Opinion: Windows 8 Is Unusable

elite.mafia said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0fsyb-ttcw

this video explains better the serious flaws in windows 8, versus complaining about things that can be fixed very easily.
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For whatever flaws there are in Windows 8 it would be nice that people that made these kind of videos actually knew how to use it. Really, didn't they notice the "Settings" section in addition to "Files" when searching?

Criticism is fine but at least know what it going on before blasting the hell out of it.
 
heatlesssun said:
Criticism is fine but at least know what it going on before blasting the hell out of it.
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That video wasn't really a blasting. It hit lots of legitimate complaints. Using language like you're using shows intent to exaggerate the review to tilt a person's negative opinion into something that sounds unreasonable to discredit the person presenting something you don't agree with. You do the same here by accusing people of hating Windows 8 when they say there's something about it they don't like.

What you're really saying is, "Criticism isn't fine because it doesn't fit into my worldview."
 
SkribbelKat said:
That video wasn't really a blasting. It hit lots of legitimate complaints. Using language like you're using shows intent to exaggerate the review to tilt a person's negative opinion into something that sounds unreasonable to discredit the person presenting something you don't agree with. You do the same here by accusing people of hating Windows 8 when they say there's something about it they don't like.

What you're really saying is, "Criticism isn't fine because it doesn't fit into my worldview."
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At the 4:00 mark in the aforementioned video, they talk about not finding Control Panel options in the new Search Screen because they never selected the "Settings" section and then one of them makes the comment "How did this get past testing?"

It has nothing to do with my world view or any opinion of the design of Windows 8, they simply didn't know what was going on here while blasting it.
 
To those of you that are advocating Windows 8 with things like Start8 to make it usable, you should never have to revert a product to behave like the previous version to make it work. That is the definition of broken.

I tried Windows 8 on my main rig and while there are some things I liked, it is a huge mess and I ended up settling back on a W7 UEFI install once I realized I was slowly disabling more and more elements of W8 to make it work.

While the guy in the video may exaggerate heavily on some points, he is basically spot on with his list of issues.
 
FWIW I finally got around to installing and messing with Office 2013 today, and I find it both ironic and refreshing that even the Office team didn't seem to care for the Windows division's tard tile initiative enough to cater to it or develop a real Metro mode version - its like they proclaimed "you guys do your thing, we'll do ours".
 
heatlesssun said:
It has nothing to do with my world view or any opinion of the design of Windows 8, they simply didn't know what was going on here while blasting it.
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No offense but you may be missing the point. A review isn't necessarily more valuable or legitimate if the reviewer first becomes an expert in the thing being reviewed, because its less representative of what the person watching the review might expect coming into the product cold. It's also not the reviewer's job or burden to have the review be a training video.

So the fact that even semi-competent power users didn't easily know what was going on that is the problem - aka the conveyance problem - because if power users can't immediately grasp it then how lost are "dumb end users" going to be.
 
odditory said:
FWIW I finally got around to installing and messing with Office 2013 today, and I find it both ironic and refreshing that even the Office team didn't seem to care for the Windows division's tard tile initiative enough to cater to it or develop a real Metro mode version - its like they proclaimed "you guys do your thing, we'll do ours".
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Considering that there is a desktop mode for Windows RT that runs Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote the idea that "you guys do your thing, we'll do ours" is how the Office and Windows teams worked together on Windows 8/RT doesn't really make a lot of sense.

There seems to be notion that everything Windows 8 is supposed to be about the new UI and that was never the idea, the desktop is still there and is better for productivity applications at this point.
 
Well my experience has been that 100% of Window 8's advertising has been about Metro, and that as far as MS seems to be concerned, Windows 8 *IS* Metro, as I've read statements from multiple Microsoft employees that the desktop is now merely an App under Metro. I realize maybe that's semantics and possibly was intended literally rather than figuratively.

Anyway, the articles I've read on touch support in Office 2013 make it seem like touch was an afterthought at best. To my mind Metro's biggest problem continues to be a lack of any meaningful or killer apps, and the lack of a true Metro-optimized instance of Office 2013 seems like a missed opportunity to be one such killer or showcase app. And the fact that Office by nature is more of a creation than consumption app basically highlights Microsoft's duality and crisis of identity dilemma with Window 8 and the standardization of a touch interface for all platforms going forward.
 
his point still stands thought your avg user most of them are going to go What????, all computer lessions are now also Void if you get an windows 8 pc (unless you install start8 or startisback)

3 days later he changed his tune an little http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfODwWeP9MI bit old thought as its 19 august 2012 but quite an old version of start8

funny thing is the windows 7 phone (and i guess 8 as well) for the short time i had the phone it worked as expected and is very likely going to be my next phone (that's if i can Drop my love for my blackberry for Business use, i have an Android Phone for my Fun stuff + it works as an backup phone as well in the unlikely chance i have no network coverage on my first phone)

not sure if its me has Opera been screwing around with CTRL+ arrow keys as Up and Down now goes forward and backwards on page (i use CTRL+ left right to skip blocks of words) just starting to annoy me now when it jumps back like 3-5 pages when i miss my tarket and hit down arrow
 
odditory said:
No offense but you may be missing the point. A review isn't necessarily more valuable or legitimate if the reviewer first becomes an expert in the thing being reviewed, because its less representative of what the person watching the review might expect coming into the product cold. It's also not the reviewer's job or burden to have the review be a training video.
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It's not an either or thing. A good reviewer can know how something works and know what the common complaints and issues about it are. The way search works in Windows 8 versus Windows 7 is a pretty well discussed subject, I've had a number of discussions about it on this forum and have heard the complains about the sectioning in Windows 8 many times.

odditory said:
So the fact that even semi-competent power users didn't easily know what was going on that is the problem - aka the conveyance problem - because if power users can't immediately grasp it then how lost are "dumb end users" going to be.
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Perhaps, but a dumb user might have clicked on "Settings", it's right there on the Search Bar.
 
odditory said:
Well my experience has been that 100% of Window 8's advertising has been about Metro, and that as far as MS seems to be concerned, Windows 8 *IS* Metro, as I've read statements from multiple Microsoft employees that the desktop is now merely an App under Metro. I realize maybe that's semantics and possibly was intended literally rather than figuratively.
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I can't say that Microsoft's messaging and advertising about Windows 8/RT is clear at all. However the Windows desktop is pretty old so it does make sense to talk more about the new stuff but it should be more clear that the desktop is still there. Intel makes a better point of than Microsoft actually.

odditory said:
Anyway, the articles I've read on touch support in Office 2013 make it seem like touch was an afterthought at best. To my mind Metro's biggest problem continues to be a lack of any meaningful or killer apps, and the lack of a true Metro-optimized instance of Office 2013 seems like a missed opportunity to be one such killer or showcase app. And the fact that Office by nature is more of a creation than consumption app basically highlights Microsoft's duality and crisis of identity dilemma with Window 8 and the standardization of a touch interface for all platforms going forward.
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Touch in Office 2013 I would say is more uneven and incomplete than an afterthought. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook work reasonably well with touch but there are dialogs in those apps from the 90's that for whatever strange reason were not retrofitted for touch when it looks to be a simple job of making the controls on these small modal dialogs bigger. Visio and Project don't work well with touch in my opinion. Doable but not very pleasant.

OneNote shines with touch and tablets especially when coupled with a pen. Some elements could be improved with touch but OneNote looks like it had quite a bit more work done to make it touch friendly, the effort there is much more complete and most of the biggest gripes I had with OneNote 2010 with touch addressed. For all of the mistakes that Microsoft makes, they do have some impressive products as well and OneNote really is a killer tablet application for note takers, there's nothing like it on iOS and Android. Yes, I know there are OneNote clients for iOS and Android but they are nothing like the OneNote Windows desktop app.
 
heatlesssun said:
At the 4:00 mark in the aforementioned video, they talk about not finding Control Panel options in the new Search Screen because they never selected the "Settings" section and then one of them makes the comment "How did this get past testing?"

It has nothing to do with my world view or any opinion of the design of Windows 8, they simply didn't know what was going on here while blasting it.
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You're merely disagreeing so you have something to talk about and someone to talk to about it. Look at how much you're posting to odditory just so you can strike up a converstation and be less lonely. Sure, you don't like it when people disagree with Windows 8's usability, but your previous word choice, which included profanity and gutter-trash talk, was intended to blow totally rational complaints about UI design out of proportion in order to discredit the person presenting them. You may as well just call them cowards and tell them they haven't had 20 years of experience using it on nine different touch devices and never tried OneNote with a WACOM pen while insisting that having to pay an extra $100 for a fabric keyboard adds value to a RT devices that makes it somehow competitive with a Compaq CQ57. None of that's even important though, because all of the technical arguments seem to just be an excuse to get the attention you weren't getting in the forum a few years ago when you were just another person building gaming desktops and posting photos of their PC.
 
heatlesssun said:
I can't say that Microsoft's messaging and advertising about Windows 8/RT is clear at all. However the Windows desktop is pretty old so it does make sense to talk more about the new stuff but it should be more clear that the desktop is still there. Intel makes a better point of than Microsoft actually.
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It's been abysmal, frankly. The ads showcase nothing that MS offers that the competitors can't other than MS word, and that's going away in a couple of months as well. The main benefit, the x86 legacy compatibility, is being treated as a detriment to Metro and the "new" MS - which I can partly agree with, surprisingly enough (bloated installs, high prices and all that x86 legacy entails aren't selling points to the mass market).

So faced with this strange juxtaposition, what do the MS Surface ads fall back on? People dancing around like idiots while snapping a shitty keyboard into place. And what about that great "multitasking"? It only works for a very very small selection of applications that can run on the side bar, yet another thing that escapes MS while Samsung has working multitasking on its fucking phones already.
 
pelo said:
It's been abysmal, frankly. The ads showcase nothing that MS offers that the competitors can't other than MS word, and that's going away in a couple of months as well. The main benefit, the x86 legacy compatibility, is being treated as a detriment to Metro and the "new" MS - which I can partly agree with, surprisingly enough (bloated installs, high prices and all that x86 legacy entails aren't selling points to the mass market).

So faced with this strange juxtaposition, what do the MS Surface ads fall back on? People dancing around like idiots while snapping a shitty keyboard into place. And what about that great "multitasking"? It only works for a very very small selection of applications that can run on the side bar, yet another thing that escapes MS while Samsung has working multitasking on its fucking phones already.
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lol Windows 8 should be renamed to Window 3/4" sometimes.

Common don't you love the hey lets take 1200 dollar 24" device (with out any cables as well) and put it infront of my 7 year old child so she could paint with a real brush on a screen and not expect anything to go wrong. Also have the said child skype people on the internet! No Nothing will go wrong..

Or I could take some cheap paper some watercolors and do the same and wait for daddy to come home or wait for a grown up to have a skype call with said daddy.

MS Marketing is so out to lunch its not funny.
 
Yeah MS marketing is pretty horrible. I still facepalm at that dance/robot/popping commercial, and constant clicking of that damn kickstand. It's all really ass-backwards.
 
The thing about eggs over easy is that they're awesome, so awesome that nothing is better.
 
4saken said:
You arent forced to use anything. The only people i see saying this are people who installed Win8, looked at the UI and just uninstalled w/o any genuine looking into the system.

what do you have to learn? Cmd-D and Ctrl-X to get anywhere you want to? Yeah real tough.
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You missed the whole point. You shouldn't need a cheat sheet of hotkeys to get from here to there quckly. You didn't in Windows 7. Why did we take a step back here.
 
heatlesssun said:
It's not an either or thing. A good reviewer can know how something works and know what the common complaints and issues about it are. The way search works in Windows 8 versus Windows 7 is a pretty well discussed subject, I've had a number of discussions about it on this forum and have heard the complains about the sectioning in Windows 8 many times.



Perhaps, but a dumb user might have clicked on "Settings", it's right there on the Search Bar.
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Or perhaps Microsoft could have made the OS a little easier to navigate.
Why does Microsoft have to keep going through all of these extremes?

Can't they figure out that easing into a product would be better than what they have done for the last 7 years?
They did this with Office 2007 when moving from 2003.

It was a huge mess and people hated it.
Again, Microsoft locked it down so that individuals had no choice but to use ribbons and pallets, rather than including a tool-bar option to let people ease into the new GUI.

Damn Microsoft sucks, and the fact that you defend them and their products like you were Ballmer himself, just blows my mind.
Why do you care about Microsoft so damn much? What do you have to gain by doing all of this?

Everyone on here keeps telling you that you are missing the point.
Not one, not two people, but every single person!
 
jpm100 said:
You missed the whole point. You shouldn't need a cheat sheet of hotkeys to get from here to there quckly. You didn't in Windows 7. Why did we take a step back here.
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Because Microsoft wants to be like Apple.
Mindless computing at it's finest.

The difference though, is that OS X is actually quite easy to navigate.
Windows 8 is just a jumbled mess that screams "simple", yet isn't.
 
Wrench00 said:
lol Windows 8 should be renamed to Window 3/4" sometimes.

Common don't you love the hey lets take 1200 dollar 24" device (with out any cables as well) and put it infront of my 7 year old child so she could paint with a real brush on a screen and not expect anything to go wrong. Also have the said child skype people on the internet! No Nothing will go wrong..

Or I could take some cheap paper some watercolors and do the same and wait for daddy to come home or wait for a grown up to have a skype call with said daddy.

MS Marketing is so out to lunch its not funny.
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As an OT side comment on that video, the more I see it the more I find it a little disturbing. The amount of make up and hair care which probably includes hair extensions on her rivals anything on a 'toddlers in tiaras' competition. Just somewhat more tastefully done aesthetically but just as messed up.
 
Red Falcon said:
Because Microsoft wants to be like Apple.
Mindless computing at it's finest.

The difference though, is that OS X is actually quite easy to navigate.
Windows 8 is just a jumbled mess that screams "simple", yet isn't.
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Well I think they sacrificed the desktop at the expense of getting a leg up in the mobile devices realm.

I have to say, though, Windows 8 will probably do more to save Apple's PC division from obscurity than help Microsoft break into the mobile market.
 
jpm100 said:
Well I think they sacrificed the desktop at the expense of getting a leg up in the mobile devices realm.

I have to say, though, Windows 8 will probably do more to save Apple's PC division from obscurity than help Microsoft break into the mobile market.
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completely agree
 
jpm100 said:
...I have to say, though, Windows 8 will probably do more to save Apple's PC division from obscurity than help Microsoft break into the mobile market.
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Yes and no. I'm betting most average consumers just bought a new PC last year or the year before and as we know the average users only buy a new PC like every 4-6 years so they couldn't care less about Windows 8 as they will be looking at Windows 9 or later by the time they buy a new PC again. Then again you do have some users who might use this as an excuse to go to Apple. But who knows.
 
jpm100 said:
Well I think they sacrificed the desktop at the expense of getting a leg up in the mobile devices realm.

I have to say, though, Windows 8 will probably do more to save Apple's PC division from obscurity than help Microsoft break into the mobile market.
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I'm confused. Why not just keep metro on tablets / phones and leave desktops out of it? One of the quotes at the end pretty much sums up Windows 8 being optimized for consumption (i.e. mobile devices).

Is it because they want to force people to get 'used' to metro and once they see it on a mobile device they're more likely to buy it due to familiarity?

His point about Metro being stapled onto desktop and the two UIs having different rules is 100% spot on. MS pretty much violated every usability rule out there for HCI and it's a very frustrating product to use. I had to google "how to _____ in windows 8" for so many basic things when I got my new laptop. This never happened when I upgraded to Windows 7 from XP. This also never happened when I got my android tablet. Android is completely different from Windows yet it's so much more intuitive than Windows 8, so it's definitely possible to be different without complete alienation and frustration to the end user.
 
That was a good video. Now I KNOW not to install windows 8. Stick to windows 7 until...windows 9?
 
Red Falcon said:
Damn Microsoft sucks, and the fact that you defend them and their products like you were Ballmer himself, just blows my mind.
Why do you care about Microsoft so damn much? What do you have to gain by doing all of this?
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Whether or not Windows 8 sucks, if someone is using it and they were going through that strange process in that video to fine Control Panel items I would show them a much simpler way to do it. That's not defending a product, that's simply explaining it better than that video.

Red Falcon said:
Everyone on here keeps telling you that you are missing the point.
Not one, not two people, but every single person!
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Not everyone, just certain trolls.
 
heatlesssun said:
Whether or not Windows 8 sucks, if someone is using it and they were going through that strange process in that video to fine Control Panel items I would show them a much simpler way to do it. That's not defending a product, that's simply explaining it better than that video.



Not everyone, just certain trolls.
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QFT!
 
Win 8 IS useable. It just isn't completely useable as it needs some time to cook up and be compatible with just about everything out there - that's the main problem with Wİn 8 right now.

Once you get the taskbar up and running, it's somewhat fine. The Vista effect Win 8 has caused is worse than the OS itself.
 
heatlesssun said:
Whether or not Windows 8 sucks, if someone is using it and they were going through that strange process in that video to fine Control Panel items I would show them a much simpler way to do it. That's not defending a product, that's simply explaining it better than that video.
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I'll give it to you that the guy in the video could have explained things better.
It still doesn't help a clunky OS though.

Not everyone, just certain trolls.
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No, pretty much everyone, save for a few others.
 
Red Falcon said:
I'll give it to you that the guy in the video could have explained things better.
It still doesn't help a clunky OS though.
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If it's clunky its clunky, I was only trying to explain how the search worked clunky or not. There's tons of critics here, not so many that are actually taking the time to explain things at any level of detail.

Red Falcon said:
No, pretty much everyone, save for a few others.
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Sure, until 3 or 4 people are on your back.
 
heatlesssun said:
If it's clunky its clunky, I was only trying to explain how the search worked clunky or not. There's tons of critics here, not so many that are actually taking the time to explain things at any level of detail.



Sure, until 3 or 4 people are on your back.
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Opinions do not require detailed explanations.
 
SkribbelKat said:
Opinions do not require detailed explanations.
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An opinion is one thing. Describing how something works is another. Describing how something works that takes more work than necessary isn't helpful. Most technically inclined people as a matter of habit will simply point out when a process is more difficult than necessary when they see it.
 
heatlesssun said:
An opinion is one thing. Describing how something works is another. Describing how something works that takes more work than necessary isn't helpful. Most technically inclined people as a matter of habit will simply point out when a process is more difficult than necessary when they see it.
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I'm missing your point...right over/past/around my head.
 
Just took a MS Server 2012 class and part of the class required you to use a virtual Win8 system that was absolutely painful. While I can't blame it all on Win8 (not a fan of globalknowledge's online lab), it definitely would have worked better with Win7 or WinXP. Simple things like logging off the current user (have to use CTRL+ALT+Delete only ???). I could drag the mouse to the right side of the screen, but power only gave me the option of shutting down the system and not switching users. And getting it to recognize the mouse in the bottom left to get the start screen (both Win8 and Server 2012) was extremely clunky and slow.

My only experience with Win8 has been on virtual systems under VMWare Workstation and ESXi so far. I'm still toying with the idea of dropping it on my HP 2740p which has a touch screen, but I couldn't see myself loading it on my regular laptop or desktop at this point.

I do think Win8 is a good step in the right direction for tablets and phones but I still feel IMO the best thing would have been for Microsoft to leave the OS "splintered" if you will by allowing Win8 to be installed without the Metro/Modern UI and instead with a "classic" shell for standard PCs that haven't made the move to touchscreens.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
I'm confused. Why not just keep metro on tablets / phones and leave desktops out of it? .
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Because that would've made too much sense, and business decision makers might have actually given Window 8 a second look in weighing their XP replacement.

Its Zune chasing iPod part deux.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
I'm confused. Why not just keep metro on tablets / phones and leave desktops out of it? One of the quotes at the end pretty much sums up Windows 8 being optimized for consumption (i.e. mobile devices).

Is it because they want to force people to get 'used' to metro and once they see it on a mobile device they're more likely to buy it due to familiarity?

His point about Metro being stapled onto desktop and the two UIs having different rules is 100% spot on. MS pretty much violated every usability rule out there for HCI and it's a very frustrating product to use. I had to google "how to _____ in windows 8" for so many basic things when I got my new laptop. This never happened when I upgraded to Windows 7 from XP. This also never happened when I got my android tablet. Android is completely different from Windows yet it's so much more intuitive than Windows 8, so it's definitely possible to be different without complete alienation and frustration to the end user.
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I find it to be the opposite, they wanted Metro, but figured they couldn't go all the way. So they stapled the desktop onto it.
 
Forgot to mention that from a corporate perspective, Win8 is a no-go for us. Our corporate IT has been looking at it since the preview to determine if we would want to go that route as we've barely started the WinXP to Win7 conversion. So far, the consensus has been that we will be skipping Windows 8. With over 200k workstations in the organization, the retraining costs and development costs to make our apps more friendly for the start screen isn't worth the benefits gained from Win8. Will it bite us if Microsoft decides to stick with the start screen? Possibly, but I guess we will cross that bridge when we get to it.
 
Someone big needs to push a Linux desktop. Now is the time. Just look at the Samsung Chromebook; it's the number one laptop at Amazon.
 
heatlesssun said:
At the 4:00 mark in the aforementioned video, they talk about not finding Control Panel options in the new Search Screen because they never selected the "Settings" section and then one of them makes the comment "How did this get past testing?"

It has nothing to do with my world view or any opinion of the design of Windows 8, they simply didn't know what was going on here while blasting it.
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They had every right to blast it. Why should you click on the settings? You didn't have to in Win7. It was just windows key+co and there you go. Not only is it a completely unnecessary additional mouse click, it's additional mouse travel. Maybe there's a shortcut to search setting directly, but that's even worse. And why should you choose/know the exact category of the item you search for, category that someone else chose at that?
heatlesssun said:
At the 4:00 mark in the aforementioned video, they talk about not finding Control Panel options in the new Search Screen because they never selected the "Settings" section and then one of them makes the comment "How did this get past testing?"

It has nothing to do with my world view or any opinion of the design of Windows 8, they simply didn't know what was going on here while blasting it.
Click to expand...
 
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