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[JimH]

Rumored to bring the return of the "real" Start Menu.

http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-windows-8-plan-blue-bring-back-the-start-button-boot-to-desktop-7000014075/

[Matt]

I also saw this headline today: Windows 8 sells 100M licenses in six months.

Maybe they're on to something by removing a feature, then adding it back in the next version?  Let's remove Standard View in MC19 and bring it back in MC20

[sunfire7]

Hahaha

[glynor]

Rumored to bring the return of the "real" Start Menu.

Blue will return the Start Button, but not the Menu.  People assumed when they say the "Start Button" was to return, that it would activate something like the old Start Menu.  Mark my words: That Won't Happen With Blue.

Not that I mind.  One of my biggest problems with Windows 8 is all the hidden UI.  I'm glad they're bringing back the Start Button and I'm glad it doesn't point to a separate Start Menu (two UIs are not better than one).

I also saw this headline today: Windows 8 sells 100M licenses in six months.

I guess.

It is behind Windows 7, and a LOT of that seems to be from the initial super-low-price surge and holiday buying.  If you look at the details, 60 million of those licenses were sold in the first two months.  Then, it took another 4 months to sell 40 million more.  Plus, Microsoft reversed course in March on pricing and began discounting Windows 8 to "slate PC" makers.

And that is related to the most important thing to consider... The old maxim: shipped != sold.

Microsoft "sells" the vast majority of its licenses to OEMs.  A miniscule fraction of those licenses are to people like you and I (and, one would assume, most of the enthusiasts who were interested were part of that first 60 million while it was on sale).  They count a sale when Samsung, ASUS, Dell, or HP "buy" a license, which is when they put the thing in a box.  To Microsoft, that is a sale, regardless of what happens to it then.  If it ships to Best Buy, and sits on the shelves?  Yep, still a sale.  Even with Vista, Microsoft was later forced to buy back licenses from angry OEMs after systems didn't sell (remember the whole "buy Vista but downgrade it to XP thing?").  We haven't been playing the game long enough to see those impacts, and sales pace seems to have fallen off a cliff (but we have no hard month-by-month numbers to go on).

So... I don't know about you, but I walked around at the holidays and saw store shelves stuffed with Windows 8 laptops and other junk.  How many of those are still there, but still count as "sold"?

Also, as I predicted, they're rolling all the Windows RT sales numbers into overall Windows 8 sales numbers.  Anyone honestly think they wouldn't be shouting them to the high heavens if they were good?

We'll see.  As I said in the other thread, I don't think Windows 8 is terrible, or unsalvageable anyway, but... It has some serious issues and real competition now.  It is not, as some might have predicted (and I would say that I feared) a complete and unmitigated disaster.  But anti-Vista took a while to build, as "regular people" encountered it.  We'll see.  I'm not convinced they're out of the woods, and they certainly don't have a strong hit like Windows 7 on their hands.

[rjm]

I kept an open mind and tried the new Windows 8 u/i after I installed it but over the last 6 months I have used it zero times so I guess i don't like it or need it.

I installed the free Classic Start Menu and everything works perfectly just like before. I don't care what Microsoft does now.

[glynor]

I like the Metro Start Screen on my HTPC.  Works quite well there.

The charms bar is annoying.

I looked for a good Metro newsreader hoping for something good for that application and there was just a pile of trash in the store.

[astromo]

I kept an open mind and tried the new Windows 8 u/i after I installed it but over the last 6 months I have used it zero times so I guess i don't like it or need it.

I installed the free Classic Start Menu and everything works perfectly just like before. I don't care what Microsoft does now.

Agreed. I found this guide (one of many) on the net and picked and chose what I wanted:
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/software-and-web-apps/how-to-make-windows-8-look-like-windows-7-50009546/
Now Win 8 on my notebook (the HTPC where MC resides is still Win 7) looks and feels like it did before I changed.

Did a similar dinosaur-esque, Luddite manoeuvre with Office 2010 using a menu add in. One of the commentators in the opening link makes a statement that resonates with me:

Condecension is not a good way to get your point across

I can see the sense of the Win 8 GUI for tablet/phone devices but for a mouse driven desktop and those who are happy in their comfort zone, it's a source of frustration. Given that you can find a source of bolt on alternatives to take you back to the way it was, it should be even easier for Microsoft to offer the alternative as a configuration switch.

I personally don't respond well to jack boot tactics.

[rjm]

Nothing wrong with Luddites. They'll be proven right in few years when oil becomes unaffordable.

[astromo]

Nothing wrong with Luddites. They'll be proven right in few years when oil becomes unaffordable.

Good luck trying to pick peak oil:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicting_the_timing_of_peak_oil

Just in case, I commute to and from work on a bicycle. All set mate   

[6233638]

I also saw this headline today: Windows 8 sells 100M licenses in six months.

But all the tech blogs tell me that Windows 8 was a catastrophic failure for Microsoft!

It is behind Windows 7, and a LOT of that seems to be from the initial super-low-price surge and holiday buying.  If you look at the details, 60 million of those licenses were sold in the first two months.  Then, it took another 4 months to sell 40 million more.

To be fair though, there are a number of factors that may have influenced this, totally outside of whether the tech "press" hadn't all gone on for months about how terrible it is. (I actually like Windows 8 a lot more than 7)

The first issue is that they discounted the price for the first three months, and then returned to standard Windows pricing.
Apple on the other hand were cheaper than even the discounted Windows 8 upgrades, and that is their standard price for the OS. There are no segmented versions of OS X (other than the server - which is a $50 add-on) and all versions allow for full installs - there are no "upgrade" versions.

Secondly, people just aren't buying as many PCs as they were, with the shift towards tablets.

Thirdly, while Windows 8 was a clear upgrade for me in a number of ways, for most people it doesn't offer anything meaningful over Windows 7, and Microsoft tends to lack the fanaticism that Apple has, where people seem to buy anything they put out these days.

And fourthly, for most people, they have no reason to upgrade beyond any hardware that shipped with Windows 7 installed on it. There isn't much that has become any more demanding these days, so there is nothing to "force" an upgrade, like there used to be when laptops couldn't manage to play HD flash videos smoothly etc.

I kept an open mind and tried the new Windows 8 u/i after I installed it but over the last 6 months I have used it zero times so I guess i don't like it or need it.

I don't use Metro at all either - I bought Start 8 after giving it a shot before launch, and haven't touched it since. But Windows 8 still offers a lot of additions that I think made it a worthwhile upgrade - at least at the initial discounted price.

I also think a lot of people's complaints about Metro/Windows 8 are unfounded.

For example, a common complaint seems to be "but there are two control panels - where do I find anything!?"
The answer is that Metro settings are in the Metro control panel, and Desktop settings are in the Desktop control panel.
I've never had to look through the Metro control panel, because I don't use Metro.
And Windows Search (hit the Windows key and start typing) will take you to the relevant one, depending on what you are looking for.

I looked for a good Metro newsreader hoping for something good for that application and there was just a pile of trash in the store.

The only RSS reader I have really liked, is Reeder on OS X/iOS. And that's potentially dead now with Google killing their RSS service, which was used as the back-end for most modern RSS apps. (edit: looks like a presumably paid upgrade to Reeder 2.0 will change the service they're using)

Prior to that, I used Newsfire - which was once paid, went free, and now seems to be a paid app on the App Store again. (with no way to restore my old license it seems...)
The thing I liked about Newsfire was that it was fast, and worked very well as a "headline reader" - I would have it only show the headlines for articles, and it would then open them in my browser in the background, which was a very fast way of getting through feeds.
But I do prefer the presentation and featureset that Reeder offers.


I have never found an RSS reader that I've liked for Windows at all, whether that's for the desktop or Metro. The interface/design for all of them is universally terrible.
I had hoped that Metro might have revitalized the market on Windows, but it doesn't really seem to have brought anything worthwhile.
And Metro doesn't use subpixel font rendering so Metro apps are horrible to read a lot of text in anyway.

[kstuart]

Nothing wrong with Luddites. They'll be proven right in few years when oil becomes unaffordable.

There's a new huge oil discovery in the US rivaling the other huge ones of the past few years.

In a few years, North America could be self sufficient in oil production without alternatives or conservation.

I'm no fan of fossil fuels, but "Peak Oil" is one of those ideas that comes from reasoning from ideological assumptions...

[kstuart]

Quote: "Secondly, people just aren't buying as many PCs as they were, with the shift towards tablets."

I think this is a Media myth.

Anywhere I go - such as coffee houses like *bux, I see 90%+ laptops.  When people are not using laptops, they are using smartphones.   Some people own tablets, but they use them in specialized situations.   And the people who own them tend to be upper middle class - just like the Media people (shock).

I think that PC sales are down simply because the Recession made people continue to use their existing laptop, rather than buying a new one.  Any laptop of the last 10 years will work just fine for what most people do.

[mschneid]

How does the touch screen interface work on a laptop or a desktop for doing actual work.... not just navigating to some media that you want to see.
the WSJ guy Mossberg recomended waiting to the fall for touch screen availability and prices to match up for most upgrades....

Thoughts?

[jmone]

FYI - I purchased two Windows 8 Licences as there were cheap and even tried it one lic out on my Daughters Touch Notebook but due to lack of GPU drivers for "Minecraft" we rolled back to Win7.  So two lic purchased but non in use.  (PS I'm the type that thought Vista was a big improvement over XP!)

[glynor]

I own four licenses.

Only one is in use.  In the grand scheme of things, though, crazy people like us who buy copies of Windows are a tiny fraction of overall sales.

A much larger fraction is corporate PC sales, which come with Windows 8, but are then immediately re-imaged with Win7.  We do exactly that at my work, for sure.

[jmone]

...my "work" has 100,000 PCs still running on XP

[JimH]

How does the touch screen interface work on a laptop or a desktop for doing actual work.... not just navigating to some media that you want to see.
the WSJ guy Mossberg recomended waiting to the fall for touch screen availability and prices to match up for most upgrades....

In the past, Mossberg has been more of a Mac lover than PC.

Touch changes the way you work as much as adding a mouse did.  It replaces a mouse for many tasks.  For example, a button that appears on the screen.  You just reach up and push it.  No need to find and position the mouse.  Same for scrollbars if they are big enough.  Same for positioning in a document.

Another example...  JRiver recently added "flick" to image viewing.  Formerly, when you viewed a slide show, you could use the arrow keys to move to the next image.  Now, you can use a mouse to "grab" and "throw" the image off the screen so that the next one appears.  With a mouse, this is a little awkward.  With a touch screen, it's very comfortable.

One of my favorites with touch is "pinch to zoom".  If I can't read a web page, I just put two fingers down on the spot I want to see and move them apart.  The page zooms in.  This also makes it easy to accurately press a small link, like many of the links on this screen.  For a person with older eyes, it's like always having a magnifying glass handy.

I said to Matt yesterday that I think all notebooks will come with touch screens in a couple of years.  I think the heavy use of smart phones will accelerate this.  Once you're used to touch, I think anything else will seem awkward.

[syn-ack]

Quote: "Secondly, people just aren't buying as many PCs as they were, with the shift towards tablets."

I think this is a Media myth.

Anywhere I go - such as coffee houses like *bux, I see 90%+ laptops.  When people are not using laptops, they are using smartphones.   Some people own tablets, but they use them in specialized situations.   And the people who own them tend to be upper middle class - just like the Media people (shock).

I think that PC sales are down simply because the Recession made people continue to use their existing laptop, rather than buying a new one.  Any laptop of the last 10 years will work just fine for what most people do.

+1

I use my tablet at the pool to read e-books, casually listen to music, and perhaps check email... For just about any other place/function, I use my ThinkPad Laptop.

As well, I agree with your second point. People used to think when their PC got slow, they needed a new one... However, many have wised up, become more computer savvy, and realized a simple reload and they are back to where they need/want to be. As well, manufacturers have made restoring to factory default a cake walk. So, no need to buy new laptops every 2 or 3 years.

Over the past near 15 years, I have purchased for myself two laptops. a ThinkPad T20, and a ThinkPad T400s. I am not much of a gamer, so I need not the super-mega-crazy-high-powered laptops. So it took my T20 finally dying before I purchased my T400s, and it will take my T400s dying before I replace it.

[6233638]

One of my favorites with touch is "pinch to zoom".  If I can't read a web page, I just put two fingers down on the spot I want to see and move them apart.  The page zooms in.  This also makes it easy to accurately press a small link, like many of the links on this screen.  For a person with older eyes, it's like always having a magnifying glass handy.

I said to Matt yesterday that I think all notebooks will come with touch screens in a couple of years.  I think the heavy use of smart phones will accelerate this.  Once you're used to touch, I think anything else will seem awkward.

I'm still not convinced that touch works as well on desktops/notebooks as it does on tablets. I just don't find it comfortable to be using touch when the display is in a vertical position, and vastly prefer the multitouch trackpads that Apple are using in their notebooks to touchscreens.

I wouldn't mind having multitouch gestures on my desktop PC for certain tasks, but I don't like any of the hardware options available for either separate multitouch trackpads, or multitouch mice.

As well, I agree with your second point. People used to think when their PC got slow, they needed a new one... However, many have wised up, become more computer savvy, and realized a simple reload and they are back to where they need/want to be. So, no need to buy new laptops every 2 or 3 years.

Actually, having given it a little more thought, I think that SSDs have largely eliminated most people's problems. We have a couple of first-generation CoreDuo MacBooks here. They're on their last legs, but about a year ago we dropped an SSD in one of them. It's limited to SATA1 speeds, but it was a relatively inexpensive upgrade, and a lot of the time that machine feels faster than our 2011 MacBook Pro which has a hard drive in it.
Of course, try and do anything like editing photos, rather than browsing an iPhoto library, and you quickly see the difference the newer CPU makes.

I use my tablet at the pool to read e-books, casually listen to music, and perhaps check email... For just about any other place/function, I use my ThinkPad Laptop.

I ended up moving to a desktop PC plus tablet setup.

I was always frustrated with the performance of notebooks - having to upgrade them on a 12-18 month cycle, and disappointed with the battery life.
I built a desktop PC when the Intel Sandy Bridge processors were released, and haven't felt the need to upgrade yet. I might upgrade when Haswell comes out.
Even better, that desktop PC cost half of what I was spending on MacBook Pros every 12-18 months.

While I do find myself using the iPad a bit less these days (for maybe the first 6 months I used it a lot more than I do now) I generally prefer it as a mobile device, because it's actually portable, and I really do get around 10 hours use out of it, unlike a "6-8 hour" notebook that really only gives me 3-4 hours.

I'm not sure though, my next move might be towards a smartphone for most of the tasks that my iPad does now, and a convertible x86 tablet once Haswell is out. Depends what the battery life is like, and if the hardware design has improved. The thing is that Apple's notebooks are built significantly better than anything else I've found in the PC space, and they are unlikely to move to building convertible tablets.

[syn-ack]

Actually, having given it a little more thought, I think that SSDs have largely eliminated most people's problems. We have a couple of first-generation CoreDuo MacBooks here. They're on their last legs, but about a year ago we dropped an SSD in one of them. It's limited to SATA1 speeds, but it was a relatively inexpensive upgrade, and a lot of the time that machine feels faster than our 2011 MacBook Pro which has a hard drive in it.
Of course, try and do anything like editing photos, rather than browsing an iPhoto library, and you quickly see the difference the newer CPU makes.
I ended up moving to a desktop PC plus tablet setup.

I was always frustrated with the performance of notebooks - having to upgrade them on a 12-18 month cycle, and disappointed with the battery life.
I built a desktop PC when the Intel Sandy Bridge processors were released, and haven't felt the need to upgrade yet. I might upgrade when Haswell comes out.
Even better, that desktop PC cost half of what I was spending on MacBook Pros every 12-18 months.

I'm not sure about most home users, save gamers... But I think most use their PCs for web browsing, email, music and sometimes watching videos. None of those require anything newer than something 5 years old, SSD or not. As for editing photos, not sure what kind of files/sizes you are referring to, but I have no problem editing things, be they imported camera pics or high resolution scans, using my 5 year old spinning hard drive business geared laptop with integrated Intel video. De-screening takes a matter of a second, maybe two. Resizing, the same. So not sure what difference you are referring to.. Again though, my use is limited, but I believe so is the average home user.

[6233638]

I'm not sure about most home users, save gamers... But I think most use their PCs for web browsing, email, music and sometimes watching videos. None of those require anything newer than something 5 years old, SSD or not. As for editing photos, not sure what kind of files/sizes you are referring to, but I have no problem editing things, be they imported camera pics or high resolution scans, using my 5 year old spinning hard drive business geared laptop with integrated Intel video. De-screening takes a matter of a second, maybe two. Resizing, the same. So not sure what difference you are referring to.. Again though, my use is limited, but I believe so is the average home user.

Generally having an SSD just makes everything more responsive - remember that old machines are also limited in the amount of RAM they can use (I think 3GB was the maximum for those machines) and OSX doesn't quit applications when you close their windows, so you can easily end up paging to the disk, and the SSD makes a huge difference there.

I don't mean to say that an SSD is required or anything like that, just that an SSD can help improve the responsiveness of an older system beyond what a hardware upgrade might do if the new machine is still using a hard drive, so people have another option now rather than replacing the whole machine.
It's less common for notebooks to come without an SSD now, but for the things my family members use the machines for, the old 5+ year-old MacBook can feel quicker than the 2 year-old Pro until you start doing anything CPU intensive.

As for the demands of photo editing, I shoot high resolution raw files, which have much higher requirements to edit than JPG.

[JimH]

Preview on June 26, according to engadget article:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/14/windows-blue-details/

[glynor]

They also announced that Blue will be a free update for existing Windows 8 customers.

That's very good.  I will probably upgrade my main server from 7 once Blue goes RC, if they release it such that it won't make me reinstall from scratch when it ships.

[kstuart]

Glynor wrote: "... I will probably upgrade my main server from 7 once Blue [8.1] goes RC..."

I am reminded of when I use to do on-site support for a big IC design software package used by major electronics firms.   I went to a company to investigate a problem and noted the big mag tape of our latest major version sitting on the shelf unopened.  I asked the IT guy about it and he said: "we don't install any new versions until the point one version comes out".

If you are wondering what it cost to get on-site service, well we charged $56,000 a year for "maintenance" (support) - and that was 1981 dollars.

[Samson]

Glynor wrote: "... I will probably upgrade my main server from 7 once Blue [8.1] goes RC..."

I am reminded of when I use to do on-site support for a big IC design software package used by major electronics firms.   I went to a company to investigate a problem and noted the big mag tape of our latest major version sitting on the shelf unopened.  I asked the IT guy about it and he said: "we don't install any new versions until the point one version comes out".

For me, with windows, I wait until the SP1 comes out, then I wait a further 2 months to see what SP1 messed up and then dive right in 

By that time the web is full of the answers of how to fix the bugs and otherwise bend it back into shape. I must say Windows 7 was an impressive add-on to XP, at least in some ways. Vista? I dodged the bullet alltogether 

[glynor]

I don't have any particular rule.  I evaluate them individually.  I just don't think Windows 8 is helpful enough for desktop use, to compensate for the ways it would annoy me.  I own a license for all of my machines (got them when they were on sale), but it isn't worth the upgrade on my desktops.  It has some nice stuff, but some bad decisions.  Blue might, maybe, convince me otherwise.

And, to be clear, I've been using Windows 8 since the first public beta in VMs, and I run it full time on my HTPC, so I'm well aware of what it offers and the problems it has.

My main issue, frankly?

All the hidden UI.
Hot corners make fine "shortcuts" (like a keyboard shortcut) but they are not appropriate required UI devices.  Period.  I hate them.  They get in the way much more often than they help, they aren't discoverable, and they are frustrating with multiple monitors (and I don't use a desktop PC without multiple monitors).  So, Blue doesn't solve that, but at least we get a button back for the Start screen, and that's a start.  The Charms bar is still annoying, but I don't need that very often (basically just for shutdown/restart and I can pin items to the Start Screen for that).

I should add... I don't even hate the Charms Bar in concept.  It would be fine, nice even, with a few small changes.  But these changes point to the central problem I have with Windows 8.

It should activate from the center-right edge of the screen, not the corners.  It is spatially incongruous that the Charms Bar appears from the center-right (and that's where the primary controls are), but you activate it by going to the corners.  It also interferes with both the Min/Max/Close widget (for maximized windows) and the Notification tray (always).  It "works" for a gesture-based activation (swipe from the right on a tablet), and that's nice, but it isn't discoverable.  Again, I believe strongly... Gestures and hotcorners both belong in the "power user" column, like keyboard shortcuts.  They're awesome, once you know them and remember them, but they cannot be the core way you interact with the UI.  Just like hotkeys always have a corresponding mouse-driven way to activate them (classically via the File, Edit, View, Etc menus or context menus).

Instead, when you mouse over or tap the right-hand edge of the screen (anywhere except the corners) it should show a subtle semi-transparent pull tab.  As soon as it appears, you click and drag to the right (not necessarily having to line up with the pull tab, just anywhere on the right edge except the corners of the screen and not till the pull tab appears), and the Charms Bar slides out like it does now.  That'd be perfect.

I'm convinced the Charms Bar hot corners were a compromise, and a bad one.  They really wanted it to be activated from the "side" (via a swipe).  But for the mouse-focused UI, they didn't make it a "hot side", rather than the hot corners, because they knew it would make using a Multi-Monitor setup impossible or annoying (every time you moused to the second monitor the Charms Bar would appear).  So, instead they compromised and made it the corners, but (ooh) both corners work on that side (showing that they knew it was a bit weird).  But it was only impossible because they were committed to this "no onscreen UI chrome" ideal, which is a bad idea.  I'm all for minimizing chrome, and making it subtle, but hiding it entirely is just dumb and difficult to learn.

If they had the "pull tab" then the "hot side" wouldn't be an issue.  If you are "mousing to the other screen" you can ignore it and keep going.  And it tells people "hey, there's something over here" when they're learning.  That helps even with a touchscreen.  The nice thing, especially as a support tech and "family geek" about an iPad is this:  I can give one to my mom, or grandma, and tell her:  This button gets you back home no matter where you are.  Here's how you swipe between the screens.  The end.  They'll figure it out and they can use it.  Will they discover the multitasking menu and how to quickly stop music playback from it?  No, but who cares, you can still use it and get around and do all that stuff without knowing the "tricks".  You learn the "tricks" later, after you're comfortable.

Windows 8 requires you to learn the tricks up front.  That's the central issue, and it is all because of the no UI chrome "religion" the designers subscribed to while they were making it.

That's not to say it is my only problem with Windows 8.  I don't think it looks nicer than Windows 7, frankly.  In some ways it is nicer, but my machines are plenty powerful enough for translucency and effects.  I wouldn't have minded some toning-down (I'd have encouraged it), but Windows Explorer looks bad now.  Something in-between the glass of Aero and the flatness of Windows 8 would have been just right, I think.  They couldn't run it on the ARM chips they needed to hit, though, so here we are...

But, again, I don't hate everything.  I'd like real folders in the Start Screen (please, at least All Programs, the current system is a mess), and more sizes for icons (which we're getting), but I like almost all of the Desktop changes, and I don't think the Start Screen itself is a bad idea or unusable.  I love the Ribbon UI in Windows Explorer, and there are other great changes too.

In the end, I think the version after Blue will be much nicer (much like Windows 7 was to Vista).  Microsoft has good ideas, but they go a bit nutty sometimes and need to take time to figure it out.  And, in this case, they also needed the hardware to catch up, and to be able to let their partners sell extremely crappy, low-end, poorly performing hardware to boot.

[kstuart]

glynor - I think I can summarize what you are saying, as that by having to accommodate touch screens and mice andkeyboards and gestures, you end up with something that doesn't work very well for any one of them, and is hard to learn.

I have a friend who used Windows XP and then Windows 7.  His laptop died, and the new one had Windows 8, and he was very frustrated because nothing that he did before by rote worked.

The idea of having both a mobile OS and a PC OS be in the same product just doesn't work.

They are rationalizing backwards from:

* We want people to use Windows on all their devices.
* They use Windows on their laptops
* If the new Windows on their laptops also runs on their mobile devices, they will use Windows there too.

The problem is that by simplifying the OS so it works on mobile, it then loses all the power of a laptop, as well as having the problems you describe of trying to combine them.

The overall problem is that neither MS or Apple have a Steve Jobs - a person who understands the posts in this thread and has the power to say "no we are not doing it that way".  I remember the anecdote where an Apple guy was called by Steve Jobs on Sunday to discuss a yellow icon on the iPhone...

[6233638]

The overall problem is that neither MS or Apple have a Steve Jobs - a person who understands the posts in this thread and has the power to say "no we are not doing it that way".  I remember the anecdote where an Apple guy was called by Steve Jobs on Sunday to discuss a yellow icon on the iPhone...

You know, I wish I had the opportunity to get to that position in a company.

I honestly love the challenge of looking closely at every little detail, and seeing if it's the absolute best it can be.
Or trying to figure out the complex UI problem of exposing powerful functionality without overwhelming the user, and making it easily accessible to "normal" people.

So many products just seem significantly more complex than they need to be to perform their functions, and a lot of products are becoming more complex over time, because the companies just keep adding features without re-evaluating the existing features and interface for it.
For example, internet connected TVs are so much more complex than older flat panels, and flat panels in general are a lot more complex to set up than the old CRTs.
Even with CRTs, any time someone in my family bought a new TV, I would be called round to set it up properly - now I receive calls asking for help even once I've done that. They're needlessly complicated.

I'm constantly analyzing just about anything I use - whether it's hardware or software. I'm always wondering why things are being done a certain way, rather than another way that just seems so obviously better and simpler.

I'm fortunate that the team at JRiver are at least receptive to this sort of feedback.

[kstuart]

Quote: "So many products just seem significantly more complex than they need to be to perform their functions, and a lot of products are becoming more complex over time, because the companies just keep adding features without re-evaluating the existing features and interface for it."

Actually, this is because of increased population and increased communications, added to greater productivity due to automation.

Recently, Google exec Eric Schmidt crowed excitedly about "five billion more people coming online".  He clearly does not understand the downsides of this.

As less people are needed to make basic physical needs like food and clothing, and more people "come online", then more and more people are becoming employed in making things more complicated.

1960s - To watch TV, turn on the TV, turn the knob to one of three channels, adjust the volumn knob. No account needed, no paperwork.

To make a phone call, pick up the phone book, find the number next to the name alphabetically, dial the number.   Every month, receive a paper bill, write a check, put a stamp on the envelope.

2013 - Pick between dozens of packages and providers, Dish, Hulu Plus, Netflix, Roku, iTunes, web sites, and either streaming or DVR.  With DVR, check each day that one's programs are scheduled, and the software has not screwed up.   Receive a monthly bill with a dizzying area of charges and fees - or several monthly bills for several services.   That doesn't include streaming to mobiles, different rooms, DLNA, and whether your router has 5ghz or 2.4ghz and N versus G or AC, and if your wireless security code is good enough.   Also, don't forget your Dish password, your iTunes password, etc. etc.

To make a phone call, choose between a dizzying area of carriers, packages, "can I use your minutes" crap, family and friends crap, which handset, Android versus iPhone, jailbroken, do I need to reboot, my battery is running low, do I know this caller-id name, and on and on

The complication is due to more people involved in doing it, not due to design decisions.   You can't make it simpler by design, because the 7 billion other people will make their part of it more complicated simply by adding their contribution.

Getting back to the exact topic under discussion, the perfect example of this was the Windows message (back in XP I think?) "You have unused icons".   At this point, you are a slave that is serving your PC's software.  The only point of icons is that they help you do something else.   But I bet that the whole used/unused icons thing gave employment to more people at MS than work for JRiver...

[6233638]

That's not really what I meant, though.

To give you a very basic idea of what I mean: How do you make a TV brighter?

On an LCD you turn up the backlight control, or on a Plasma/other display, you turn up the contrast control. (often called the "Picture" control in America)
You don't touch the brightness control, because that adjusts the black level, which increases or decreases the apparent contrast of the image displayed on screen - if you turn up the brightness control, you end up with a washed-out, low-contrast picture.

Rarely do any of these controls explain what their function is in the menus, and the manuals usually aren't much help in explaining.

And often, these controls are buried several layers deep into the TV menus. The two things I adjust on my TV are Volume and Brightness. (backlight) Only one of these actually has a dedicated control on the remote.
90% of the remote is entirely useless to anyone using it. I appreciate that Sony is at least trying to solve that problem with their 2013 models:

[kstuart]

On my previous HD TV, I spent hours with calibration DVDs, peering through filters, and adjusting everything just right.

On my current Toshiba TV, the automatic settings are so good that I have never seen any problem big enough to make me drag out the calibration DVDs, etc.

For Average Joe, they should not need to know that a TV has a brightness control or what it does.  There are only 24 hours in a day.  There is nothing in the calibration process that cannot be done by software.  There is nothing anyone does in maintenance of any digital device that cannot be done by software.

---

Did you know that you are supposed to drain your water heater every six months ?

All of these things are relics from the age where servants did all these things, and people who could not afford servants could not afford any of those things that needed maintenance.

[6233638]

On my previous HD TV, I spent hours with calibration DVDs, peering through filters, and adjusting everything just right.

On my current Toshiba TV, the automatic settings are so good that I have never seen any problem big enough to make me drag out the calibration DVDs, etc.

While it's true that TVs often need a lot less calibration these days (many just require you to put them in the cinema mode to get you 90% there) it doesn't eliminate the need for some of the controls, or mean that they shouldn't bother fixing how needlessly complicated they are.

Even without calibrating the set, I still have to be there to actually hook up a TV and set it up for anyone in my family. You still have to deal with tuning, disabling unused inputs, labelling inputs etc.
Things are gradually improving in some ways (with HDMI some sets are able to display the device name automatically) but it's still a mess, and as they add more features like internet connectivity, the UI is actually getting worse on a lot of sets.

For Average Joe, they should not need to know that a TV has a brightness control or what it does.  There are only 24 hours in a day.  There is nothing in the calibration process that cannot be done by software.  There is nothing anyone does in maintenance of any digital device that cannot be done by software.

When you try to watch the TV during the day, or late at night, the screen needs to be at considerably different brightness levels.
I know you will say "well then it needs an automatic control" - but for most people these either dim the TV too much, or don't get bright enough. Perhaps it is coincidence, but I have noticed that people with worse eyesight, tend to like their displays to be set a lot brighter than those with good eyesight - whether they are actually wearing their glasses/contacts or not.

I've never seen a television that actually gets it right. Having direct access to brightness +/- on the remote solves that issue. (an actual brightness control, not a black level control)
Sony thought they would get smart with my TV, so the automatic brightness control also adjusts the color temperature from being cool when it's really bright, to being warm when the picture is dimmed. Sorry, I want D65 at all times - not that any of the standard color temperature presets actually measure D65.

As for automated calibration - well it costs more to calibrate the panels at the factory, you need to include a certified colorimeter in the display and automate it. This all adds cost, and explains why we have only seen it in broadcast monitors, and B&O television sets so far. And for that matter, I don't think B&O actually calibrates to the HD standard either, it just checks that it's in-spec with the B&O "calibration" whatever that is.

[6233638]

The preview is out: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/preview

I'm reading that you will not be able to upgrade from the preview to the release of 8.1 without reinstalling all your applications (desktop or metro) so be warned.
I'll be skipping it and will just be waiting for the final release as a result.

[Bizarroterl]

...my "work" has 100,000 PCs still running on XP

THIS

is why Win 8 is viewed as a failure.  Businesses buy a very large portion of Windows OSs.  I decide if/when we upgrade our PCs at work.  I evaluated Win 8 and my 1st impression was there's no way I'm going to roll this out and deal with the support calls.  It may be a decent tablet OS, but for work desktops I don't see any value over Win 7.  Most IT groups have come to the same conclusion.

And after that I find out they're using the same interface on their servers.  A touch GUI on a server?  Really?  It has to be a bad joke.

It turns out Win 8 is saving us a significant amount of money.  It pushed us to seriously look at thin clients and guess what?  They really work well.


On a side note my father in law (lives on the other side of the country) had his Win 7 machine die (lightning).  He went down to Best Buy and bought a new system.  It came with Win 8.  With almost no PC experience he hates it so much he bought a copy of Win 7 and installed it.

BOB = ME = VISTA = 8   

[glynor]

The preview is out: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/preview

I'm reading that you will not be able to upgrade from the preview to the release of 8.1 without reinstalling all your applications (desktop or metro) so be warned.
I'll be skipping it and will just be waiting for the final release as a result.

RTM is supposedly coming pretty soon...

You'll be able to install that one without a nuke/pave, obviously.

[6233638]

RTM is supposedly coming pretty soon...
Youʼll be able to install that one without a nuke/pave, obviously.

Well it looks like Microsoft realized that it was stupid not releasing the RTM version to developers, and itʼs now on TechNet/MSDN.

I decided that I would “nuke” my system though—it has been acting strange in a couple of ways ever since I replaced the motherboard recently. (some permissions seemed to have messed up)

Hereʼs the problem with actually buying software; I had to get in touch with multiple companies to reactivate a lot of it after doing this. I forgot that software such as Photoshop, Acrobat, and others require you to deactivate them before you wipe the system, and I had to call up Microsoft to activate Windows due to the new motherboard—Iʼm surprised that I was not prompted to do this when running my Windows 8 install. So thatʼs been a bit of a hassle over the last couple of days, but itʼs not 8.1ʼs fault. Once again, DRM causes problems for legitimate customers, which pirates donʼt have to worry about.

Other than that, my experience with Windows 8.1 has been fairly smooth so far.

Rather than immediately installing Start8 this time, I decided to give the new start button and related preferences a try—Iʼm trying to avoid running as much unnecessary third-party software as possible now.
Itʼs not ideal, but after a couple of days using the 8.1 start button/start screen, I think the changes theyʼve made have been enough that I no longer feel a need for a third-party start menu.
I still donʼt think that using the full screen is as quick to access as a list of applications—at least not when using a mouse—and I do miss having quick access to “Devices and Printers” and Control Panel as a list. But whatʼs there now is fine.
I think itʼs hilarious that I now have access to three different start buttons on the desktop though, rather than one in the taskbar:



I guess they just didnʼt think people moved the taskbar from its default position?
After being a Mac user for years, and due to the way that jump lists are presented, I find that having the taskbar across the top of the screen just suits the way I work a lot more than placing it along the bottom.
It would be nice if the (JRiver) Media Center bug where windows maximize underneath the taskbar was fixed though…

While thereʼs still no option to disable the Charms Bar, you can set it so that it only opens when you mouse over the lower-right corner of the screen now.
If I recall correctly, in Windows 8 it would happen anywhere along the right edge of the screen. (I may be mistaken, as I just used Start8 to disable it altogether)
With the Charms Bar in the lower right corner, itʼs no longer an annoyance for me, so I donʼt feel the need to disable it. Iʼm sure it can probably still be disabled via the registry, or worst case scenario, installing something like Start8. The biggest problem I had with it in Windows 8 was that I use Aero Peek, so every time I activated that, the Charms Bar would pop up—no longer an issue.


The new small icon size is really nice to have on the Start Screen, though I wish it was a bit more flexible about placement. Everything is grouped together into “4x4” grids, and I would quite like to have a “quick access” column of 1x8 small icons down the left side of my screen.
Desktop apps now get a background color for their tiles, so they donʼt look nearly as out of place as they once did on the Start Screen—though it seems that Windows application icons have the same problem that iOS does (and I guess everything else)—the dominant color for most icons is blue, so most of the start screen is covered with blue or teal tiles.

I still think the “all programs” view is useless.  With some relatively minor tweaks, it could be significantly improved when trying to use it on a desktop computer. Even after removing all extraneous shortcuts from the start menu (uninstall links, readme links etc.) itʼs still poorly presented, and just doesnʼt read well at all.
For me, this isnʼt really a problem though because I used pinned apps (either on the taskbar, or the start screen) or I use search to launch programs. The only time I see the “all programs” screen is when I want to pin a newly installed program.

You can boot to desktop now, and while thatʼs nice to have, I donʼt really need it now with the improvements they made to the Start Screen. It was really only necessary when I was using Start8. (which had its own option for this)
It does feel even quicker booting to the desktop now, and applications do seem to launch faster. Some people complained that while Windows 8 was faster to boot, they felt it was slower to respond on the desktop immediately after booting—this was not my experience, but it does feel more responsive than it already did in 8.

Other changes: all of my SATA drives which have hot-swap enabled are now listed as being removable drives in the “safely remove hardware and eject media” tray icon by default. Previously this would only happen for the drives connected to my Marvell SATA controller, after installing the Marvell drivers. Now all the drives on Intel and Marvell ports have this option with the stock drivers. The Marvell SATA drivers have caused me problems in the past, so Iʼm glad that I can just use the ones that ship with the OS now.
The only driver I had to install on my system was the Intel MEI one, which I do by extracting to a folder and adding via device manager, to avoid extra software running unnecessarily.

Something Microsoft seem to have overlooked is camera raw image support. In Windows 8 there was an optional update that added support for Explorer to generate thumbnails and preview images shot on my camera. This is not installed by default on Windows 8.1, and it refuses to install if I manually download the update.

Thereʼs still no native PDF support in the OS. That useless Metro reader app is probably still there, but I uninstalled all the stock Metro apps as soon as I logged in. (on that note, there are a couple of apps you could uninstall on 8, which you cannot on 8.1)
I really wish there was native support for PDF thumbnail generation, and searching inside PDF files built into Explorer. For searching inside PDFs I will have to install the Foxit PDF iFilter, which is no longer supported (they no longer sell a consumer version) and there are only third-party hacks for generating PDF thumbnails or using the preview pane in Explorer. I donʼt think Adobe ship anything which does this yet. (Iʼm stuck with Acrobat X though, because I donʼt just use Reader)


One thing I did not appreciate was the installer trying to force a Microsoft Account on me. You have to continue as if you want to create a new Microsoft Account, for the option to create a Local Account to appear.
I really think itʼs a mistake the way that they are trying to force Microsoft Accounts on you. There are a couple of Metro apps that I would probably quite like to use (Flipboard is nice on iOS, and is coming to Windows 8) but you canʼt have access to them unless you link your local user account to a Microsoft store account. Not going to happen.
The way Apple handles this where iCloud and the App Store are handled separately from your local user account is much nicer.

Metro apps now get proper subpixel anti-aliased fonts, which is good, but worthless to me without Store access. I think the only Metro app I have access to is the Firefox one—which is a nuisance on a desktop machine, because I canʼt see any way to pin it to the Start Screen and launch the desktop version.

Something which I still canʼt believe Microsoft has overlooked is that there is still no XInput support for the Metro interface. With the Xbox One using essentially the same interface, it seems like a massive oversight. Add native XInput support to Metro apps, rather than requiring developers to build it in, and you have a great HTPC interface.

Audio support seems like it might be improved in 8.1, as I did not have any problems using my DAC in driverless USB Audio Class 1 mode. In Windows 8, I would occasionally have glitches in playback. (pops & clicks or crackling) Unfortunately thereʼs still no native USB Audio Class 2 support like OS X has had for years. I would probably still be installing a driver to have access to ASIO anyway, because it lets me set the buffer to a known size (crucial for correcting lip-sync) but it would be nice if it was not required.


Overall, it seems like Windows 8 but better—which was already Windows 7 but better.

[Matt]

Thanks for the review.

What happens if you double-click a JPEG file in Explorer with a mouse with 8.1?  With Windows 8.0, double-click, escape, and the mouse back button do not return to Explorer like you'd expect.  There are no clues on the screen about how to leave.  It's crazy.

[6233638]

What happens if you double-click a JPEG file in Explorer with a mouse with 8.1?  With Windows 8.0, double-click, escape, and the mouse back button do not return to Explorer like you'd expect.  There are no clues on the screen about how to leave.  It's crazy.

Well as I said, on Windows 8 the first thing I did was uninstall all the stock Metro apps, which prevents things like this from happening.
On 8.1 the Photos app is one that can no longer be uninstalled, so the first thing I did was set “Windows Photo Viewer” to be the default image handler. (and assign Photoshop to be the default “Edit” option via the registry)

But if I open an image in the Photos app, the back button or escape key will take you back to the photos library. You still have to press the Windows key, bring up the Charms Bar, click the upper left corner, drag down from the top of the screen, or find the start button on the lower left—though the first time you use a Metro app on your system, it does at least tell you it's there!


Without any prior knowledge, I suppose Metro apps are probably still a horrible desktop experience. Due to Microsoft's Store/User Account policies (as mentioned above) I don't use Metro at all, so it's not something I had experienced.

I've been thinking about replacing my iPad with an x86 Windows 8.1 tablet/convertible recently, and now you've got me wondering if that would be the right decision.
I've really only been thinking about the fact that I could use fully-featured desktop apps on a device with that form factor, and had not really considered how the Metro experience would be.

[InflatableMouse]

I installed 8.1 yesterday on my Desktop PC.

I can't replicate the Start Button issue when I move the taskbar though... I shouted this fail across the room at work and when they asked me to show it to them I failed to replicate it 

What I like is that the Start screen can now show a dimmed desktop background instead of its own background. This makes the start screen experience less intrusive, I guess its more seamless or integrated if you use desktop mode and switch to the Start screen. The only thing I wish here is that open windows would remain too, dimmed as the background is but still visible so the start screen would simply be a transparent overlay on the desktop and open windows.

I removed all the metro apps too (first thing I do) and started installing all my applications and restoring their settings. What I noticed is that new applications are no longer automatically pinned to the start screen. I have to go to all apps (or type their name) and pin them to the start screen manually.

Windows Powershell ISE is missing a link in all apps. I had to find the executable and create a new shortcut to pin to the start menu.

Everything seems to work fine though. Still a few annoying things like the amount of clickage for some actions compared to Win7 and the insane amount of mouse movement involved to simply shutdown my machine. I think I'll just create a powershell script and place a shortcut on the desktop to shutdown.

[6233638]

I can't replicate the Start Button issue when I move the taskbar though... I shouted this fail across the room at work and when they asked me to show it to them I failed to replicate it 

To clarify - it's not showing all three at once. I just think it's ridiculous that there are now three start buttons available. But I suppose thinking back on it, there were already two at all times in Windows 8 unless you disabled them. (which I did)
To be honest, if they're going to have a start button in the lower-left corner at all times, I'd rather it was Windows 8's - I liked that it was actually a small representation of your start screen instead of an icon.

I do think it's funny that there is now a program to remove the Windows 8.1 start button from the taskbar: http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-81-program-kills-the-start-button-because-no-one-can-ever-be-happy

Personally, I don't actually need to have a start button on the task bar - though I do think it's important to have one by default. The issue for me in Windows 8 is that it was fixed to the lower-left corner, when I have been used to the upper-left corner for years. If the Windows 8 start button had followed the taskbar position, I would probably have been able to switch to using the Start Screen then, rather than using Start8 until Windows 8.1's release.

What I like is that the Start screen can now show a dimmed desktop background instead of its own background. This makes the start screen experience less intrusive, I guess its more seamless or integrated if you use desktop mode and switch to the Start screen. The only thing I wish here is that open windows would remain too, dimmed as the background is but still visible so the start screen would simply be a transparent overlay on the desktop and open windows.

I actually found this to be a little disappointing. There were programs for Windows 8 which let you add your own custom backgrounds to the Start Screen, and something I saw a lot of people doing was using a blurred version of their background. This seemed to do a better job of making it look like the Start Screen was a layer above your desktop. But I agree - it would be even better if it were more like Aero Glass, and simply overlaid your current desktop (which is generally not sitting at the wallpaper) and blurred it.

I'm surprised that there's still no option to have separate background images for the desktop and start screen. I ended up just using the plain background though, and customizing the colors.

I removed all the metro apps too (first thing I do) and started installing all my applications and restoring their settings. What I noticed is that new applications are no longer automatically pinned to the start screen. I have to go to all apps (or type their name) and pin them to the start screen manually.

It seems like this was intentional, to prevent the Start Screen from ending up cluttered like it used to - but it doesn't seem to be an ideal solution either. I do wonder if Metro apps will automatically pin themselves to the start screen when installed. The problem seems to be that desktop applications typically add far more than a single item when installed.

Windows Powershell ISE is missing a link in all apps. I had to find the executable and create a new shortcut to pin to the start menu.

Charms > Settings > Tiles > Show administrative tools.

Everything seems to work fine though. Still a few annoying things like the amount of clickage for some actions compared to Win7 and the insane amount of mouse movement involved to simply shutdown my machine.

Right-click start button > shut down. (or hit Win+X) Doesn't seem like any more work than Windows 7.

I have to say that now I'm used to the Start Screen, and have had a generally positive experience using Windows 8.1 so far, I'm seriously considering replacing my iPad with a Surface Pro 2 when they're released a couple of weeks from now.
While Windows 8 may still be a bit lacking in the apps department, after a few years of iPad use, it's really narrowed down to only a handful of apps that actually matter rather than a large library of apps I would miss from making the switch, and the benefits of being able to run proper desktop applications like a Media Center client for streaming video seems like a very worthwhile trade.
The biggest problem with the original Surface Pro seemed to be the battery life, and that's something Haswell should fix. The 11" MacBook Air seems to have roughly the same hardware spec and battery capacity as the Surface Pro, and it now has excellent battery life.

[InflatableMouse]

Win-X works I guess. I know this is nitpicking and all that but its easy to miss-click in that little context menu. I rarely use it and I tend to forget its there.

The Windows 7 shutdown button is configurable, and its directly accessible. When I need to shutdown, I press the Win button with my thumb while my mouse moves towards it. When I need to log off, the submenu has spacers so its less prone to miss-clicks.

About the 'old' start, it don't really care either way whether its a static icon or the old thing. What I care about most is that it isn't hidden anymore and doesn't dissapear when I move my mouse after it appears to click in the middle of it. This quirk seriously pushed my buttons more than anything and threw into uncontrolled bursts of outrage on more than one occasion .

There's still a few things that annoy me from time to time though that I think aren't really improvements over what we had, but then again there are plenty of other things that are.

Charms > Settings > Tiles > Show administrative tools.

Cool, didn't realize they moved that there.

I just now realized the charms bar is different when popped out in the start screen than from the desktop .

[6233638]

Win-X works I guess. I know this is nitpicking and all that but its easy to miss-click in that little context menu. I rarely use it and I tend to forget its there.

The Windows 7 shutdown button is configurable, and its directly accessible. When I need to shutdown, I press the Win button with my thumb while my mouse moves towards it. When I need to log off, the submenu has spacers so its less prone to miss-clicks.

Fair enough. I've personally never really cared about the lack of a shutdown button in Windows 8 though. I rarely ever shut down my system - I either hibernate it by pressing the physical power button, or I have it on a shutdown timer. (shutdown -s -f -t ####)
Most keyboards have a power button on them these days too, and obviously laptops/tablets have a physical button which is always within reach. (it may not be with a desktop PC)

About the 'old' start, it don't really care either way whether its a static icon or the old thing.

It's not a big deal, I just thought it was a nice touch. The Windows logo does make more sense when it's fixed to the taskbar.

What I care about most is that it isn't hidden anymore and doesn't dissapear when I move my mouse after it appears to click in the middle of it. This quirk seriously pushed my buttons more than anything and threw into uncontrolled bursts of outrage on more than one occasion .

I suppose it depends what you're used to. I always used hot corners for Exposé on a Mac, so things like that and the charms menu never bothered me. I do think it was very unintuitive to have no indicator for the start screen though. It's fine once you know where it is, but bad UI design to require your users to learn that before they can use it.