The chances are Microsoft will continue to support windows 7 as long as the enterprise sector digs in as they did with XP. Remember it wasn't that long ago OEM's were offering XP as a downgrade option from Vista due to demand.
It just seems to me that most people on Tested and any other established computer technology related website would see Windows 8 as unnecessary, poorly designed, and a possible clusterfuck in terms of PR with the tech press and mass userbase of Windows owners
I like to think of Tested as educated and able to form an opinion baseless on mainstream technology without "tech press" as a crutch. And of all things, Windows 8 is not poorly designed. I wish people would stop saying that.
Learn to use new technology->enjoy new technology, and not hate it for some arbitrary reason such as "other people don't like it and don't want to learn how to use it, so... me too!"
Yeah, I don't know, Win8 seems fine. As long as you can still just hit the windows key, type something, hit enter, and it's open, everything seems pretty ok to me.
@MAGZine: I would say that Metro is poorly designed, it's not my cup of UI tea :P. Win 8 does seem to have several performance and under the hood tweaks that are tempting though...
The right to downgrade has always been part of Windows user agreements. Unless they change it for Win8, which seems unlikely, you should be able to buy a Win8 license and use Win7 media to roll it back (after a call to MS).
BTW, I've never really understood the Vista hate. It was fine. Not great, but not a not worth freaking out about.
@WolfOfOne: Just because one does not like the look of something, does not mean that it is poorly designed. Microsoft has great designers and great HCI people. Just like Ribbon for Office, it's not bad design. It was just 'different'. And people responded poorly to that, because people typically do not like chance.
Mac and iPad user here: I've got Windows 8 RP on my MacBook Pro as a secondary boot and I'll be buying it when it's released. It's a good OS, I like it a lot more than Windows 7.
But then, I liked Vista (a hell of a lot) more than XP, so maybe I'm weird.
My issue with windows 8 is just the metro stuff. Everything else seems to basically be windows 7, which I'm totally fine with. Metro (the little I've played with it) is visually awesome, but has a big BIG problem with content scaling. Once you have too much crap on your PC, you're either scrolling through pages of junk, or just using search.
I'd love a system-wide tagging option for searches, as I'm just OCD enough to tag everything (I also do a lot of production work, so I have thousands and thousands of various image files to muck through). I don't think this is a solution for the common man.
@episcopo said:
I think most people will invite change in terms of computer technology when the said change is well done
What I've learned from the internet, is that it hates and fears drastic change. They'll come to embrace it in time, sure. But the quality of change is irrelevant.
@episcopo: The Ribbon was a huge win for Office. Even though "you may not miss it," it took tools that people searched for the most and put them centerfold. It fixed usability issues. The design change makes sense. All of those menus were awful, and it would've only been a matter of time until someone came out with a GUI with important tools front-and-center, and people would've said "Pfffff. This is way better than Office, those menus SUCK!" Microsoft can't win against the internet hate machine.
Windows 8 also combines numberous usability issues. Considering that the vast majority of people actually access programs from their desktop--not the start menu--the start menu issue is not as big of an "issue" as people make it. Secondly, when the start menu is open, it takes up <10% of your screen, but occupies 100% of your attention. How is this even remotely useful? Microsoft is taking advantage of that and introducing a concept to put more tools and information at your fingertips, easy to access... which seems to be the current direction things are headed for.
"It's touch oriented and just slapped on the PC without any regard." Actually, it was designed for both. Just because UI elements are big, does not mean that the primary purpose they serve is touch.
@episcopo: I use office suite every day and love the ribbon. World isn't made of absolutes, man. Just because you don't see the benefit of something doesn't mean someone else can't.
@episcopo: because it put better tools where they should be, and didn't hide them in dumb, obscure places. If you're looking for examples of what I'm talking about, go to Google.com and then let google auto-complete these:
Word 2003 how
Word 2010 how
changing page orientation and margins are no longer issues. Because they have been moved to somewhere that isn't obscure and dumb, a dialog box burried inside of some ugly menu system. You might prefer to dig through menus, but I like having my tools accessible, easy to find and easy to use.
@episcopo: Microsoft always does an excellent job at plastering their finished product with tour guides and little 'notes' on how to use their new interfaces. 8 will be no different. Once people understand 'how it works' instead of just being thrown into the experience cold-turkey, they're going to understand it much better.
Promise.
e: Also, like how he tries not to influence his direction at all in finding the UI elements, but then guides him to conclusions. Like "seems like it would work well on a tablet," and "you can see how slow it took," among other assertive statements about the OS that his dad might not have come to otherwise. I really wish people would stop doing this.
@episcopo: Microsoft always does an excellent job at plastering their finished product with tour guides and little 'notes' on how to use their new interfaces. 8 will be no different. Once people understand 'how it works' instead of just being thrown into the experience cold-turkey, they're going to understand it much better.
Promise.
e: Also, like how he tries not to influence his direction at all in finding the UI elements, but then guides him to conclusions. Like "seems like it would work well on a tablet," and "you can see how slow it took," among other assertive statements about the OS that his dad might not have come to otherwise. I really wish people would stop doing this.
I haven't tried Windows 8, but doesn't pressing the Windows key on your keyboard pop up the start menu as usual? That seems like a fairly minor thing to "learn", and would have basically nullified the man's troubles in that video.
Since you never seemed to discuss this: have you even used Windows 8 yet? Because the Windows 8 start screen is functionally identical to the legacy start menu.
I haven't tried Windows 8, but doesn't pressing the Windows key on your keyboard pop up the start menu as usual? That seems like a fairly minor thing to "learn", and would have basically nullified the man's troubles in that video.
Pressing the Windows Key on a keyboard, I believe, brings up Metro. Metro does not equal the Start Menu even if others try and pass it off as one. Metro is a cluster-fuck that looks nice.
Nah I wouldn't be one to consider it a start menu - I just hadn't seen it in action and assumed it did the same thing as all previous versions. I won't be bothering with an upgrade then, I don't think. Win 7 is pretty much perfect for how I use a desktop machine. It allows me to configure it to be simple and clean - the complete opposite of the metro mess (I'm incredibly particular about the neatness of my screen, primarily for efficiency).
@episcopo: No. I was talking to you. So, let me ask again: have you actually ever used Windows 8 for a significant amount of time? What can you do in the Start Menu that you can't do with the Start Screen?
I have been using the W8 RP since it came out. I'm still using it. At no point has the Metro Start Screen been worse to use than the old start menu. In many ways it's been better. I'd agree with claims that the change isn't inherently necessary, but that doesn't make it inherently bad. Will makes a solid point that if Metro apps take off, the Start Screen can be very important and very useful.
I have a positive bias towards new things; I make no bones about that. You, however, seem to be against new things to the point of being irrational. Maybe you're just not doing a good job making your case as to why Windows 8 is a poorly designed clusterfuck. I don't see the evidence after using it for 2 months.
Windows 8 also combines numberous usability issues. Considering that the vast majority of people actually access programs from their desktop--not the start menu--the start menu issue is not as big of an "issue" as people make it. Secondly, when the start menu is open, it takes up <10% of your screen, but occupies 100% of your attention. How is this even remotely useful? Microsoft is taking advantage of that and introducing a concept to put more tools and information at your fingertips, easy to access... which seems to be the current direction things are headed for.
I never thought about the start menu being only <10% but taking up 100% of your attention. The whole screen thing with the new "modern"/"metro" makes a lot of sense now. If the start menu is taking all your attention might as well use all of the screen.
I'd like to see a Godwin's Law for Vista references.
The chances are Microsoft will continue to support windows 7 as long as the enterprise sector digs in as they did with XP. Remember it wasn't that long ago OEM's were offering XP as a downgrade option from Vista due to demand.
You can still buy a copy of Windows 3.1 if you want, so I'm not worried about stocking up on copies of 7.
Once you can't find it, chances are you will struggle to find support for it (drivers, modern software etc.) and will want something else.
You can still buy Vista, too.
I'll be on Windows 8.
I like to think of Tested as educated and able to form an opinion baseless on mainstream technology without "tech press" as a crutch. And of all things, Windows 8 is not poorly designed. I wish people would stop saying that.
Learn to use new technology->enjoy new technology, and not hate it for some arbitrary reason such as "other people don't like it and don't want to learn how to use it, so... me too!"
Yeah, I don't know, Win8 seems fine. As long as you can still just hit the windows key, type something, hit enter, and it's open, everything seems pretty ok to me.
@MAGZine: I would say that Metro is poorly designed, it's not my cup of UI tea :P. Win 8 does seem to have several performance and under the hood tweaks that are tempting though...
The right to downgrade has always been part of Windows user agreements. Unless they change it for Win8, which seems unlikely, you should be able to buy a Win8 license and use Win7 media to roll it back (after a call to MS).
BTW, I've never really understood the Vista hate. It was fine. Not great, but not a not worth freaking out about.
@WolfOfOne: Just because one does not like the look of something, does not mean that it is poorly designed. Microsoft has great designers and great HCI people. Just like Ribbon for Office, it's not bad design. It was just 'different'. And people responded poorly to that, because people typically do not like chance.
Mac and iPad user here: I've got Windows 8 RP on my MacBook Pro as a secondary boot and I'll be buying it when it's released. It's a good OS, I like it a lot more than Windows 7.
But then, I liked Vista (a hell of a lot) more than XP, so maybe I'm weird.
Vista was a great OS, I never had any issues. It was far batter than XP. I hated XP.
My issue with windows 8 is just the metro stuff. Everything else seems to basically be windows 7, which I'm totally fine with. Metro (the little I've played with it) is visually awesome, but has a big BIG problem with content scaling. Once you have too much crap on your PC, you're either scrolling through pages of junk, or just using search.
I'd love a system-wide tagging option for searches, as I'm just OCD enough to tag everything (I also do a lot of production work, so I have thousands and thousands of various image files to muck through). I don't think this is a solution for the common man.
@episcopo said:
What I've learned from the internet, is that it hates and fears drastic change. They'll come to embrace it in time, sure. But the quality of change is irrelevant.
@episcopo: The Ribbon was a huge win for Office. Even though "you may not miss it," it took tools that people searched for the most and put them centerfold. It fixed usability issues. The design change makes sense. All of those menus were awful, and it would've only been a matter of time until someone came out with a GUI with important tools front-and-center, and people would've said "Pfffff. This is way better than Office, those menus SUCK!" Microsoft can't win against the internet hate machine.
Windows 8 also combines numberous usability issues. Considering that the vast majority of people actually access programs from their desktop--not the start menu--the start menu issue is not as big of an "issue" as people make it. Secondly, when the start menu is open, it takes up <10% of your screen, but occupies 100% of your attention. How is this even remotely useful? Microsoft is taking advantage of that and introducing a concept to put more tools and information at your fingertips, easy to access... which seems to be the current direction things are headed for.
"It's touch oriented and just slapped on the PC without any regard." Actually, it was designed for both. Just because UI elements are big, does not mean that the primary purpose they serve is touch.
@episcopo: I use office suite every day and love the ribbon. World isn't made of absolutes, man. Just because you don't see the benefit of something doesn't mean someone else can't.
@episcopo: because it put better tools where they should be, and didn't hide them in dumb, obscure places. If you're looking for examples of what I'm talking about, go to Google.com and then let google auto-complete these:
Word 2003 how
Word 2010 how
changing page orientation and margins are no longer issues. Because they have been moved to somewhere that isn't obscure and dumb, a dialog box burried inside of some ugly menu system. You might prefer to dig through menus, but I like having my tools accessible, easy to find and easy to use.
@episcopo: Microsoft always does an excellent job at plastering their finished product with tour guides and little 'notes' on how to use their new interfaces. 8 will be no different. Once people understand 'how it works' instead of just being thrown into the experience cold-turkey, they're going to understand it much better.
Promise.
e: Also, like how he tries not to influence his direction at all in finding the UI elements, but then guides him to conclusions. Like "seems like it would work well on a tablet," and "you can see how slow it took," among other assertive statements about the OS that his dad might not have come to otherwise. I really wish people would stop doing this.
@MAGZine said:
I haven't tried Windows 8, but doesn't pressing the Windows key on your keyboard pop up the start menu as usual? That seems like a fairly minor thing to "learn", and would have basically nullified the man's troubles in that video.
Since you never seemed to discuss this: have you even used Windows 8 yet? Because the Windows 8 start screen is functionally identical to the legacy start menu.
@episcopo said:
Nah I wouldn't be one to consider it a start menu - I just hadn't seen it in action and assumed it did the same thing as all previous versions. I won't be bothering with an upgrade then, I don't think. Win 7 is pretty much perfect for how I use a desktop machine. It allows me to configure it to be simple and clean - the complete opposite of the metro mess (I'm incredibly particular about the neatness of my screen, primarily for efficiency).
This thread has now become too funny for me to not post in it.
LOL
That is all.
@episcopo: No. I was talking to you. So, let me ask again: have you actually ever used Windows 8 for a significant amount of time? What can you do in the Start Menu that you can't do with the Start Screen?
I have been using the W8 RP since it came out. I'm still using it. At no point has the Metro Start Screen been worse to use than the old start menu. In many ways it's been better. I'd agree with claims that the change isn't inherently necessary, but that doesn't make it inherently bad. Will makes a solid point that if Metro apps take off, the Start Screen can be very important and very useful.
I have a positive bias towards new things; I make no bones about that. You, however, seem to be against new things to the point of being irrational. Maybe you're just not doing a good job making your case as to why Windows 8 is a poorly designed clusterfuck. I don't see the evidence after using it for 2 months.
1. That "Hitler finds out the Start menu will be removed from Windows 8" is the funniest thing I've watched all month.
2. If you think Windows 7 is not a clusterfuck than in my opinion it's impossible to label 8 a clusterfuck. They are too similar.
@MAGZine said:
I never thought about the start menu being only <10% but taking up 100% of your attention. The whole screen thing with the new "modern"/"metro" makes a lot of sense now. If the start menu is taking all your attention might as well use all of the screen.