Classic Shell. You know it makes sense.
More than half of Windows 8 users just treat it like Windows 7
For all Microsoft's hype about The Interface Formerly Known As Metro (TIFKAM), more than half of all Windows 8 users ignore the new Start Screen and treat the OS as if it were Windows 7, according to a study by PC management firm Soluto. Soluto chart tracking Windows Store app use How many Windows 8 users launch a Windows …
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Friday 24th May 2013 08:55 GMT billranton
Re: I prefer simply not to buy it.
Yes definitely. Also, if you really want to justifiably despise something, you must masochistically immerse yourself in its filth as I have been doing with my new laptop for a month now. There's no telling what I'll be capable of by the time Win8.1 is released.
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Wednesday 22nd May 2013 21:27 GMT Khaptain
@AndrueC
No OS should ever require 3rd party programs in order for it to become useable.
TIFKAM appears to have been designed by Microsoft in order to follow Microsoft's strategic plans, it seems very difficult to believe that many actual objectively thinking users were consulted during it's developement.
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Wednesday 22nd May 2013 22:03 GMT Don Jefe
Yes Windows 8 is perfectly usable and so is a 1983 Chevrolet Chevette but the experience sucks. MS has spent decades getting into the minds and hearts of the vast majority of PC users by using a fairly consistent layout. For them to do something so radical at a time when OSS options are becoming somewhat usable for the average Joe was just stupid. I'm OK with change and learning new things about a software package can be fun but TIFKAM is pants. So are Chevettes.
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 13:52 GMT Chad H.
Re: So regulator...
It takes up the entirety of my screen, covering the video I'm watching, the chat I'm regulating, and whatever else I may be doing. I am forced out of all of that until I find the program I want.
all this to launch a menu that should at worst be no more than a 3rd of the screen.
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 17:17 GMT The_Regulator
I think you are missing my point. I launch my desktop apps from my desktop taskbar and my metro apps from start unless I want to run control panel or something similar that I use infrequently which is shortcutted to start.
I do not put my legacy apps shortcuts on the start menu generally if I use them on a regular basis.
Essentially I use metro only for consumption eg news, weather, sports etc. I use legacy desktop for creation and productivity and it works great for me.
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Wednesday 22nd May 2013 21:41 GMT Khaptain
Re: Deep breath now...
@Panser and the Regular
If TIFKAM is so usable then why are MS deciding to do a u-turn and give us back, at least partially, the existing start menu. ????
So calm down ladies, when MS also admits failure then there was obviously something wrong somewhere along the line and it can't always be the users fault.
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Wednesday 22nd May 2013 22:04 GMT dajames
Re: Deep breath now...
TIFKAM is perfectly usable, it just isn't the interface people are used to.
It is usable, sure, but not perfectly so.
What angers users is that it replaces something that was more usable (though still not perfect). Products are supposed to improve as theye evolve, not deteriorate.
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Wednesday 22nd May 2013 23:59 GMT h3
Re: Deep breath now...
Linux is a great example of things deteriorating completely on the desktop.
The default for pretty much every distro is sacrifice 50% of your 3d performance for pointless desktop effects.
Pulseaudio makes it so sound is just wrong.
Microsoft has not killed performance of anything for Windows 8 or done anything particularly badly that affects me all that much.
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 01:45 GMT James Anderson
Re: Deep breath now...
Things you cannot do in the "modern" interface that you can in the "ancient" interface.
View twi screens together.
Switch apps with two keystrokes or one mouse click.
Find an application in a submenu with three mouse movements.(as opposed to searching for the right tile in multiple start screens).
Etc. Etc.
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 14:51 GMT Robert Helpmann??
Re: Deep breath now...
Things you cannot do in the "modern" interface...Switch apps with two keystrokes...
I emphatically do not like the new GUI, but ALT-TAB still works. In fact, it was one of the few familiar things I found when using a friend's new laptop. Not so sure about the rest of the comments as I stopped using the machine as quickly as possible. She said it took her about a week and a half to get used to it. She is a non-IT type.
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 04:48 GMT Gray
Re: Deep breath now...
especially worrying to Microsoft, which has already spent mega-millions on marketing Windows 8's new UI, apparently to little effect.
TIFKAM violates a basic principle of human nature, which Microsoft seems unable to grasp as it flings good money after bad: no matter how much they sugar-coat and garnish a turd, people still don't like it.
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 09:32 GMT Dinky Carter
Re: Deep breath now...
I really like my Windows Phone, but TIFKAM is just complete shite on a desktop.
Full screen apps are non-sensical on a desktop (drag 'n' drop???)
And even such basic functionality as being able to choose the default app background colour is now gone (we have to live with retina-burn white)
Windows 8 has to be one of the biggest retrograde steps in recent computing history.
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 13:19 GMT Paul Shirley
Re: "TIFKAM is perfectly usable, it just isn't the interface people are used to."
Metro is a UI designed down to the least common denominator, one designed for what a small screen touch only device is capable of (and I'd argue crap like magic corners is inherently bad design even there).
Not just different, it's an impoverished UI, hamstrung by it's assumptions:
1: that it has to look the same everywhere (a pure marketing requirement with no real reason to exist), where 'everywhere' leaks strongly into desktop mode (so even functional window chrome had to go)
2: that it has to behave identically everywhere, regardless of the quality or precision of your input devices
3: that fullscreen is always the 'right thing', whatever the hardware, whatever restrictions it causes
There's a more subtle assumption: that desktop=legacy mode. Legacy modes inevitably become 2nd class, with degraded support and allowed to rot before being dropped completely - at least in the minds of the managers and developers maintaining them... and Win8 desktop mode is showing signs of neglect, from the hastily crippled chrome and theming options to the astonishing bugginess of File Explorer to the almost random organisation of settings and on and on.
The real issue here remains the same, if I'm using an 'interface people (aren't) used to' there's no reason it should be a Microsoft interface. If users are increasingly using reduced function devices instead of PCs, Microsoft are screwed because traditional Windows doesn't work there.
Everything in Win8 has to train users to use the impoverished Metro UI that does work on new devices. Metro can't be allowed to work better on a PC than a tablet and desktop has to be subtly (and not so subtly) degraded to make Metro more attractive. It's cynical, desperate and failing.
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Wednesday 22nd May 2013 21:55 GMT Schultz
@Khaptain: Third party applications are just fine.
There is nothing essential about the start menu that would require it as part of the OS. There is no need to buy into the MS propaganda that this or that function must be an essential part of the OS, at best those were essential functions to embrace and suffocate the competition.
I like my software modular and I like choice.
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Wednesday 22nd May 2013 23:56 GMT h3
There really is no difference between the Metro screen and the start menu in any ways that matter.
Using the windows key or ctrl + escape and then just typing part of the name is the same on both OS's
windows + r still works (for stuff like regedit or cmd where it is quicker).
windows + x has most of the rest of the useful stuff.
I use the Metro Mail app for personal mail that is it. (Used to brilliant when gmail activesync worked. No way to get it back after a system refresh though so the cloud sync of setting is completely pointless).
My TV is not certifed for Windows 8 or I might have used that feature.
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 08:40 GMT MacGyver
@h3
"There really is no difference between the Metro screen and the start menu in any ways that matter."
Other than efficiency. I very rarely use the keyboard, and most of the functionality you listed needs the keyboard and to add insult to injury they want two hands to issue the key combinations. Which blows my mind in the fact that this is supposed be designed for computers lacking keyboards. That just screams poor design.
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 12:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
I want an operating system...
Not a computer that needs psychoanalysis to get it working.
You know like "The ON button" and "The OFF button".
But noooooo the management of Microsoft, insist that you stick the tooth brush up your arse to clean your teeth...
This is what an epic idiot trip their OS's and software have become.
Stupid new ways, to do plain old things.
For the profit margin that's why. For the profit margin.
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 14:15 GMT Tom 13
Re: criticising Microsoft for creating a market opportunity
It's the correct application of the word "required" that presents the problem. Stacker wasn't required for Windows 3.x to work, but some users thought it made the software better. QEMM wasn't required for Windows 3.x to work, but it was a pretty handy tool for most users, even as MS kept breaking it to kill it because their tool was crap.
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Wednesday 22nd May 2013 22:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
@Khaptain
"TIFKAM appears to have been designed by Microsoft in order to follow Microsoft's strategic plans, it seems very difficult to believe that many actual objectively thinking users were consulted during it's developement."
Oh, but it isn't, Microsoft actually consults its users all the time. If there's one thing Microsoft does "right" (sort off) it's providing a platform for their users to share their opinions on the matter. And for their entire range of products too; from Windows (through their Windows blog) right down to their development products, for example through the Visual Studio UserVoice site.
What does seem unbelievable though is that Microsoft actually pays any attention to all the feedback they've been getting.
There are some exceptions, but even those show how stubborn Microsoft actually is. For example; while a regular suggestion for Visual Studio 2012 ("VS2012") gets approximately a few hundred votes (500 - 600) the suggestion to bring back colours to the interface quickly grossed in a few thousand during the first week. Yet only after approx. eight thousand votes did someone at Microsoft suddenly wake up and considered to write a theme editor module for VS2012 which allowed users to change the colour scheme as they deemed fit. They also added a few more themes apart from the default 2 (which were called "dark" and "light"). At this moment the suggestion in question has gotten thirteen thousand votes and the number still rises.
Microsoft is consulting their users all right, the only problem is that they're totally ignoring what is being said.
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 09:47 GMT T. F. M. Reader
Don;t attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by normal projetc management.
"Yet only after approx. eight thousand votes did someone at Microsoft suddenly wake up and considered to write a theme editor module for VS2012"
Maybe the project was behind schedule, and when they reviewed the remaining development effort and plans for QA they started striking features off the list, and a "theme editor module" didn't survive the purge. On a later date, and when faced with vocal demand from thousands of users, the requirement was re-prioritised, resources were re-allocated, and the "theme editor module" got back on the list.
Don't we all witness similar scenarios in our own organizations?
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 12:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @Khaptain
Actually, they stopped development stage user UI testing after Windows 2000. They listen to feedback now only after releasing the product. Both Vista and 8 have suffered from this. Windows 7 (and 8.1) are the results of the feedback. This seems to be a bass-akward way of development, but maybe they view bad PR to be better than no PR.
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Friday 24th May 2013 12:37 GMT GrumpyOldMan
Re: @Khaptain
But are those 'users' it listens to all MSDN subscribers who do the alpha and beta testing, IT guys who have to fix the bugs or fix the UI so that users can use it, or are they - if the ads are to be believed - Mrs Jones who's a mum with that oh-so-cute little girl in an immaculate house in a nice suburb somewhere but seems a little bit too computer-savvy to be believable? If MS really do listen to their users why do we still have the ribbon? Having said that it took me a year to get off Windows 3.11 and on to Windows 95, then ages to shift to 98. I went NT4 not long after that and then to 2000 Pro at work which was great. Again, XP took me aeons - SP1 was well and truly out - but then took me ages to get off it and on to Windows 7 which I really like and intend to stay with now. So in about 4 years I may dip my toe into Windows 8. Or not...
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Thursday 23rd May 2013 08:05 GMT Grey Bird
3rd part desktop manager/start menu
I know this will probably get a lot of downvotes but... Linux has had to use 3rd party desktop managers/start menus since it started using a gui. Xwindows, KDE, Gnome, xfce, etc. are _all_ 3rd party code and not native parts of Linux. So I don't see using a 3rd party desktop gui as a big deal. I really like DesktopX and Windowblinds! :-) That being said, I don't currently have any plans to "upgrade" to Win8 ever. If I bought a windows tablet it might be usable, but it just doesn't appeal to me. I've used Windows since 3.1, and MS-DOS before that. I've used various flavors of (maybe I should say flavours) Linux and Mac OS. Even a little bit of actual UNIX and DEC and way back, CP/M, but I just don't see the appeal of TIFKAM.
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