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Captain Ned
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:00 pm

OK folks, less epistemology, more factual data.

Thanks for listening.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
absurdity
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 9:50 pm

I wasn't totally sold on 8, the Modern UI being the biggest gripe. After using it for a few days, while it's not perfect, I like it. I think now, why were we limiting the start menu to a tiny corner of the screen all this time? It's nice to have a full screen start menu to find your apps, instead of having to stare down little icons in the corner on our ever-enlarging displays. You do have to clean up the start screen from all the pre-installed apps, which are largely useless on the desktop. While I do like it, I'm not convinced that it's for everyone yet.

Client Hyper-V is one of the things that really moved me towards 8.
 
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 10:33 pm

absurdity wrote:
why were we limiting the start menu to a tiny corner of the screen all this time?

Because it's the Hegelian dialectic. Microsoft deliberately screwed up the start menu starting with vista, so that down the line they could offer an alternative. Classic start is how it should be. Ironically, nobody would admit this problem with earlier versions until now, and later on it will be the same with Metro vs w9. The hypocrisy is nauseating.
 
LostCat
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 10:40 pm

l33t-g4m3r wrote:
I'm not overlooking it as that is a real improvement, but it's not a valid upgrade reason either when you can do the same with w7, and navigating that huge start screen does take more work.

It does?

It takes some adjustment, but I would say it takes less work once you know how to use it.

Of course, if it was just UI changes I wouldn't have bothered upgrading.

At any rate, I have important racing to do. =)
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ChronoReverse
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 10:41 pm

Win98 style Classic Start was terrible and still is. Even though Vista/7's Start Menu didn't make great use of screen space, it was still a huge improvement.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 10:43 pm

And I thought Apple discussions were the true R&P. Silly me.

Ditch the R&P. Now. It's one thing to say yea/nay, but it's a far different thing to ascribe conspiracy theories. That stops here. If you wish to take those further, kindly start an R&P thread on the philosophy of W8.

Thanks for listening.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
l33t-g4m3r
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:05 pm

ChronoReverse wrote:
Win98 style Classic Start was terrible and still is. Even though Vista/7's Start Menu didn't make great use of screen space, it was still a huge improvement.

What was the improvement? Wait, I know: SEARCH. Guess what? Classic shell has search, and I was not referring to Microsoft's classic start. Microsoft could easily have updated their old start menu, but they didn't.
Captain Ned wrote:
Ditch the R&P. Now. It's one thing to say yea/nay, but it's a far different thing to ascribe conspiracy theories.

Kindly define R&P, because this is neither, and if you REALLY want to go into conspiracy, why are you chilling speech of the unbelievers? Is free thought a problem here?

All I'm saying is that we end up having the same discussion every new version of windows, all while ignoring what happened last version was the same thing, and I'm tired of this Groundhog's Day cycle. Maybe for once we could actually admit there's problems with the new version NOW, and not delay valid criticism until the next release, otherwise I'm going to be all, "I TOLD YOU SO" that much worse when w9 comes out. :P

People who have valid complaints with w8 are not conspiring, or arguing politics. They have valid complaints, and those complaints are not going to go away no matter how much MS would like them to, until they are addressed. How is MS going to sell their next OS after completely losing the trust of the public on this one? Seriously. There are problems, and discounting them is not the answer. W8 is great for tablets, and I would no doubt recommend it to someone wanting a tablet, but not for a desktop.
 
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:25 pm

l33t-g4m3r wrote:
Kindly define R&P, because this is neither, and if you REALLY want to go into conspiracy, why are you chilling speech of the unbelievers? Is free thought a problem here?

OS choices rapidly become religious and are defended not on falsifiable evidence but on epistemology. Debates on evidence are perfectly acceptable here. Debates on non-falsifiable epistemology belong with the rest of the religious debates in R&P.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
ChronoReverse
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:43 pm

l33t-g4m3r wrote:
ChronoReverse wrote:
Win98 style Classic Start was terrible and still is. Even though Vista/7's Start Menu didn't make great use of screen space, it was still a huge improvement.

What was the improvement? Wait, I know: SEARCH. Guess what? Classic shell has search, and I was not referring to Microsoft's classic start. Microsoft could easily have updated their old start menu, but they didn't.

Not just that (although the search was a very important part of the improvement).

The organization of the Win98 Start Menu was limited and more importantly was very fidgety about where you put the mouse if you go down too many levels. It wasn't uncommon to go down two levels, miss the icon you wanted to click and thus dropped back down to the base level again.

WinXP improved it with its Start Menu by doing the pinning better (along with the second column in the base menu).

Vista/7, despite limiting the space the Menu used, was still an improvement because it locked folders open when you selected one instead of basing it on your mouse cursor. By implementing scrolling, you avoided the huge sprawl of folders.

In this manner, 8 is a step backwards because the horizontal scrolling is significantly slower than the scrolling list in Vista/7.
 
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:46 pm

BIF wrote:
Start Screen forces me to scroll sideways. This is lunacy! It's not intuitive on a desktop, nor is it convenient.


Personally I've always found it odd that computer UI's settled on up and down action. It's like the designers of the ignored centuries of text based presentations from books.

Left to right (or even right to left depending on your culture) makes a great deal more sense to me.
All of my written content here on TR does not represent or reflect the views of my employer or any reasonable human being. All content and actions are my own.
 
ChronoReverse
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:50 pm

Ryu Connor wrote:
BIF wrote:
Start Screen forces me to scroll sideways. This is lunacy! It's not intuitive on a desktop, nor is it convenient.


Personally I've always found it odd that computer UI's settled on up and down action. It's like the designers of the ignored centuries of text based presentations from books.

Left to right (or even right to left depending on your culture) makes a great deal more sense to me.

Eh, you read down the page in a book. When you make a list on a notepad, you "go down" the list.

And plenty of Asian languages can be written top to down as well.

Even the posts of this forum are in a vertical list.
 
Ryu Connor
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Tue Oct 30, 2012 11:59 pm

The page in a book doesn't keep scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and scrolling.

It has a fixed size and then you transition to the right (or left) to view the next page.

eBook readers rather faithfully carried the way a book is designed into their UI. Even iOS follows this concept. Your home screen has a fixed vertical size and you scroll left or right as if moving through pages of a book to find your application.

I think what we have with computers today is pretty terribly flawed from a UI perspective. I'm also presuming the never ending scrolling page is due to programmers and not designers building the early UIs in computers.

I'd also note that I don't find the presentation of this forum to somehow be a bastion of good UI design, much less an example I'd use to support my case of a design superiority. How the web, a largely text based medium, ignored the format of books is equally baffaling.
All of my written content here on TR does not represent or reflect the views of my employer or any reasonable human being. All content and actions are my own.
 
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 12:07 am

the things I really like about Windows 8:

1) it's definitely faster to boot and faster to wake up. a lot less processes are loaded than with Windows 7. On my desktop, Windows 7 would boot to the desktop pretty quickly. But then it spent the next couple of minutes still loading all the things into place. Windows 8 will get me to the desktop in a "done" state much faster.

On my laptop, Windows 8 on a HDD will boot in about the same time as the same laptop with Windows 7 and an Intel 80GB SSD. I kid you not. The reason I know is the enterprise evaluation version of Windows 8 would not install on this laptop hardware with the SSD and I was forced to use the 500GB 5400RPM HDD. Alas, I can't install Windows 8 on this laptop as it's too old and will never get WDDM 1.2 drivers for full functionality. And of course the problem with the SSD is a clincher.

2) The Windows Store is pretty awesome. I already downloaded a ton of completely free software. The days of having to buy overpriced software is over. I remember way back when, I was shopping for a virtual keyboard for my TabletPC and people were trying to charge $15+! for a virtual keyboard! something that would cost $1-3 on a mobile device. and these aren't freeware level quality (well, some of them are), there are a number of really great apps for free.

3) Xbox integration is great and getting better. I downloaded the slick new Microsoft Solitaire app. All the solitaire variants including my favorite, Spider Solitaire, but now it looks like a modern game with all the slick graphics and sound. You can even substitute your own background wallpapers and even wallpaper the playing cards. Minesweeper never looked better. And there's a bunch of new free Microsoft games that are great like Wordament. Plus there are achievements and it all ties into your gamertag achievements total.

I can use SmartGlass now and it was pretty nifty with the GPS feature of Forza Horizon on my laptop while the main game was on the main screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nW26qsI-c8

4) Xbox Music is very slick! Now, as a player for my own old music, it sucks. Functionality sucks compared to things like WinAmp. BUT... the streaming and ability to add streamed music to your library is just plain awesome. Any song you listen to and like, you can add to your own library and it feels like you own it. You can arrange your playlist with the songs you added to your collection. You get slick bios and wallpapers for all the artists. I learned things about Nicky Minaj that wasn't even in Wikipedia.

5) Windows Media Center is faster and more responsive. There's some lost functionality such as the Internet TV. So no more CBS streaming. Setup is a little different and faster. Otherwise, WMC looks nearly the same and has nearly the same functionality.

6) I really like the new Start screen. Back in the Windows 98/XP days, I used to organize the Start menu by changing the nesting. Then with Windows 7, the search was good enough that I didn't organize anymore. You just start typing notepad and then load it.

Windows 8 has the same functionality. Hit the start key and start typing. But now I can easily organize the Start screen the way I like it. And it's easier than before. You just drag and drop. With Windows 98/XP, I'd open up the explorer view and reorganize. Here, it's kind of easier.

7) the sports app, the news app, and the weather app are awesome! the weather app beats any weather program I had in Windows 7. the presentation is super slick. the sports app is amazing how it can not only present the sports articles in a nice format, but it can collate articles for your favorite teams as well as shows stats and other neat tidbits.

as for the newsreader, this is how a newsreader is supposed to work. you choose an article and it's properly formatted in the reader. In Android ICS, for example, when you select an article to read, it launches the web browser. what's the point? If I wanted to read it in a browser, I would simply choose google news in the browser. what's the point of a newsreader that just launches the browser?

edit: 8) a point I totally forgot was synced settings. I first installed Windows 8 on one machine, setting it up exactly how I like a machine (even simple stuff like showing hidden files and showing file extensions). I then went to my second machine to install Windows 8 and everything was already set up! I didn't have to show hidden files again. Even the wallpapers were synced! Though there was a slight bug as my primary machine has a vertical portrait monitor as the primary display with vertical wallpaper while my laptop is horizontal of course. So the wallpaper on the laptop only showed the breasts. Which made me look like a perv. An easy error to fix but amusing.


Okay, now for things I don't like:
1) Mail sucks. it's so basic with so little functionality. I can't even choose to print a single page of an email. There was an email that was 1 page and spilled over a little onto the next page. I didn't want to waste a sheet on what was basically a footer but there was no option to only print the first page.

2) messaging sucks. same reason. so basic with so little functionality.

3) this is a design philosophy thing that will take adjustment on my part. in the old windows days, every program was "self-sufficient". meaning, that I would load a program and I would use features specific to that program. so I would have to browse the file menu, the edit menu, etc. you learn the program.

well, in windows 8, some of the features become system features rather than within the program. for example, I'll use Wikipedia as an example. In the web browser, you launch the Wikipedia page and look for the search text box to type your argument and find it. it's within the web browser. you're not using the windows 7 search box for wikipedia.

well, there's no search box in the wikipedia app for windows 8. which confused a ton of people, including me. however, you bring up the context-sensitive search that's in windows while you're in wikipedia and it knows to search wikipedia. so when you bring up the windows search feature in windows store, it searches the windows store. if you bring up windows search while in the Xbox Music app, it searches Xbox Music. So no longer are you using a search function built into that program. You are using the exact same technique at a system level and it knows where to search. Really cool. But really confusing when you're coming from an old Windows paradigm. Which means that once you do understand how things are done in Windows 8, it should become easier because now you can use the same universal features.

If you read the reviews for the wikipedia app, the people who gave it low scores said the app needs a search function. however, they later changed their view on the app once they learned how search works now.

take the search feature of firefox. If you hit ctrl+f in firefox, the search toolbar pops up within firefox and you do your search. hit ctrl+f in chrome and a search box drops down and you do your search. but you're learning on an app-by-app basis. you hit ctrl+f and then you have to search for that search box specific to that program. but now, once a metro version comes out, if they do it the windows 8 way, you go to the windows search and no matter what browser you're using, you get the same result without having to find out the specific implementation of search is for that app.

that's the stuff off the top of my head.
 
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 2:02 am

Ryu Connor wrote:
...I'd also note that I don't find the presentation of this forum to somehow be a bastion of good UI design, much less an example I'd use to support my case of a design superiority...


Well, given these two hardware features, up/down really is currently the best way to go (for me):

1. Hardware keyboards have page-up and page-down keys. I can find them in the dark without looking or illuminating my keyboard. Page-down allows me to jump a page at a time.

I am a heavy reader, and I find that up/down is superior for ME when reading anything from email to web pages to forums. Currently there are no "page-right" or "page-left" keys on any of my hardware keyboards, regardless of OS. Hence, scrolling sideways requires that I press the cursor-right or cursor-left key and wait FOREVER for slow scrolling to occur, or I must 'poke-and-drag' a horizontal scroll bar with a pointing device. This makes reading and navigating even a simple website (or the new Start Screen) a clumsy affair, sort of like signing my name with my elbow.

2. As for my other devices:

My Nook reader doesn't really have an up/down vs. left/right paging orientation, or at least it doesn't matter. I just hit the "next page" button to advance. Just like the Page-Down button, this is fast, simple, and even more convenient than reading a real book or newspaper.

My iPad tablet and Android smartphone are BOTH easier and faster to PAGE DOWN with a thumb-flick-and-finger-stop gesture than they are to page-right or left with a finger-flick or a swipe-action. The thumb-up and thumb-down motions are easier and healthier for my hands. I know this because I have one application on my iPad and one on my smartphone (a different app) that forces left/right navigation with 1 or 2 fingers, depending on the app. They hurt and they increase wear-and-tear on my hands.

All other apps on both devices allow up/down with a thumb-flick, which I find this to be superior and easier on the hands.

Those are just some of my stated reasons favoring up/down for page navigation. But really, here are the BEST reasons, and I think hardware and software makers should pay attention to this:

3. IE, Chrome, Firefox, Notepad, MS-Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and their Apple and Open Office counterparts support up/down. Microsoft may want to introduce a new way, fine. But don't remove the old functionality!

4. People are used to the way it works. Developers should be kind and considerate of their customers when considering wild and crazy UI changes.

I'm not proposing that we remove left/right orientation from the Start Screen for people who like it or prefer it, or ESPECIALLY from people who might depend on it due to physical limitations or injuries. "Power to the People," I say! But I also think that major UI changes should give the user a choice. So far I hear most people in favor of the changes seem to be opposed to preserving "classic behavior". I think this is illogical and even shortsighted.
 
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 2:40 am

At the end of the day, I don't have strong feelings on whether information should be organized up/down or left/right. The semantics are actually forward/backward; as long as there's an intuitive way to navigate, it makes little difference to me.

That said, I find it a bit strange that the default behavior for PDF viewers is to treat the document as a vertically scrolling strip of pages, given that the point of PDF was to mimic the layout of printed books. I guess this was driven by the 3:4 (or 4:5) monitor aspect ratio which was common until a few years ago -- not particularly well-suited to displaying single pages in their entirety (too wide, lots of wasted space) *or* a pair of side-by-side pages (not wide enough).
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Cannonaire
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:02 am

Privacy issues
I can not remember where I found this, but it is relevant:
http://log.nadim.cc/?p=78
Seems you can turn it off, but most people will not because they do not know about it. This is a rather glaring privacy issue.

The rest of this post is just my opinion:
First, let me say I do not use the start menu at all. Actually, I use some nifty functionality built into the taskbar called 'toolbars': http://imageshack.us/a/img33/483/desktopcapture.jpg. I honestly do not care whether there is a start menu or a start screen, as long as I can easily get to my programs.

I do not like what Microsoft is doing with Windows 8, specifically in regards to mixing touch and traditional interfaces. Mouse and keyboard are much more precise than fingers for manipulating objects on a computer screen, and tradeoffs and compromises must be made to combine the two.

Could you imagine trying to use complex software like Adobe After Effects with your fingers? That interface is fantastic for getting work done with a mouse and keyboard; it would require a complete re-imagining to be usable by touch. Therein lies the issue - the 'legacy' software we all use is ill-suited for touch interfaces. Likewise, touch interfaces have a lot of bulk and wasted space to accommodate fingers. Going back to my previous example, Adobe After Effects has an interface which crams a lot of necessary information and functionality into as much area as is available. If it were redesigned for touch, you would lose an awful lot of the persistent on-screen information in order for touch to work at all. I would bet you could not make as effective an interface for that sort of thing if you were restricted to making it accessible by touch.

Windows 8 still gives you the desktop and traditional input, but it is obvious from the new start screen and the new Windows apps that Microsoft is taking steps in the direction of making things touch accessible. This is not a big issue right at the moment, but Microsoft seems to be betting Windows on touch and their own app store to compete with Apple and Google. [tinfoil hat] Who is to say Microsoft will keep the desktop for Windows 9 when their revenue comes from apps?[/tinfoil hat]. I am also sure Microsoft will come to adore their full control over which apps are allowed in their walled garden app store, just like they have with Xbox 360. Having full control over what is installed on your computer will also let them leave behind their reputation for making insecure operating systems (whether or not that reputation is deserved is a different topic).

I guess that was long winded and mostly a non-issue right now, but it is something to think about.

I have heard that Windows 8/RT, specifically the apps and start screen, are intuitive if you are using a tablet. I bet they are great on a tablet, but I do not like the idea of touch accessibility eroding functionality of software that is currently highly effective when used with traditional interfaces.

TL;DR PRIVACY ISSUE, also unless you are using a touch screen, I see little reason to get Windows 8. Touch is bad for desktop software.
 
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:16 am

I am waiting to see how the majority reacts to Win8. People don't like change, but it is not all about us prosumers and geeks.

Personally I hope MS yield like they did with Vista and release a better iteration. I think MS needs to eschew the touch and tablet features for a true desktop OS, while building on Win8s advancements and security improvements.
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:35 am

derFunkenstein wrote:
Second, Windows Defender's AV seems to be pretty good.


I been using Defender since beta and I highly suggest it. I even have it installed on my Parents PC. Its an awesome run and forget app. Auto updates, weekly and nightly scans (if you want), Always on protection.

I have gotten some false positives here and there but nothing that wasnt remedied by the next virus definitions. It has also caught AND removed some real nasties that I "picked up".

As far as I am concerned, this purchase was a good buy for Microsoft.

As for W8 I might just give it a whirl. Geez thinking about what I need to reinstall......man that list is daunting. Maybe I'll just get another SSD and install it there.
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moog
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 7:05 am

Windows 8 works great for touch input and mouse and keyboard.

Windows 8 was optimized (relatively) and is now faster and less resource hungry.

Windows 8 will get really awesome updates between now and Jan.
 
ordskiweicz
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 7:19 am

Yeah, and we love how easy it is to shut down! (WTF?)

Once you Google to find out how to shut it down, then we have (again) a confirmation screen (back to the Vista future).

Great graphics, too (sort of like Pong was, but with colors).
 
absurdity
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 7:24 am

l33t-g4m3r wrote:
Because it's the Hegelian dialectic. Microsoft deliberately screwed up the start menu starting with vista, so that down the line they could offer an alternative. Classic start is how it should be. Ironically, nobody would admit this problem with earlier versions until now, and later on it will be the same with Metro vs w9. The hypocrisy is nauseating.


I thought the start menu was fine in Vista and 7, I'm just pleased that they improved in a way I didn't really consider (and didn't really buy into until using it for a bit).
 
LostCat
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 10:00 am

ordskiweicz wrote:
Yeah, and we love how easy it is to shut down! (WTF?)

Once you Google to find out how to shut it down, then we have (again) a confirmation screen (back to the Vista future).

Great graphics, too (sort of like Pong was, but with colors).

Wow, and we love how people use one design change to blast an entire OS!

Did you have great graphics on your start menu? Somehow I doubt it. You'll see the start screen less often.
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onlysublime
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:40 pm

ordskiweicz wrote:
Yeah, and we love how easy it is to shut down! (WTF?)

Once you Google to find out how to shut it down, then we have (again) a confirmation screen (back to the Vista future).

Great graphics, too (sort of like Pong was, but with colors).


the windows 8 controls are universal and are a small set so once you get used to them, things become simple.

and there's still the little things that you discover along the way of learning a new OS. like right-clicking in the lower left corner of the screen (where the start button would've been) to show the quick access menu (alternatively, hitting Win+X) which is also customizable:

Image

or you can make shortcut icons to shutdown and restart:

Image

Just like with any OS... you tweak it to fit your needs...
 
anotherengineer
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:42 pm

Make sure there are drivers for all your hardware.

I had no soundcard drivers for awhile with win7, and I don't see any yet for win 8.
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derFunkenstein
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:53 pm

Ryu Connor wrote:
eBook readers rather faithfully carried the way a book is designed into their UI. Even iOS follows this concept. Your home screen has a fixed vertical size and you scroll left or right as if moving through pages of a book to find your application.

Yet the new iBooks has continuous scrolling for some reason. ha!
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onlysublime
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:55 pm

Cannonaire wrote:
Privacy issues

The rest of this post is just my opinion:

I do not like what Microsoft is doing with Windows 8, specifically in regards to mixing touch and traditional interfaces. Mouse and keyboard are much more precise than fingers for manipulating objects on a computer screen, and tradeoffs and compromises must be made to combine the two.

Could you imagine trying to use complex software like Adobe After Effects with your fingers? That interface is fantastic for getting work done with a mouse and keyboard; it would require a complete re-imagining to be usable by touch.

Windows 8 still gives you the desktop and traditional input, but it is obvious from the new start screen and the new Windows apps that Microsoft is taking steps in the direction of making things touch accessible. This is not a big issue right at the moment, but Microsoft seems to be betting Windows on touch and their own app store to compete with Apple and Google.

TL;DR PRIVACY ISSUE, also unless you are using a touch screen, I see little reason to get Windows 8. Touch is bad for desktop software.


I'd totally like a mix of touch and KBM. An example I can think of is Photoshop. I use Photoshop quite often. And one of the things I have to do a lot is zoom in and out of the photo. Why use the zoom tool when I can pinch to zoom in and out with my finger? Zooming with the KBM is a chore. hit "z". then click click click. then "alt". then click click click. the best KBM zoom is the mouse (hold the mouse button and roll left and right (I actually use a trackball)). but why do I have to get out of my brush tool just to zoom? I want to be brushing with my right hand and then using my left hand to occasionally zoom the screen.

Same thing for a web browser. Right now, if you go on a website, its font size might be too small. Sure, you can set the font size on web sites individually. Or use a global setting. But that's cumbersome. And there are keyboard commands to change the font size. But sometimes you mean to zoom one website and you accidentally globally change it so the next site has an enormous font. No wonder there are add-ons for Firefox and Chrome on adjusting text size. Why not pinch to zoom?

One of the reasons I got a TabletPC way back when was I wanted to be able to sketch on the go. But Windows was so clunky. So even though there were some gems (like the handwriting recognition and the ability to recognize pressure points), dealing with the Windows part was a chore.

of course, touch wouldn't be for everything. that's why my phone still has a physical keyboard.
 
Krogoth
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 2:26 pm

OP, unless you need to have a built-in app store front-end and/or Hyper-V support. There's no reason to get Windows 8 over Vista/7. They all share the same codebase.

Windows 8 = Windows 7 SP2 + app-store front-end for $39-79 USD

Enough said.
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flip-mode
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 3:23 pm

I've got 8 in a VM now. I'm not sure if the new UI is clunky or if it just takes getting used to. The more I fiddle the more I think it's the latter. But I also think MS could have put more thought into how a desktop user can manipulate the Start Page with the mouse. For instance, just being able to click the background and drag things from side to side would be nice.

Having said that, MS does seem to have put plenty of thought into how the keyboard works. There are a bunch of shortcuts:
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/06/th ... shortcuts/

Keyboard interaction seems to be very valuable if not critical to efficient navigation of the OS. Using the mouse seems clunky - at least in a virtual machine.

I also installed Revit and a Revit program tile was added to the start page - useful.


Edit: Oh, and I think Krogoth is totally missing the point. Sure, MS is putting it's own app store into place. But I think the real purpose of Windows 8 is to introduce some truly touch-centric thinking into the OS.
 
moriz
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 3:52 pm

running windows 8 pro on my desktop now. surprisingly enough, i think it works BETTER on a multi-screen system than windows 7. reason is that each screen now has their own task bar, and you can set the metro/modern interface to appear on any screen you want; just click the bottom left corner of the screen you want, and it'll appear there until you set it somewhere else.

it's not all good though. what windows 8 REALLY needs, is a way to bind a permanent tile onto the desktop in the form of widgets. the calendar and weather apps would be amazing if i can permanently pin it onto my desktop. also, while each screen gets their own taskbar, they all essentially function as a single taskbar. as of right now, if i click on an application on any of the taskbars, the resulting application opens on the screen where it was last. instead, that application should start in that screen. we should also get the ability to pin different applications to the taskbars.
 
onlysublime
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Re: Windows 8- Sell me on it

Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:20 pm

moriz wrote:
... and you can set the metro/modern interface to appear on any screen you want; just click the bottom left corner of the screen you want, and it'll appear there until you set it somewhere else.



that tidbit on moving the start screen is cool! I was doing it the mouse way by dragging it to the other screen. I didn't know there was a click method.

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