I use Windows 8 like a power user! Do you?


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Hey WYN. Open up Windows 8 in a Virtual machine and hit WIN + Q ... What happens? OH WAIT, you get the HOST OS, not the GUEST. FAIL

Or how about WIN + I, F, W? Oh yea, SAME THING.

You Win 8 guys need to really open your eyes. They screwed up big time on this OS.

And yes, that excludes EVERYTHING from ANYWHERE from being searched in a VM that way.

I'm kinda getting used to it, but the full screen nature of metro apps is bloody annoying; so much so that I just don't use them. I run a dual 24" monitor setup. I don't need my mail client to use the entire screen area of one of them, thanks; I don't need everything in 72 point font in a layout I can't change (really, vertical layout? Urgh...). I also don't need a massive wall of ultra-bright white in my face. I have no desire to be blinded by my monitor, thanks. Maybe if I could at least change it to black, but nope.. MS say hands off your computer, it's ours now!

You get to choose which desktop and - if any - metro apps you use. I don't really use the metro apps for the same reason you don't, but I don't waste my time complaining about it because there are perfectly good alternatives. If you ignore the metro apps, you're no worse off than you were in Windows 7.

As for background colors, settings, and such... there will be plenty of metro email clients. The one developed by Microsoft is just the bare minimum. This will get more interesting as we get more apps. For now, use desktop apps when it makes sense to do so.

Metro is just fine for a touch interface (if missing a shedload of stuff still), but it's just nowhere near as useable in a desktop environment.

The metro apps really aren't very usable on desktop, but Windows 8 itself is. Ignore the apps for now, they will come.

And really? I have to now remember a crapton of keyboard shortcuts to do stuff I could once do much more easily? Bleh.

No, you don't. You don't have to remember any keyboard shortcuts. Everything you could possibly want to do can be done with the mouse, just like always. Keyboard shortcuts are there for your convenience. They aren't a necessity.

No one has answer my question though. Why is having the option such a problem? If everyone said they wanted the option (even if you had no interest in using it) to have it or not then Microsoft would be compelled to give that option. No one has answered this yet.

I've answered that several times both to you and others in other threads, so you can stop claiming it hasn't been answered and stop trolling that topic.

and it all boils down to, removing old crap, speed, resources and time. if you want specifics go to any of the many other threads you anti W8 trolls have ruined with hate posts which are completely OT from the OP. This thread is not about start screen vs Start Menu, it's about efficient use of the Start screen, if you want to troll start screen vs menu, do it in any of the many other threads that are all about that.

Back on topic.

YEah, this is pretty much how I use the start screen as well, faster and more efficient, but then again, I also rarely see the start screen since I don't start many apps in the day and the apps I do use often are pinned to the taskbar, and the start screen makes it easy to find apps when I do want to start something else do as everyone else I normally just use the search anyway.

The bolded part is purely your opinion and the part after are your reasons backing up your opinion. I do not need to see nor want to see so many items at once, there for I do not want a full screen start menu or need it. Also, my computer is not a touch screen.

That's fantastic that the people you've showed it to like it. I was talking about stuff that I've witnessed on neowin and why people that are labeled as "windows 8 haters" don't like metro.

You still didn't answer my question though. Why are you so resistant to having the option? Really? If I can use the regular old start menu on my computer and you can use the metro start screen on your computer why is that a problem? If the only thing that it costs to have the option is some random coders time at Microsoft then why do you care that we have the option? And who knows, maybe down the line people who like the start menu in windows 7 might decide they want to turn the option on to try the metro start screen.

If people who dislike metro are resistant to change then people who do like and argue why it's "the best" are resistant to having options. And I think that's far worse.

Internet forums aren't for you then, sorry. If you want to only see one side of the argument you could start a blog or something maybe???

You are really a mindless individual; it must be hard living with yourself. Some people's kids.

You get to choose which desktop and - if any - metro apps you use. I don't really use the metro apps for the same reason you don't, but I don't waste my time complaining about it because there are perfectly good alternatives. If you ignore the metro apps, you're no worse off than you were in Windows 7.

Sure, which is just what I do.

As for background colors, settings, and such... there will be plenty of metro email clients. The one developed by Microsoft is just the bare minimum. This will get more interesting as we get more apps. For now, use desktop apps when it makes sense to do so.

The metro apps really aren't very usable on desktop, but Windows 8 itself is. Ignore the apps for now, they will come.

Kinda defeats the point of what Microsoft are trying to achieve if the only way to actually achieve it is use 3rd party apps. Hence why I say it's half assed; they've done a barely tenth of what they need to do.

No, you don't. You don't have to remember any keyboard shortcuts. Everything you could possibly want to do can be done with the mouse, just like always. Keyboard shortcuts are there for your convenience. They aren't a necessity.

Tell that to all the rabid proponents and their "I'm a trillions times more productive now coz I'm memorized a bazillion keyboard shortcuts and you're lame if you can't!" comments.

Windows has always been about getting away from the keyboard to interact with the OS, and now suddenly we have to go back to it?

You are really a mindless individual; it must be hard living with yourself. Some people's kids.

You're resorting to personal insults now? Clever. You just made your entire argument moot by doing that. Well done.

/slowclap

Hey WYN. Open up Windows 8 in a Virtual machine

...

They screwed up big time on this OS.

now because you can't use keyboard shortcuts in a virtual machine the OS is going to fail? AVERAGE USERS DONT USE VIRTUAL MACHINES.

another point: if you opened up Windows 7 in a virtual machine and pressed the Win key to open up your start menu, what happens? "OH WAIT, you get the HOST OS, not the GUEST. FAIL" Windows 7 uses the Windows key to do many of the same functions that Windows 8 does.

Kinda defeats the point of what Microsoft are trying to achieve if the only way to actually achieve it is use 3rd party apps.

sorry, where has Microsoft said that they're trying to do everything without 3rd party apps? Windows has never been about keeping third party developers from developing apps.

I guess we don't have the same definition of what is a "power user".

I didn't know that all "power users" did was browsing on the Internet and play crappy games... :blush:

I'm not attacking you, but seriously, this video is not serious... What I saw in this video = my 60yo father doing his stuff on his Dell laptop (minus the Facebook sessions)

"power users" manage domains, code, manage servers, works with Photoshop, automate stuff, write scripts and programs, compile stuff, use multi-monitor set-ups, manage multiples computers, push updates on the network, etc.

You're the "average" PC user. Not a "beginner", only the "average" PC user doing normal stuff...

  • Like 2

And impossible. A start menu using your full screen for 2 seconds isn't going to "break your workflow" it's just whining about change, even if it's for the better.

Better is purely an opinion. Time will tell if if was a good idea on Microsoft's part or not.

You are really a mindless individual; it must be hard living with yourself. Some people's kids.

Sorry, mindless? Mindless would be expecting people to not talk about things they are unhappy with in a product on an internet discussion forum (oddly enough dedicated to discussion of said product) and just going with the flow because hey.. "change is good".

I'm honestly not sure what you expect on internet forums where people discuss things. Eventually you are going to run into people who have a different opinion than you.

Thanks for the compliment though, I guess? Wish I was still considered a kid.

I'm sorry, but this videos doesn't show "power using".

You just show that you can switch fast in the windows settings.

You have to switch many times to reach a destination which you could reached much faster before in previous systems.

Sometimes it seems very indiscriminately, its just difficult to recognize if you do anything very fast.

And it shows one thing very clear: For mouse users a underdog experience.

Do this Video again and don't use the keyboard. Then we see a quite new result.

No offence ;)

  • Like 2

ah, sorry, I completely misinterpreted your comment :\

so, why does it defeat the point? (and, for that matter, which point are you talking about?)

The point is that Microsoft are trying to do two things. They're trying to implement a unified interface across their devices, and they're trying to simplify it for the average user. The problem is, they missed on both counts.

Instead, what they've seemingly achieved (I say seemingly because we've only seen the preview apps, not their final state), is a collection of apps with far less functionalality than their predecessors... The mail app is bad on the eyes, you can't alter the layout, you can't control spam filters, you can't setup pretty much everything you would WANT to set up, in fact. The chat app is so bad it'd take me all day to go through its problems, same goes for the music app, the video app, pretty much everything really that has been "metro'd". They're not even pretty, unless you mean pretty bad for the eyes!

The UI is also far from unified. They've metro'd parts of it, but to do anything actually useful, you have to revert to the traditional desktop, and they've made THAT a pain in the backside by taking away the Start button; forcing you to constantly switch in and out of desktop mode in much the same hyperactive ADD way the OP does in his video (seriously, NO one farts around like that... I was getting queasy!). It also changes how basic things work for Metro, things which are totally counter-intuitive for a desktop user. I mean, seriously... A vertical action like scrolling your mousewheel, now results in a horizontal action on the screen. Bwuh?

Metro is a good design, for a touch based device. I have no doubt that it will shift the tablet market considerably and I even look forward to my first Metro based tablet (and I have three Android tablets!) But for desktops, so far, it's just not what's best for purpose.

I saw nothing but a video of switching back and forth accomplishing nothing more than opening a webpage then switching back to metro repeatedly & the video was drastically sped up -

You have shown nothing really.

I tried to mess around with 8 on a VM - then when I couldnt figure out how to turn off the damned thing & eventually ran shutdown in Powershell - I got frustrated. I think it will be great as a tablet OS eventually- and I will probably buy a Surface tablet. But I think I will stick with 7 on my next build in August.

I have had it installed for about 2 weeks, and spent about 20 minutes on it -- however I did like mint13 :D

Seriously, show me ONE Metro app, only ONE Metrop app, that a modern HTML 5 website can't replace?

The Gmail website is lightyears ahead of the Metro Mail app for example... Weather app? There's like zillions of weather websites that are better... Messaging app? Don't start me on that one...

I'm sorry... I'm trying very hard to like Metro/WinRT... but all I see is a ugly (my opinion) fullscreen launcher used to launch subpar, incomplete and oversimplified apps :( Like I said, websites are more complete than all the Metro apps I've tried so far...

  • Like 1

The reason Microsoft got rid of the start menu is for consistency. It would be weird to have two "start" menus.

It would. But the fact that it's weird didn't stop MS from implementing two control panels, two Internet Explorers, two picture viewers, two audio players, two video players etc... ;)

  • Like 3

For those of you saying I am not a power user cuz I used generic apps, like paint and chrome, I was just trying to make a point. And yes, I do manage domains, use VS to code applications, run websites and work with VMs. Don't tell me what I am or am not.

As for the speeding up. I had technical reasons for that. I had to eliminate the lag and make the video shorter, not fool anyone.

You should put an epilepsy warning on that video, all it did was make me sick. Didn't show ANY power usage at all, unless I open and close off random programs all day at super speed for no reason.

For those of you saying I am not a power user cuz I used generic apps, like paint and chrome, I was just trying to make a point. And yes, I do manage domains, use VS to code applications, run websites and work with VMs. Don't tell me what I am or am not.

As for the speeding up. I had technical reasons for that. I had to eliminate the lag and make the video shorter, not fool anyone.

Then you've misrepresented what the video is meant to be showing.

I know my corporation will not be rolling out Win 8 client. We will see how many others with very lucrative EA's fail to adopt it too. That will play a key factor in the options for Windows 9 imo.

No it won't. Many corps just jumped to W7, there's no way they would deploy W8 after such a short amount of time. Even if W8 is the best thing ever it's a big investment of money and time (not only installing the OS but certifiying and making sure every used software works) so skipping versions is a) reasonable and b) standard policy for most of them. And MS knows this, that's why the new version is more geared towards normal consumers.

Any yeah, why was the video sped up? (edit: read the explanation above)

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