I'm thinking this fellows opinion is a minority one, and his psychology degree must have come in the mail so he probably isn't licensed to diagnosis people in my state.
Not a fan of Windows8. The 10 preview I played with was an absolute step in the right direction.
> You can design user interfaces that work for both, and mouse-driven systems profit from many of the UI changes that make for good touchscreen user interfaces — a clean, simple interaction design and large click targets, for example.
I don't think this is true. With a mouse, you can easily make very precise small movements, so a tiny button positioned right next to where you already have the mouse cursor (perhaps, for example, over another tiny button) is very easy to reach. A tiny button farther away is much harder to hit because you make larger and less precise movements to get there from where you were. The size of the target is not as important as its proximity to the cursor's current position.
On a touch screen, with no relative movement, the situation is pretty much the opposite: If you have tiny touch targets right next to each other, it's very hard to hit the right one, and you can't see if the cursor is positioned correctly before you click. If they're farther apart, it's easier to hit the right one, or at least harder to hit the wrong one. (And obviously larger targets are better.)
The biggest mistake that Microsoft made was calling it Windows, if they called it Surface instead of only their hardware that way, and kept on selling windows non crippled for the desktop, they probably would have gotten away with it. Nobody cares if they share the same engine under the hood.
He sounds unicorny towards Windows 8. Nobody ever uses Windows 8 in Metro mode (because no, your PC is not a tablet), and the way which you randomly fall in and out of Metro is atrocious. A lot of things they just did not bother to think about; for example, wi-fi connection dialog overlays keyboard layout indicator, ruining hope of correctly inputting password.
The whole Windows 8 thing is embarrasingly make-believe.
Exactly. I like Metro & Desktop but whenever the two mix (randomly) is just mad. It's one of the most horrible experiences I currently know in computing and I have no clue why people think this is ok. Smart people at that. It feels like they never tried it themselves after delivering their product. It drives my absolutely bonkers and keeps me from using the Surface more than my macbook air & ipad air. Yes I have to carry around 2 devices but at least I won't just go and break them in 2000 pieces out of frustration. I love the hardware of the Surface3 pro, but for me, exactly that point ruins Windows 8(.1) completely. Is 10 better?
Windows 8 was a failure in the enterprise desktop market. Loss aversion meant that corporations did not want to train their staff to use an unfamiliar UI, and the great majority of corporations either postponed upgrades or stayed with Windows 7.
With Ballmer gone, Windows 10 can return to the familiar Windows 7 look and feel for enterprise desktop purchasers - so hopes Microsoft.
When the iPad and iPhone first dominated their respective markets, Ubuntu was first to respond because Linux evolves faster than Microsoft. The Unity Desktop was the canary in the coal mine with respect to how desktop users would react at the software vendor's natural desire for UI convergence.
Notably, Steve Jobs and Apple, maintained two UIs, one: MAC OS for the desktop and laptops, and two: iOS for touch/mobile. Apple routinely mocked Microsoft, and ignored Ubuntu as non-competitive.
Desktop and Laptop, e.g. keyboard and mouse, multi-monitor, are better for content creation, such as writing software.
Mobile - touch and voice and camera - are better for content consumption, messaging and always-with-you intelligent services, e.g. navigation.
Tim Cook at Apple famously said Windows 8 was converging a ‘Toaster and a Refrigerator’.
I really don't care about Windows as I am a Docker application developer, and routinely use Ubuntu Unity which I grown accustomed to. Good luck Microsoft on Windows 10.
However, here's the thing: Windows are useful. An UI which pretends you shouldn't use them isn't good for anything complicated, when you use more than one application at a time.
Hierarchical start menus are also useful, for that matter.
I'm increasingly convinced that overlapping Windows are not particularly useful (they are better than one-thing-maximized-is-the-only-option), but tiled windows are very useful.
I'm torn between tiled and overlapping windows. A lot of the time I just don't have a big enough screen to go fully tiled, because it forces things to squish when I would rather just keep one partially visible underneath (e.g. a browser window, a text editor, and a terminal).
One thing that makes overlapping windows infinitely nicer for me is a feature in a lot of Linux WMs where window borders "catch" on other windows and the edge of the screen when being moved or resized. That, and having a key to move windows from anywhere, rather than just the titlebar.
> One thing that makes overlapping windows infinitely nicer for me is a feature in a lot of Linux WMs where window borders "catch" on other windows and the edge of the screen when being moved or resized. That, and having a key to move windows from anywhere, rather than just the titlebar.
I also like the feature of using the scroll wheel to change window position (above/below), especially if I'm browsing and have a few related windows open on a desktop. I didn't realize how much I missed the feature until I tried Plasma 5 on KDE briefly (it has it, too, but it didn't migrate my configuration).
Ah, yes. I should have included focus-follows-mouse, that's pretty crucial to how I work too.
There's actually a registry setting to enable it on Windows, but so many things are so completely unaware of it in their design that it breaks a lot of stuff.
That's a really interesting observation. Coincidentally, if you look at pre-Win3.1 it only supported tiled windows. Tiling support has always been there since, but largely ignored until Win7 gave us Aero Snap (which I love btw). I know Win10 is suppose to further improve on this feature.
Tiles are useful. Using a tiling window manager or splitting Metro or vim with splits or emacs with splits you see what's useful. Windows is not imho; tiling very much is. Tiling with virtual desktops.
Edit: To me Metro tablet size without desktop or iOS with tiling would be the best.
This is why Microsoft introduced their Signature series. If you purchase any hardware with that identifier, there is no OEM bloatware. I picked up an HP Stream for my daughter and I was shocked to see it really was _just_ Windows and nothing else.
Everyone loves consistency, but it really is a fools errand to try and make a universal OS experience. Desktops with keyboards and mice require different design paradigms than touch screens with no physical buttons. Vendors like Microsoft that try and cater to both will simply face an eternal tug of war, and nobody will end up happy.
Very few people on a tablet want to touch-type code for eight hours a day. Very few people on a desktop want to hold their hands in the air tapping their expensive monitors for eight hours a day.
What Microsoft needs to do is produce a clean "OS base" (kernel, drivers) used by both, and then produce two separate products: Windows Office (for desktops) and Windows Metro (for touch devices.) They should have never tried to merge the UIs together.
This article presumes that Windows 8.x was a great tablet OS. Since Windows 8 failed on mission one: Getting people to switch from Android and iOS. Objectively some people may love it--I'm not one--but from a business viewpoint it failed on tablets and it was hated on the desktop. The only real surprise isn't that MSFT is returning to an Aero style desktop, it's that it took them so long to do so.
I don't even think he's reviewing Windows 10 in its current preview form. Look at the picture he uses to show off the start menu, then compare it to the start menu in any other recent Windows 10 demonstration. Notice any differences?
Actually I think he is on the current Windows 10 build. Right now there's a button at the top-right of the start menu that switches it between full-screen and regular mode. This [1] is what it looks like on my system when full screen. It looks much worse in the article however, because the author only has three apps pinned to their start menu, and the three apps are in their 'medium' size rather than wide or large.
Not only that, but he's critiquing it from the perspective of a tablet OS. The majority of the intertial pushback Windows 8 suffered was from desktop users who absolutely did not want a mobile-esque interface on their desktop computer. His usability points are good--from a tablet user's perspective--but it completely misses the point of Windows 10, which is to regain trust from desktop and enterprise users. He further complains that this sort of cultural entrenchment is very much like the pushback Microsoft received between the DOS-to-Windows era--ignoring, of course, that user interaction with a touch UI versus mouse are substantially different. Plus, like you and the poster you replied to, I highly doubt that "tablet mode" in Windows 10 is completely finished.
I get that the author is probably upset with the changes coming in Windows 10 given his nearly exclusive use of a Surface (it's understandable--and also ironic that early on in the post, he mentions that "learning is uncomfortable"), but he's also forgetting that his favored use case is probably in the minority. How many Surface users are there versus enterprise/business/desktop users?
1. Touchscreen computers are in the minority now, but I don't think they'll remain in the minority. Kids are growing up on iPhones, Android phones, and iPads. A computer without a touchscreen will seem increasingly anachronistic to them, so designing against that trend is a backwards-looking strategy.
2. I don't see how the changes Microsoft has made in Windows 10 so far were necessary to make it a better desktop OS. Removing charms, for example, did nothing for desktop PCs. Microsoft could have made the charms features (e.g. search) accessible via the taskbar without removing charms for those who do have touchscreen computers, and can access it easily.
> 1. Touchscreen computers are in the minority now, but I don't think they'll remain in the minority.
I'm not completely sure I agree. But as with most things in technology, reflecting on past design changes or evolution isn't always a good marker for what's in store for the future. For one thing, I can foresee typical desk positions as a contributing factor to shoulder strain when using a touch-style monitor for prolonged periods being a problem. Would it be useful for some things? Sure, but I don't see it as completely practical when the user essentially has to reach up and press the monitor all day for various tasks (industrial use cases might be worth researching here since so many of them rely on touch interfaces or similar, particularly in high tech factories, but most of these workers are not only standing but the buttons are quite large).
Remember, the same kids you mentioned who are growing up with touch devices have also been exposed, generally, to pointing devices in parallel for much of their lives. The mouse, as a pointing device, is going to take a ground breaking technological leap to kill--touch alone isn't going to accomplish this because the precision simply isn't there.
Realistically, I don't see it as backwards: I see it as practical.
> 2. Removing charms, for example, did nothing for desktop PCs.
(Disclaimer: I never used Windows 8 precisely because of these decisions. Likewise, I'm a Linux user. That probably tells you everything you need to know.)
Charms annoyed the hell out of me; rather, the fullscreen application of them annoyed the hell out of me. For one, defaulting to a fullscreen UI on a desktop absolutely breaks workflow for most people (myself included), it's visually jarring, and making something scroll horizontally in a desktop environment is not only inconsistent with the default behavior of most applications (also designed for a desktop environment) but it's almost painfully awkward to use with a mouse. I commend Microsoft for trying something new, but their current decisions to make Windows 10 more like a 7-8 hybrid are suggestive of a deeper truth: There's no business sense in alienating a substantial majority of your install base by imposing a UI that's both painful and intrusive to use for most desktop users.
To say nothing of the various hotspots enabled by default that were clearly intended to be used with swipe gestures. You could argue it's annoyance bred by lack of interest in learning a new UI (it's not), but when that same UI is intended for something that primarily uses touch interaction, shoehorning it into an environment where the primary interaction is through a pointing device, you're left with a disaster. Hence Windows 10, which I don't find all that bad.
Also, I should note that while tablet mode in Windows 10 still retains some of the smaller, more difficult-to-activate-via-touch items in the start screen, we're still discussing a preview version of an OS that isn't expected to be released until October. I expect that they'll further improve tablet mode for touch users.
The difference is probably that Microsoft's Windows 10 demonstrations show a manually customized system, while my screenshot shows what it looks like by default, on a newly installed system? Other than that, I'm not sure how I could not be running the current Windows 10 preview, because, as far as I know, it's the only build that supports continuum.
I think what this article demonstrates, more than anything, is how hard (impossible?) it is to build a single user interface for all possible form factors and keep your users happy.
Does 1Password not have a keyboard app for iOS 8? Keyboard apps in general are a pretty good way to get a lot of what people want from multi-window views on touch devices.
No they have an extension instead that people have been building into their apps that give one tap access to 1Password on the login screen. I suspect they stayed away from building a keyboard because it's a lot harder to get right, and to risk building a not-so-great keyboard to add one button didn't seem worth it.
No. Requires either a password to unlock the keychain or TouchID input. What the article completely misses is that there is window management in iOS. 5-finger pinch and all that. Not to mention the fact that a lot of iOS apps already have 1P integration so you don't have to leave the app.
I actually preferred Windows 10 in the previous build. Now everything in the desktop modem makes me uncomfortable when using it and I think it's slower as well.
The whole bit on loss aversion (which is a tactic to undermine people's opinions by ascribing them to unproductive emotional reactions, rather than objective evaluations that have people liking Windows 8 less than 7), and then the "I don’t really see anything positive about going back to an interaction design originally devised in 1995", undermine the piece and do make it seem more like a rant than an unbiased evaluation: Someone with a touch screen tablet likes Windows 8, and doesn't like some of the changes in Windows 10. Welcome to the party the rest of us have lived in.
Windows 8 on the desktop was objectively terrible. The charm bar, the weird interactions, the gigantic click points that completely undermined the benefit of a highly precise mouse. It was a step backwards as Microsoft tried to force touch metaphors and designs on a mouse world. Now this user is complaining that they're forcing mouse metaphors on his tablet.
> Windows 8 on the desktop was objectively terrible.
Not a chance. IMO, not only was the the best Windows from a technical perspective, I quite liked the interface. I use Linux mostly for philosophical and technical reasons (much easier to program in Linux), but Windows 8 has great UI.
I could go on about the things I strongly disliked (hated, frankly) about the changes to the desktop after I first installed 8.1. An enormous amount of customization was removed from the Appearance and general UI, the ability to change File Type icons and add custom context menu commands was removed [1], the Ribbon UI is the standard File Explorer toolbar and unchangeable without additional hacks [2], and more.
They dumbed down the desktop from a customization perspective and it was most annoying, and that's before the removal of the Start menu and addition of hotcorners and other Metro/Modern features.
Wi-fi connection dialog painting over keyboard layout indicator immediately disqualifies UI from 'great'. Great UIs are not like this. Maybe it's novel, an eye candy, but not great.
I wouldn't go that far. I manage perfectly fine without it.
I like the fact that the Start Screen makes full use of my 27" 2560 x 1440 LCD. With the Windows 7-style Start Menu all of your shortcuts are shoved into a tiny corner of the screen.
Or you can look at it another way: I can comfortably fit more on my 1600x900 monitor with Classic Shell's start menu than you would on you 2560x1440 LCD with the Windows 8 start screen.
In other words, it's both modal and it wastes real screen estate.
> In other words, it's both modal and it wastes real screen estate.
The Windows 7-style Start Menu is modal too in the sense that you can't interact with the desktop at the same time you are interacting with the Start Menu.
The other thing I don't particularly like about the Start Menu is that shortcuts and folders with long names get cut off due to the width of the menu itself.
Screens are a bit like RAM in my opinion. There to be used.
> The Windows 7-style Start Menu is modal too in the sense that you can't interact with the desktop at the same time you are interacting with the Start Menu.
Huh? If you define it that way then everything is modal because you can only ever interact with one window at a given time (one mouse, one keyboard, etc.)
I like Windows 8 on the desktop. I agree that it has issues, but I also point that out in the article.
As for "undermining people's opinions": while I have no doubt that there are plenty of people who genuinely gave Windows 8 a chance, and found it severely wanting, I think it's fair to say that there are at least as many who never did, and just joined in on the bashing. Personally, I've seen a number of people who made jokes about Windows 8, but changed their opinions once they actually saw it on my Surface. It's a bit like Windows Vista, which people suddenly quite liked, once it was renamed to Windows 7 :-)
The actual point of the loss aversion thing, though, was to point out how Microsoft failed when it introduced Windows 8. I write this blog for designers, and learning from other people's mistakes is one reason why I write it. Loss aversion is an important concept in design; a conclusion to draw from this is that design changes should occur gradually, and not be forced upon people with a single, sweeping change.
Windows 8 is horrible on the desktop, I think you even mention this. But then you ignore that and talk about how great it is on the surface.
You talked about loss aversion, but I don't see how you tied that in to the windows design. I thought you were going to discuss things that were removed from win 7, like the start button. But it just seems like the topic of loss aversion was another article that you included in this one.
The real issue is trying to resolve both a touch screen environment with a keyboard and mouse environment. Win 8 is the former, with win 7 the latter. I don't know much about 10 but it seems to be more of a mouse and keyboard and less of a touch.
He ignores it because it is tangential to the point. The point is that windows 8 (or at least 8.1 imho) had a great ui for a touch interface and there is no reason to destroy that while trying to fix the desktop experience.
> The whole bit on loss aversion (which is a tactic to undermine people's opinions by ascribing them to unproductive emotional reactions, rather than objective evaluations that have people liking Windows 8 less than 7)
I am writing this on a recently purchased Windows 7 Lenovo x220 convertible tablet with a Wacom stylus and a multi-touch screen. (Primarily to use it as a poor man's Cintiq.) With only a few specific failings, Windows 7 seems to be a great OS for such a device. One of the big failings is requiring the user to keep precise track of window focus. The other one is rejection of finger input in contexts where everything but the stylus should be ignored except certain specific exceptions. I've used an AutoHotKey script to compensate for the latter. Other than these (very glaring) few points and others, I think Windows 7 does a very good job of capitalizing on the strengths of the input devices and form factor. I can transition between laptop/workstation, touch-tablet, and Wacom stylus type inputs to best suit the particular context I am working in with reasonable rapidity. As a workman's toolbox, this thing is pretty awesome!
Comparing this to the mess that's Windows 8, it's clear that Microsoft lost a cohesive overall vision for how everything should work together. It's also clear from the glaring problems that they never quite had a cohesive overall vision firmly guiding the whole product in the first place.
A consumer-oriented tablet and a kitchen-sink/swiss-army knife device for coders/creatives are two very different kinds of devices. It's just not clear thinking to try and mix the two. (OS X seems to be facing a similar dilemma.)
And he's probably right. The issue remains that Microsoft is trying to mash two radically different usage paradigms into one.
So the obvious outcome (perhaps not to Microsoft) is that either the desktop mode will get worse, as it tries to get more "tablet-y" or the tablet mode gets worse as it tries to get more "desktop-y" - or both.
The author does say something with which I disagree. He says something along the lines "Windows 8 was the simplest desktop OS". Not it wasn't. Windows 8 - the desktop part - was probably made worse by the removal of the Start Menu, but not better. The Metro part is not "desktop". That's for tablets. So he can't say "the simplest desktop OS", because the whole Metro paradigm was intended for tablets, and it was much worse than the desktop paradigm on the desktop.
I like a $20 bill more than a $10 bill. Is that an emotional reaction? No, it's an objective value judgement based on the fact that the former is more useful (roughly twice as useful) as the latter. The word "like" merely expresses preference. It's neutral as to the basis of the preference, which may be emotional, rational or some combination.
I think you entirely missed the viewpoint of the author: He's trying to use Windows 10 as a tablet OS not as a desktop OS and from that perspective they threw away everything that made Windows UX on tablets good to reintroduce all the hideous cluttered desktop patterns.
They just basically reinvented an ugly version of Windows 7 while throwing away what made Windows 8 a genuinely good OS on tablets - essentially instead of separating the desktop and tablet experience they went back to pushing desktop UI on tablet users.
I think you entirely missed the viewpoint of the author
When people say that someone missed the point on HN, most of the time that means that they want you to read it the way they read it, and ignore those annoying bits that say something different.
Only this author not only undermines any disagreement with Windows 8 (just loss aversion), criticizes "old" interfaces (cars had 4 wheels in the 20s....give me my new style 3 wheel car), they specifically hold up its advantages on the desktop.
Not once do they mention the obvious solution -- that Microsoft should have gone separate directions on the desktop and the tablet -- but instead hold this as a cowardly backtrack.
> When people say that someone missed the point on HN, most of the time that means that they want you to read it the way they read it, and ignore those annoying bits that say something different.
Hmm, you're commenting from entirely desktop machine perspective. He's talking only about tablet use perspective. I would say those are totally different viewpoints and more importantly, usage patterns?
>Only this author not only undermines any disagreement with Windows 8 (just loss aversion), criticizes "old" interfaces (cars had 4 wheels in the 20s....give me my new style 3 wheel car), they specifically hold up its advantages on the desktop.
I think saying that those interface elements are objectively bad on tablets is not far from truth, so again, see my first point.
I specifically point out in the article that it is not just loss aversion, but that there are valid reasons to dislike Windows 8.
I also don't criticize old interfaces because they are old. I specifically point out that the desktop metaphor was created for use cases that are very different from how we use computers nowadays. Desktops are not problematic because they're old, but because what we use desktop PCs for has changed a lot.
> I specifically point out that the desktop metaphor was created for use cases that are very different from how we use computers nowadays. Desktops are not problematic because they're old, but because what we use desktop PCs for has changed a lot.
Are you referring to the "launching applications and managing files are two different things" part?
Another explanation for the move to applications like iTunes that manage files outside the file manager could be that Microsoft's particular file manager is just terrible and unusable. (As is Apple's modern incarnation of the Finder, in mostly the same way – see Siracusa's explanation[1] for details.)
In OS/2's Workplace Shell, applications and files were just two among many of the kinds of objects you could manipulate. For instance, you could drag a document to a printer to print it, or to the shredder to delete it. You could drag template objects to create new files. You could drag colors to windows to assign that color to the window. (Some of these things are possible in Windows as well, but it's not emphasized and doesn't work as well.)
In BeOS, the Tracker, thanks to its support for arbitrary file metadata, could integrate with a mail or music application and allow you to manage its object hierarchy exactly the same way you managed your other files.
So, in my opinion, the old interface was just a half-assed implementation of a basically good idea. The new idea is to give up, throwing away the simplicity and flexibility of the old design, and reimplement file management in every application.
Disclaimer: Emphasis on SUBJECTIVE before you indicate my opinion is wrong because you have a different opinion. That's pretty-much what subjective means. I thought HN was smarter than this.
Agreed, it's subjective. This is change aversion, not loss aversion. Humans don't like change, even if it is good for them.
People don't like Windows 8 UI because it was a change, and they don't like that they are changing it back. The Windows 8 interface was scientifically superior[1] to the old one: people just didn't like the change. The Windows 10 one is closer to the older interface, people just don't like it because it's change.
The big interaction areas (including the infinite one at the bottom left for the start menu) provided good mouse control. People would have found the keyboard control far superior if they had taken the 10 minutes to learn it, instead of complaining.
Something is not "objectively terrible" if at least one person like it and, including myself, I know people who like the Win8 interface. I haven't tried Win10 yet but I'll probably like the interface because Microsoft are terrific at interface design.
The only thing that Microsoft get wrong is that people don't like their cheese being moved. The Windows 7 interface was good, the Windows 8 interface was good and so will be the Windows 10.
The very reason that people praise Apple interface design is because they keep feeding you the same junk over and over again and you all love it, the innovation there is that innovation is avoided in order to not rile up change aversion.
> People don't like Windows 8 UI because it was a change, and they don't like that they are changing it back.
No, people don't like the Windows 8 UI because it's terrible on the desktop. Comparatively, the classic Windows UI is terrible on touch-screen devices. Even combining both interfaces on one OS isn't terrible. But in Windows 8 they both bleed into each other in a way that is not good. Windows 10 combines them even more but I'll reserve judgement until I've tried it.
The charms bar, hot corners, the Wifi setup panel, the login screen, the start screen, the associated app selector, the metro apps with associations to common file types, etc. I've personally turned off most of it and replaced the start menu with ClassicShell but it took a while. It's a pretty nice OS if you can completely hide metro.
I hate that too. Disabled it. That's my opinion of the feature. However, that in addition to:
> charms bar
(Which I never use) is technically good UX design. Corners are super easy to position your mouse in. 100 out of 100 times you try and put your mouse cursor into the corner you will achieve that without fail. Both corner gestures (really hate them) and charms bar use that extensively.
> Wifi setup panel, login screen
Never had a problem with these, they do the job just fine. Just different. The Wifi panel is actually great UX because the process of setting up Wifi does not bounce all over the screen (as it did previously).
> start screen
Fitt's Law, look it up. If you don't like using the mouse you don't even have click anyway. WINKEY -> N -> O -> T, oh, notepad is up, ENTER. Done. Windows 8 taught me to let go of my mouse.
> (Which I never use) is technically good UX design. Corners are super easy to position your mouse in.
I have 2 24" monitors, 3840x1080 pixels. The corners are actually pretty far from where ever my mouse is right now, and not all that easy to hit on purpose. Accidentally, all the time. With a touchpad it's even worse -- they were always being activated when I didn't want them to be. And there is literally nothing in that bar I need to use.
> The Wifi panel is actually great UX because the process of setting up Wifi does not bounce all over the screen (as it did previously).
It's an overlay which means it floats over your work while you're waiting for the Wifi connection to fail. It's just entirely unnecessary UI which doesn't fit in with anything else on the desktop.
> Fitt's Law, look it up.
Fitt's law is frankly bullshit these days. I have way too many pixels for it to make sense and I've had 20+ years of using a mouse.
I use Windows 8 and it is not objectively terrible, it is actually quite OK and doesn't result in any loss of productivity for myself.
There is the whole whole screen start menu thing, but I wasn't a big start menu user in Windows 7, and I barely notice. I don't find Metro to be very useful for me, and I don't go there often, but it doesn't really bleed into the desktop so whatever.
Your opinion is not the only correct one, although it is the more typical reaction to change. Any alternative change would have likely caused this exact same fallout.
> No, people don't like the Windows 8 UI because it's terrible on the desktop.
I use Windows 8.1 on the desktop every day - since Windows 8 was released - and I honestly can't understand why people have such huge problems with it unless it is just about change.
I had my first impressions of it in a VM when it was RTM. At that time I did think it was pretty ugly and I got really frustrated (i.e., I was cussing up a storm) trying to figure out how to shut it down properly via the UI - in the RTM release I believe the only way to do that was to use the Charms bar, and I had to Google to figure that out. I also did not have any particular fondness for the Metro apps.
Sometime later I made it the primary OS on my laptop - which, as I purchased it in 2006, is non-touch. I use an external mouse instead of a touchpad because I hate touchpads, full-stop. And I'd say that in my opinion, Windows 8 is definitely the best Windows for desktop. The one major complaint I had, about shutdowns, was resolved by having a power button on the Start Screen, and additionally adding a context menu to the Start button on the taskbar that gives you quick access to shutdown options.
Almost everything in Windows 8 works the same. For example, I see frequent complaints about how terrible the Start Screen is for desktop users. I don't think it's very pretty, but it works almost exactly the same as the old start menu. The primary difference is that it takes up the full screen, which I don't think is too terribly a big deal since the Start Menu goes away if you take away focus anyway. Opening applications works the same way as it has since Vista: hit winkey, type the first few letters of the application, hit enter. Alternatively, click on the start button, click on the application (if pinned) or click on All Programs to scroll through all your applications. This is moderately improved in Win 8 since you can change what your programs are sorted by, unlike Win 7 (for example: Most Used, Most Recently installed, etc.)
I am not a big fan of the Metro apps, but they do now show up on the taskbar, they do have a titlebar with a close and minimize button, and you can sort-of resize them. The only one I use is Weather. By default (and maybe this has changed since I installed it), Windows does have Metro apps set to open your pictures, etc. The default app setting is easy to change, though I can't imagine many new users expecting or wanting the new Metro apps. The only one I had to change was changing images to open in Windows Photo Viewer; the rest was "fixed" by installing my usual apps (VLC, Firefox, etc.)
Other than that, there are plenty of desktop-centric improvements. Multi-monitor support is much better. There is a fantastic context menu on the Start button with quick access to various administrative functions. Various things throughout the desktop OS get slight improvements; the file copy dialog is better, task manager is better, Windows Explorer is better. For the most part, the average desktop user is almost never even going to see the Metro interface. And I have never, ever touched the Charms bar, ever since that virtual machine. It's totally unnecessary for a desktop workflow. Which I suppose could be a complaint in itself.
The only real regression I see is that the Windows 8 file search kind of blows. It works as well as Windows 7 if you know what you're looking for - hit Windows key, type part of the file name, hit enter - but for any kind of advanced search you have to open up Windows Explorer and do it from there. The Start Screen is also missing the recently-opened files list on the Windows 7 start menu - you have to pin to the taskbar to get the same effect.
Can you go into more exactly why it's terrible on desktop? Is it just you think tiles waste space, the clash between Metro/desktop is kind of jarring, that kind of thing?
I also use Windows 8.1 everyday, I'm typing this message on it.
> Almost everything in Windows 8 works the same. For example, I see frequent complaints about how terrible the Start Screen is for desktop users. I don't think it's very pretty, but it works almost exactly the same as the old start menu.
My father-in-law somehow figured out he could launch applications by going into Program Files folder in explorer and running programs from there. He did that because he could not figure out how to find stuff on the start screen. I was impressed with his ingenuity; I just replaced the start screen with ClassicShell. I don't have any metro apps, I have 2 24" monitors, so the start screen is ridiculous.
> Other than that, there are plenty of desktop-centric improvements.
I agree. Those could have all been in Windows 7.1 though.
> For the most part, the average desktop user is almost never even going to see the Metro interface.
Except for the charms bar, hot corners, the Wifi setup panel, the login screen, the start screen, the associated app selector, the metro apps with associations to common file types, etc.
Emphasis on SUBJECTIVE before you indicate my opinion is wrong because you have a different opinion. That's pretty-much what subjective means. I thought HN was smarter than this.
Yet you spent your entire post claiming that the interface is objectively better. But people don't like it because it was change, it is "scientifically superior" (as if an interface is quantified only by the size of click targets), people just needed to learn it, people don't like their cheese being moved.
Coach your post in the disclaimer, but every other word you wrote was absolutely in conflict with that.
> every other word you wrote was absolutely in conflict with that.
1. People don't like it likely due to change aversion.
2. In theory it's superior.
3. It can't be "objectively terrible" if some people like it.
4. All UIs from all version of Windows are great (opinion).
How did I contradict myself? Either way this is turning into an argument which I'm not interesting in doing. If I contradicted myself, so be it.
Yes. It was. It is. This disagreement by you is false.
See, we can both do that. Fun.
However in my case I'm supported by this very development, where Microsoft is essentially backtracking based upon enormous customer resistance and a backlash.
And the article we're looking at here is complaining about moving away from the Windows 8 direction.
The author seems to consider that a mistake and likes the Windows 8 way better. So do I. This is all subjective, just like your statements are. You just claim to speak for everyone/state facts. That's still wrong, ignoring that childish retort.
>Yes. It was. It is. This disagreement by you is false.
> See, we can both do that. Fun.
Which immediately disproves your original assertion that the Windows 8 on the desktop was objectively terrible. That was just, like, your opinion, man.
In Windows 10, the only feature I'm looking for is a simple on/off switch like Android has: Allow installation of apps from sources other than the [default app store].
Not a fan of Windows8. The 10 preview I played with was an absolute step in the right direction.