Less than 2 months til Windows 8.1 release day

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StormUP

Gawd
Joined
May 19, 2005
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628
Is anyone else excited for some of the upcoming changes?

Are you already running the preview version or waiting until the final version so you don't have to reinstall once it ships? I personally am waiting until it ships as I already deal with entirely too many OS's day in and day out. Win 2k3, 2k8, 2012, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8...no more Vista machines. Hopefully no more XP machines soon as well.

Which features are you most excited about? As someone who does a lot of web development the rewritten developer tools in Internet Explorer look promising (I have a preview version on a Windows 7 VM)
 
Been playing with the 9471 release since it came out and there is a lot that's changed in 8.1. As much as people say Microsoft hasn't listened with 8 they really did with 8.1. Short of Metro off, and I do understand that's all a lot of folks care about, just about every other major issue that I know of in 8 was addressed in some fashion in 8.1. Booting to the desktop, some configurability in the hot corners, better Modern app multitasking and support for multiple monitors, better in the box training, better UI cues and guidelines for them, overall much improved in the box Modern apps particularly the Mail and Music clients (though the Photos app lost Facebook and Flikr integration which seems stupid) and the Start Screen is significantly improved with much better manageability and better keyboard and mouse operation though context menuing still needs to be improved.

It's a pretty big step in the right direction but it's not enough to appease the hardcore desktop folks but I do think it will be better accepted by consumers, particularly if next gen Windows 8 tablets are what I'm hoping for. Bay Trail tablets should be a big boost forward in performance and capability, and hopefully the pricing will be there, that's really got to improve.
 
StormUP said:
Is anyone else excited for some of the upcoming changes?
Click to expand...

What are the upcoming changes? Specifically, what are you looking forward to - are there any compelling or killer features that warrant the upgrade for you? I know Skype is going to be bundled standard, but that's more of a check in the "reasons NOT to upgrade" column since its fairly bloated - at least if its the desktop client version.

Things are working pretty much fine with Win8.0 and Ex7ForW8, so boot-to-desktop and a start button that brings people back to the Metro start screen like a dog leash instead of the start menu aren't adding much. Oh, and you'll be able to have two metro apps side-by-side - I guess that's cool for people on tablets, but its a regression for anyone else that's used any version of Windows in the last 25 years.
 
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When did 971 KB become bloat? Again another comment about Windows 8 by someone who hasn't even bothered to make ANY effort to actually look at something before making erroneous statements.
 
I have Chrome installed on a couple of 9471 machines, but I have heard of others with this issue with the preview. What specific error are you getting?
 
Been using the preview since the first day. No major issues, but about a week ago the app store stopped working. I can't seem to install anything from the store anymore and I've tried every possible fix to no avail.
Plus, there seems to be no way to re-install the 8.1 patch very easily.
I'm looking forward to the final so I can hopefully fix it.
 
that sounds like it might be coming any day now. :D
 
I find it hard to get excited by OS releases. So long as Microsoft keeps making incremental improvements to what they have already, I'm happy.
 
Nope I won't upgrade cause I did and I had to reinstall it cause it sucked.....

CPU meter was broken
 
DPI said:
What are the upcoming changes? Specifically, what are you looking forward to - are there any compelling or killer features that warrant the upgrade for you? I know Skype is going to be bundled standard, but that's more of a check in the "reasons NOT to upgrade" column since its fairly bloated - at least if its the desktop client version.

Things are working pretty much fine with Win8.0 and Ex7ForW8, so boot-to-desktop and a start button that brings people back to the Metro start screen like a dog leash instead of the start menu aren't adding much. Oh, and you'll be able to have two metro apps side-by-side - I guess that's cool for people on tablets, but its a regression for anyone else that's used any version of Windows in the last 25 years.
Click to expand...

I'm personally looking forward to some of the small things. IE11, improved search, boot direct to desktop, having a button to open the start screen as it takes slightly less time to click than activating the hot corner. I don't need a start menu and have come to prefer the start screen on my Win 8 machines over the start menu on my older machines.

Having additional tile sizes is also something I've wanted.

I still don't use Modern UI apps so any changes to those don't matter to me.
 
8.1 might get me to use Win8 on my main rig but will still install a 3rd party Startmenu and never boot to Metro so for me Microsoft failed with this *forced* Metro GUI "experiment" on a desktop PC and needs to go back to the drawing board.
 
Back to the drawing board? I don't think that's necessary because most of the major issues that bought up have either been resolved in 8.1 or already have 3rd party solutions, Start Menu replacements, running Modern apps in a window and so forth. Many who don't like Windows 8 today claim that if only Microsoft had put in a Metro off switch then 8 would be some super duper success. All of the elements for Windows 8 and its successors to do well are there. The technical base of 8 is extremely flexible and malleable but the trick is to come up with the right blend.
 
Been using the Preview of 8.1 here since its release, it installed flawlessly from the Windows Store on my original Win8 install. Its absolutely worth the upgrade in my opinion. Theres quite a few little changes around the system that serve to improve the experience both for desktop users and metro users. Personally I found metro pretty much unusable on Win8.. multi-mon functionality was badly broken, the Windows Store was terrible, the metro style Settings app was half-assed, the Start Screen wasnt very customisable, tiles even less so. But in 8.1 I actually find myself using the metro side of things as a kind of companion to my usual desktop usage, everything I mention above is fixed and they've added a lot of nice changes. I use my Start Screen as a kind of info hub, the live tiles are actually incredibly useful for things like email, calendars, news feeds, reddit and other social updates etc. I also use Stardock's Start8 to give me back the familiar start menu which I find a lot more efficient for working with the desktop, with this setup I kinda get the best of both worlds.

So yeah I think its fair to say Im looking forward to 8.1 hitting rtm, the only thing Im not looking forward to is the clean reinstall process.
 
I've been using 8.1 on a touch laptop that had 8.0 previously. I woudn't say it's very exciting. Well, the first few hours were exciting in a bad way until it updated to the first fixes. Maybe there are more changes coming, but I think they didn't go far enough back to the center.
 
I've been using the 8.1 preview in a VM to go out over the guest network at work. It's not a huge leap over 8, but a pretty decent refinement. It's amazing how setting the Start Screen to use the same wallpaper as the desktop results in a much, much less jarring transition. The fact that this wasn't included in 8 is another reinforcement of my opinion of Microsoft as deficient in attention to details.

While adding a comprehensive app screen is a good step forward (and pretty "reminiscent" of Launchpad in OS X…), and a huge improvement over the silly "remember the name of every single app you own because if it isn't on the Start Screen you have to search for it!" behavior, I still don't think it does enough to make installed apps accessible to the average user. It still feels like I have to drill down too far—as if Microsoft is trying to abstract apps away—for no clear or beneficial reason.

Integrated Skydrive is awesome, and having more free storage space than Dropbox and iCloud is a nice move.

I wish that Metro and desktop IE11 would share states; add-ons I install in desktop IE11 should be in full effect (and be fully manageable) in Metro IE11, and tabs I have open in Metro IE11 should also be open in desktop IE11. This is one of those small details that make Metro feel alien and jarring to most users, because it seems like the system isn't talking to itself.

Hot corners as the default, intended, primary way of accessing high level system features is still a ridiculously stupid idea, but at least the charms bar now positions itself closer to the corner you've activated.

The new snap view is a nice idea, but until I can split screen the desktop (to simulate a dual monitor desktop) then it's useless to me. And DPI scaling is still garbage. If Microsoft could implement DPI scaling or some sort of method of enlarging all elements on a screen in a way that doesn't interfere with app use (like crowding out text entry fields…) then I'd pay full retail price immediately even if that was literally the only change.

That all said, I have Windows 8 on my gaming PC and will install 8.1 on release, if only for the under the hood changes. I'm not as against Windows 8 as I once was, and even though I have a litany of complaints about it, 8.1 is an improvement. It just isn't improving in the right areas, IMO.
 
Terpfen said:
While adding a comprehensive app screen is a good step forward (and pretty "reminiscent" of Launchpad in OS X…), and a huge improvement over the silly "remember the name of every single app you own because if it isn't on the Start Screen you have to search for it!" behavior, I still don't think it does enough to make installed apps accessible to the average user. It still feels like I have to drill down too far—as if Microsoft is trying to abstract apps away—for no clear or beneficial reason.
Click to expand...

The sorting in the Apps Screen and semantic zoom do provide some nice features for dealing with apps. It's easy to see approximately when an app was installed, which apps are used the most or apps that have never been used at all.

Terpfen said:
Integrated Skydrive is awesome, and having more free storage space than Dropbox and iCloud is a nice move.
Click to expand...

I know there's a lot of distrust of cloud technology especially these days but these are the kinds of things that have to at least be options in Windows and having them all turned off by default definitely harkens to an earlier time in computing history. It's just the kind of thing that's expected in modern computing devices used by average people these days.

Terpfen said:
I wish that Metro and desktop IE11 would share states; add-ons I install in desktop IE11 should be in full effect (and be fully manageable) in Metro IE11, and tabs I have open in Metro IE11 should also be open in desktop IE11. This is one of those small details that make Metro feel alien and jarring to most users, because it seems like the system isn't talking to itself.
Click to expand...

There is a disconnect between the modern and desktop version of IE and I agree with what you're saying but at the same time there are number of good reasons for a lot of it. Desktop add-ons would certainly present challenges for use on touch devices and in keeping with the add-in free model that other mobile browsers implement, it's just necessary to keep the browser secure, fast and stable relative to mobile browsers. But better integration of tabs like you mention would be welcomed.

Terpfen said:
Hot corners as the default, intended, primary way of accessing high level system features is still a ridiculously stupid idea, but at least the charms bar now positions itself closer to the corner you've activated.
Click to expand...

I've had mixed feelings about hot corners. On a single screen system they are fine, not so much with multiple monitors but it is a very consistent system that doesn't require chrome and does with full screen

Terpfen said:
The new snap view is a nice idea, but until I can split screen the desktop (to simulate a dual monitor desktop) then it's useless to me. And DPI scaling is still garbage. If Microsoft could implement DPI scaling or some sort of method of enlarging all elements on a screen in a way that doesn't interfere with app use (like crowding out text entry fields…) then I'd pay full retail price immediately even if that was literally the only change.
Click to expand...

The Windows desktop shell has never been very advanced and this is where 3rd parties have offered all sorts of tools for these kinds of things. Most probably wouldn't have a great need for a single screen split desktop simply by utilizing Aero snap, one of the nicer features of the Windows desktop shell that few probably use. But the new snapping does help a great deal with multitasking with modern apps and it a very cool on a tablet especially with the new Search or Reading List app.

As the DPI scaling, it's really about dealing with devices like a Surface Pro with high DPI screens when connected to low DPI screens and it works pretty well for that. Apps that weren't designed to scale well won't magically in 8.1 but on a high enough DPI screen it should work pretty well.

Terpfen said:
That all said, I have Windows 8 on my gaming PC and will install 8.1 on release, if only for the under the hood changes. I'm not as against Windows 8 as I once was, and even though I have a litany of complaints about it, 8.1 is an improvement. It just isn't improving in the right areas, IMO.
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So what areas would you say need improving? 8.1 was definitely about cleaning up the new UI which definitely needed it and could you more in the areas of desktop integration.
 
They just need to make the Start button the WinX menu by standard. Maybe make it a little neater and larger too.

I see absolutely no need for an old start menu these days.
 
Windows 8.1 looks promising. Will it be free for Windows 8 users? If not, how much do Windows 8 basic user have to pay in order to get Windows 8.1?
 
maverick786us said:
Windows 8.1 looks promising. Will it be free for Windows 8 users? If not, how much do Windows 8 basic user have to pay in order to get Windows 8.1?
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It's free. Right now some of the ISO versions try to install clean (so an upgrade key doesn't work) but the final will be available as a free patch via either the Windows Store or just using Windows Update.
The new "start button" and the quicker access to your program list really does make the whole OS feel quicker and easier. It doesn't fix everything, but I've been really happy with the beta release.
 
I'd be shocked if this didn't start showing up in random places in the next few days. Then it'll just come down to which version it is.
I know that the ISO version of the public preview (from MS) did not like being installed as an upgrade patch on my machine, and I have to think that the most common OEM version is likely a clean install.
 
heatlesssun said:
The sorting in the Apps Screen and semantic zoom do provide some nice features for dealing with apps. It's easy to see approximately when an app was installed, which apps are used the most or apps that have never been used at all.
Click to expand...

It's easy if you already know where to look. The discovery is completely wrong. The Start Screen is basically a partial presentation of installed system/desktop apps alongside Windows Store apps. (And the presence of 32x32 or 48x48 desktop icons from services like Steam and Origin really clash against the Metro tiles.) Most people won't even notice the new down arrow on the Start Screen pointing to the full app list. (Also, Microsoft defeats the horizontal parallax concept of the Metro UI by now burying an app listing accessible only vertically.)

There is a disconnect between the modern and desktop version of IE and I agree with what you're saying but at the same time there are number of good reasons for a lot of it. Desktop add-ons would certainly present challenges for use on touch devices and in keeping with the add-in free model that other mobile browsers implement, it's just necessary to keep the browser secure, fast and stable relative to mobile browsers. But better integration of tabs like you mention would be welcomed.
Click to expand...

This comes to the big problem everyone has with Windows 8; the prioritization of touch features and UI on a desktop OS. This is a pretty good example of how a bad decision ripples across the entire product.

At a minimum, tabs should be shared between browser versions. If I can see my phone's tabs on my tablet and my tablet's tabs on my desktop, there should be no reason why the same browser on the same computer can't see the same tabs.

I've had mixed feelings about hot corners. On a single screen system they are fine, not so much with multiple monitors but it is a very consistent system that doesn't require chrome and does with full screen
Click to expand...

Hot corners have a place for advanced users. As the primary method of accessing system menus and high level functions, regardless of screen count, it's such an awful idea. Users are literally expected to figure out that there's an invisible gesture trigger on a form factor that traditionally has not operated through gestures.

The Windows desktop shell has never been very advanced and this is where 3rd parties have offered all sorts of tools for these kinds of things. Most probably wouldn't have a great need for a single screen split desktop simply by utilizing Aero snap, one of the nicer features of the Windows desktop shell that few probably use. But the new snapping does help a great deal with multitasking with modern apps and it a very cool on a tablet especially with the new Search or Reading List app.
Click to expand...

What I'm looking for is a way to make large, super-wide displays (like the Dell U2913WM) able to function like a multi display setup when needed. Snap could have been exactly that if it were able to display two (or more) desktop apps side by side.

As the DPI scaling, it's really about dealing with devices like a Surface Pro with high DPI screens when connected to low DPI screens and it works pretty well for that. Apps that weren't designed to scale well won't magically in 8.1 but on a high enough DPI screen it should work pretty well.
Click to expand...

DPI scaling has been garbage in Windows since its debut. As an example, we have major problems at the hospital I work at related to DPI scaling and apparent UI element sizes. Namely, Nurse A comes along and thinks "the screen is too small" (translation: "The desktop resolution is too high for my taste.") Nurse A has seen or heard from Nurse B a method to "make everything bigger", which usually involves going in to the DPI settings and scaling to 125%, rather than doing something slightly more sensible, like reducing resolution to 1024x768. Yes, 1024x768 scaled to fill a 19'' display is still the universally preferred desktop configuration among all nursing unit staff, including the doctors…

Nurse C comes in during the next shift and needs to use the patient transfer application, only to find that because the screen is scaled to 125%, the text input fields for MM/DD/YYYY cannot be selected by the cursor; they have been crowded out by the scaling. The EMR application also looks terrible and suffers from the same text field issue. Nurse C goes to another computer until Nurse D comes along because this is the last remaining free computer on the unit. Noticing that the screen by now is some bizarre pastiche of pixellated applications, a ticket is called in to the helpdesk and is paged out at 2 AM.

It's maddening how little Microsoft has done to fix this even in 8.1. If Windows 9 or 8.2 or whatever is up next fixes this once and for all, by giving us a way to make UI elements on the screen larger at higher resolutions (eliminating the need for scaling down to 1024x768 or up to 125% DPI), I will instantly become the biggest advocate for its enterprise deployment on the Internet.

So what areas would you say need improving? 8.1 was definitely about cleaning up the new UI which definitely needed it and could you more in the areas of desktop integration.
Click to expand...

Well, between this post and the previous, I just listed quite a few. :cool:

Smaller things I'd like to see include full customization of tile appearances, including colors, display text, dynamic drag-to-resize like a desktop window, almost like a supercharged desktop shortcut. I can see a Windows 8 IT deployment using the Start Screen as a replacement for the litany of desktop icons that go out by default.

I also think there are plenty of under the hood performance gains to be achieved, if OS X Mavericks is any indication of what's possible there. I fully expect and hope that App Nap will be ripped off in short order. We should be reaching the point where we no longer rely on the presence of an SSD to be the main, even sole, source of performance increases; software can always do more, IMO.
 
Terpfen said:
At a minimum, tabs should be shared between browser versions. If I can see my phone's tabs on my tablet and my tablet's tabs on my desktop, there should be no reason why the same browser on the same computer can't see the same tabs.
Click to expand...
I'd attribute it to the very typical black holes that exist between divisions within Microsoft, but it seems odd that there would be two divisions for what is essentially the same product. It's more likely a case of that team just not being entirely awake.

Terpfen said:
Users are literally expected to figure out that there's an invisible gesture trigger on a form factor that traditionally has not operated through gestures.
Click to expand...
I actually consider this an education issue. An area in which Microsoft has admittedly failed entirely. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the concept. Whether hybridizing the UI was the right approach in a broad sense, this specific approach to fly-out menus seems like the right fit for what they were looking to achieve.
 
wonderfield said:
I'd attribute it to the very typical black holes that exist between divisions within Microsoft, but it seems odd that there would be two divisions for what is essentially the same product. It's more likely a case of that team just not being entirely awake.
Click to expand...

There's only one Internet Explorer team at Microsoft. There are no subdivisions there—no "Metro IE Windows RT" team and a separate "desktop IE Windows 8" team. Just one IE team.

I actually consider this an education issue. An area in which Microsoft has admittedly failed entirely. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the concept. Whether hybridizing the UI was the right approach in a broad sense, this specific approach to fly-out menus seems like the right fit for what they were looking to achieve.
Click to expand...

Tell someone that in order to turn off or reboot their computer, they have to move over—not click, as they have been trained for three decades!—to the invisible part in the corner, where coincidentally there is also an invisible "show desktop" button. It's sloppy at best and one of the worst UI decisions in recent memory in all likelihood.
 
Terpfen said:
Tell someone that in order to turn off or reboot their computer, they have to move over—not click, as they have been trained for three decades!—to the invisible part in the corner, where coincidentally there is also an invisible "show desktop" button. It's sloppy at best and one of the worst UI decisions in recent memory in all likelihood.
Click to expand...
Are you saying that the hot corner-based fly-outs themselves are sloppy or that the show desktop trigger being in the same corner as the Charms trigger is sloppy?

If the latter, I agree with you. If the former, I don't think so. Sloppiness denotes indeliberateness. They went with hot corners/edges because it's an approach that works reasonably well in both mouse-driven and touch-driven contexts: real estate tends to be precious on tablets where buttons are generally wasteful, so you get benefits from invisible menus (iOS uses them). Users are also somewhat accustomed to hot corners/edges with taskbar autohiding so there's at least a precedent for already-known patterns.

Like I said, it's an educational issue. Microsoft thought "move your mouse into any corner" was somehow sufficient, and that was a gross miscalculation. Telling someone to move a cursor into a corner, like you mentioned, is user education. I'm just saying that these aren't issues fundamental to hot corner/edge swipe-based menus.
 
Terpfen said:
It's easy if you already know where to look. The discovery is completely wrong. The Start Screen is basically a partial presentation of installed system/desktop apps alongside Windows Store apps. (And the presence of 32x32 or 48x48 desktop icons from services like Steam and Origin really clash against the Metro tiles.) Most people won't even notice the new down arrow on the Start Screen pointing to the full app list. (Also, Microsoft defeats the horizontal parallax concept of the Metro UI by now burying an app listing accessible only vertically.)
Click to expand...

The Start Screen is a short cut system, like the Start Menu or desktop, the point is to only highlight some things. The arrow is kind of hard to miss I think, it was the first thing I noticed when using the 8.1 preview and it is obviously pointing to more below. I guess it could be more explicit with text but I don't think it's a much of a hurdle. Parallax is disabled on the App Screen, so it is defeated by design for whatever reason.

Terpfen said:
This comes to the big problem everyone has with Windows 8; the prioritization of touch features and UI on a desktop OS. This is a pretty good example of how a bad decision ripples across the entire product.

At a minimum, tabs should be shared between browser versions. If I can see my phone's tabs on my tablet and my tablet's tabs on my desktop, there should be no reason why the same browser on the same computer can't see the same tabs.
Click to expand...

It could be cleaner but it's not entirely disconnected. Sites save to Favorites sync up across both browsers as well as frequents and history and across devices when using a Microsoft Account. And if one doesn't want to use the modern browser on the desktop the desktop can be set as the default. Of course the hybrid UI is an issue for many but at the same time it does offer a lot of benefit for those who work across desktops and tablets and touch devices. Yes, that's small percentage of users today and while it's slow growing now I doubt it's unlikely to stop growing.

Terpfen said:
Hot corners have a place for advanced users. As the primary method of accessing system menus and high level functions, regardless of screen count, it's such an awful idea. Users are literally expected to figure out that there's an invisible gesture trigger on a form factor that traditionally has not operated through gestures.
Click to expand...

If you don't know the corners are there, yes, you have to learn about them. That's not exactly anything new. There are any number of hidden features in Windows today that aren't exposed that use drag and drop like Aero snap, file management, pinning IE tabs to the task bar and so forth and many right click context menus.

Terpfen said:
What I'm looking for is a way to make large, super-wide displays (like the Dell U2913WM) able to function like a multi display setup when needed. Snap could have been exactly that if it were able to display two (or more) desktop apps side by side.
Click to expand...

Aero snap, one of those hidden UI functions, does exactly this on the desktop since Windows 7.

Terpfen said:
DPI scaling has been garbage in Windows since its debut. As an example, we have major problems at the hospital I work at related to DPI scaling and apparent UI element sizes. Namely, Nurse A comes along and thinks "the screen is too small" (translation: "The desktop resolution is too high for my taste.") Nurse A has seen or heard from Nurse B a method to "make everything bigger", which usually involves going in to the DPI settings and scaling to 125%, rather than doing something slightly more sensible, like reducing resolution to 1024x768. Yes, 1024x768 scaled to fill a 19'' display is still the universally preferred desktop configuration among all nursing unit staff, including the doctors…

Nurse C comes in during the next shift and needs to use the patient transfer application, only to find that because the screen is scaled to 125%, the text input fields for MM/DD/YYYY cannot be selected by the cursor; they have been crowded out by the scaling. The EMR application also looks terrible and suffers from the same text field issue. Nurse C goes to another computer until Nurse D comes along because this is the last remaining free computer on the unit. Noticing that the screen by now is some bizarre pastiche of pixellated applications, a ticket is called in to the helpdesk and is paged out at 2 AM.

It's maddening how little Microsoft has done to fix this even in 8.1. If Windows 9 or 8.2 or whatever is up next fixes this once and for all, by giving us a way to make UI elements on the screen larger at higher resolutions (eliminating the need for scaling down to 1024x768 or up to 125% DPI), I will instantly become the biggest advocate for its enterprise deployment on the Internet.
Click to expand...

Scaling 1024x768 resolutions on a 19" monitor? That is going to be problematic at that low of a resolution. At any rate it's not totally an OS issue, apps have to either deal with scaling and they just get lucky and work but at HD resolutions it works much better. I've been testing scaling on a 1280x800 tablet running Windows 8.1 and there's nothing I've come across using Office, Visual Studio, VLC, etc. that has any issues at 125% . Again though what's critical about the scaling capability is that it will allow high DPI tablets and laptops to be connected to low DPI monitors which is becoming more and more of an issue with all of the new high DPI devices coming out now.

Terpfen said:
Well, between this post and the previous, I just listed quite a few. :cool:

Smaller things I'd like to see include full customization of tile appearances, including colors, display text, dynamic drag-to-resize like a desktop window, almost like a supercharged desktop shortcut. I can see a Windows 8 IT deployment using the Start Screen as a replacement for the litany of desktop icons that go out by default.
Click to expand...

I agree.

Terpfen said:
I also think there are plenty of under the hood performance gains to be achieved, if OS X Mavericks is any indication of what's possible there. I fully expect and hope that App Nap will be ripped off in short order. We should be reaching the point where we no longer rely on the presence of an SSD to be the main, even sole, source of performance increases; software can always do more, IMO.
Click to expand...

8.1, the 9471 leak at any rate, does seem to run a bit better on the same hardware compared to 8 that I've tested on. It should be even better when 8.1 is released in October. Modern apps already support the concepts of App Nap and too a much more aggressive degree like mobile OSes which is why I like using the modern browser when on battery. I will be interested in seeing performance and battery benchmarks of 8.1 compared to 8, 7 and OS X.
 
Terpfen said:
Tell someone that in order to turn off or reboot their computer, they have to move over—not click, as they have been trained for three decades!—to the invisible part in the corner, where coincidentally there is also an invisible "show desktop" button. It's sloppy at best and one of the worst UI decisions in recent memory in all likelihood.
Click to expand...

One thing that has change in 8.1, right click a lower left hot corner or Start Button. I say "a" because it works on multiple monitors. So a left click changes to a right click.
 
heatlesssun said:
The Start Screen is a short cut system, like the Start Menu or desktop, the point is to only highlight some things. The arrow is kind of hard to miss I think, it was the first thing I noticed when using the 8.1 preview and it is obviously pointing to more below. I guess it could be more explicit with text but I don't think it's a much of a hurdle. Parallax is disabled on the App Screen, so it is defeated by design for whatever reason.
Click to expand...

The problem is its discoverability and whether it conveys meaning. A UI designed around horizontal scrolling shouldn't really start moving major elements vertically. iOS, for example, scrolls horizontally from page to page, and only uses verticality to pull in menus or screens about your data; you don't actually shift planes.

It could be cleaner but it's not entirely disconnected. Sites save to Favorites sync up across both browsers as well as frequents and history and across devices when using a Microsoft Account. And if one doesn't want to use the modern browser on the desktop the desktop can be set as the default. Of course the hybrid UI is an issue for many but at the same time it does offer a lot of benefit for those who work across desktops and tablets and touch devices. Yes, that's small percentage of users today and while it's slow growing now I doubt it's unlikely to stop growing.
Click to expand...

We'll have to agree to disagree about this.

If you don't know the corners are there, yes, you have to learn about them. That's not exactly anything new. There are any number of hidden features in Windows today that aren't exposed that use drag and drop like Aero snap, file management, pinning IE tabs to the task bar and so forth and many right click context menus.
Click to expand...

The concept is not easily discoverable, though. Someone might accidentally move their mouse into the corner and something might start happening, but they'll likely ignore something popping in (like the charms bar) because their cursor is already moving back to the center of the screen; they have no expectation that mousing into a corner should trigger an action, because it isn't an obvious or intuitive action cue.

Aero snap, one of those hidden UI functions, does exactly this on the desktop since Windows 7.
Click to expand...

Aero snap helps divide one desktop among two apps. What I'm saying is that Snap should divide one desktop into two or even three desktops.

Scaling 1024x768 resolutions on a 19" monitor? That is going to be problematic at that low of a resolution.
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It's problematic in that they consistently want UI elements to be scaled to larger sizes, but there isn't a clean way to do this in Windows. The same issue occurs when, say, we give someone a high resolution monitor. They appreciate the large physical dimensions but want the UI elements to be larger, not smaller. This means DPI scaling or non-native resolutions, or some combo of both. The desktop looks like an Escher composition.

And don't even get me started about how Outlook still doesn't have a universal text size setting for all menus and emails…

At any rate it's not totally an OS issue, apps have to either deal with scaling and they just get lucky and work but at HD resolutions it works much better.
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I agree that the apps themselves should get better, but the examples given are internal apps developed in .NET 4. They get the job done a certain way and the internal developers aren't going to "waste" time on usability testing at multiple DPIs. They've got other projects to worry about.

I do see this issue on non-internal apps, though. I'm not even happy with how Windows handles desktop icon scaling at higher DPI densities. The 1:1 scaling done when an iPad user pinches to zoom a webpage should be easily implementable on the desktop. (Heck, it's already in OS X.)

8.1, the 9471 leak at any rate, does seem to run a bit better on the same hardware compared to 8 that I've tested on. It should be even better when 8.1 is released in October. Modern apps already support the concepts of App Nap and too a much more aggressive degree like mobile OSes which is why I like using the modern browser when on battery. I will be interested in seeing performance and battery benchmarks of 8.1 compared to 8, 7 and OS X.
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Metro apps by default cannot support App Nap because they're full screen. They don't layer over anything behind them. App Nap isn't suspension of minimized apps, it's the use of layering to detect which apps are underneath other apps, and dynamically cutting off their resource access until the user brings them to the fore. It's a desktop-based concept.
 
Terpfen said:
The problem is its discoverability and whether it conveys meaning. A UI designed around horizontal scrolling shouldn't really start moving major elements vertically. iOS, for example, scrolls horizontally from page to page, and only uses verticality to pull in menus or screens about your data; you don't actually shift planes.
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There's an obvious arrow pointing down, how that's confusing or not discoverable I don't know. And I don't think moving in two dimensions throws too many loops in this case.

Terpfen said:
We'll have to agree to disagree about this.
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Fair enough, I use both browsers all of the time and you have valid points, but it's not like using the desktop browser when has changed because of the modern browser and the modern browser is excellent on a tablet.

Terpfen said:
The concept is not easily discoverable, though. Someone might accidentally move their mouse into the corner and something might start happening, but they'll likely ignore something popping in (like the charms bar) because their cursor is already moving back to the center of the screen; they have no expectation that mousing into a corner should trigger an action, because it isn't an obvious or intuitive action cue.
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It's not obvious true but it's not particularly difficult and it is very consistent. Every modern app prints, shares its data with other apps if it has the capability and controls its option the same way. That replaces a lot of chrome that could be here or there and the need to keep rediscovering the same things repeatedly.

Terpfen said:
Aero snap helps divide one desktop among two apps. What I'm saying is that Snap should divide one desktop into two or even three desktops.
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I understand, I was simply pointing out that Aero snap is very similar to the modern snap. Indeed one very subtle thing that changed were the keyboard shortcuts for modern snapping. For whatever bizarre reason they were different from the desktop keyboard shortcuts, 8.1 makes them all the same mirroring the desktop shortcuts now.

Terpfen said:
It's problematic in that they consistently want UI elements to be scaled to larger sizes, but there isn't a clean way to do this in Windows. The same issue occurs when, say, we give someone a high resolution monitor. They appreciate the large physical dimensions but want the UI elements to be larger, not smaller. This means DPI scaling or non-native resolutions, or some combo of both. The desktop looks like an Escher composition.
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My work laptop is a 15.6" 1920x1080 screen running 7 using 125% scaling at native resolution. Works great. Again, low resolutions are where the problems occur.

Terpfen said:
And don't even get me started about how Outlook still doesn't have a universal text size setting for all menus and emails…
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Menu fonts and sizes are controlled by Windows in most applications, Outlook is no exception.

Terpfen said:
Metro apps by default cannot support App Nap because they're full screen. They don't layer over anything behind them. App Nap isn't suspension of minimized apps, it's the use of layering to detect which apps are underneath other apps, and dynamically cutting off their resource access until the user brings them to the fore. It's a desktop-based concept.
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Modern apps are desktop apps though, if you at the add-on Modern Mix that easily proves the point. Also if you take a desktop window that's always on top like the Task Manager it can be on top of an modern app while the modern app stays underneath. With Modern Mix modern apps behave as you described with App Nap, the will suspend when underneath other windows, desktop and modern.

The Modern UI is heavily sandboxed at this point, there's a lot more capability there than exposed currently.
 
Terpfen said:
...which usually involves going in to the DPI settings and scaling to 125%, rather than doing something slightly more sensible, like reducing resolution to 1024x768. Yes, 1024x768 scaled to fill a 19'' display is still the universally preferred desktop configuration among all nursing unit staff, including the doctors…
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Uh, unless you still use ancient CRT screens there, scaling down is pretty horrible as a solution.

Apps corrupting from DPI changes are a software design problem also, not only OS problem.
 
heatlesssun said:
There's an obvious arrow pointing down, how that's confusing or not discoverable I don't know. And I don't think moving in two dimensions throws too many loops in this case.



Fair enough, I use both browsers all of the time and you have valid points, but it's not like using the desktop browser when has changed because of the modern browser and the modern browser is excellent on a tablet.



It's not obvious true but it's not particularly difficult and it is very consistent. Every modern app prints, shares its data with other apps if it has the capability and controls its option the same way. That replaces a lot of chrome that could be here or there and the need to keep rediscovering the same things repeatedly.



I understand, I was simply pointing out that Aero snap is very similar to the modern snap. Indeed one very subtle thing that changed were the keyboard shortcuts for modern snapping. For whatever bizarre reason they were different from the desktop keyboard shortcuts, 8.1 makes them all the same mirroring the desktop shortcuts now.



My work laptop is a 15.6" 1920x1080 screen running 7 using 125% scaling at native resolution. Works great. Again, low resolutions are where the problems occur.



Menu fonts and sizes are controlled by Windows in most applications, Outlook is no exception.



Modern apps are desktop apps though, if you at the add-on Modern Mix that easily proves the point. Also if you take a desktop window that's always on top like the Task Manager it can be on top of an modern app while the modern app stays underneath. With Modern Mix modern apps behave as you described with App Nap, the will suspend when underneath other windows, desktop and modern.

The Modern UI is heavily sandboxed at this point, there's a lot more capability there than exposed currently.
Click to expand...
Any time you need a third party tool to do anything you previously could is a complete waste and a failure.
 
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