53 replies to this topic

[CSharp.]

Max Norris, on 22 August 2012 - 13:00, said:

Do you want anything running to be able to watch for the UAC prompt and automatically hit the allow button without your permission?

Are you saying Microsoft feel themselves unable to design a system where this behavior is prevented, yet where at the same time the UAC prompt is drawn in the expected visual style of the rest of the system?

[.Neo]

Max Norris, on 22 August 2012 - 13:00, said:

Do you want anything running to be able to watch for the UAC prompt and automatically hit the allow button without your permission?

This apparently isn't an issue on OS X despite the fact all Authentication windows are proper Aqua. Let's face it, it just confirms that Aero isn't as baked into Windows Vista/7 as it should have been. The sheer fact the entire mess has to revert back to some legacy protocol for security reasons is just ludicrous.

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[Dot Matrix]

firey, on 22 August 2012 - 11:57, said:

Because some of the people at MS which feel as I do about a desktop, are hoping that by not calling it anything it will go away. "Metro UI? What?? Oh that thing, yea.. we just kinda forget about it."

Huh? Then what do you call it on other devices?

[Max Norris]

.Neo, on 22 August 2012 - 13:04, said:

This apparently isn't an issue on OS X despite the fact all Authentication windows are proper Aqua. Let's face it, it just confirms that Aero isn't as baked into Windows Vista/7 as it should have been.

CJEric, on 22 August 2012 - 13:04, said:

Are you saying Microsoft feel themselves unable to design a system where this behavior is prevented, yet where at the same time the UAC prompt is drawn in the expected visual style of the rest of the system?

I guess both of you are forgetting the fact that not all systems are even DWM capable (Windows has to run on everything, unlike Apple which has a very strict set of hardware to work with), some users (for whatever reason) prefer it off, and on some versions of the OS DWM isn't even wanted. Servers for example. Hence, it's not part of the "core OS", but a seperate process.

[.Neo]

Max Norris, on 22 August 2012 - 13:09, said:

I guess both of you are forgetting the fact that not all systems are even DWM capable (Windows has to run on everything, unlike Apple which has a very strict set of hardware to work with), some users (for whatever reason) prefer it off, and on some versions of the OS DWM isn't even wanted. Servers for example. Hence, it's not part of the "core OS", but a seperate process.

I guess you're forgetting starting Windows 8 Microsoft finally addressed this issue by allowing "Aero" to be software rendered instead of hardware rendered only. Apple did the same with Aqua starting day one, all the way back in 2001. Otherwise my 1999 iMac could have never supported OS X to begin with nor run as a guest in VMware Fusion today. I don't recall it being a problem with OS X Server either.

[MarkusDarkus]

Is this still neowin.net??? How can we be almost 20 comments into the thread and nobody has said "...that's because they are going to call it BOB". There is a part of me somewhere that is a little dissapointed.

For me. I will still be calling it Metro. They are trying really hard to be clever and change everybodies way of thinking which isn't necessarily a bad thing. What is bad is that it seems the majority don't really have an idea of the meaning behind what they are doing. Most is unclear and we cannot see how the interface can wholly improve over WIMP.

WIMP has evolved over the years from the original 1.0 with it's tiled interface. Im my mind it's hilarious that everything seems to be going back there. It's like we have come full circle. (And i'm not trolling, i'm making a comparison)

[Colin McGregor]

firey, on 22 August 2012 - 11:57, said:

Because some of the people at MS which feel as I do about a desktop, are hoping that by not calling it anything it will go away. "Metro UI? What?? Oh that thing, yea.. we just kinda forget about it."

Won't happen.

[Max Norris]

.Neo, on 22 August 2012 - 13:13, said:

I guess you're forgetting that with Windows 8 Microsoft finally addressed this issue by allowing "Aero" to be software rendered instead of hardware rendered only.

And yet again, it isn't wanted in every Windows installation. Windows isn't just a desktop OS.

[Neobond]

MarkusDarkus, on 22 August 2012 - 13:13, said:

Is this still neowin.net??? How can we be almost 20 comments into the thread and nobody has said "...that's because they are going to call it BOB". There is a part of me somewhere that is a little dissapointed.

Did you see what you did there?

[.Neo]

Max Norris, on 22 August 2012 - 13:16, said:

And yet again, it isn't wanted in every Windows installation. Windows isn't just a desktop OS.

Windows Server 2012 doesn't allow for Classic anymore either. It utilizes the same (or similar) desktop theme seen in Windows 8. Where does that leave your story? Nowhere.

[MarkusDarkus]

Neobond, on 22 August 2012 - 13:17, said:

Did you see what you did there?

100% Intentional!

[BajiRav]

.Neo, on 22 August 2012 - 12:39, said:

It's painfully obvious that any modern Windows interface is just plastered on top of classic and can peal off at any second. When an error occurs in Windows 7 you can see Aero revert to Basic or in some cases even all the way back to Classic. User Account Control dialog windows always appear in Basic, rather than Aero. As such these new interfaces never felt like a true integral part of Windows. Even though Microsoft disabled classic in Windows 8 and tried to redirect all calls to the old interface, it's still there.

Aqua on the other hand feels like a truly integral part of OS X; the one can't exist without the other. On OS X you'll never see a window without an Aqua border around it. You won't see the interface fail and revert back to something legacy. Ever. It just isn't possible. Note: I'm not talking about apps that run through some kind of virtualization or whatever.

Rationally I fully understand the concept of Windows 8 where the desktop runs as an app within Metro. It's secondary. Much like how Command Prompt in Windows 7 runs on the desktop and not the other way around. It doesn't change the feeling that Metro seems, once again, like something Microsoft stuck on top of the same old Windows in an effort to hide its true form.

I think that's because OS X has no concept of "legacy" or the crazy backwards compatibility you get with Windows. I am probably very wrong but my impression is Apple doesn't care much about backwards compatibility but instead gives importance to consistency whereas Microsoft simply has to do better job with backcompat. I wish they did a better job of polishing and streamlining a UI as much as you do but clearly Microsoft doesn't care.

.Neo, on 22 August 2012 - 13:04, said:

This apparently isn't an issue on OS X despite the fact all Authentication windows are proper Aqua. Let's face it, it just confirms that Aero isn't as baked into Windows Vista/7 as it should have been. The sheer fact the entire mess has to revert back to some legacy protocol for security reasons is just ludicrous.

If OS X is drawing authentication Windows in user context then it doesn't have the same limitation. It's the way system is designed, can it be better designed? sure but again it depends on what the Windows team thought was more important. I won't be surprised if this was a result of combination of factors including driver instability*, security and backwards compatibility.

*something OS X doesn't need to worry about.

[.Neo]

BajiRav, on 22 August 2012 - 14:02, said:

I think that's because OS X has no concept of "legacy" or the crazy backwards compatibility you get with Windows. I am probably very wrong but my impression is Apple doesn't care much about backwards compatibility but instead gives importance to consistency whereas Microsoft simply has to do better job with backcompat. I wish they did a better job of polishing and streamlining a UI as much as you do but clearly Microsoft doesn't care.

We all like to pretend OS X suddenly dropped from the sky in 2001 as something brand new. However, it's not. OS X is based on NeXTSTEP which had its own interface, had a Platinum appearance similar to Mac OS 9 in its early days and seen multiple Aqua versions. Do you see any of that back? Nope. Nothing.

OS X Server 1.0


Apple does care about backward compatibility. They supported Classic up until 2007, came up with Rosetta to allow PPC apps to run natively (as far as the end user's concerned) on Intel and their crown achievement: Universal Binaries. First for Intel/PPC and later on also 32/64-bit. Microsoft on the other hand is still dicking around with different versions for everything. There comes a point though where the company needs to let go in order to move forward. As they should.

BajiRav, on 22 August 2012 - 14:02, said:

If OS X is drawing authentication Windows in user context then it doesn't have the same limitation. It's the way system is designed, can it be better designed? sure but again it depends on what the Windows team thought was more important. I won't be surprised if this was a result of combination of factors including driver instability*, security and backwards compatibility.

*something OS X doesn't need to worry about.

If Microsoft made sure Aero could be rendered through software from day one, l'm pretty sure driver instability and backwards compatibility wouldn't have been an issue. If I had to believe the Windows crowd drivers and compatibility is the excuse for just about everything. I'm not buying that, not to the degree some are trying to convince me of.

[Nazmus Shakib Khandaker]

Let me make it clear for those who are uninformed about how Windows 8 handles DWM (Aero).

UAC Prompt in Windows 8 runs in Aero

Unlike in Windows 7, no program can cause Aero (DWM) to be turned off in WIndows 8. Windows 8 will simply not revert to the basic theme!



That's UAC running in Aero in Windows 8 Consumer Preview


Is that clear?

[GreyWolf]

Can we please discuss the topic? This thread is about what to call a user interface, not administrative prompts or security features.