27 replies to this topic 2 votes

[firey]

I still think it looks pointless. All you show is icons to apps you use.. which is exactly what the desktop does. No need for a second screen to do that.

[Ryoken]

Agreed.. it looks nice, but that doesn't make it more functional than the start menu was..It does make it take up far more space though.. which can be a pain depending on your mouse speed and resolution..

That said, those do look nice.. Wish you could make your own tile icons though.. rather than it just using the app icon

[david]

How did you guys title each section like that?

[wv@gt]

I still with the icons were higher res. In Vista and 7 Microsoft pushed for higher res icons for scalability. The Start Screen seems stuck with the small icons

[Colin McGregor]

How dare you try out the OS and try to see if you can make it work for you before coming on here and discussing it. I'm going to report you.


On a serious note though, love how IE 10 autocorrects lol

[ranmas]

Oh, look how interesting... you have a second desktop, and not a start menu, and you know the worst part about that those don't even look as nice, or as clean as it does on the desktop. You have a small icon inside a large box that does nothing other than provide some waist of space to your screen.

While the idea of the new 'start page' was interesting, the whole thing is a lot less productive with a keyboard and mouse then the traditional start menu. This design is clearly for devices that have a touch screen.

Now that is not to say its bad, no its actually rather good for that. That includes pc's, laptops and other devices with a touch screen. If your interacting with your computing device with your fingers its good. However, if your using a keyboard and mouse, or even a touchpad, then its not so hot. There are a lot of options that are hidden, there is no back or close button that I've found yet on the metro apps, and to close a metro app you have to go to the desktop, put your mouse to the side of the screen and then drag the thing off the bottom of the middle of the screen. That is not something that I would call convenient. Before you even get into how windows 8 is supposed to manage those programs and the memory they use, well lets just put it mildly by saying that is not such a good thing either. That is a good way to introduce crashes and blue screens to a system.

I like to have control of my system, and without a lot of work windows 8, and by extension Microsoft, has more control of the system now than ever.

The privacy issues surrounding the live apps is horrifying as well if you stop and think about it. Sure you might point out that you have the same kind of issues with ios and android, but the issue really comes down to is most malicious software is written for windows, and this is going to be a very large, and juicy target.

Not to say its all doom and gloom, there are a lot of nice improvements in windows 8, but right now the lack of being able to select between a start menu and their 'start page' is more than I'm willing to deal with. It would be easy to say this version of windows is likely to go the way of windows me, but the price point they are offering it at will probably be enough to compensate for the lackluster design choices.

[Colin McGregor]

Why are people saying its an OS made for a touch screen and not a desktop?? Am I missing something? Is there like some secret hard to navigate desktop I'm missing?? I'd like to know so I can tell my mom to avoid it. She's using Windows 8 and loves metro. She doesn't know jack about computers so I was worried but she runs all her stuff with ease.

Let me know what you guys found that doesn't work good on a keyboard mouse, like I said so I can tell my mom to avoid it.

[SiCKX]

bjoswald, on 08 August 2012 - 01:17, said:

My friends and I can't figure it out,so it's bad for everyone and my opinion is the only one that counts.Andrea Boreman.

I see what you done did that there. Andrea Borman

[ranmas]

Put your mouse to the edge of the left side of the screen and wait for that nice menu to come up, select setting, and go into one of the customization options, play around in there to your hearts content. Now find the close button, back button.... found it yet?

I'm waiting, are you able to find one at all? No? Surprise, your on a desktop you don't have the nice buttons like you do on a phone or tablet that let you go back. So instead of doing something simple with a click of a mouse button, you now have to find the correct button on your keyboard to take you back to the 'start page', you wanted to go too your desktop too bad you can't do that you have to go back to the 'start page'. Well I guess that would be the case if you hadn't already launched the 'desktop app' then I guess you could mouse over to the right hand side of your screen and click on that popup. Seriously no you can't close that app, you really want to well you have to either launch task manager or you need to go to the 'desktop app' and then mouse over to the left hand side of your screen and make that menu slide out, then grab the image of the app you want to close and drag it out and then down to the bottom of your screen. Though I'm not even sure if that properly closes the app.

If you can't see the similarities between windows 8 and either of the other two major tablet os's you need some help.

But, yeah, if you don't really know a lot about computers then windows 8 is probably going to be ok for you.

And you didn't read my comment properly I didn't say it wasn't designed for a desktop, I said it wasn't designed for a keyboard and mouse. There is a major difference there. You can get pc's that have a touchscreen, and you can get laptops just the same if you want to pay for one, but metro itself was designed around the idea of using your fingers on the screen to interact with it, not a keyboard and mouse.

[trag3dy]

Ryoken, on 08 August 2012 - 01:55, said:

Agreed.. it looks nice, but that doesn't make it more functional than the start menu was..It does make it take up far more space though.. which can be a pain depending on your mouse speed and resolution..

That said, those do look nice.. Wish you could make your own tile icons though.. rather than it just using the app icon

http://customization...t.com/#/d4z4ny9

Doesn't take over your entire screen when you want to use it. Not that I recommend using it either, I think metro "tiles" are largely a waste of space.

[LiquidCrystalMeth]

trag3dy, on 10 August 2012 - 03:49, said:

http://customization...t.com/#/d4z4ny9

Doesn't take over your entire screen when you want to use it. Not that I recommend using it either, I think metro "tiles" are largely a waste of space.

Metro and those tiles are hideous, thats just a fact, if i had to look at that every day, i'd end up topping myself for having devolved.

Personally i think theyve designed it that way because they know the general IQ of people is falling and they need childish big tiles to click on, eventually people will become so stupid that that the interface will show one big tile for "i need someone to dress me"

The start menu worked fine, if you knew how to use it, and werent lazy. Now theres this childish overlay and to get to places that were easily accessible via the start menu you have to go different corners of the screen?

A huge leap forward in usability.

Might have to go to debian, kudos for them getting rid of now awful bloated Gnome 3 and going back to Xfce for usability (dont beleive its just because they couldnt fit Gnome on the CD/DVD).

You could learn something from that Microsoft.

[sommarblond]

Obviously not everyone is going to like Windows 8, but most of the complaints come from inexperience. What I was trying to show with this topic is that it is adaptable for a desktop user. Of course it will feel very different compare to what we are used to, but any change we are not used to feels odd and we just have to learn to deal with it. I didn't like the start screen myself when I first tried Windows 8 but I adapted and found myself finding it more convenient and easier to use. Of course not everyone will agree with this, but if I could adapt to it, I'm sure there's more out there that can do it as well.

To make a few things clear, you do not need to use any of the apps that comes with windows 8, in fact you can uninstall all of them which i personally did. To make it easier to understand the start screen, see it as a fullscreen start menu. You can re-create the start screen to show everything the start menu did. You access it the same way by clicking on the bottom left corner or use the windows key on your keyboard (which I prefer). You can even combine everything the start menu had to offer and all your personal shortcuts you use to have on the desktop, this will make your desktop work area clean and only shows what it needs to show (like I have it as can be seen on the screenshots.)
What I like the most is that I can pick all the things I use the most and combine it all to one place for easier access. If you think about it, it kind of make sense to have a start screen.

[+devHead]

Ryoken, on 08 August 2012 - 01:55, said:

Agreed.. it looks nice, but that doesn't make it more functional than the start menu was..It does make it take up far more space though.. which can be a pain depending on your mouse speed and resolution..

That said, those do look nice.. Wish you could make your own tile icons though.. rather than it just using the app icon

You can create your own tile icons (for the non-Metro apps). Right-click on the icon, and at the bottom, select 'Open file location'. It will open the location of the shortcut, and you can change the icon there. It will reflect the new icon on the Start screen.