changing the background and color of the start screen, or want to wipe Windows and start factory default. This confuses whole loads of people who think everything's been split between it and the old control panel. It really hasn't, though both do overlap in some places. Remember, desktop: old control panel. Metro stuff: new control panel (this is one of my main criticisms of Win8, by the way).

Lastly and most importantly, shutting down and restarting can be done quickly by bringing up the charms menu, hitting the settings gear icon, and hitting the little power button at the bottom of the screen. Yeah, this should be right up front on the start page. But it's not. Cuz someone at MS is dumb.

This should hopefully answer all the confusing crap you're bound to have questions about at first.

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Windows key + X is easier imo to get that menu to come up, but thats a good tip. If you need an app you can just do windows key + Q and type it in/press enter and its loading before you know it.

Ive used windows 8 since launch, bought a Lumia 920 and am very impressed with Microsoft's new take on the OS. This is coming from someone who though the OS would be total **** a few weeks ago.

MonkeySee.... said:

How is that more convenient than launching from the taskbar??

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Not sure. (not a native English speaker here) is your taskbar what is the dock in OSX the bar at the bottom (for example) of the desktop? Because I'd prefer the Launchpad style = Start screen. Keeps the task bar as clean as possible and gives me a better and bigger overview over programs and such.



And yes, I've to admit searching for the power off button for quite some time.


The only really uncool thing is the keyboard though. I love the Apple one, which is a pita for windows in general. Especially if one switches between the OSs. At least for me it is.

The only issue I've run into so far is the start screen can lag while running 2 IDE's, a few VM's, and my "normal apps". I run out of memory, and then it takes a second of disk thrashing to load the start screen, and then another few seconds for any tiles to appear on it.

With Windows 7, the start menu would never need that much disk thrashing to appear. Of course I could also upgrade my PC to more than 4gb's of RAM...

All in all, I think the Windows 8 experience is quite positive.

MonkeySee.... said:

The start menu is **** and a mess. Its absolutely pointless. I have my programmes I need in the Task bar to avoid the start menu at all costs.

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I use it as a place to stuff all the programs I access occasionally, but don't want to crowd my taskbar with. For that, it's great. I think it's easier than the old start menu, which only let you pin so many icons to it, wouldn't let you pin anything you wanted to, and wouldn't let you organize it beyond basic top to bottom ordering.

Launch IE as a default browser and when its launched you can't get windows to alt+tab on. It only works with tabs because that's how it would work on a tablet.

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You made me set IE to default, so you better appreciate this , but...

I launched Metro IE and hit alt+tab, and could cycle through all my programs, metro or regular desktop. Maybe that was a problem during the beta or something.

Don't get me wrong, the rest of it is really nice. The start menu isn't.

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Eh, I can think of a ton of reasons why some people wouldn't like it. It's all a matter of opinion, but I'm since I'm here to argue...

Renzatic said:

I launched Metro IE and hit alt+tab, and could cycle through all my programs, metro or regular desktop. Maybe that was a problem during the beta or something.

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I want to Alt+tab through IE windows not apps, which you can't do with the default browser from the start menu

I know its nothing major but its little things like this where they have slipped up.

Renzatic said:

Nope. The web apps would be the ones you access through a browser. The tiles you see on the start screen are the metro versions, and I find them a little lacking in comparison.

Right now I'd even argue that the iOS rev of Skydrive is better than the one on Windows 8. I use Skydrive on my iPad quite a bit, and think it's great. The W8 version is nicer looking, but it feels a little too crowded, and doesn't give you as much information.

edit: I'll give you a nice example.

This is Metro Skydrive. Nice in a minimalistic sorta way, but also lacking because of it.

The Skydrive Web App, which is about what I think the Metro version should look like.

And the iOS version, which is very Appleish and iOS in style.

If all you want to do is view your files, then the Metro version is arguably the best. For everything else, it falls short. It doesn't give you nearly enough options. It's all style, no substance.

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Look how much better the web app looks. Information and the UI flows from top to bottom instead of from left to right like in Windows 8.

Also that functionality! New folder, upload, folder actions and create buttons always there.

Folders are live tiles and animate if you have pictures in them, they also display the number of files contained in them, right on the folder. And if you switch to detailed list view, you get folder sizes.

That side bar, on the right can display extra information on files and can be hidden away when not needed.

SkyDrive is fantastic for pictures. The thumbnail view is awesome and very clean, and the viewer is great too, you get EXIF info, etc... and can also centre and enlarge images. One downside is that animated GIFs don't actually play, there is no animation, unless you open the file through a direct link.

Overall, SkyDrive is like Windows Explorer, maybe even more powerful. It's awesome! I'd probably migrate to it, had it had as much of a support from third parties as Dropbox does.

As I mentioned before, I actually like Metro and the Ribbon UI in these web apps, which means that this UI style CAN be executed well.

The iOS app is fantastic too on the iPhone and closely resembles the web app, functionality. The picture viewing experience is great there too.

Microsoft really needs to work on Windows 8's SkyDrive app, it's bad. The good news is that, it's not baked into the OS, that's what I like about Metro apps, they are modular and independent of the OS, so nothing is stopping Microsoft from updating the SkyDrive up and releasing it.

The desktop app needs a bit of work too, I want a selective sync functionality like with Dropbox, so I can select which folders to sync and which ones just to leave on the server... I don't want my porn stash downloaded, thank you very much!

MonkeySee.... said:

I want to Alt+tab through IE windows not apps, which you can't do with the default browser from the start menu

I know its nothing major but its little things like this where they have slipped up.

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Control + Tab works for going through tabs in IE. It doesn't work with Metro IE, which I agree is strange.

MonkeySee.... said:

I want to Alt+tab through IE windows not apps, which you can't do with the default browser from the start menu

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Oh that. Well hell. Yeah, you can only have one Metro IE window open at any given time.

Thing is, why would you be using Metro IE on a desktop? That's like punching yourself in the face cuz your nose itches. It's the one app that really does live up to the "it suck using with a keyboard and mouse" spiel. It's touch based all the way.

Renzatic said:

Oh that. Well hell. Yeah, you can only have one Metro IE window open at any given time.

Thing is, why would you be using Metro IE on a desktop? That's like punching yourself in the face cuz your nose itches. It's the one app that really does live up to the "it suck using with a keyboard and mouse" spiel. It's touch based all the way.

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Haha. Exactly. Which makes the start menu pointless on a desktop.

Vitruviux said:

I don't want my porn stash downloaded, thank you very much!

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...ehehehe.

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MonkeySee.... said:

Haha. Exactly. Which makes the start menu pointless on a desktop.

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Eh. Not really. Though the start screen preferring to launch the metro version of whichever browser you've got set to default does irk me a little bit. But since I hit Chrome up from the taskbar, it doesn't bother me that much.

I'm going to upgrade my old PC - which is now my Mum's - from Vista to 8 over the weekend.

To be honest, she only uses it for a few things, but Vista is just so painfully slow.

I'm hoping the £25 upgrade fee will just make the whole thing fly a lot faster.

Clean install or not?

JaySoul said:

I'm going to upgrade my old PC - which is now my Mum's - from Vista to 8 over the weekend.

To be honest, she only uses it for a few things, but Vista is just so painfully slow.

I'm hoping the £25 upgrade fee will just make the whole thing fly a lot faster.

Clean install or not?

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Always clean.

I don't mind Windows 8. Smooth, (suspiciously) bug free, great for both tablets and desktops. And the Start Screen is a nice touch as well, much better than the Start Menu of old which was just too small on larger monitors/resolutions.

I'll be sticking with Windows 7 until service pack 1 rolls out probably to allow them time to iron out compatibility problems, bugs and a few GUI inconsistencies.

I seriously don't understand the fuss about Windows 8 to be honest. Five minutes and I'd figured out the two interfaces and what to avoid clicking on when I'm on my PC.

Black Magic said:

I have it installed (Windows 8 Enterprise) on my work laptop. It's tolerable as long as you stay out of Metro. I'm hoping MS releases a service pack that provides an option to disable it and give you the start menu back. That would resolve the problem.

Metro is half baked. Heck, the sports app doesn't give you the option to follow NCAA teams. I unpinned most of the crap.

I will say this though, Windows 8 is stable and fast. No question.

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Completely agree.

roadbloc said:

I seriously don't understand the fuss about Windows 8 to be honest. Five minutes and I'd figured out the two interfaces and what to avoid clicking on when I'm on my PC.

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But that's the thing -- why should we have to remember to avoid clicking on certain things? There should at least be an option to disable and/or hide those things that don't work well on a desktop system, so we don't have to worry about avoiding them.

Night Spring said:

But that's the thing -- why should we have to remember to avoid clicking on certain things? There should at least be an option to disable and/or hide those things that don't work well on a desktop system, so we don't have to worry about avoiding them.

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Convincing argument. Fortunately, all except one thing (the charms bar) is avoidable whilst using the Explorer interface . There are a couple of stuff that annoyingly dumps you into the Metro interface, but hopefully continued updates will help separate the two interfaces without the need for options. Because as it stands, despite a few annoying things, I think Windows 8 works very well.

At the end of the day, all new OSs have differences that can be either positive or negative depending on perspective. Many people see Windows 8 as a radical change, but really, it isn't. It just has a nice GUI and app collection for tablets now, built into a fullscreen Start Menu. Remove the tablet apps and it is suddenly just a standard Windows PC with some nice new features.