Features - QOTW: What do you think of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview?

[hwarda]

Step backwards in my opinion, feels like MS are trying to force a tables/touchscreen on everyone.

Sounds familiar concept where Apple changed their personal computer focus to gadget driven company.
Microsoft to follow similar step?

[aidanjt]

Again nothing to do with what I said. You were the one that brought up commandline applications.

I brought up commandline applications because you implied that old methods don't work with today's computer usage. You were wrong, and I explained why you're wrong.

Look at the original post I was replying to, it was tickleonthetum who mentioned that he doesn't use social networking sites, etc. I can't believe you're this obtuse.

tickleonthetum argued that not every PC user is a mindless content consuming automaton. And he's right. Even if marketing guestimates of '75% of PC use being consumption' is correct, and that's questionable, that still means 25% of the time people have something serious to do.

Just to clarify, even though it wasn't my original point in this thread, but rather something you brought up, CLI applications are obviously far detached from modern mainstream computer usage, not because of what they can and can't do, but because of the simple fact that no regular computer user wants to use the commandline in this century.

And this is where your brain goes off the rails. Computer use (modern, or legacy) is about capability, ends, goals, not the interface as to how it's done, that's arbitrary. You wouldn't say that facebooking via a web browser is any less 'modern computer use' simply because a whole bunch of smartphone/tablet users use facebook applications for their platforms. No, that's nonsense talk. The end is the same.

You're assuming I'm ignorant of CLI use, and you're wrong, but I'm not talking about people like us, I'm referring to the real world, something you seem incapable of relating to.

No, I'm assuming you're ignorant of CLI use, because you clearly haven't made any use of it, much less extensive use, you were trying to do intellectual backflips bare asserting that CLI use can't be used for modern computer use, and then when I called you on that, you then go on to redefining what modern computing use means.

My original point, before you hijacked it with your bizarre CLI based rant, was that tickleonthetum was negatively judging Windows 8 based on his admittedly limited and dated usage patterns, but failed to realise it. e.g.

No, he's negatively judging Windows 8 because it's a mobile OS being wedged onto the desktop. That's a fact. He's also critical of it because it gets in the way of productive PC use, that's also a fact.

My point was that users he tries to classify as "real people" are actually closer to "teenagers who just want a glorified smart phone" than they are to people like him. That's what modern computer is about (for better or worse depending on personal opinion), and that's why Windows 8 is catering to those users (the majority) and not people like him. Try reading things in context next time.

I did read the context. He's still right, PC users still have actual work to do, these are the 'real people' he's talking about. And frankly, forcing this monstrosity down everyone's throats is debilitating, offensive, and condescending. Where do you honestly see this sitting in the enterprise (i.e., the majority of PC consumers, even before the mobile/tablet started eating into the Home PC market)? They even screwed the pooch by leaving Win8/ARM out of enterprise management, at least that would have bought it some appeal in the enterprise tablet space.

[Malphas]

Sigh

I brought up commandline applications because you implied that old methods don't work with today's computer usage. You were wrong, and I explained why you're wrong.

No I didn't.

tickleonthetum argued that not every PC user is a mindless content consuming automaton. And he's right. Even if marketing guestimates of '75% of PC use being consumption' is correct, and that's questionable, that still means 25% of the time people have something serious to do.

Whether or not you approve of how most people these days use their PCs is subjective and irrelevant. Microsoft aren't going to cater to the 25% (I suspect it's most likely smaller than that) at the expense of the majority.

And this is where your brain goes off the rails. Computer use (modern, or legacy) is about capability, ends, goals, not the interface as to how it's done, that's arbitrary. You wouldn't say that facebooking via a web browser is any less 'modern computer use' simply because a whole bunch of smartphone/tablet users use facebook applications for their platforms. No, that's nonsense talk. The end is the same.

Nice reading comprehension failure. But you're wrong again anyway actually, if there comes a tipping point where the vast majority of users use smartphones and tablets to access Facebook rather than a web browser on a traditional PC then the old method gives way to the modern one in Facebook's efforts (i.e. designing the site with mobile users given priority). That's essentially the same situation with Microsoft - the "mindless content consuming automatons" are given more consideration than the likes of you, or I, or tickleonthetum. because that's where the market is.

No, I'm assuming you're ignorant of CLI use, because you clearly haven't made any use of it, much less extensive use,

Wrong again...

you were trying to do intellectual backflips bare asserting that CLI use can't be used for modern computer use,

and wrong again...

and then when I called you on that, you then go on to redefining what modern computing use means.

and wrong one more time. I've been pretty consistent since the beginning of this thread as to what I'm referring to by modern computer use here. I've even spelled it out for you since, since you seem completely incapable of grasping quite simple statements, without twisting it to suit your mindless ranting. It doesn't matter what you can do with CLI, because only a fraction of users are actually going to use it. I wasn't even talking about the CLI until you brought it up, I was referring to Microsofts changes in the GUI to fit the times we live in.

No, he's negatively judging Windows 8 because it's a mobile OS being wedged onto the desktop. That's a fact. He's also critical of it because it gets in the way of productive PC use, that's also a fact.

Technically those aren't facts, they're opinions until you can back them up with ergnomic studies. There's some evidence for the first, but the latter is purely subjective at this point.

I did read the context. He's still right, PC users still have actual work to do, these are the 'real people' he's talking about. And frankly, forcing this monstrosity down everyone's throats is debilitating, offensive, and condescending.

See, this is your main problem, you're letting your own issues with the Windows 8 GUI cloud your entire judgement. Microsoft doesn't care about users like you that still use commandline programs (presumably on Linux, to boot). They're not forcing anything down everyone's throat since the majority of users are probably going to eat this up quite happily. People have complained in the run up to every new version of Windows that's ever been released - particularly vocally against Windows 7, which is now almost universally praised as the best version of Windows ever.

here do you honestly see this sitting in the enterprise (i.e., the majority of PC consumers, even before the mobile/tablet started eating into the Home PC market)? They even screwed the pooch by leaving Win8/ARM out of enterprise management, at least that would have bought it some appeal in the enterprise tablet space.

Most enterprise applications I see these days are xaaS based rather than traditional software, I increasingly see iPad's approved for enterprise use, although still a niche at this point. Overall though, I don't really care, and Windows 8 is clearly consumer focused this time round rather then catering to the enterprise, which makes sense considering that's where they're losing ground to competitors.

[colinmcr]

I'll be sticking to WIN 7 64bit for a long time yet.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

[brasco]

Cat, the insight into your mind sometimes scares me

Proof is in the pudding, so we shall have to wait and see if it's a commercially successful OS, it's certainly a necessary step to keep going later on down the line. If you don't want to upgrade you don't have to! Yay free choice

cheers
brasc

[crossy]

Nice reading comprehension failure. But you're wrong again anyway actually, if there comes a tipping point where the vast majority of users use smartphones and tablets to access Facebook rather than a web browser on a traditional PC then the old method gives way to the modern one in Facebook's efforts (i.e. designing the site with mobile users given priority). That's essentially the same situation with Microsoft - the "mindless content consuming automatons" are given more consideration than the likes of you, or I, or tickleonthetum. because that's where the market is.

I might be wrong (it's been know to happen) but I suspect that you two (you plus aidanjt) are actually arguing on slim differences. I agree with most of what you're saying above - because it's right.

However, where I don't agree is that this new UI is necessarily better for this majority, (and I suspect that's also what aidanjt was trying to say). Sure if you happen to have a large touchscreen device then it's super, otherwise it strikes me as compromised at best, and badly flawed at worst. Note tickleonthetum was complaining about "glorified smartphones" - and there I'm going to agree 100%. Microsoft seem to be hell bent on forcing this on everyone (at the moment) which means that those folks in the 25% minority are going to feel ignored. Oh, and I'd politely suggest that most of the addled-brained content consumers are going to have conventional monitor-keyboard-mouse combos.

Getting back to the thorny issue of CLI's (you hate them, I like them) even Apple - supposed paragon of good UI design - offers one. And reputedly the one that's hidden in Windows 8 is also good - in which case why make it so creator-darned difficult to find!

Other thing I agree with you on, is that Hexus readers probably aren't representative of the normal user community. Then again, the fact that you have "power users" doesn't mean that you should ignore them - as MS seem to want to do. I could waffle on about "dumbing down", but I'll zip it instead.

[shaithis]

Recent reg article makes it sound like MS are going to force it on us.

[aidanjt]

Microsoft's COO is deluded into thinking Win8 will be a productivity boost for business.

[brasco]

Microsoft's COO is deluded into thinking Win8 will be a productivity boost for business.

Sounds like none of the comments are from peeps who have tried the CP properly... The desktop is identical to Win7 - minus the Startmenu, so multiple windows cascading etc is the same as win7 the only ones that won't run like that are metro designed apps.

I am, hovever, totally in agreement that Metro should be optional, it would completely dissapate the bile being flung around Do we think they could implement that in time for a 2012 release? I doubt it... :\

cheers
brasc

[cheesemp]

I am, hovever, totally in agreement that Metro should be optional, it would completely dissapate the bile being flung around Do we think they could implement that in time for a 2012 release? I doubt it... :\

I doubt they want to - They've bet the house on having a unified experience across desktop, tablet and phone and hoping this will win them sharing on all three device types. Whether it succeeds or not is down to the consumer - all I can say is I hate metro (Its so unintuitive with a mouse) and I think they've made a big mistake...

[Blademrk]

Don't like it. Seems a bit buggy on my set-up. On a clean install, every app CTD after a lengthy pause (although a reboot seemed to solve this). HAd a similar problem with it last night where clicking on anything resulted in everything looking fuzzy (i.e. low res) for about a minute before the system caught up with itself.

Not keen on the Metro interface (wasn't fussy on the x-box metro interface either for that matter).

Don't like dragging the windows to close them (this is fine for a tablet, but on a desktop no)

Every time I go to the corner to switch application I keep wanting to click on the little window that pop's up instead of the corner.

Mail - I keep going to the top right to close the app out of habit (resulting in me deleting
the email I was reading).

MSN - being able to filter contacts by app would be handy instead of having to trawl through facebook/twitter/MSN etc...
And what's with tying the live account with the login - what happens if your live account gets hacked and the password changed? Will that mean you will also get locked out of your desktop?