Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview

re: Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview

PaulAtreides — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:21:09 GMT

@Aroush: Yep, you are absolutely right. I laughed so hard I almost choked on my bagel.

What is the color of the sky on your planet again?

re: Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview

Pax — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:15:45 GMT

@Aroush

If you're not even going to bother reading what i wrote, then don't bother replying to it...

From the article : "the Consumer Preview represents a refined product ready for broad and daily usage..."

It has also been mentioned in other threads, that the CP was functionally complete. The work from here on is about optimizing and fixing bugs. Meaning that, what we see now, is what we're going to get. Minor changes perhaps, due to tweaking and bugfixing, but the overall design is not going to change.

And, of course, the core of the design won't change. That would be alot of development time+money down the drain. It's too late for that. Which is why they should have listened to the feedback from the DP.

But a complete design change is not even needed. Just re-introduce the start menu (not just button) and make it so, when I'm in desktop I stay in desktop. Just like Win 7. And when I'm in Metro I stay in Metro.

That way, we won't even need and option to disable it. We can use whatever we want whenever and however we want. Is that such a terrible thing?

The length they go to, to force Metro on us, only shows that it's all about creating a market for the new appstore.

Basically I like Metro. But I don't want it to disturb me all the time, like whenever I want to search for something.

I don't want to pixel-hunt for hotspots when using multi-monitor setups. Have you tried the upperleft-corner? Then go straight down in order to see the full list. Good luck with that if you have another monitor on the left.

I don't want to see a complete list of 1000+ shortcuts in the All Apps section. Make the groups collapsible, for Pete's sake.

I don't want to see a multitude og Metro apps in the Alt+Tab when I'm working on the desktop.

But I will gladly use Metro when I feel like relaxing, checking my facebook, messenger etc.

So, all in all, Windows has always been about choice and letting the user be in control.

Now... Not so much.

re: Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview

Aroush — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:28:00 GMT

@Gir:

I'm not a "fanboy". I'm someone who is awake.

Someone who realises that microsoft is never, not in a million years, going to reverse windows 8 development to deliver a win8 without metro and with start menu. That would be totally ridiculous. And I'll add that, even disregarding my own (and other people's) feelings about that, they'ld also loose my respect if they did.

This decision was made a looooong time ago.

For the love of god, if you people want to use windows 8 EXACTLY like you are using windows 7... then maybe just stick to windows 7.

The fact of the matter is that microsoft is positioning windows 8 to be a monster hit. You might laugh when I say that, but I'm very convinced that it is the truth.

Do you know that I'm actually using the CP as my PRIMARY machine at the moment?

I'm a software engineer. Thus a power user. While working, I have about 12 applications open ranging from visual studio all the way down to notepad. Yes, it was an adjustment at first. But, seriously, whenever I return to windows 7 now... i'm like "what a dull and boring OS". Sure, it does its job... Just like Vista did. And XP. And 98. And 95. And 3.1. But win8 really grew on me. I'm absolutely loving it.

Sure, there are issues. And certainly, those need to be fixed. There's 6 months of development left, I see no reason to doubt that those issues will actually be fixed. Surely, you can see how it's very important to msft that this release of windows is very stable and great. They cannot afford to do a half-arsed release. They cannot afford a tiresome release like Vista. It MUST be absolutely GREAT in EVERY way. It must... just work.

We know this, you may be sure as hell that msft knows it too.

Now, as for why I think win8 will be a monster hit....

My dad and wife are 2 of the biggest PC-idiots I have ever met in my life. To give you an idea of just how high the "IT idiot factor" is with them... 3 years ago I was trying to explain my dad how he could add an attachment to an email. I told him "move up with your mouse", after which he took the mouse and vertically lifted it up from the table. LOL!!

Anyhow, last weekend, I showed them both the CP and had them play around with it a bit.

They both loved it. My wife literally told me: "This is how it always should have been!"

And, next to win8 being MUCH more "idiot proof", I -as a power user- STILL can have all the 'advanced' stuff I use daily in win7.

Windows 8 is going to eat the competition alive.

re: Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview

Aroush — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:09:40 GMT

@Pax: in case you didn't notice... they didn't call it a BETA. They called it a "consumer PREVIEW". Have you wondered why that is?

re: Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview

Jonathan — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 04:19:42 GMT

LMAO at the link to Paul Thurrott. If he's not being paid by Microsoft, then he's just the biggest jerk on the planet. Seriously, the tone of that article was beyond rude.

re: Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview

Orlando — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 03:48:01 GMT

@Steven Sinofsky

It would be great to dissable Metro and Enable the classic Start Menu, Please It's not hard to do.

re: Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview

IsoUnit — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 03:35:45 GMT

One feature I've always wanted in Windows is a way to show sizes in base-10 numbers instead of the unhelpful base-2 numbers. That was useful as a shorthand decades ago, but we've moved well beyond the point where that makes sense anymore. In fact, a number if other operating systems have already made the switch. It makes it very difficult to judge the sizes for groups of files or whether something will fit in a particular amount of empty space, etc since humans don't think in base-2. With experience, you can learn to guess how big things actually are, but with horrible accuracy. You can right-click and check out the properties dialogs to see the exact size in bytes, but that's a pain to have to do every time. So, having the rounded sizes listed in details view, tooltips, etc. is great, but they should be in base-10.

On a somewhat related note, the explorer status bar should again show the free space on current drive, size of selected files (regardless of number (with some exceptions perhaps), etc. It's very annoying on a daily basis that it does not.

re: Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview

Building Vista 2.0 — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 02:12:44 GMT

I turn it on and the first thing you see is the desktop, NO Metro Menu colors, it is illogical, I have a desktop PC, not a tablet.

re: Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview

Juan — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:44:12 GMT

Ya lo decidi, no necesito pensarlo mas, tan solo ver la direccion que ha tomado Microsoft y su estupida interfaz para niños, prefiero usar una Mac.

re: Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview

Joan — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:42:09 GMT

Just one word. Trashy OS for Trashy People.

Give us our classic Start menu, simple, clean, elegant, not pseudo-minimalist garbage.