Windows 9 Will Kill Microsoft's Awkward Charms Menu

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I would imagine this will make a lot of people happy. I like Windows 8 just fine but, like many of you, I've never been a fan of the Charms menu on the desktop.

Microsoft is planning to remove its Charms bar, an overlay used to access search, share, the Start Screen, devices, and settings. While the Charms were useful for touch machines, their implementation with mouse and keyboard has always been awkward, requiring users to mouse over the corners of a screen to delicately initiate them.
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Steve said:
I would imagine this will make a lot of people happy. I like Windows 8 just fine but, like many of you, I've never been a fan of the Charms menu on the desktop.
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I think the only time I've used that menu was to connect my laptop to my Smart LG TV. I never really cared for that menu, seems to be a waste of resources.
 
You're kind of missing from the story that while the Charms bar itself will be killed on desktop (as we know it), that functionality will likely be in the task bar of Metro apps that need it.
 
I never had a problem with 8, all the new stuff I learned without any issue, I never understood all the fuss against it. <shrug>
 
Stoly said:
hopefully it will stay dead
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The removal of aero is and always has been my biggest complaint. I mean its easy to remove the charms bar and replace the start screen with a real start menu. However we can not get rid of all of the ugliness of windows 8.X.
 
snoopy-dancing1.jpg
 
I actually kinda like Windows 8 now...but that bar is garbage. It's like a bastardized control panel.
 
I actually prefer the taskbar layout of Vista over all the other windows OS's. But I use Win7 almost exclusively for my gaming rig.

Beyond my gaming rig it's all Linux. No point going past win7 for games imo.
 
The only reason anyone ever used it was because the shutdown menu was on it.

Now that it is on the start screen, I have not touched it since 8.1 came out.
 
I don't have anything against the charms bar. I like it. One click less for restart/hibernation/shutdown. What's to hate here?
 
That's one thing I don't like about Windows 8. I can handle just about everything else without complaint, but that damn "charms" bar is annoying. I almost never use it, for good reason. I find it difficult to use because my second screen is on the right side.
 
Good riddance.
Give us the bling back (or the option), a decent start menu and lose Metro.
 
I love Windows 8 because it feels faster also have disabled the charms bar, all hot corners and pretty much use it like I did way back with Windows 3.1.
 
drescherjm said:
The removal of aero is and always has been my biggest complaint. I mean its easy to remove the charms bar and replace the start screen with a real start menu. However we can not get rid of all of the ugliness of windows 8.X.
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I on the other hand actually like Windows 8's plain look (the task bar and windows could be shrunk a bit), I think Aero is gimmicky and uses GPU resources for no reason.
 
I don't have a problem with Windows 8, though mostly because i learned Windows shortcuts that require me not to interact with a start menu or charm bar, or anything else. If they want to get rid of all that, fine by me.
 
drescherjm said:
The removal of aero is and always has been my biggest complaint. I mean its easy to remove the charms bar and replace the start screen with a real start menu. However we can not get rid of all of the ugliness of windows 8.X.
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I prefer aero too.
 
Bamboo said:
I prefer aero too.
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Not to get on the "me too" wagon, but I too am a fan of Aero. I was very saddened when it was removed. I enjoyed the organic curves on applications, and liked the transparent feel of it. With this blocky approach in win8 it removes most of the pleasant aesthetic visual feel to the OS. And if it is using GPU horsepower to render, so what? Whats the point of having a discrete GPU if it can't be used? IF the power draw is killing battery life, then turn it of.
 
I like windows 8 but I hate Flat and ugly. Metro mimicked ios 7 which is ugly as hell, no dimension and elementary school looking icons. Why is 3d with textures dead? I need a TARDIS. To bring back Steve Jobs. He would buck this flat ugly ass trend. Typed from my ipad because I can't see the damn text on my surface pro. Microsoft needs to fix the damn dpi scaling and make text on the desktop legible for us old farts.
 
dceremuga said:
I like windows 8 but I hate Flat and ugly. Metro mimicked ios 7 which is ugly as hell, no dimension and elementary school looking icons. Why is 3d with textures dead? I need a TARDIS. To bring back Steve Jobs. He would buck this flat ugly ass trend. Typed from my ipad because I can't see the damn text on my surface pro. Microsoft needs to fix the damn dpi scaling and make text on the desktop legible for us old farts.
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Not sure how the modern UI first publically revealed in 2011 mimics iOS 7 introduced two years later. In any case modern designed principles are becoming standard across the industry in rejection to skewmorphism of the Jobs era. As for tiles being elementary, they are capable of displaying anything that a developer wants, in four different sizes and are dynamic. That's significantly more than what a single fixed square bitmap of limited resolution can do.
 
I don't mind the charms bar except that it pops up unexpectedly a little too often when using a hybrid touch plus keyboard device. To reduce the false positives Microsoft should make the trigger area on a touch capable device customizable so just the upper and lower corners activate it. On a non-touch device require the addition of the right mouse button in the upper and lower right corners to activate.
 
Charms bar is useful in Metro apps, where it belongs. Desktop use? Annoying as fuck sometimes - accidentally bring it up, or go looking for it (multiple monitors, it gets worse)...

Aero - I'd love to see the option. I don't know why it was taken out completely. It is almost like Metro. It's a forced action, with no option to not use their intended use scenario. Make the flat appearance default, but leave Aero in there as an optional theme. Make everyone happy.

Start Menu - I don't mind the Start Screen, but with so many people begging, bitching, torches and pitchforks at the ready - Microsoft is doing good by bringing it back. I'll be glad, but I didn't have any issues with the Start Screen.
 
FM 3370 said:
I love Windows 8 because it feels faster also have disabled the charms bar, all hot corners and pretty much use it like I did way back with Windows 3.1.
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You reboot it 10 times a day, reinstall once a month and swear at it nonstop?
 
dceremuga said:
I like windows 8 but I hate Flat and ugly. Metro mimicked ios 7 which is ugly as hell, no dimension and elementary school looking icons. Why is 3d with textures dead? I need a TARDIS. To bring back Steve Jobs. He would buck this flat ugly ass trend. Typed from my ipad because I can't see the damn text on my surface pro. Microsoft needs to fix the damn dpi scaling and make text on the desktop legible for us old farts.
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I prefer iOS devices (though I have several of both iOS and Android), but I have to agree with you.

They flattened iOS 7 with a frickin' hammer and I do NOT like it at all. It looks like they re-wrote the interface in Tekton script.
 
Useless and a pain in the rear to use with multiple monitor setups. Glad to see it get the stepping and metro taking a well deserved back seat as well
 
Sometimes I wonder about people who post around this site if they have ever actually read any of the reviews or understand this is a "hardware enthusiast" website. I mean seriously, people complaining about the almost non existent performance hit to the gpu for aero? I mean sure if you have an ancient pos or a crappy low power tablet/netbook, but then you disable it. For what is being really discussed here the "Desktop" it shouldn't be an issue. Now if you Like flat and ugly like win 8, fine have at it. I happen to like having a UI that is aesthetically nice even if it is a bit of a performance hit. Getting rid of the charms bad is pretty much the confirmation we needed to know that Win 9 is going to be drastically better. It was great on a tablet but utterly awful on the desktop. While I tended to just lump it all together when ranting against metro, it was one of the major problems.

If win 9 ships with Both win 7ish Aero and Metro as "Options", you won't hear a single complaint out of me. So long as they don't try to cobble together some bastardized version of the start menu which ends up being half start half startscreen icon garbage instead of a proper directory.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
So long as they don't try to cobble together some bastardized version of the start menu which ends up being half start half startscreen icon garbage instead of a proper directory.
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I suspect you should prepare for disappointment :p
 
Dekoth-E- said:
If win 9 ships with Both win 7ish Aero and Metro as "Options", you won't hear a single complaint out of me. So long as they don't try to cobble together some bastardized version of the start menu which ends up being half start half startscreen icon garbage instead of a proper directory.
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I would suspect that the new Start Menu/Screen, whatever it's called and however it's handled, is going to support tiles. If modern apps can run in a window, it would kind of have to.
 
Now they just need to readd the gadgets or give us the ability to "pin" those silly Metro-App boxes to our desktop.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
If win 9 ships with Both win 7ish Aero and Metro as "Options", you won't hear a single complaint out of me. So long as they don't try to cobble together some bastardized version of the start menu which ends up being half start half startscreen icon garbage instead of a proper directory.
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They're blending the two. Whether or not they give the "aero" and "classic" options is not known.

http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-shows-off-the-start-menu-that-is-coming-to-windows-81

^^ Screen shots of the mashup.
 
I liked the Charms bar and used it as a defacto Control Panel/Start Menu
 
dgz said:
I don't have anything against the charms bar. I like it. One click less for restart/hibernation/shutdown. What's to hate here?
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Because 99.9% of the time it slides out is when you don't want it.

And I can see the time in the lower right; I don't need it covering 1/5th of my screen and shown in two places.
 
heatlesssun said:
I would suspect that the new Start Menu/Screen, whatever it's called and however it's handled, is going to support tiles. If modern apps can run in a window, it would kind of have to.
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Wasn't this already 'confirmed' in a demo a couple months ago?

Either way, as long as there is simply an OPTION to include/exclude them from the new "Start Thingy" then they'll have done it correctly.

Spidey329 said:
Now they just need to readd the gadgets or give us the ability to "pin" those silly Metro-App boxes to our desktop.
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That's a nice idea and I'd use them then, such as a weather tile, RSS reader or small twitter tile much like a phone widget. Hell it would only make sense if Windows Phone is ultimately going to be the same OS as desktop. It would then be what the start screen really should have allowed; setting start items on a desktop that applications can sit above. The working slobs or task-oriented of us can fill otherwise wasted the desktop real estate with useful, informative tiles instead of just having icons/shortcuts arranged in the shape of a penis.
 
Who cares. Still effectively gone since nobody uses metro apps.

Good riddance to this poorly designed POS.
 
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