Win 8 Ditching Start Menu for a Start Screen

heatlesssun said:
False. It boots faster, uses less memory, has better multi-monitor support, supports cloud based replication of settings, etc. and this isn't even a feature complete release so it's impossible to do a final analysis of all the enhancements at this point anyway.
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Fastboot is useless unless you have a PC with that new fancy bios that may lock you out of Linux, which right now is looking pretty good. Cloud based replication of settings is something that I don't consider "CORE" improvements. In fact, it maybe something some privacy advocates may want to avoid using.


Just a repeat of your first inaccurate claim.
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Sorry, I must have missed the list of graphics, file system, and security improvements.

Yeah, let's benchmark a pre-beta and draw final conclusions about performance.
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Let's give it the benefit of the doubt until RTM. Let's give it the benefit of the doubt until drivers have matured. Let's wait until SP1 is released.

You see how this can get out of hand?
 
Zarathustra[H];1037839085 said:
I spent 20 minutes last night helping my wife make a chart in Excel on her Citrix session to work where they have Office 2010.

Doing the same thing would have taken me less than 20 seconds in Office 2003.

Now, granted, most of this was because I was frustratedly searching through all the tabs looking for the options I wanted, finally giving up and having to Google them to figure out how to do it.

I was still never able to find the "Chart Options" dialogue (maybe its gone?) but I wound up with something reasonably close to what she wanted.

Once the learning curve is up, I'm sure I'll get to the point where I am almost as efficient at using it as the menu based UI, but I don't think it will ever be quite as efficient, as I feel the new Ribbon interface has too many inherent inefficiencies.

What bugs me is that I am being forced into a huge learning curve for something that doesn't really do anything I couldn't already do before.

There are some nice added features (most notably for me no more row limitations in Excel) but this could have been accomplished with the classic interface.

The first time I piked up an IOS device, there was absolutely 0 learning curve. Everything (except maybe typing) was completely smooth from day one. If the new Office interface is as good as everyone says, shouldn't this be the case for it as well?

To me, if there is such a large learning curve it means they did something wrong.
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So how do you reconcile your usage issues versus the opinions of others? See this isnt a static issue, nor is it fair to assume that any single person's experience reflects the group at large.

Ive heard others just as you said, they were frustrated with the ribbon interface and felt like it could never be as efficient, etc, as the old style. But you said it yourself, there is a learning curve.

You then try to compare that to using an iphone for the first time, but i dont think thats a fair comparison at all. Your use to the old style of office. Youve spent years using it and learned all the ins and outs of the software to where you can do most any task quickly. Then your thrown into new software that handles those things differently, where all those steps you learned no longer apply.

With the iPhone, there is no previous knowledge, you come into it ready to learn a new interface and take it all in, no expectations of how it should function, you just start using it.

A fair comparison would be to take someone that is new to Office and start them off with 2010. Can they get work done quickly and efficiently? From what Ive seen, the answer is mostly yes. In my own family, I was shocked to see how quickly some people were using the software. My mom was jumping around the ribbon interface as if it was what she had been using for years, finding the functions she needed as she needed it. She had adopted it faster than I had as I was still trying to figure out where some functions had moved to.
 
Ashbringer said:
Fastboot is useless unless you have a PC with that new fancy bios that may lock you out of Linux, which right now is looking pretty good. Cloud based replication of settings is something that I don't consider "CORE" improvements. In fact, it maybe something some privacy advocates may want to avoid using.
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The faster boot times and smaller memory footprint exist regardless of what bios your using. Yes, if you use an EFI bios you get another boost to boot times, but they mentioned improvements to windows boot times due to specific changes they made to the process.

Sorry, I must have missed the list of graphics, file system, and security improvements.
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So you missed all of thier discussions on WinRT (not to mention the changes to various coding lanugages and the development tools themselves) or improving security (especially by integrating the security essentials service)?

Let's give it the benefit of the doubt until RTM. Let's give it the benefit of the doubt until drivers have matured. Let's wait until SP1 is released.

You see how this can get out of hand?
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It sounds like to me that your just eager to bash MS and promote Linux. I think its fairly reasonable to not assume win8 will be as it is today. I think its fair to wait until RC or RTM to start making claims about what win8 will or wont be. Now during the beta process, itll be important that people put it through its paces in order to give MS as much feedback as possible. That kind of stuff matters to improving the final release.
 
Conker said:
This is really bad. If i can't have my start menu at all then i will only use windows 8 for gaming and nothing else. Will keep linux as my main os. This is a huge mistake. The best interface to me was windows xp & 2000. Everything else is just glitter and glamor. Why can't we have classic options like xp mode or vista mode or windows 7 mode or windows 2000 mode. Have different skins available so we can choose what we like. It makes no sense to just limit the user into one option. I hope microsoft loses billions. ;)
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Consider how the smart phone market works. Developers hate to teach end users how to operate a OS, when things change too much. Microsoft and Apple hate it because it'll be hard to identify the OS when it's being used. Apple and MS want you to know that you're using Windows or Mac OS X. In other words, having multiple UI's can hurt brand recognition.

Linux and Android are very customizable, to the point where you might not recognize what OS it really is. End users who love to customize would fall in love with this. You can always change from Unity to Gnome to KDE if you like, and there's plenty of different UI's for Android.

Microsoft wants to force these new UI changes onto us, so we accept it. If they start making a desktop and tablet UI within the same OS, then you'll begin to see problems with software developers and brand recognition.

Let's also not forget that the main reason for these changes is to pigeon hole end users to use the new market store. Where Microsoft will begin to collect 30% of any sale. The new market store requires applications to be using the new Metro UI for Microsoft to take that 30% away. This is why you see so many desktop OS's going the tablet route, and that's to cash in.

You think with so many people complaining about this new UI change that a classic option is available before you start using Win8? All for the sake of making money.
 
Ashbringer said:
Fastboot is useless unless you have a PC with that new fancy bios that may lock you out of Linux, which right now is looking pretty good. Cloud based replication of settings is something that I don't consider "CORE" improvements. In fact, it maybe something some privacy advocates may want to avoid using.
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Again false, older BIOS based machines seem to be benefiting from the slimming down of Window and UEFI machines are already in existence. Plus why does everything HAVE to work on older hardware for an improvement not to be an improvement. I mean if that were the case then optimizing for multi-core CPUs would have not been considered an improvement by you because it would have had no benefit for single processor single core machines.

Ashbringer said:
Sorry, I must have missed the list of graphics, file system, and security improvements.


Let's give it the benefit of the doubt until RTM. Let's give it the benefit of the doubt until drivers have matured. Let's wait until SP1 is released.

You see how this can get out of hand?
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Uh, no one said give about giving anything the benefit of the doubt, but tell me how the hell to to actually draw final conclusions from a pre-beta from a product close to a year away from shipping probably?
 
TeeJayHoward said:
The taskbar isn't for frequently used programs. It's for infrequently used ones. IE, Word, and Excel may be pinned to the taskbar, but what about when you want to run cmd? mmc? dxdiag? msconfig? mspaint? notepad? calc? sol?
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Lol, what? You're doing it wrong. And btw, you can pin any of those to the taskbar.
 
trooper11 said:
The faster boot times and smaller memory footprint exist regardless of what bios your using. Yes, if you use an EFI bios you get another boost to boot times, but they mentioned improvements to windows boot times due to specific changes they made to the process.
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You so sure?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQkkCV-NWO8

So you missed all of thier discussions on WinRT (not to mention the changes to various coding lanugages and the development tools themselves) or improving security (especially by integrating the security essentials service)?
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That's nice and all, but until we see some applications made to use WinRT I can't make any assumption if there's improvement. Plus, gotta see some benchmarks.

Including Security Essentials isn't it just including a anti virus program, and one that even WinXP users can download and install?

It sounds like to me that your just eager to bash MS and promote Linux. I think its fairly reasonable to not assume win8 will be as it is today. I think its fair to wait until RC or RTM to start making claims about what win8 will or wont be. Now during the beta process, itll be important that people put it through its paces in order to give MS as much feedback as possible. That kind of stuff matters to improving the final release.
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Yea, I just love bashing MS when all my PCs use Win7, and express my hatred for them removing the start button which I've used forever.

You know what OS didn't have a start button? Windows 3.1. :rolleyes: Yes, that means we're going backwards in computing.
 
Azhar said:
Sony doesn't own Blu-ray. They're just a member of the board. It took awhile for Microsoft to adopt DVD support. It's just a matter of time. Maybe Windows 9.
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but they were long one of the largest steerers of bluray and have a rep for not giving anything away for free

I will blame apple too, as they are so lawsuit :p

MS seems to be unable to natively support anything withouth getting their ass sued, unless its already been supported everywhere else. hence dvd being supported, being pulled, then being supported again later.

it could simply be an issue of the board wanting to charge X amount per copy of windows for bluray support and X could be too huge a fee(do you want to pay 50-100 bucks more for native bluray support per copy of win8?)

thats all I am saying, its not necessaryily MS holding up that feature from 8 or a SP for 7/vista
 
Ashbringer said:
You so sure?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQkkCV-NWO8
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Here are the changes Im talking about:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/08/delivering-fast-boot-times-in-windows-8.aspx

That goes into great detail about what MS is doing on the windows startup side to improve things. Now will that mean we can feel the improvement, thats what Ill wait to see with the final build, but the ideas they talk about sound like improvments to me.

That's nice and all, but until we see some applications made to use WinRT I can't make any assumption if there's improvement. Plus, gotta see some benchmarks.
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But you cant dismiss them either, you cant have it both ways. You implied that they werent doing any work to improve areas of the underlying os, which is not true. Now whether these changes result in improvments is in doubt until we see proof, is to be determined. Your just assuming they wont improve anything, which is nothing more than your opinion.

Including Security Essentials isn't it just including a anti virus program, and one that even WinXP users can download and install?
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No its not just building in an anti virus program, again, here is a link detailing the changes they are working on:

this first part relates to UEFI and its secure boto functions that win8 will make use of:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/22/protecting-the-pre-os-environment-with-uefi.aspx

I know you assume this is a method to block the use of linux (which is not a fact, but another opinion), but there are real security improvements made possible with those features and they explain why.

this part dives into specific windows improvments related to security:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/15/protecting-you-from-malware.aspx


[/QUOTE]
Yea, I just love bashing MS when all my PCs use Win7, and express my hatred for them removing the start button which I've used forever.

You know what OS didn't have a start button? Windows 3.1. :rolleyes: Yes, that means we're going backwards in computing.[/QUOTE]

Owning pcs with windows 7 on them do not give you permission to bash MS and then hide behind the fact that you own certain pieces of hardware. The fact that you have to express 'hatred' tells me your getting a bit worked up over all of this.

Look, its completly fair to be unhappy with a change and its completely fair to voice that, especially telling MS that directly. In fact, thats why these previews and public betas are great, they let us all voice our opinions. So you should talk about what you like and dont like. If MS sees that kidn of feedback, they can react as needed. I happen to agree that MS needs to offer a classic mode for the sake of the power users that have no interest in a change to the start menu.
 
MrGuvernment said:
My "task" bar only has programs i use in it, i seldom go to my start menu...why would i not put the most used programs into an easy 1 click area, right click and open a file i needed under that program done, no more sarching in My Documents or the all programs section or any need to type in a program name to search for it

task bar - middle mouse click - new window, done.
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jimbo6846 said:
Lol, what? You're doing it wrong. And btw, you can pin any of those to the taskbar.
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Zarathustra[H];1037838853 said:
I'm not quite sure what point you are trying to make.

I'm fairly certain that for most average users (people in this forum excluded - of course) after Internet Explorer, the most frequently used programs ARE the office package.

Personally I haven't used the Windows calculator in decades. If i want to calculate anything I use Excel.

And if that isn't the case for you, it is fully customizeable.

Who's to say you can't put a link to the command prompt in the task bar?

Dxdiag is one of your frequently used programs? I only run that once every couple of years if I am having some sort of issue I need to troubleshoot. same for Msconfig. That gets run once when the OS is first installed and then never touched again.

What on earth is sol?
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Sorry. I meant to say that the task bar is for frequently used programs. The START MENU is for infrequently accessed programs. I managed to completely reverse the statement I was attempting to make!

dxdiag, msconfig, etc are infrequently used, and thus belong in the start menu (or accessed via the run command). And sol is solitaire. Next time you're doing a reinstall, hit shift+F10 to bring up a command prompt and then type in sol. It's a good way to waste the 30 minutes or so that it takes Windows to install!
 
TeeJayHoward said:
Sorry. I meant to say that the task bar is for frequently used programs. The START MENU is for infrequently accessed programs. I managed to completely reverse the statement I was attempting to make!
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haha Whoops! Makes more sense to me now.

TeeJayHoward said:
Next time you're doing a reinstall, hit shift+F10 to bring up a command prompt and then type in sol. It's a good way to waste the 30 minutes or so that it takes Windows to install!
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Ahh, I am familiar with solitaire, just never launched it from the shell, so I didn't know the executable name :p

That, and I may not have played it since the Windows 3.11 days...

When reinstalling I'm usually either on my laptop or my desktop (whichever is not reinstalling) in these forums or downloading drivers and stuff to my NAS, so they are ready when the install is complete :p
 
The start menu is for accessing infrequently used programs in an organized way. Alphabetically by program (or program group) name, or if manually crafted, by task etc.

These old programs should be able to be found quickly and executed with less than 3 clicks. Without having to remember their name. Usually once on start, then the program name after hovering through a cascading hierarchy. On a desktop, if you're doing more inputting than that, or taking longer than a few seconds to execute infrequently used programs, something is probably wrong. You certainly should not have to manually scroll or click more than twice.

Ohh, and the ribbon sucks. We're not some 'vocal' 10%. They basically traded dropdown cascading lists with text, for a fat horizontal one with icons that always eat up more vertical real estate on increasingly shorter monitors. Want more proof? They still have the drop down cascading menus in addition to the ribbon in places. Constantly displaying a large picture of a funnel somehow equallying filtering is unnecessary for literate people. I will admit, it is prettier than the text, after clicking on the menu. But most of my time I'm not clicking on menu's.

(ps This is all just an opinion of a not so important person, so don't fret over it too much.)
 
Ashbringer said:
Let's give it the benefit of the doubt until RTM. Let's give it the benefit of the doubt until drivers have matured. Let's wait until SP1 is released.

You see how this can get out of hand?
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Sure. But there's a HUGE DIFFERENCE between waiting for a RETAIL version of a product, and a support package that traditionally comes out a year after the retail release.
 
trooper11 said:
So how do you reconcile your usage issues versus the opinions of others? See this isnt a static issue, nor is it fair to assume that any single person's experience reflects the group at large.

Ive heard others just as you said, they were frustrated with the ribbon interface and felt like it could never be as efficient, etc, as the old style. But you said it yourself, there is a learning curve.

You then try to compare that to using an iphone for the first time, but i dont think thats a fair comparison at all. Your use to the old style of office. Youve spent years using it and learned all the ins and outs of the software to where you can do most any task quickly. Then your thrown into new software that handles those things differently, where all those steps you learned no longer apply.

With the iPhone, there is no previous knowledge, you come into it ready to learn a new interface and take it all in, no expectations of how it should function, you just start using it.

A fair comparison would be to take someone that is new to Office and start them off with 2010. Can they get work done quickly and efficiently? From what Ive seen, the answer is mostly yes. In my own family, I was shocked to see how quickly some people were using the software. My mom was jumping around the ribbon interface as if it was what she had been using for years, finding the functions she needed as she needed it. She had adopted it faster than I had as I was still trying to figure out where some functions had moved to.
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There is no fair comparison between using the iphone and Office 2010. The iphone OS is designed to do a few basic functions and present them in the easiest way possible. Compared to that, MS Excel is a much more sophisticated application that allows the user to perform many powerful functions and is expected to have a learning curve to use it.
 
I don't mind getting rid of the start menu but I hope they at least replace it with something good - and the Metro UI doesn't qualify.

I miss the days when changes to an OS were actually an improvement rather than breaking stuff that works just to look "fresh" and having designs dictated more by corporate agenda than user friendliness.
 
rhone89 said:
No thanks. As an IT admin who had to go through the "change" from office 2003 to 2007, I can tell you right now I have no interest in fielding calls from hundreds of angry users who can no longer perform simple tasks on their workstations because everything in the interface has been moved around.

"Toy" interfaces like this are fine for just that, toys. Like Asspads, and phones. Business users need business interfaces without fluff and garbage getting in the way.

For me personally, I like trying new things, and I will certainly give Win8 a try, but I can guarantee it isn't touching corporate desktops without a classic interface.
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With the current interface in 2003, move one bar/button slightly and you would still get the call from these same users. Basically what you're telling me is IT is PUNISHING ME because of stupid people. I guess that's true... :(

As a daily AutoCAD ribbon user, I will vouch that it's not a toy and has given me back 3-4 little rows of screen real-estate :)
 
bh192012 said:
Ohh, and the ribbon sucks. We're not some 'vocal' 10%. They basically traded dropdown cascading lists with text, for a fat horizontal one with icons that always eat up more vertical real estate on increasingly shorter monitors. Want more proof? They still have the drop down cascading menus in addition to the ribbon in places. Constantly displaying a large picture of a funnel somehow equallying filtering is unnecessary for literate people. I will admit, it is prettier than the text, after clicking on the menu. But most of my time I'm not clicking on menu's.

(ps This is all just an opinion of a not so important person, so don't fret over it too much.)
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so you say that those that hate and will not use the ribbon interface represent the majority of office users? got any facts to back that up? i dont doubt many agree with your points, im just saying i dont know if that amounts to a majority of office users or not.

look, until we see some numbers, its your word against the word of the other side. some people need to accept the fact that the way you do things isnt neccesarily the way everyone like to do things.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037839085 said:
I spent 20 minutes last night helping my wife make a chart in Excel on her Citrix session to work where they have Office 2010.

Doing the same thing would have taken me less than 20 seconds in Office 2003.

Now, granted, most of this was because I was frustratedly searching through all the tabs looking for the options I wanted, finally giving up and having to Google them to figure out how to do it.

I was still never able to find the "Chart Options" dialogue (maybe its gone?) but I wound up with something reasonably close to what she wanted.

Once the learning curve is up, I'm sure I'll get to the point where I am almost as efficient at using it as the menu based UI, but I don't think it will ever be quite as efficient, as I feel the new Ribbon interface has too many inherent inefficiencies.

What bugs me is that I am being forced into a huge learning curve for something that doesn't really do anything I couldn't already do before.

There are some nice added features (most notably for me no more row limitations in Excel) but this could have been accomplished with the classic interface.

The first time I piked up an IOS device, there was absolutely 0 learning curve. Everything (except maybe typing) was completely smooth from day one. If the new Office interface is as good as everyone says, shouldn't this be the case for it as well?

To me, if there is such a large learning curve it means they did something wrong.
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Meh, I think you would just have to 'suffer thru it' for a day and then you'd be fine. I was like that with my app, now I don't want to go back to classic.

To me, the learning curve for my old iphone and AutoCAD 2010 was...about the same. Maybe I'm wired differently and better with new UIs I don't know. My wife is constantly telling her mother how to use her ipad that she's had for over a year now. You'd think after a year we wouldn't find videos of her staring down at the thing with what looks like the bathroom wall behind her but it happens. And yes you move the icons over one spot she will freak out and it's "unusable"

I still stick by with what I said, being to give new UI's a chance and don't worry Win8 will have an easier way to revert to the standard desktop view, something that's hard to do in the Developer's Preview Build because it's an alpha made to show off the new UI.

PS this place 'upgraded' to XP SP3 not long ago because they had to if they wanted tech help from MS. Also I am heavily Admin'ed locked and I was able to switch from XP desktop to classic and back fine.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037839085 said:
To me, if there is such a large learning curve it means they did something wrong.
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There isn't a learning curve, you have just been doing sometihng the same way for 20 years and thus think that way almost natively.
 
It's not a bad idea, but I think that they should include a kinect type device, which would probably be cheaper than expecting people to buy touch screen monitors. Plus, MS would make more money. That way it can work with touch screens, and the kinect thing, and a mouse.
 
I have enough issues with some of the games I play not even loading the start menu items so I guess this will compund the issue. This is why I have folders on my desktop labled "Games", "cleanup stuff" ( AV ), "Misc" ( conversion software and GPU-Z and the like ) and "Programs" ( office software and stuff ).

I only use the start menu for stuff I don't use much. Quick launch and my semi-organized shortcut in folder method do the rest :)
 
trooper11 said:
so you say that those that hate and will not use the ribbon interface represent the majority of office users? got any facts to back that up? i dont doubt many agree with your points, im just saying i dont know if that amounts to a majority of office users or not.

look, until we see some numbers, its your word against the word of the other side. some people need to accept the fact that the way you do things isnt neccesarily the way everyone like to do things.
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http://www.exceluser.com/explore/surveys/ribbon/ribbon-survey-results.htm

I couldn't say how accurate this is being the web and all. I can say based on my users, the haters are the majority.
 
Azhar said:
Those are surveys from "highly experienced Excel users". Also known as dinosaurs. One of the survey comment was from a guy who admitted to having Office 98 on one of his computer.
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Or another possible explanation is that the ribbon interface makes Excel more accessible to beginners, but limits advanced users.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037840410 said:
Or another possible explanation is that the ribbon interface makes Excel more accessible to beginners, but limits advanced users.
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maybe not limiting advanced users but instead making it different.

advanced users are probably more likely to complain about serious ui chnages than beginners right? advanced users dont like the fact that they have to learn how to do things that they already knew how to do. So the changes either have to be obviously better to them immediately or options so that they can avoid them.
 
chinesepiratefood said:
Also, why are some so resistant to no start menu? There is absolutely no reason considering the start screen has the same behavior. Like, this seriously makes you not want to buy Windows 8? Care explaining why...other than "no start menu"?
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I myself am not resistant to "no start menu".

What I am resistant to is replacing the start menu with a UI that isn't necessarily better.

I think Metro is a good interface for tablet computing and Windows phones. One of the biggest reasons is because those devices have touch screens, something that Metro works well with. Another reason is that tablets and touch screens have a modest screen size.

My experiences with Windows 8 DP taught me that so far, I dislike Metro on an actual notebook or desktop PC. The interface loses some of its ease-of-use once the touch screen is gone, and it gets more cluttered as your screen real estate gets larger. I also found it less intuitive for setting up/organizing programs the way I wanted them to be.

What is good for one device isn't necessarily good for another. This is something I think Microsoft really needs to keep in mind. I also know that this is a Developer Preview, which means it's pre-beta in my mind (I don't consider it beta until MS releases a Community Technology Preview). Microsoft may add features, or may change things to improve this before release, so I'm not one to crucify things yet, and I think that a lot of the DP is there for the reason of teaching developers how to develop for the Metro UI, not for me to review the OS as if it were final product.

At this point, I dislike Metro for systems that lack a touch-screen. Maybe we'll see that change.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037840410 said:
Or another possible explanation is that the ribbon interface makes Excel more accessible to beginners, but limits advanced users.
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Yeah they hid the more advanced features, but they're all still there. My mother was looking for a scanning feature that used to be readily available in 2003 and previous but not in 2007 and 2010. You just have to go into File > Options > Customize Ribbon or Quick Access Bar to make your favorite command available.

I'd imagine Microsoft took surveys and figured out who used what the most, and of course the more vocal Office users would be the hardcore ones. It's inevitable.
 
Azhar said:
Sony doesn't own Blu-ray. They're just a member of the board. It took awhile for Microsoft to adopt DVD support. It's just a matter of time. Maybe Windows 9.
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Azhar said:
Yeah they hid the more advanced features, but they're all still there. My mother was looking for a scanning feature that used to be readily available in 2003 and previous but not in 2007 and 2010. You just have to go into File > Options > Customize Ribbon or Quick Access Bar to make your favorite command available.

I'd imagine Microsoft took surveys and figured out who used what the most, and of course the more vocal Office users would be the hardcore ones. It's inevitable.
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they did study groups, mostly with non-techie types

on purpose, to make it more accessible to teh casual user, while underestimating how hardcore users would react to change(not well, obviously :p)

pretty much all the kb shortcuts stayed the same which was 90% of what I do so I wasn't too perturbed.

plus the install options for 07+ are way better from the backend IMO
 
actually i am thoroughly enjoying it... i know in the past when my system has been screaming and i accidentally hit the windows key to spend 5 minutes waiting for system resources to be shuffled, i would tell the guys on ts i was out for the count... since it pulls up a screen vs adding something else to be rendered on top of what else i am doing, its is just a matter of alt tabbing once more, and the guys hardly notice a lack of presence... i dont know if the new concept is responsible for the performance increase as much as a new way of resource allocation, but w/e it is... it works very well... i will be buying a copy when the trial ends
 
oh and i would say that an upgrade from 7 to 8 is probably a waste of money... but i was on xp so this is a far cry better.... (and i am an xp/7 fanboy... probably gonna add 8 to my list)
 
Ashbringer said:
You know what OS didn't have a start button? Windows 3.1.
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There is a Start button in the Desktop interface, and one for Metro too in the Spells bar. Sorry, the Charms bar.

msny said:
I said a while back that in 5 years tablets and computers will look the same.
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Haha, not even in 10 years, there is no way that a computer with a keyboard and one without (a tablet) will look the same, or that the keyboard will disappear.

TeeJayHoward said:
The taskbar isn't for frequently used programs. It's for infrequently used ones. IE, Word, and Excel may be pinned to the taskbar, but what about when you want to run cmd? mmc? dxdiag? msconfig? mspaint? notepad? calc? sol?
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I read your correction, but give a try to the Quick Launch toolbar in the Window Taskbar. It works wonders for the smaller utilities (5 from your list) or less used main apps. Their icons take half the size of the Taskbar icons too, so you can fit many in a very small space. See the screenshot of my Start menu earlier.

bcrisp82 said:
The start menu program navigation is 100% garbage from a usability standpoint and anybody who tries to argue against that is high on chromosomes.
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I agree Windows provides zero features to help manage the Start menu, but if you don't constantly install apps, it's easy to manage it manually to make it neat, usable and ultra efficient. I have only 1 app (Windows Update) and 7 groups in All Programs.

Just like most apps have both a toolbar and a menu, I use the Taskbar and Quick Launch toolbar for one-click shortcuts to apps, and the Start menu as a reference to every other apps and Windows settings that I rarely need.


I am all for changes in Windows 8, be it rectangular tiles or a 3D cloud of icons or whatever. I don't necessarily want to stick to the Windows 7 Start menu or Taskbar, which is much better than the XP/2000 solution some still mention, but I definitely want to keep the one-click convenience to run apps or switch to other running apps. The Start screen adds one extra click, so it's a no-go for me.
Same as why I don't use the Desktop to launch apps, as it is always in the background behind some other apps, so apps would not be accessible via one Desktop icon click only. So I don't keep any icon at all on the Desktop, not even the Recycle Bin.

The biggest problem with the Preview build is that the Desktop and Metro interfaces are dissociated. I would much prefer a unified approach for all kind of devices from mobile phones to servers and multiscreen gaming rigs, and all kinds of usage and users, but it still requires serious work to get there. Right now, it's more Mhetero than Metro...
 
trooper11 said:
With the iPhone, there is no previous knowledge, you come into it ready to learn a new interface and take it all in, no expectations of how it should function, you just start using it.

A fair comparison would be to take someone that is new to Office and start them off with 2010. Can they get work done quickly and efficiently? From what Ive seen, the answer is mostly yes. In my own family, I was shocked to see how quickly some people were using the software. My mom was jumping around the ribbon interface as if it was what she had been using for years, finding the functions she needed as she needed it. She had adopted it faster than I had as I was still trying to figure out where some functions had moved to.
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I agree with your assessment of new(er) users and the adoption of the ribbon. The zero to productivity time seems greatly reduced with people that were not forced to relearn.

Also the "forced to relearn" people as used above seems to have a direct correlation to age as in "get off my lawn". The amount of relearning (computer pro vs. noob) seems to be less of a factor. This is an urge I have to fight myself..... so, get off my lawn.
 
DocFaustus said:
I agree with your assessment of new(er) users and the adoption of the ribbon. The zero to productivity time seems greatly reduced with people that were not forced to relearn.

Also the "forced to relearn" people as used above seems to have a direct correlation to age as in "get off my lawn". The amount of relearning (computer pro vs. noob) seems to be less of a factor. This is an urge I have to fight myself..... so, get off my lawn.
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I think the greatest challenge in UI development is to create things that are good for new users and pleasing to experienced ones. Honestly I don't think if can be done. The human animal is resistant to change and new ideas, even when there is benefit.

I think Metro and the new Start Screen are a MUST for Microsoft. Windows HAS to run on tablets to stay relevant and it needs some new to be interesting and to attract interest but be pretty compatible with the past and I honestly think that Microsoft has done all three in what I've seen of the developer preview.
 
no. No. NO. And FUCK NO!

It's bad enough I'll have to see that crap on then next dashboard update for the Xbox 360 but now they have to shovel WinMo7's Twist UI on to Win8...WTF???
 
EvilWays said:
no. No. NO. And FUCK NO!

It's bad enough I'll have to see that crap on then next dashboard update for the Xbox 360 but now they have to shovel WinMo7's Twist UI on to Win8...WTF???
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Metro, not Twist. My bad...
 
LoneWolf said:
I have the developer preview installed in a VM on my laptop.

Within five minutes, I regedited my way back to the start menu. At this point, REGEDIT was the only way to do this, there is no on/off toggle.

The Metro interface is great for a mobile phone. It is also good for kiosk PCs, or possibly Internet cafes.

IMO, anyone who has even the slightest bit of tech-savvy will hate it. It seems to be the intention is to bring "tablet simplicity" and an app store to Windows and tie people to it. This will be a big draw to computer illiterates, but at the same time, will keep illiterate users rather than pushing them to learn a little.

I think the Pro/Business version of Windows and probably Ultimate will make it possible to toggle this. The only thing I'd find a positive is if it let netadmins present a start screen to users customized with only the apps they use via GPO. Still, my first inclination is that I'd rather educate users than encourage people not to learn.
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that's exactly what it is. their new mantra since vista seems to be

HOW DO WE FIX STUPID?

and if life has ever taught us anything, it's obvious that this is impossible, can't be done. so this goal changes from "how do we fix stupid" to "how can we sell to stupid".

trooper11 said:
so you say that those that hate and will not use the ribbon interface represent the majority of office users? got any facts to back that up? i dont doubt many agree with your points, im just saying i dont know if that amounts to a majority of office users or not.

look, until we see some numbers, its your word against the word of the other side. some people need to accept the fact that the way you do things isnt neccesarily the way everyone like to do things.
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the key difference here between usable and unusable is configuration, customisation. when the ribbon is configured to fit YOUR tasks, then it's useful. if there's no way to configure or get rid of it, eg. the win7 explorer ribbon, then it's worthless. a "toy" wasting space, or just making common tasks infinitely harder and more time consuming.

and speaking of windows explorer, well lookie here what ms just happens to be planning for windows 8, RE-enabling old features that they apparently give a shit about now:

http://www.askvg.com/microsoft-talk...indows-8-addition-of-ribbon-ui-and-up-button/

trooper11 said:
maybe not limiting advanced users but instead making it different.

advanced users are probably more likely to complain about serious ui chnages than beginners right? advanced users dont like the fact that they have to learn how to do things that they already knew how to do. So the changes either have to be obviously better to them immediately or options so that they can avoid them.
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it is limiting advanced users, because everything takes 2 or 3 times or more steps than it did before. noobs think it's awsome, because everything they want is all up in their face, just 1 click away in this pretty little bar with outdated bezels and other obnoxious 3d effects, while more advanced tasks that others may need to go through every day are hidden away in some mundane clickfest. then it's just a waste of space.

more steps = worse. no if ands or buts about it, this is a constant in ui design. whenever you're presented with a new interface, this is how you tell the difference between "looks pretty" and "works well". what's better for you, may not necessarily be better for everyone. and with every new version of office/windows, ms continues to prove that they only care about selling more copies to new users.

this is not a compromise that has to be made, if they really intended to create the best experience possible for everyone. but that's not what they want, their main priority is hooking new users, while stringing along the old ones.
 
rabble rabble rabble get off my lawn. thats all im hearing here. i doubt microsoft is really stupid enough to hide your apps from you. there will probably be a way to enable the old start menu or something similar. but for 95% of users, having some 5-20 frequently used things right there instead of clicking through annoying menus will be considered an improvement. to think microsoft should cater their OS that will sell hundreds of millions of copies to that 5% is selfish and ignorant. i use firefox, peerblock, steam, office, and windows explorer on any given day. most other programs i have either autolaunch when i need them (vlc, utorrent, winzip, mse, etc) or else i hardly ever actually need to access them. the start menu is outdated and a general clusterfuck of unused menus.
 
chinesepiratefood said:
In what way? Your icons do NOT get mixed together, new tiles get added to the end of the list and your "pinned" icons (they are all pinned technically) stay exactly where you want them. If you don't want certain tiles on your start screen, then remove them. You can customize it however you want. And once again, this is NOT the desktop, the desktop is the same as it has always been...so if you want to still use your desktop icons then nothing has changed.
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I'm well aware the old desktop might still be available and it's in the post. However, you asked why we hate the idea of the start menu, taskbar (and it's secondary functions), desktop, disappearing. That Metro isn't just a replacement for the startmenu, it replaces everything i mentioned.
 
ekuest said:
having some 5-20 frequently used things right there instead of clicking through annoying menus
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If you've read the comments, most people don't or rarely use the Start menu, they have their 5-20 apps pinned in the Windows 7 Taskbar and/or Quick Launch toolbar.
And it's not just the Start menu that has changed in Windows 8, the Desktop Taskbar is also metrofied somehow. Can't wait to see how this will evolve with the Beta.
 
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