Microsoft Striping Features From Windows 8

Fair enough. I will try to improve on the criticism and re-word the Ribbon point slightly. It is my honest opinion (which is subjective I agree) that the Ribbon is only productive when there are lots of commands like in Office apps. In case of Explorer especially (or Paint or WordPad), there is lot of empty space on each Ribbon tab to the right of the Ribbon commands and vertical height is unnecessarily reduced. Also, toolbars in Office were not contextual, but the toolbar in Explorer was contextual. On the ribbon, now we have to remember which tab has which command which introduces 1 more click (and possibly more clicks if we don't remember on which tab the command lies). Yes you could make the same argument about Start Menu vs Start screen. It is its replacement but if the replacement doesn't do everything the old one did, how is it better? Just being different is not enough, then it becomes a case of change for sake of change, in this case, it's inferior IMO because it does less.

Also note that if only desktop apps are running, the Win+Tab switcher doesn't work which is why it is a loss of functionality. Win+Tab on the Start screen behaves like Alt-Tab, both are flat 2D thumbnail views. Alt-Tab is horizontal, Win-Tab is vertical. Where's the improvement?
 
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I'm gonna be honest with you guys: I've seen this thread in various forms for the last 14 years. Every time a new version of Windows is made, there is much screaming and gnashing of teeth over some kind of feature or component that isn't included, or another that's altered, or some other change, and it all inevitably ends in the downfall of Microsoft. Hell, back when Vista was being developed, there were people claiming that the Start button being changed to a jewel would result in the rise of Linux to market dominance.

Let's be real for a second about the DVD playback. There are probably 7500 programs out there for Windows that can play DVDs, most of them free. The widely-used Combined Community Codec Pack comes with a player with all the bells and whistles - MPC-HC - and it's not only free, but easy to use for all experience levels. DVD playback is a non-issue anyways, what with Bluray and streaming video being the standards of the day.

Also, about the storefront features, some of you are claiming that the existence of a Microsoft Store in Win8 means that Microsoft will remove core features and then charge you for them. Do you have proof of this? Is there any evidence, perhaps a press release or example from the currently-live Windows 8 open beta, to back this up? Furthermore, does the inclusion of a first-party storefront explicitly dictate that the product released is deliberately incomplete with the intent to screw customers? Could the same argument you level at Microsoft also be leveled at Google and Apple for their stores linked to their operating systems?

Lastly, I would like you all to stop declaring the end of Microsoft, the end of Windows, etc. over what you perceive as a bad product based on rumours or minor occurrences. I have heard "this is the end of MS" related to the following: Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows Vista, Office 2003, Windows Live Essentials, Internet Explorer 6, Games for Windows Live, Xbox Kinect, Zune HD, Windows Phone 7, and MSNBC. Regardless of, and in spite of, all of these things, Microsoft is still a juggernaut of the technology world. They have made terrible operating systems before (those of you with a keen eye will notice that every other version of Windows is a steaming pile of shit), and they yet live. If Windows Me didn't kill them, nothing will. That in mind, can we please stop saying that Microsoft is finished?
 
Red Machine D said:
Lastly, I would like you all to stop declaring the end of Microsoft, the end of Windows, etc. over what you perceive as a bad product based on rumours or minor occurrences. I have heard "this is the end of MS" related to the following: Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows Vista, Office 2003, Windows Live Essentials, Internet Explorer 6, Games for Windows Live, Xbox Kinect, Zune HD, Windows Phone 7, and MSNBC. Regardless of, and in spite of, all of these things, Microsoft is still a juggernaut of the technology world. They have made terrible operating systems before (those of you with a keen eye will notice that every other version of Windows is a steaming pile of shit), and they yet live. If Windows Me didn't kill them, nothing will. That in mind, can we please stop saying that Microsoft is finished?
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Pretty much agree with this. Vista is widely considered a huge failure and yet it sold 300 million copies in two years and was huge commercial success for Microsoft, they made a lot of money with Vista. Has there every been any commercial product in human history that was considered a gigantic failure that sold 300 million copies?

I think much of the hate over Windows 8 is simply that, hate. Windows 8 is going to sell hundreds of millions of copies, that's just inevitable because it's going to come on new PCs, and many of these new PCs are going to be unlike any PC the vast majority of Windows users have ever seen. Windows 8 gadgets are going to be off the chain, touch screen laptops, hybrids, sweet ass note taking devices with awesome handwriting recognition and OneNote, etc.

Whatever one thinks of Windows 8, it is the most complex and powerful client OS ever created, Windows RT or Windows on ARM is a true subset and both can run identical executables. And both support keyboard, mouse, touch and pen input. While not revolutionary by any stretch there's simple nothing like Windows 8. If Windows 8's unique capabilities prove to be popular, there's nothing currently on the market to match it.
 
heatlesssun said:
Vista is widely considered a huge failure and yet it sold 300 million copies in two years and was huge commercial success for Microsoft, they made a lot of money with Vista. Has there every been any commercial product in human history that was considered a gigantic failure that sold 300 million copies?
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That's the problem with a monopoly. OS X might be gaining market share but I'm pretty sure Windows still holds 90%+ of the market. Most OEM computers use it, most DIY computers use it, so really most people have no choice to use Windows unless they want to fight it out with OS X (which for the most part requires an Apple specific product) or Linux (which for the most part requires an above average user to install, maintain, and run effectively, not to mention too many programs to count that only run on Windows because, again, the market share).

They'll sell 300 million copies of an OS that was considered a huge failure because there were no realistic alternatives for Dell, HP, etc. Now if MS had a few trash releases in a row, maybe, but W7 was considered a big success and it'll be around for a long time (probably as long as XP was).
 
The removal of MCE isn't a big deal, never used it, never will. 3rd party applications are
far superior in that category.

I can't ever recall myself classifying a MS release as "the end of MS" until this one.
I still don't think it'll end MS, I'm not that stupid. They're the standard and that won't
change overnight. Apple may be dominating the toys for tots markets, but that doesn't
meant MS is going anywhere.

Windows 8 will be a market success, and a consumer sentiment failure. Windows 9 will
correct that problem, and within 5 years MS will have probably a 15-25% share of the mobile
market overall.

Even in situations where they "fail", they still succeed for the most part (except that one portable device that sold like 14 units, that was a monumental bomb). There's too many companies and
industries who thrive on Windows.

The Win8 UI makes me wanna roll overtop cute bunnies with a push mower though.
 
night_2004 said:
They'll sell 300 million copies of an OS that was considered a huge failure because there were no realistic alternatives for Dell, HP, etc. Now if MS had a few trash releases in a row, maybe, but W7 was considered a big success and it'll be around for a long time (probably as long as XP was).
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So there are no realistic alternatives. Sells 300 million copies. Huge failure? Only Microsoft would be judged by these kinds of standards.
 
Q1DM6 said:
This is the same company that had to spend a BILLION dollars fixing xbox360 systems. When MS fails, it fails miserably.
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Is the the same company that makes consoles and was the only major only console maker last quarter that made money.

When Microsoft succeeds, it leaves others in the dust.

Q1DM6 said:
I think these videos on youtube really show what the problem is with Win 8:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyc1RVCXvAk
The average user has absolutely no idea what's going on because MS has chosen to HIDE critical aspects of usability within the UI.
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These videos are hilarious. As though every piece of software ever written somehow had magic signs about how to do stuff. As though Microsoft hasn't done thousands of hours of usability testing. Nope, just sit one my dad in front of a Windows 8 machine and prove that somehow I know more and done more work than Microsoft about the new UI. Talk about arrogant.

Yes, Windows 8 is a big change. A five minute tutorial that's going to come with every copy of Windows 8 will easily explain how it works. And honestly the product isn't even finished and Microsoft is well aware of the shift. However this plays out I think it's safe to say that Microsoft has figured out the the UI will work with average people and how to help them along, one way or the other. It's not nearly as difficult as videos like this on an unfinished product make it out to be.
 
Q1DM6 said:
I have over 500 retail dvds. I just haven't seen these problems. Name some and I'll try whatever I have. A couple years old is probably better, I haven't bought any in awhile.
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Just reproduced the "static blast" on two systems. Here's how:

1. Rip a number of DVD's to your hard disk (full DVD folder structure)
2. Drag + Drop a folder containing the contents of a DVD onto VLC.
3. Repeat step 2 with different DVD's until it blasts LOUD static out of your speakers.

Sometimes it happens right away, sometimes you have to go through many, many DVD's before it fails...but it always eventually fails. Restarting VLC and attempting to play the DVD that caused the problem again will result in it playing normally.

For reference, the last DVD to trigger this problem on my end was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
 
xpclient said:
Also note that if only desktop apps are running, the Win+Tab switcher doesn't work which is why it is a loss of functionality. Win+Tab on the Start screen behaves like Alt-Tab, both are flat 2D thumbnail views. Alt-Tab is horizontal, Win-Tab is vertical. Where's the improvement?
Click to expand...

Alt-tab's improvements in Win7 made flip3d a semi-useless bit of eye candy. The aero-peek of the windows works much better than the angular windows for quickly determining which app you're trying to get to.

That's where the improvement is.
 
Unknown-One said:
Just reproduced the "static blast" on two systems. Here's how:

1. Rip a number of DVD's to your hard disk (full DVD folder structure)
2. Drag + Drop a folder containing the contents of a DVD onto VLC.
3. Repeat step 2 with different DVD's until it blasts LOUD static out of your speakers.

Sometimes it happens right away, sometimes you have to go through many, many DVD's before it fails...but it always eventually fails. Restarting VLC and attempting to play the DVD that caused the problem again will result in it playing normally.

For reference, the last DVD to trigger this problem on my end was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
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...why would you be dropping folder after folder into the player?
 
heatlesssun said:
. As though Microsoft hasn't done thousands of hours of usability testing.
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Usability testing doesn't lead to the disaster we see in windows 8. Usability testing doesn't lead to invisible start buttons. This is not careful design. I have no idea why so many people are defending it.
 
Q1DM6 said:
Usability testing doesn't lead to the disaster we see in windows 8. Usability testing doesn't lead to invisible start buttons. This is not careful design. I have no idea why so many people are defending it.
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While there are some that genuinely defend windows 8 because they feel it is better or good enough, there are those like healtessun who will pretty much defend anything microsoft, or their favorite company does... hate to say it, but hes as big an MS fanboy as one can get, so that explains his bias.

That said, you can still count me as one of those who still has high hopes for Windows 8, even though they are butchering the desktop experience. I eagerly await the first company that has the balls to put Win 8 on an x86 smartphone that blows up into a full blown windows 8 desktop when taken home and docked.

Thats where my money will go if it gets pulled off with good technicals and usability.
 
Q1DM6 said:
Usability testing doesn't lead to the disaster we see in windows 8. Usability testing doesn't lead to invisible start buttons. This is not careful design. I have no idea why so many people are defending it.
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The disaster that some people see. At any rate, the last Windows disaster in Vista still sold hundreds of millions of copies. People can label Windows 8 a disaster all that want, I still see nothing that will prevent it from selling hundreds of millions of copies.
 
stiltner said:
The removal of MCE isn't a big deal, never used it, never will. 3rd party applications are
far superior in that category.
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Such as? All other alternatives I've tried for DVR purposes are far worse than Windows Media Center.

I have no doubt Windows 8 will sell lots, MS aren't going anywhere, they've made bigger fails than this and still been commercially successful with them.

HOWEVER, from my perspective Windows 8 is removing features I use and like and adding features I couldn't give a flying fuck about, so I have no intention of upgrading until forced.

As a side, I still hate ribbon :p I've gotten used to it of course, but it takes more space and is less useful than the good old systems. I like Office 2007 and 2010, it's a far better product than the alternatives I've used, they added a lot of nice features that I like... ribbon is not one of them. Have you tried to use the newer Outlook? I hadn't until recently, but since my Dad uses it and he recently upgraded to Windows 7 from XP he wanted to use it and my goodness the change to the ribbon in Outlook is absolute shit.
 
heatlesssun said:
The disaster that some people see. At any rate, the last Windows disaster in Vista still sold hundreds of millions of copies. People can label Windows 8 a disaster all that want, I still see nothing that will prevent it from selling hundreds of millions of copies.
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People bought pet rocks at one time. That doesn't mean it was a good idea.
 
There are some people (including the decision makers at MS) who will defend every stupid design decision in Windows 8 on desktop with the blanket statement 'every time a new feature is introduced people hate it, but we know better'.

Take away touch and, there is ZERO justification for all the garbage like Metro apps not having any chrome, not being windowed, al the stupid gestures and clicks I have to go through to use a mouse or learn obscure keyboard shortcuts. MS have done no usability testing and offered no reasons why it works this way. Hell, they've never even demo'd Win 8 on a normal pc/laptop, it's always a tablet.

The message is clear - buy a touchscreen monitor or tablet. Everyone else, shut up or keep using Win 7.
 
Red Machine D said:
After many tries on many different systems I am thoroughly unconvinced that Ubuntu will ever be an appropriate consumer operating system. Version 12 did nothing to allay those feelings. I fail to see how linking an Android phone to it will make it any easier, if for no other reason than it muddies up the Android feel with Ubuntu.
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That's nice. Canonical recently announced that it's approaching 5% market share on new PCs. That's more than Mac OS had a few years back. Either way, the idea of having a fully-featured desktop OS running on the same platform as your smartphone is a powerful combination.
 
Tawnos said:
Alt-tab's improvements in Win7 made flip3d a semi-useless bit of eye candy. The aero-peek of the windows works much better than the angular windows for quickly determining which app you're trying to get to.

That's where the improvement is.
Click to expand...

While I love the regular Aero Peek (Show Desktop button by hover), the Aero peek in Alt-Tab is one of the most annoying usability "improvements" ever and is the first thing I disable because there is a bug in Alt-Tab. While you are Alt-Tabbing, it switches (peeks) to the app you tabbed to but the Alt-Tab window doesn't stay on top, it goes behind the switched app!! It is not supposed to behave that way, it's a bug in Alt-Tab, a fairly common bug:
Alt-tab window won't stay on top of other windows in Windows 7
Annoying! Alt-Tab fades out all other windows!
Alt-tab + Peek in real world

Flip 3D is just one of the features that Vista haters love to bash as useless, it's quite useful actually as the preview is large enough to tell you what window exactly you are switching you, compared to Alt-Tab where the preview is so tiny you have to look at the icon and text to determine which window you are switching to. Just my opinion. :)
 
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Red Machine D said:
I would very much like to see some evidence of this 5% market share.
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Canonical supposedly has contracts for Ubuntu to ship on ~5% (18 million) of new PCs sold next year.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA5ODM

Regardless of what the actual market share percentage ends up being, 18 million PCs is a lot of systems. It's growing every year, and your claim that it is unsuitable for the desktop makes little difference when millions of people are using it anyway. If you want to debate the merits of Ubuntu, that's a topic for another thread. (Feel free to start one in the OS forum.) My point in posting that link was just to show that the idea of a fully-featured desktop OS running on a smartphone is not a far-fetched idea or something that's far in the future. It's already being tested in a variety of platforms and should be ready to go by the time 12.10 releases.

(You can actually try it right now in Alpha, if you compile Xen for ARM on a rooted Android phone.)
 
Red Squirrel said:
The more I hear of windows 8 the more I realize it's going to be a disaster. I just switched to 7 and it's great, and I'm sticking to this for a while now. I kinda can't wait to see when 8 gets released so I can watch the train wreck that shell happen. :p
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This actually fits the normal "every other release" upgrade path: 98se, skip ME, XP, skip Vista, 7, now skip 8.
 
xpclient said:
While I love the regular Aero Peek (Show Desktop button by hover), the Aero peek in Alt-Tab is one of the most annoying usability "improvements" ever and is the first thing I disable because there is a bug in Alt-Tab. While you are Alt-Tabbing, it switches (peeks) to the app you tabbed to but the Alt-Tab window doesn't stay on top, it goes behind the switched app!! It is not supposed to behave that way, it's a bug in Alt-Tab, a fairly common bug:
Alt-tab window won't stay on top of other windows in Windows 7
Annoying! Alt-Tab fades out all other windows!
Alt-tab + Peek in real world
Click to expand...
I get that bug on my desktop at work. I wish I could get it on other systems, as I prefer that behavior.

Aero peek on alt tab is one of the most useful improvements we made in 7, for my daily use. I'm a very spacial thinker, so being able to see where a window is on my system while flipping through the dozens I have open really helps.

Flip 3D is just one of the features that Vista haters love to bash as useless, it's quite useful actually as the preview is large enough to tell you what window exactly you are switching you, compared to Alt-Tab where the preview is so tiny you have to look at the icon and text to determine which window you are switching to. Just my opinion. :)
Click to expand...

I'm not a vista hater, but the feature is pretty useless. The loss of contextual information makes finding the window you want much harder, and the angle doesn't provide enough visibility into the window to tell some windows apart (e.g. I could never tell which command prompt I was looking at). It was really an eye candy thing more than a functional improvement, IMO.
 
Q1DM6 said:
...why would you be dropping folder after folder into the player?
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Because after I rip a bunch of DVDs to disk, I compress them with Handbrake, and I need to make sure it has its cropping values correct (to remove black bars).

I can end up dropping quite a few DVDs onto VLC as I do this... though sometimes the "static blast" issue happens on the first or second one. I've since switched to Windows Media Player to avoid damaging my speakers.

I wrote the instructions above as a way to quickly reproduce the problem, not as an average usage scenario.

Polarhound said:
This actually fits the normal "every other release" upgrade path: 98se, skip ME, XP, skip Vista, 7, now skip 8.
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I keep seeing this, and it's just as wrong as ever. This are far more complicated than a simple "every-other-version" pattern.

Windows 95 was one of their biggest launches ever, and was one of Microsoft's biggest retail successes (many people actually purchased boxed copies).
Windows 98 had a rocky start, issues were corrected in Windows 98 SE which also become wildly popular and stuck around for AGES.
Windows 2000 launched and took over workstations. People got tired of waiting for a new consumer version of Windows, so power users began upgrading from Windows 98 SE to Windows 2000.
Windows ME came out a bit after 2000 with a new shell based on a beta version of Internet Explorer, stability issues weren't cleared up until IE was patched, but by then it was too late and XP was coming out.
Windows XP came out and was a security, stability, and compatibility nightmare.
Microsoft diverted resources, and instead of releasing a new version of Windows, instead produced Windows XP Service Pack 2. They really didn't want two failures in the consumer OS space in a row.
Further delays and a full development reset pushed out the next version of Windows (Vista), and it eventually launched late with a serious lack of driver support.
Windows 7 came out by the time Windows Vista finally had a decent set of drivers across the board, gets all the credit for stability.
 
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Unknown-One said:
Windows 7 came out by the time Windows Vista finally had a decent set of drivers across the board, gets all the credit for stability.
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Win7 also benefited from all around much more excellent entry level systems by its release. At the low end, PCs had decently fast hard drives and mostly 2GB of RAM which helped so freaking much...

But yea, #1 was device drivers, it amazes me how few enthusiasts realize how excellent Vista really was. If you're running Windows 7, 99.99% of what you're running *is* Vista.

Its seriously the real life Mojave experiment.....
 
heatlesssun said:
What's the point of putting technology into the OS, paying royalties on those technologies for EVERY copy of Windows while fewer and fewer people are using these technologies?

Sure I don't like it as I use all of this stuff but I can't argue the business reality of it. I imagine the cost will be pretty cheap, just to cover the royalties mostly.

And if Windows 8 does fail, which from a business standpoint is very unlikely, Vista was perhaps the biggest money making failure of all time, support for declining technologies wouldn't really make any difference.

Things change, and it seems like the people that don't like Windows 8 simply don't that. DVD sales have fallen of a damn cliff and most people who use Windows don't even know what Media Center is.
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Also free alternatives exist for decryption of dvd content (DeCSS) and playback through open source media players like VLC and Mplayer.
 
As I've said before, the inability for Windows on ARM/Windows RT to run third-party applications (like web browsers) in the Classic/Explorer environment is a mistake Microsoft is going to pay dearly for. I don't believe the EU is going to find that the claim that "Windows RT isn't Windows" is one that holds any water.
 
techie81 said:
Did anyone see this?

http://www.dailytech.com/Google+Moz...ty+Browser+Ban+for+Windows+8/article24661.htm
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Doesn't seem any different than Apple's approach to browsers on iOS. It's only for Windows RT (ARM). If the browser is solid, I don't see it making much difference to being with. Apple loosened up after a year or two of locking out other browsers once Opera had a solid version of Mini built for iOS. I'd imagine Microsoft doing the same once someone else has developed a browser that fits in properly with Metro.

wonderfield said:
As I've said before, the inability for Windows on ARM/Windows RT to run third-party applications (like web browsers) in the Classic/Explorer environment is a mistake Microsoft is going to pay dearly for. I don't believe the EU is going to find that the claim that "Windows RT isn't Windows" is one that holds any water.
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I'm not sure anyone is going to have much luck forcing MS's hand on that one. I think they'd jettison the "Desktop" environment entirely on WinRT before they'd give up their attempt at a walled garden.
 
wonderfield said:
As I've said before, the inability for Windows on ARM/Windows RT to run third-party applications (like web browsers) in the Classic/Explorer environment is a mistake Microsoft is going to pay dearly for. I don't believe the EU is going to find that the claim that "Windows RT isn't Windows" is one that holds any water.
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Well, Windows RT doesn't actually run any current Windows apps (besides the few that Microsoft themselves brought over). We see exactly the same divide between OSX and iOS, and they're considered very different ecosystems despite iOS being based on a lot of OSX code.

They've effectively made the ARM version of Windows 8 into its own little closed bubble that competes head-to-head with iOS. In that regard, Microsoft is in ABSOLUTELY NO DANGER of an antitrust suit. iOS has a massive market share lead over Windows RT, and Apple hasn't been been put under antitrust regulations to force them to allow 3rd party browsers on iOS. If/when Windows RT's market share surpasses iOS, Microsoft will have to start worrying.

And really, the only reason the ARM version of Windows 8 has a desktop at all is because of the Microsoft Office division. A true metro version of the entire Office suite would have been a ground-up rewrite in C#, and they weren't gonna have that ready in time for Windows 8's launch.
 
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wonderfield said:
As I've said before, the inability for Windows on ARM/Windows RT to run third-party applications (like web browsers) in the Classic/Explorer environment is a mistake Microsoft is going to pay dearly for. I don't believe the EU is going to find that the claim that "Windows RT isn't Windows" is one that holds any water.
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But Windows RT ISN'T Windows 8, Windows 8 runs on x86 devices, Windows RT doesn't. All of the antitrust issues Microsoft faced with Windows 8 specifically revolved around x86 architecture.

Plus just letting 3rd party apps run on the desktop on ARM has a lot of complexity to it and introduces issues like performance and battery life which are the reasons Microsoft probably wanted to avoid 3rd party desktop apps on Windows RT in the first place.

It isn't a simple issue. Microsoft has no market share in ARM or tablet computers and therefore isn't even a monopoly in this space. And since 3rd parties can develop Metro based apps then its even tougher to argue against Microsoft's position.

I imagine as well that Microsoft looked at this issue VERY carefully from a legal perspective and probably anticipated reactions like the ones from Mozzilla and Google and probably feels that it can either win any legal challenges or is prepared to drop the desktop from Windows RT or might even be willing to open it up under some very tight strings.

One thing however Microsoft will probably avoid at all cost is a situation where they have to allow all independent 3rd party programs to run on the desktop in Windows RT as Windows x86 versions. That would do nothing but end up replicating all the current problems on the Windows desktop like viruses, obtuse install processes, etc. which general consumers don't want on a tablet device.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
I thought MS was showing 8 (now RT for ARM?) off by running it on ARM?
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You thought correct, but I'm not sure where you're going with this... RT only runs on ARM. All other editions run on x86. "RT for ARM" is redundant.
 
CEpeep said:
You thought correct, but I'm not sure where you're going with this... RT only runs on ARM. All other editions run on x86. "RT for ARM" is redundant.
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I was specifying what I thought RT was for, rather than being redundant. :)
 
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