Why are people so confused on Win8?

[techguy77]

I think it's easy to see this isn't true. Just got look at the Building Windows 8 blog where we talk about all the new features targeted specifically at these sort of scenarios. Improvements to the file explorer, multi-mon taskbar, etc.

For what it's worth, most of us designing and writing Windows 8 do most of that work on beefy multi-mon desktop machines. It would be very hard to do anything but constantly think about these scenarios :-)

I'd rather see Virtual Desktop and in my mind would be more useful than Metro whole together.

[TAZMINATOR]

You can have the desktop on ALL your monitors. The Start screen will just act exactly like the Windows 7 start menu does now - it'll open up on the screen you call it on, and then close and return you to the desktop when you're done with it. It's not always just sitting in living there. It's a menu, not a desktop replacement. It does not constantly hog your monitor and not let you do anything else... it's just a start menu!

Windows 8 does that. Taskbar that extends across all your monitors, and lets you have specific apps on each. Yays? :p

I know that. Obviously, you didn't read all the posts, I was talking about adding an option to turn Metro off and stay in desktop mode for good instead of doing the registry tweak. Which is why Stoffel said that Microsoft won't add an option for that. That is stupid.

I understand they create apps across the Metro environment. But I am sure desktop users want to stay in desktop mode for their daily work usages.

I will wait until the final version of Windows 8 come out and see what I could do about it. If I am not happy with it, then I go back to Windows 7 or something else..

[+Warwagon MVC]

FYI, the Metro design language predates its usage on touch devices.

Do you have the same complaint about its use on the Xbox?

But on Xbox 360 you never had a mouse and keyboard just a controller. They built the metro UI on the 360 from the ground up and for a better Kinect experience, so there it makes sense. Plus the whole thing is Metro, you just won't all of the sudden find yourself in a part of the 360 UI that was made for a mouse or keyboard.

[techguy77]

FYI, the Metro design language predates its usage on touch devices.

Do you have the same complaint about its use on the Xbox?

And again mixing Apples and Oranges. XBOX is not a PC, people use Controller and I use Keyboard and Mouse for PC. XBOX Dashboard came naturally as solution based on hardware specs. and the way the console is used. That is not natural for PC where people use keyboard and mouse to type, point and click. Metro makes sense on Tablets due the nature of device itself. Someone at Microsoft completely lost the conception what is what.

And let's say i would use Touch on PC Desktop. No touch would be more productive as use of mouse to point and click especially not when you have to involve keyboard since no typing on screen would be near effective as typing on real keyboard and switching between real keyboard and touch screen is even worse.

[cropcircles]

Maybe Nintendo and MS can get together and come up with a Wii attachment for W8 and if you don't feel like using the touchscreen you can swing your Wii paddle around, or better yet just use the MS Connect and have wireless attachments hooked up to my head so I can just think through my W8 journey.

[~Johnny]

I know that. Obviously, you didn't read all the posts, I was talking about adding an option to turn Metro off and stay in desktop mode for good instead of doing the registry tweak. Which is why Stoffel said that Microsoft won't add an option for that. That is stupid.

That's my point - you're not "switching" to a Metro mode - you're just opening start menu, albiet in full screen. It's still all explorer.exe, and it's still a menu that can launch desktop programs.

And again mixing Apples and Oranges. XBOX is not a PC, people use Controller and I use Keyboard and Mouse for PC. XBOX Dashboard came naturally as solution based on hardware specs. and the way the console is used. That is not natural for PC where people use keyboard and mouse to type, point and click. Metro makes sense on Tablets due the nature of device itself. Someone at Microsoft completely lost the conception what is what.

Metro is a design *style* of ideas, not a fixed rigid implementation. It can work well practically anywhere, as long as the designers do it right - and t's evident that they're not using the same navigation and usage paradigms they used on the Xbox 360 here with Windows 8. Despite sharing the same visual style, the actual implementation is tailored for it's end game of controller / voice / gesture usage (though it's easy to argue they sacrificed usability on the controller side for Kinect support)- just as the Windows 8 implementation is tailored to BOTH touch and desktop.

[techguy77]

That's my point - you're not "switching" to a Metro mode - you're just opening start menu, albiet in full screen. It's still all explorer.exe, and it's still a menu that can launch desktop programs.

That is complete Mind Set transition and taking away your focus from Desktop itself. People reaction is going to be this...what bull**** is this. MS goes against basic UI principles and that is, you don't break work flow by any means!

[~Johnny]

That is complete Mind Set transition and taking away your focus from Desktop itself. People reaction is going to be this...what bull**** is this. MS goes against basic UI principles and that is, you don't break work flow by any means!

Work flow = series of steps. On Windows 7, open start menu, launch program from start menu, use program on desktop. On Windows 8, that exact work flow still exists. Open start menu, launch program from start menu, use program on desktop.

taking away your focus from Desktop itself

Realistically you should be focusing on the work you're doing, and that's still what happens here.

[techguy77]

That's my point - you're not "switching" to a Metro mode - you're just opening start menu, albiet in full screen. It's still all explorer.exe, and it's still a menu that can launch desktop programs.

Metro is a design *style* of ideas, not a fixed rigid implementation. It can work well practically anywhere, as long as the designers do it right - and t's evident that they're not using the same navigation and usage paradigms they used on the Xbox 360 here with Windows 8. Despite sharing the same visual style, the actual implementation is tailored for it's end game of controller / voice / gesture usage (though it's easy to argue they sacrificed usability on the controller side for Kinect support)- just as the Windows 8 implementation is tailored to BOTH touch and desktop.

-Just as the Windows 8 implementation is tailored to BOTH touch and desktop.-

No it is not. It is breaking Desktop badly, especially work flow due simple reason. My PC already has way of communicating with me and that is Desktop. Any type of Metro is duplication and breaking work flow therefore really unneccessary. But again without it MS would not have any selling point for Windows 8 and again why do even need Windows 8 at this moment? Windows 7 still can't beat Windows XP market.

Work flow = series of steps. On Windows 7, open start menu, launch program from start menu, use program on desktop. On Windows 8, that exact work flow still exists. Open start menu, launch program from start menu, use program on desktop.

Realistically you should be focusing on the work you're doing, and that's still what happens here.

On Windows 8, flow is visually broken. Logically still might be there. Here is workflow in Windows 8: Open Start Menu -> you are in wtf look and feel (where the **** is my desktop), use program on desktop -> Oh i am back to desktop, wtf just happened. Often even if I click start menu in windows 7 i still monitor progress in certain application for which reaction time is essential. MS never explained why user would need Metro to replace Windows 7 Start Menu. Why? It is already working well with Windows 7. What are they trying to accomplish? Honestly, i have no idea! If they wanted to change Start Menu, it is possible to change it and keep it within Desktop at so many ways. Just look at Desktop space itself, completely unused minus very small portion of the screen for Taskbar. Why would i have stupid Tile box to check weather temperature when i can have little applet sitting on desktop itself and still stay on desktop. I never understood why are they not two taskbars like in Linux. Search bar always could be moved to another Taskbar sitting on top of the screen which would eliminate the need for user to even hit window key in order to type and search something from Start Menu. These are just ideas and as I said there are so many ways to improve Desktop itself without creating this bull****.

[~Johnny]

On Windows 8, flow is visually broken. Logically still might be there. Here is workflow in Windows 8: Open Start Menu -> you are in wtf look and feel (where the **** is my desktop), use program on desktop -> Oh i am back to desktop, wtf just happened. Often even if I click start menu in windows 7 i still monitor progress in certain application for which reaction time is essential. MS never explained why user would need Metro to replace Windows 7 Start Menu. Why? It is already working well with Windows 7. What are they trying to accomplish? Honestly, i have no idea! If they wanted to change Start Menu, it is possible to change it and keep it within Desktop at so many ways. Just look at Desktop space itself. Completely unused minus very small portion of the screen for Taskbar.

This may happen once, maybe the first 3 or 4 times. You'll quite easily realize what's going on. 6 month in you're still still going be thinking "what's this?!" are you? It's different, people are obviously going to notice that. And then it'll become normal.

The Metro start screen can provide more applications on the screen at once, provide much clearer and easier visual clues as to where your application is, actually make it easier and faster to click on items on the start menu (using Fitt's law, the enlarged hit targets allow you to actually get where you need to be faster), and provide you with live data for those applications if you so want it without actually needing to go into them. It also allows much better customization and grouping - there's certainly some evident reasons therefore as to why Microsoft have done this. For a lot of the computing population, this makes things far easier.

The desktop is unused in their screenshots? You can still do whatever you want with them. Put files, put folders, put applications, put funny little widgets. Do whatever you want with it, Microsoft aren't stopping you.

[techguy77]

This may happen once, maybe the first 3 or 4 times. You'll quite easily realize what's going on. 6 month in you're still still going be thinking "what's this?!" are you? It's different, people are obviously going to notice that. And then it'll become normal.

The Metro start screen can provide more applications on the screen at once, provide much clearer and easier visual clues as to where your application is, actually make it easier and faster to click on items on the start menu (using Fitt's law, the enlarged hit targets allow you to actually get where you need to be faster), and provide you with live data for those applications if you so want it without actually needing to go into them. It also allows much better customization and grouping - there's certainly some evident reasons therefore as to why Microsoft have done this. For a lot of the computing population, this makes things far easier.

The desktop is unused in their screenshots? You can still do whatever you want with them. Put files, put folders, put applications, put funny little widgets. Do whatever you want with it, Microsoft aren't stopping you.

Never heard of Fitt's law but i can tell you does not apply for me. Tell you this. Change your 27" screen resolution to 800*600 and tell me how that works for you being everything enlarged.

Yes put files, folders, put application, funny little widgets and than you realize wow i don't need stupid Metro but it is there to get in my way. Clearly you don't see a point. As far as Metro providing more applications on the screen at once, again wrong. Just one Visual Studio Program Files Folder under Start Menu has so many shortcuts to lunch different tools which are very easy to find and well organized with the current start Menu. Are you telling me that all those call them shortcuts will be laid out in Metro interface and that i will have to spend **** load of time to organize all that crap. Dear Lord. I bet those tool shortcuts wont even show up in Metro but only Visual Studio luncher itself. Desktop does not need live feed for anything, Phone does because it is only way to read live data. Again mixing Apples and Oranges.

Really i am not upset about Windows 8 cause for me it is dead OS as soon as it gets outs. Windows 7 is clearely there. What concerns me is Windows 9 and expanding of bull**** from Windows 8. At that point Windows 7 might not be efficient enough due hardware support which clearly will make me move to another alternatives, namely Linux. Now that would be ok but my work requires use of Windows therefore being ****ed for 8 hours is not a good thing. :)

[pack34]

Never heard of Fitt's law but i can tell you does not apply for me. Tell you this. Change your 27" screen resolution to 800*600 and tell me how that works for you being everything enlarged.

Yes put files, folders, put application, funny little widgets and than you realize wow i don't need stupid Metro but it is there to get in my way. Clearly you don't see a point. As far as Metro providing more applications on the screen at once, again wrong. Just one Visual Studio Program Files Folder under Start Menu has so many shortcuts to lunch different tools which are very easy to find and well organized with the current start Menu. Are you telling me that all those call them shortcuts will be laid out in Metro interface and that i will have to spend **** load of time to organize all that crap. Dear Lord. I bet those tool shortcuts wont even show up in Metro but only Visual Studio luncher itself.

Do you really still go through the folder structure on the current start menu? Why? You know what you're looking for so all you need to do is to type three letters and press enter. It requires less clicks and it's faster.

You don't need to really organize anything in the start screen. If you really want to you can add a couple categories and add a couple icons but unless the tiles provide information that interest you there is no point to pin them. Just type and press enter. It's much faster and more efficient.

[cropcircles]

Do you really still go through the folder structure on the current start menu? Why? You know what you're looking for so all you need to do is to type three letters and press enter. It requires less clicks and it's faster.

You don't need to really organize anything in the start screen. If you really want to you can add a couple categories and add a couple icons but unless the tiles provide information that interest you there is no point to pin them. Just type and press enter. It's much faster and more efficient.

And why not just a speed Dial menu.

[pack34]

And why not just a speed Dial menu.

For the start screen? With tiles they can display information and not just show a snapshot of what the application looks like. I'd encourage to at least wait to reserve judgement until after you've played with the CP but if it doesn't give you enough bang for your buck, you don't have to buy it.

[Anthonyd]

And why not just a speed Dial menu.

You can pin website on the home screen and even group them as you like. :)

[techguy77]

Do you really still go through the folder structure on the current start menu? Why? You know what you're looking for so all you need to do is to type three letters and press enter. It requires less clicks and it's faster.

You don't need to really organize anything in the start screen. If you really want to you can add a couple categories and add a couple icons but unless the tiles provide information that interest you there is no point to pin them. Just type and press enter. It's much faster and more efficient.

Yes i still go through the folder Structure. Search is useless for me since Windows XP, because it doesn't find a ****. I could care less about programs from start menu being found since i can easily find them and click. Sometimes i can't remember the names of all the files in subfolders (inside start menu) therefore it is faster just to do click and point. As I said Visual Studio install has so many files and subfolders within main folder inside Start Menu that would be useless to have them spread in Metro across the screen. There are a lot of other Apps which are not simply only once shortcut launcher. I am sure Microsoft went through different case scenarios.

In real time scenario i performed on various people from various ages 95% of them still don't type anything in search to find. They actually go and look for and click on it. I think whole type to find concept MS came up with is a failure. Now it is even worse with Metro Start Menu which will confuse those 95% + additional 2% due whole layout being different.

As I said Microsoft does case scenario but not a good conclusion they get from it.

[nub]

What some of you fail to see is how Windows 8 is Microsoft's first step into the post-PC era.

Workstations aren't going anywhere though.

Also, most people are mentally too old and too stupid to understand new things.

Wow...

[pack34]

Yes i still go through the folder Structure. Search is useless for me since Windows XP, because it doesn't find a ****. I could care less about programs from start menu being found since i can easily find them and click. Sometimes i can't remember the names of all the files in subfolders (inside start menu) therfore it is faster just to do click and point. As I said Visual Studio install has so many files and subfolders within main folder inside Start Menu that would be useless to have them spread in Metro across the screen. There are a lot of other Apps which are not simply only once shortcut luncher. I am sure Microsoft went through different case scenarios.

If it's in the start menu, the search will find it. In the metro start screen, you are able to browse all of your installed apps and they'll automatically be grouped. For example, all of visual studio's stuff will be under the visual studio heading, Office programs under office, etc.

[TygrScott]

I'm skipping on Win8 because Win7 is so awesome.

[Dot Matrix]

Yes i still go through the folder Structure. Search is useless for me since Windows XP, because it doesn't find a ****. I could care less about programs from start menu being found since i can easily find them and click. Sometimes i can't remember the names of all the files in subfolders (inside start menu) therefore it is faster just to do click and point. As I said Visual Studio install has so many files and subfolders within main folder inside Start Menu that would be useless to have them spread in Metro across the screen. There are a lot of other Apps which are not simply only once shortcut luncher. I am sure Microsoft went through different case scenarios.

In real time scenario i performed on various people from various ages 95% of them still don't type anything in search to find. They actually go and look for and click on it. I think whole type to find concept MS came up with is a failure. Now it is even worse with Metro Start Menu which will confuse those 95% + additional 2% even more.

As I said Microsoft does case scenario but not a good conclusion they get from it.

Dude, Windows 7 search is completly different from XP's search. It's not a failure in my mind as it's a million times easier to type in 3 characters, (Windows then finds anything and everything relating to those three characters) and pressing enter, than it it to *point*, *click*, *click*...... *point*, *click*....... *click*........ *scroll*, *point* *click*..... *click*....... Oh there it is!

From the sounds of your posts, I picture this angry older person, banging on a keyboard, cursing out computers for changing. If you can't adapt to the changes computers face each year, then you are doomed, and the only person you have to blame is yourself. Change happens, and in computing change happens ALOT! From the sound of things, you're still coding outdated apps, that are unable to take advantage of the newer ways of doing things in Windows.... So why then would anyone wanna use them? As a developer, you *should* be pushing things forward, and helping people discover the new ways of doing things. You should be the first people looking forward to all the new things coming down the pipeline. That goes for anyone even remotely interested in working with computers.

[techguy77]

If it's in the start menu, the search will find it. In the metro start screen, you are able to browse all of your installed apps and they'll automatically be grouped. For example, all of visual studio's stuff will be under the visual studio heading, Office programs under office, etc.

Obviously not everything can fit on screen therefore there will be endless browsing with what? Mouse? Again or simply typing which is the concept not grasped by most people.

[Stoffel]

Obviously not everything can fit on screen therefore there will be endless browsing with what? Mouse? Again or simply typing which is the concept not grasped by most people.

So probably when you type Visual and click you will get the whole Visual Studio heading with all it's programs and you just select whatever you need, how hard is that?

[pack34]

Obviously not everything can fit on screen therefore there will be endless browsing with what? Mouse? Again or simply typing which is the concept not grasped by most people.

You have your pinned tiles that you choose to pin to the screen. This can scroll from side to side i needed. You can also make categories and headings. The big app list has headings and small logos that scrolls side to side.

[techguy77]

Dude, Windows 7 search is completly different from XP's search. It's not a failure in my mind as it's a million times easier to type in 3 characters, (Windows then finds anything and everything relating to those three characters) and pressing enter, than it it to *point*, *click*, *click*...... *point*, *click*....... *click*........ *scroll*, *point* *click*..... *click*....... Oh there it is!

If you are unable to adapt to new ways of computing, then you have no right to be working with them. You'll be forever stuck in your ways and everything new (No matter how beneficial or not) will "suck".

As I said it is useless, go type specific *.dll name located in Windows Folder in your start search. It won't find it.... As I said most people do not type word to search for but they actually go point and click so as a concept search we have in Windows is a failure.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Also, most people are mentally too old and too stupid to understand new things.

I'll somewhat agree to that.