Resistance towards Windows 8

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Networkn
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#948592 10-Dec-2013 11:44

surfisup1000:
nathan: and I see lots of users who love the tiled Metro interface in Windows 8 / 8.1

Designing Windows is like choosing pizza topping for over 1 Billion users, everyone has their preferences

UI Design does not have to be a static one-size-fits all process.

You can design so people can change their 'topping' as they see fit. Apps that support 'Skinning' is an example of this .

It would have been so easy to have a desktop mode / metro mode. 99% of the controversy would have been negated had MS done this.

Agreed. It's not like there wasn't plenty of feedback during the beta stages about this very thing.

There are a number of great changes in 8, as it relates to desktop mode...

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#948603 10-Dec-2013 11:47

nathan:
joker97: is there a 6? if not I'll pick 3 (THREE)

firstly i love touchscreen control because i was addicted to my ipad - now if only we had more apps on windows

2ndly i like the ultra high res screen support. the zoomability of super high res screens. however 50% of my programs have words that are microscopic, and 1% just won't work because the interface extends outside the app's window which is not resizable!??!

3rdly you can reinstall windows from within! (although if you have OEM software it won't be a clean install)

to the poster who said there is no backup feature YES THERE IS. go to control panel, files backup, at the bottom left there is option for complete PC backup just like win 7/vista :D - as i said it is 99% win 7 apart from the start menu.

yes of course it's bloated! but hey you need SATA-3 SSD and lots of RAM and away you go :D

be good to know what's bloated?

8.1 uses less memory and disk than 8.0 which uses less than 7 etc

umm maybe i'm ignorant but - you have desktop. then you have modern ui. then you have skydrive and some login. then you have xbox music player, music player, video player, windows media player, windows media centre. you have windows picture viewer, picture viewer, other viewer. when you're in desktop there are hundreds of things you can load out of desktop - hover to left upper corner there is something, the right upper corner, the middle corner??, there is charm somewhere that takes you somewhere else when the start menu worked just fine. the only bloat that i really like called aero is gone and now it looks like windows 98.

if in windows 7 you can click once or twice do something that you now have to click four to six times to get to that function i don't know how to describe the resources not to mention the time it takes to achieve those tasks

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#948611 10-Dec-2013 11:52

I think we need to be wary of the extent of the opposition to 8 and 8.1. I know there were vocal groups on Tech centric sites but that does not necessarily translate into resistance across the market place to the UI design etc.
Enterprise resistance is mainly down fiscal reasons, cost of upgrading, training and support. Retail I feel is different the average user will upgrade to 8.1 when they upgrade their hardware and be happy with 8.1, it tends to be only enthuiasts that will upgrade
the OS only.

I would like to see what MSFT's market research tells them.

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#948612 10-Dec-2013 11:53

TwoSeven: Personally, too many things don't either work, or have had features cut that were better in windows 7 (the backup feature is one of them, importing photos and files another, SkyDrive another [win 8.1 update ruined it IMHO]).

you can access the backup feature by going to control panel, files history. on that screen on the bottom left is the good old complete pc backup :D

call it an easter egg if you like

microsoft knows that their customers love to find hidden things left right and centre. no point making it obvious and easy.

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#948613 10-Dec-2013 11:53

joker97:
nathan:
joker97: is there a 6? if not I'll pick 3 (THREE)

firstly i love touchscreen control because i was addicted to my ipad - now if only we had more apps on windows

2ndly i like the ultra high res screen support. the zoomability of super high res screens. however 50% of my programs have words that are microscopic, and 1% just won't work because the interface extends outside the app's window which is not resizable!??!

3rdly you can reinstall windows from within! (although if you have OEM software it won't be a clean install)

to the poster who said there is no backup feature YES THERE IS. go to control panel, files backup, at the bottom left there is option for complete PC backup just like win 7/vista :D - as i said it is 99% win 7 apart from the start menu.

yes of course it's bloated! but hey you need SATA-3 SSD and lots of RAM and away you go :D

be good to know what's bloated?

8.1 uses less memory and disk than 8.0 which uses less than 7 etc

umm maybe i'm ignorant but - you have desktop. then you have modern ui. then you have skydrive and some login. then you have xbox music player, music player, video player, windows media player, windows media centre. you have windows picture viewer, picture viewer, other viewer. when you're in desktop there are hundreds of things you can load out of desktop - hover to left upper corner there is something, the right upper corner, the middle corner??, there is charm somewhere that takes you somewhere else when the start menu worked just fine. the only bloat that i really like called aero is gone and now it looks like windows 98.

if in windows 7 you can click once or twice do something that you now have to click four to six times to get to that function i don't know how to describe the resources not to mention the time it takes to achieve those tasks

click 4 or six times???? never had to do that

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#948629 10-Dec-2013 12:04

Fantastic input so far guys it's really interesting to see the different perspectives.

Fresh from the press I just got in some news that Windows 8.2 will bring back the option to use the Windows 7 style start menu again with an option to switch between that and Metro. I guess this will please a lot of people that are currently in the opposition camp (including myself)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2070705/report-windows-start-menu-to-return-in-windows-8-2.html

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networkn

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#948631 10-Dec-2013 12:07

ScuL: Fantastic input so far guys it's really interesting to see the different perspectives.

Fresh from the press I just got in some news that Windows 8.2 will bring back the option to use the Windows 7 style start menu again with an option to switch between that and Metro. I guess this will please a lot of people that are currently in the opposition camp (including myself)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2070705/report-windows-start-menu-to-return-in-windows-8-2.html

Pity it took so long for them to act on the feedback, but better than nothing.

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#948632 10-Dec-2013 12:11

number 3 for me. using win 8 on my non touch screen laptop, using windows server 2012 (same interface) on my server. i had a win 8 tablet for a while (sold it, went to android for apps).

the start screen really doesnt bother me, ever since windows put in the search for apps in the start menu i just use that. so be it a screen or popup menu, its basically the same. was annoying though how not everything was listed in 8 (now fixed in 8.1 i believe), eg type "Control panel" it wasnt listed until you went down to "settings".

i prefer the task manager, the file copy dialog, the login screen. would be nice if you could turn off the metro apps if you dont want to use them (e.g type in "Updates" you might open the metro interface one insetad of desktop version). and also turn off all desktop stuff if using an RT tablet (so stupid you see the desktop and explorer etc on a win 8 rt tablet, it should just be the pure metro UI there.

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#948634 10-Dec-2013 12:12

3 & 4 for me. No problems with the removal of the Start button/menu, as I hardly used it in Windows XP or 7.

I 'replaced' the start button/menu in XP with STab Launcher http://www.stablauncher.com/ in XP and have been using it for Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 8.1 64bit without any problems. It's the best windows application launcher ever IMO.

For under the hood windows stuff I just use the Control Panel UI.

The Metro style Start screen is handy, but I still use the desktop as the main UI.

nathan

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#948638 10-Dec-2013 12:20

ScuL: Fantastic input so far guys it's really interesting to see the different perspectives.

Fresh from the press I just got in some news that Windows 8.2 will bring back the option to use the Windows 7 style start menu again with an option to switch between that and Metro. I guess this will please a lot of people that are currently in the opposition camp (including myself)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2070705/report-windows-start-menu-to-return-in-windows-8-2.html

that's not news :) just an article that wants to get eyeballs looking at it to generate clicks and ad revenue

I'm curious to know whether anyone here commenting on the dislike of the Start Menu has tried workarounds like below, or just stay on a previous version of Windows and sit in the opposition camp?

Right-click on the task bar > Toolbars > New Toolbar
Go into the disk containing the Windows installation (usually C) and then ProgramData > Windows (Enable the display of hidden files).
Select the Start Menu folder (without opening it).
Click on the Select a folder button.
The Start menu will be displayed in the Taskbar.

or the 3rd party programs like:

Classic Shell
Start 8
Ex7forW8
8StartButton
Pokki

nathan

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#948639 10-Dec-2013 12:21

networkn:
ScuL: Fantastic input so far guys it's really interesting to see the different perspectives.

Fresh from the press I just got in some news that Windows 8.2 will bring back the option to use the Windows 7 style start menu again with an option to switch between that and Metro. I guess this will please a lot of people that are currently in the opposition camp (including myself)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2070705/report-windows-start-menu-to-return-in-windows-8-2.html

Pity it took so long for them to act on the feedback, but better than nothing.

my sense here is Microsoft is damned if they do and damned if they don't with regard to UI changes

surfisup1000

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#948642 10-Dec-2013 12:24

nathan:
networkn:
ScuL: Fantastic input so far guys it's really interesting to see the different perspectives.

Fresh from the press I just got in some news that Windows 8.2 will bring back the option to use the Windows 7 style start menu again with an option to switch between that and Metro. I guess this will please a lot of people that are currently in the opposition camp (including myself)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2070705/report-windows-start-menu-to-return-in-windows-8-2.html

Pity it took so long for them to act on the feedback, but better than nothing.

my sense here is Microsoft is damned if they do and damned if they don't with regard to UI changes

MS are not calling this windows 9 and making everyone upgrade so I think this is a good thing. So, ups from me.

ScuL

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#948647 10-Dec-2013 12:40

nathan:

that's not news :) just an article that wants to get eyeballs looking at it to generate clicks and ad revenue

I'm curious to know whether anyone here commenting on the dislike of the Start Menu has tried workarounds like below, or just stay on a previous version of Windows and sit in the opposition camp?

The article is sourced from http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/further-changes-coming-windows-threshold based on a conversation with somebody within Microsoft it appears?

As for your question, I have used Win8 on other PC's and didn't like it one bit.
I'm also of the opinion that requiring add-ons in order to make an OS work properly defeats the purpose. Win7 is functioning perfectly fine (the best OS they have made imo) - hence no real reason to upgrade.

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#948664 10-Dec-2013 13:23

joker97:
TwoSeven: Personally, too many things don't either work, or have had features cut that were better in windows 7 (the backup feature is one of them, importing photos and files another, SkyDrive another [win 8.1 update ruined it IMHO]).

you can access the backup feature by going to control panel, files history. on that screen on the bottom left is the good old complete pc backup :D

call it an easter egg if you like

microsoft knows that their customers love to find hidden things left right and centre. no point making it obvious and easy.

The win 7 backup feature in Win 8 doesn't work the same way - at least not for me. I suspect it was put there to allow one to recover data from backups, not actually do backups - I tried using it, but it keep forgetting permissions and also didn't seem to want to manage space properly. The new Win 8 backup is even worse, apparently someone at MS decided that users would only put their data in libraries (which no-one I know actually uses) and there is an option to get different versions of a file (file history), although, not sure where that option actually is - without using Bing or if it is a good idea being I am on a surface pro with limited free space (I like my backups on a different device - which is not the cloud).

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#948669 10-Dec-2013 13:32

TwoSeven:
joker97:
TwoSeven: Personally, too many things don't either work, or have had features cut that were better in windows 7 (the backup feature is one of them, importing photos and files another, SkyDrive another [win 8.1 update ruined it IMHO]).

you can access the backup feature by going to control panel, files history. on that screen on the bottom left is the good old complete pc backup :D

call it an easter egg if you like

microsoft knows that their customers love to find hidden things left right and centre. no point making it obvious and easy.

The win 7 backup feature in Win 8 doesn't work the same way - at least not for me. I suspect it was put there to allow one to recover data from backups, not actually do backups - I tried using it, but it keep forgetting permissions and also didn't seem to want to manage space properly. The new Win 8 backup is even worse, apparently someone at MS decided that users would only put their data in libraries (which no-one I know actually uses) and there is an option to get different versions of a file (file history), although, not sure where that option actually is - without using Bing or if it is a good idea being I am on a surface pro with limited free space (I like my backups on a different device - which is not the cloud).

you're wrong. try it again. exactly as i said. (the alternative is you're right and the last 2 complete win 7 pc backups i did last night was in my dream, which is also possible)

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