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ludi wrote:

From what I can tell, every major update moves a few more items from a Control Panel location to a PC Settings selection. The problem is that things inside PC Settings seems to move around as well -- minor stuff, but enough to keep the entire interface schizophrenic. And the Control Panel framework underneath never seems to fully go away.

I'm not aware of things that they have moved (I took that as "it's not in the control panel anymore") from Control Panel to the PC Settings app, but they definitely duplicate some things in there. I am with you both on having a better organization of those two things. I just don't touch the Settings app if I don't have to right now.

ludi wrote:

I wish Microsoft would re-architect the entire Control Panel into PC Settings through internal beta testing, settle on a final layout, then move the entire thing into production in a fall update and Leave.It.Alone. afterwards. Anyone who couldn't do what they needed to do following that transition would presumably be an administrator who already knows how to use PowerShell and Group Policy Editor.

That would probably result in a year or so of loud carping à la Office Ribbon, after which everyone would adapt, accept, and move on. The current approach is like watching half of an apartment complex burn down while a construction crew is expanding it on the other end of the row.

This is why I consider Microsoft so ridiculously incompetent when it comes to UI design. The painful transition from classic NT-style to Modern App should have been a single, total switchover from one to the other with concurrent old and new available for a brief period (maybe the lifetime of Windows 8.0) solely to allow people to adjust to the new system.

Microsoft started this stupid piecemeal upgrade with with Windows 8 almost 6 years ago and they're not even halfway there yet. Am I naive for expecting a whole UI in one go? It seems like we have been beta testing incomplete software with the Modern App stuff for far too long now, and that would be okay if it were fully-functional.

As such, trying to use the newer UI often results in some head-scratching, a web-search, and then the facepalmingly-stupid realisation that the function you are looking for doesn't yet exist in the modern UI version and you have to invoke the legacy version anyway. People like us *want* to switch over but Microsoft are shooting themselves (and their customers) in the feet. If I buy a new car, I'd like a 100% new car, not a 50% new car with 50% of my old car parts used as placeholders for the next 6 years.

Chrispy_ wrote:

ludi wrote:

I wish Microsoft would re-architect the entire Control Panel into PC Settings through internal beta testing, settle on a final layout, then move the entire thing into production in a fall update and Leave.It.Alone. afterwards. Anyone who couldn't do what they needed to do following that transition would presumably be an administrator who already knows how to use PowerShell and Group Policy Editor.

That would probably result in a year or so of loud carping à la Office Ribbon, after which everyone would adapt, accept, and move on. The current approach is like watching half of an apartment complex burn down while a construction crew is expanding it on the other end of the row.

This is why I consider Microsoft so ridiculously incompetent when it comes to UI design. The painful transition from classic NT-style to Modern App should have been a single, total switchover from one to the other with concurrent old and new available for a brief period (maybe the lifetime of Windows 8.0) solely to allow people to adjust to the new system.

Microsoft started this stupid piecemeal upgrade with with Windows 8 almost 6 years ago and they're not even halfway there yet. Am I naive for expecting a whole UI in one go? It seems like we have been beta testing incomplete software with the Modern App stuff for far too long now, and that would be okay if it were fully-functional.

As such, trying to use the newer UI often results in some head-scratching, a web-search, and then the facepalmingly-stupid realisation that the function you are looking for doesn't yet exist in the modern UI version and you have to invoke the legacy version anyway. People like us *want* to switch over but Microsoft are shooting themselves (and their customers) in the feet. If I buy a new car, I'd like a 100% new car, not a 50% new car with 50% of my old car parts used as placeholders for the next 6 years.

Why couldn't they just kept the old Windows 7 UI with maybe a few improvements instead?

whm1974 wrote:

Why couldn't they just kept the old Windows 7 UI with maybe a few improvements instead?

Because phones and tablets are a thing in the real world. They tried, but failed pretty miserably and now have a half-assed product in a lot of places.

DancinJack wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

Why couldn't they just kept the old Windows 7 UI with maybe a few improvements instead?

Because phones and tablets are a thing in the real world. They tried, but failed pretty miserably and now have a half-assed product in a lot of places.

I have yet to meet anyone who actually like the Windows 8 Metro UI. How people really brought those Windows RT tablets anyway?And didn't most of them returned those?

My biggest gripe with the new settings app (apart from being hilariously incomplete) is it's single-instance for no good reason. Have remote settings up and want to check the firewall to see if it's set to block RDP? Sorry, the old window just changed from remote to firewall. "Oh no big deal I can just use the back button to go where I was once I'm done here." Nope, internally the old window is destroyed and replaced with the new one which means navigation history is removed.

I think that's my main gripe with MS software in general. Nearly every feature is half-baked, buggy, and stinks of design-by-committee. People tend to cringe at the though of change in Windows, but honestly it's not that they fear change, it's that they fear change at the hands of Microsoft. So many features have been good on paper but terribly executed or a solid foundation has been built then left to rot for a decade.

I think the rapid (for Microsoft) release model of 10 might help this in the future as they get used to the feature => rollout => feedback => iterate cycle (iterate being the key step here), but it's going to be painful getting there.

whm1974 wrote:

I have yet to meet anyone who actually like the Windows 8 Metro UI.

I exist. So do many other people here who used and enjoyed Windows phones. The metro ui is leaps and bounds better than the ugly my little pony sparkle of 7. Big fan of it

As for control panel vs settings, yes, every update more and more gets moved to settings. Control panel still does a lot, but that will change over the next few years. If you're having a tough time with settings use the excellent search.

As for design by committee, most decisions on ui are now made by that telemetry you all complain about so much.

whm1974 wrote:

Why couldn't they just kept the old Windows 7 UI with maybe a few improvements instead?

Some of us wish Windows UI development had stopped with Win2K. Might explain why I gravitate toward KDE or Xfce.

sweatshopking wrote:

As for design by committee, most decisions on ui are now made by that telemetry you all complain about so much.

That's come back to haunt them as well.

Link

Chaitanya Sareen wrote:

However, speaking to PC Pro at TechEd in Amsterdam, a senior Microsoft executive told us that the old Start menu had already fallen out of favour with users of Windows 7.

"We’d seen the trend in Windows 7," said Chaitanya Sareen, principal program manager at Microsoft, referring to the telemetry gathered by the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program. "When we evolved the taskbar we saw awesome adoption of pinning [applications] on the taskbar. We are seeing people pin like crazy. And so we saw the Start menu usage dramatically dropping, and that gave us an option. We’re saying 'look, Start menu usage is dropping, what can we do about it? What can we do with the Start menu to revive it, to give it some new identity, give it some new power?'"

"So I’m a desktop user, I pin the browser, Explorer, whatever my apps are. I don’t go the Start menu as often. If you’re going to the Start screen now, we’re going to unlock a whole new set of scenarios, or you can choose not to go there, stay in the desktop, and it’s still fast. You can’t beat the taskbar."

Windows 7 Master Race!

Captain Ned wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

Why couldn't they just kept the old Windows 7 UI with maybe a few improvements instead?

Some of us wish Windows UI development had stopped with Win2K. Might explain why I gravitate toward KDE or Xfce.

Agreed, for me the most usable and best looking version of Windows ever was Windows 2000. I loved it. I guess that could be why I use KDE (though 5 looks less like Win2k than 4 did).

I have Windows 10 installed on a couple of places (Laptop came with it, plus a VM). My Wife also has it (though it installed its self on her main PC without her consent) and so far it doesn't give us any major issues, outside of programs breaking and needing re-installing after the big updates, though said software has now been upgraded to newer versions.

Hi DPI scaling is horrible though so I didn't use it on my laptop as much as I do now. I used to dual boot Fedora and Windows 10 on the laptop, but for some reason occasionally booting Windows 10 would suddenly corrupt grub, and I got fed up of keep having to fix grub so I moved Fedora to a VM (running LXQt).

I have been experimenting with the Windows subsystem for Linux, and I am NOT impressed so far. The IO performance is horrible, also compiling GCC can be hit and miss, I've had the compile job literally jam up, needing a Ctrl+C. So what was a disappointment (using Ubuntu as Fedora isn't available yet). I may go back to Cygwin, especially as that should also be able to build GUI applications which "Bash for Linux" for want of a better name doesn't seem to be able to do that without a lot of work.

Other than that, the UI works, but I'm not enthusiastic about it, I still prefer the old Control Panel to the new Settings application (I refused to use the term "app").

whm1974 wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

End User wrote:

Hit a nerve I see.

Hardly. It's just that it's a worn-out old meme that was funny for all of about 30 seconds back when someone first came up with it a couple of decades ago. And I say this as someone who doesn't dispute that they've engaged in some really sh*tty business practices, and hasn't run an MS OS (other than as a seldom-used VM) on my primary desktop or laptop for close to a decade now.

So are you a pure Linux user, or do you also use MacOS as well? Which Distro are you using?

Whoa. For a moment I thought it was I who posted that question.

Captain Ned wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

Why couldn't they just kept the old Windows 7 UI with maybe a few improvements instead?

Some of us wish Windows UI development had stopped with Win2K. Might explain why I gravitate toward KDE or Xfce.

Windows 10 is basically same damn UI as Win2K. Nothing has changed. THAT IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH WINDOWS 10!

sweatshopking wrote:

use the excellent search.

Don't make me laugh.

sweatshopking wrote:

yep. it's easily the best OS on the market at this point.

No, it's not. Why do you insist on embarrassing yourself with your M$ fetish.

There is no such thing as the perfect OS:

- Android and iOS in the mobile space
- iOS in the pure tablet space
- Windows is in hybrid space
- Chromebook/macOS/Linux/Windows in the laptop space
- macOS/Linux/Windows in the desktop space
- Linux/Windows in the server space

My dual Nvidia based Windows 10 rig remembers Window locations on a second display after a wake from sleep. My dual Radeon based dual display rig does not.

DancinJack wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

Why couldn't they just kept the old Windows 7 UI with maybe a few improvements instead?

Because phones and tablets are a thing in the real world. They tried, but failed pretty miserably and now have a half-assed product in a lot of places.

Ubuntu attempted more less the same thing with Unity. And, in hindsight, we see how well that went.

just brew it! wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

whm1974 wrote:

Why couldn't they just kept the old Windows 7 UI with maybe a few improvements instead?

Because phones and tablets are a thing in the real world. They tried, but failed pretty miserably and now have a half-assed product in a lot of places.

Ubuntu attempted more less the same thing with Unity. And, in hindsight, we see how well that went.

I loved Unity. That was not the UI mess that was Windows 8.

End User wrote:

sweatshopking wrote:

yep. it's easily the best OS on the market at this point.

No, it's not. Why do you insist on embarrassing yourself with your M$ fetish.

There is no such thing as the perfect OS:

- Android and iOS in the mobile space
- iOS in the pure tablet space
- Windows is in hybrid space
- Chromebook/macOS/Linux/Windows in the laptop space
- macOS/Linux/Windows in the desktop space
- Linux/Windows in the server space

Brah, first off, use edit. Too many posts
Second, when did I say "perfect?" I said "best" and outside of the server (ill give you that one, though Windows server is getting pretty powerful) i think it is. Linux in laptops? Come on. Chrome? Isn't even a fully featured os. They work for specific use cases, sure. They're not really competition for ms on pcs, just like Windows on mobile isn't for android.

sweatshopking wrote:

End User wrote:

sweatshopking wrote:

yep. it's easily the best OS on the market at this point.

No, it's not. Why do you insist on embarrassing yourself with your M$ fetish.

There is no such thing as the perfect OS:

- Android and iOS in the mobile space
- iOS in the pure tablet space
- Windows is in hybrid space
- Chromebook/macOS/Linux/Windows in the laptop space
- macOS/Linux/Windows in the desktop space
- Linux/Windows in the server space

Brah, first off, use edit. Too many posts
Second, when did I say "perfect?" I said "best" and outside of the server (ill give you that one, though Windows server is getting pretty powerful) i think it is. Linux in laptops? Come on. Chrome? Isn't even a fully featured os. They work for specific use cases, sure. They're not really competition for ms on pcs, just like Windows on mobile isn't for android.

Brah, you’re so out in left field you’re on the other side of the fence.

End User wrote:

Brah, you’re so out in left field you’re on the other side of the fence.

On the plus side, at least he can still see the fence.

End User wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

Because phones and tablets are a thing in the real world. They tried, but failed pretty miserably and now have a half-assed product in a lot of places.

Ubuntu attempted more less the same thing with Unity. And, in hindsight, we see how well that went.

I loved Unity. That was not the UI mess that was Windows 8.

I haven't used Unity, but in theory the idea of having one interface for phone, tablet, laptop, and desktop spaces seems like a bad idea to me. The way you interact with a phone is very different from the way you interact with a desktop computer. Input methods and screen real estate are wildly diverse, and there are different purposes for using each. I'm not sure what the answer is -- perhaps having different modes for each application that can be used on different platforms -- but one interface to rule them all seems silly.

Unity was vaguely Mac-ish, so I am not surprised that our resident member of the Cult Of Apple thought it was decent. Yes, it was simple and (mostly) consistent. That's really the best thing I can say about it. Aside from that, it was too much of a compromise, and got in my way more than it helped.

The roughly coincident launch of Unity and GNOME 3 was what turned me into a KDE user...

It's basically the same problem as web developers run into with responsive web design. Trying to stretch the same experience across two or three completely different devices often just doesn't work, but building three completely different experiences isn't that great either(not to mention it's a lot more work). Trying to find a spot somewhere in the middle is difficult, and attempting to convey all of this to clients or business managers often doesn't make it any easier.

I never really hated Unity, but I understand why so many people did. I guess I'm more tolerant of a bad/weird UI than I am updates that re-crapify the OS every time and advertisements disguised as notifications that might actually be useful.

just brew it! wrote:

Unity was vaguely Mac-ish, so I am not surprised that our resident member of the Cult Of Apple thought it was decent. Yes, it was simple and (mostly) consistent. That's really the best thing I can say about it. Aside from that, it was too much of a compromise, and got in my way more than it helped.

The roughly coincident launch of Unity and GNOME 3 was what turned me into a KDE user...

Yeah, count me in the GNOME 2 crew. MATE isn't completely awful though.

DancinJack wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

Unity was vaguely Mac-ish, so I am not surprised that our resident member of the Cult Of Apple thought it was decent. Yes, it was simple and (mostly) consistent. That's really the best thing I can say about it. Aside from that, it was too much of a compromise, and got in my way more than it helped.

The roughly coincident launch of Unity and GNOME 3 was what turned me into a KDE user...

Yeah, count me in the GNOME 2 crew. MATE isn't completely awful though.

Mate is OK, but I'm a Xfce guy.

End User wrote:

Brah, you’re so out in left field you’re on the other side of the fence.

Windows 10 is easily the best consumer OS in existence for desktop/laptop use.

Servers? No.
Mobile? No.

Desktop? Absolutely!

sweatshopking wrote:

...They're not really competition for ms on pcs, just like Windows on mobile isn't for android.

The big difference between Windows and Linux is really that Linux isn't in competition in the first place... it's free open-source software.

That's the disconnect I see coming up time and again every time anyone discusses the merits of Linux on forums - people always weigh in with talk of "market share" and whatnot... and it's basically an irrelevance when it comes to Linux.

Microsoft are in the business of making money... they used to sell products to their customers. More recently they've switched over to the Google/Facebook model, where they sell users to their customers. However solid an experience their OS may or may not be, if you choose Windows at this point, you choose to be constantly manipulated and exploited, unless you make a constant concerted effort to fight against the very nature of the OS you're using. Just the same as on Android, and to a slightly less-overt degree, iOS... and to a slightly more overt degree, Amazon FIre, etc.

The alternative is Linux... it'll never be "competitive", because it doesn't have a vested financial interest in cornering the market in the first place, and if it ever did, it would rapidly lose the only benefits that make it unique anyway. Hopefully it'll always be there though, ticking along behind the scenes, and consistently improving as time goes on.

GrimDanfango wrote:

The big difference between Windows and Linux is really that Linux isn't in competition in the first place... it's free open-source software.

Don't disagree, android and chrome, both linux based operating systems designed to make google money, excluded.