official Windows 8 Consumer Preview Discussion

[Stoffel]

I honestly think they missed a good opportunity with integrating the Live tiles notification/toast with the desktop. I shouldn't have to bring-up the Start Screen to see new messages and mail. There should be a system-wide notification so that Metro apps can notify the user of updates including the Desktop.

I didn't see this in the Windows 8 CP installed on my laptop. I tested the Mail app by sending emails to the Live account from my Yahoo account. I then purposely stayed in the desktop environment. My Windows Phone 7 did a good job indicating a new mail arrived within about 3 minutes, but I never got any notification from the Mail app since I was in the desktop. I had to open the Start Screen to see the new message icon. This is the missed opportunity, and limits the usefulness of the Metro notification.

Does this feature exist for Windows 8? Do we have to manually go into the Start Screen to check for updates?

Don't know about the mail app, but the messenger app shows a little notification in the top right corner when I receive a message. Even when I'm on the desktop, so I guess this must me a bug in the mail app, or functionality they are still building.

[jarrettwold]

I spent the afternoon thinking about the reviews, negative reaction and the idea of a "power user"

The difficulty with judging the rave reviews, is that most of them are based on evaluation tablets provided by Microsoft. There haven't been many reviews using Windows 8 Consumer Preview on the desktop. That was deliberate by Microsoft. Metro is a wonderful tablet interface and they wanted to show that off. They're learning in leaps and bounds lessons from Apple in this release, when it comes to media management and presentation.

People do tend to have self selection bias when leaping to the internet to voice their displeasure about a product or service. I think Yelp is a great example of that, and Amazon's hilariously sarcastic reviews of Monster cables are another. That being said, there has been a turnout of users that like the new hybrid UI a lot, and compliment it. There has been a significantly larger turnout of users that don't like it. My completely arbitrary measurement, that across multiple sites, and forums the likes are 1 in 10. So, even if I bring that ratio down to 1 in 5 just to throw out trolls and so forth. You're still looking at a hefty number of 4 out 5 people not liking it. So that should give MSFT some pause. By far the most visceral reaction has been around ditching the start menu.

People love their inefficiency. If you ask them "if we made something better would you use it?" the answer will be yes. Then you go do a ton of research, come back with it and they don't like it. As they prefer the inefficiency. So we get to the "power users."

In this case I've decided "power users" aren't just us geeks downloading ISOs, dual booting systems and having multiple displays. It's people that create and consume content. Your average user, at home, isn't creating content typically. They're certainly consuming it in terms of watching youtube for cute kittens, or netflix while they're in an airport. Metro is great for content consumers. Then we dial up what I've rethought as "power users"; people that create content, in significant and meaningful ways. This can be the act of editing home video, ripping/burning mix cds, using spreadsheets to balance their budget and so forth.

Power users tend to have multiple windows, multiple documents and tasks running at the same time. They switch between them. Going with an excel spreadsheet, you're editing your budget and go "oh geez, I need to scan in those receipts." That Neat Scanner has dialed down the experience you need to accomplish that task, so you fire that software up. Pretty soon you have a half dozen windows open and it's terribly inefficient. But, that's the way you do things. As programmers, IT professionals and tech aficionados we have the same number of windows open if not more, we're just doing different things. So in that sense, just because what we're doing in our windows is more complex usually doesn't make your average, run of the mill user any less of a "power user"

So the outrage over the start menu being gone, the interaction and workflow being changed isn't just the outcry of the "power users." It's the users who have been doing simple things in inefficient ways and don't want to change, because they now how to eek efficiency out of their process. They're "power users" as well In that sense, that's where Microsoft has always been good to the regular user and power users. The choice is yours in how you want to accomplish the task at hand. Even though there's been dramatic change since Windows 95 to Windows 7, the general concepts are still the same. People are comfortable with those concepts. So it's no concession, from MSFT to say "hey this is where we're going, we're going to leave it as the default, but if you want to accomplish the same things, your way, then we'll leave that option open to you"

So should there be an option to turn the start menu back on, and turn metro off? Yup. MSFT, you're not Apple ;) The main selling point for Windows has been ubiquity, choice and consistency. You decide to leave anyone of those in the dust, and it's going to hurt I think.

[BoyBoppins]

So some changes I think need to happen are Metro apps utilizing shortcuts like ctrl-z, backspace, or three finger flick backwards with Synaptics trackpads sending the back command.

The left side app switcher should list the app name on hovering since they are too small to get a good look at and I cant always tell which app is which by the small thumbnail

Power options need to be more easily accesible. Like from the user dropdown (Someone had a good mockup)

Also, what do people think about adding an option for Win32 apps to run fullsize as metro apps if the user wants?

[Glen]

Also, what do people think about adding an option for Win32 apps to run fullsize as metro apps if the user wants?

While I don't know a great deal about the metro interface, from what I know of development, I don't think it's that easy. Any application could be updated (at the code level) to provide both interfaces, but you can't just slap a new interface on an existing application from the OS level.

Probably the best programming model would be to separate all functionality from the UI, and then design two distinct UIs for Win32/64 and Metro. Almost like an MVC model/pattern for desktop applications, and there is probably already frameworks being developed for this purpose, I just haven't done the research yet.

[Ashoktvm]

Is there any workaround to get the apps working, which says its not available in your market. Any help please.

[ATLien_0]

tried Windows 8 and love it so far

whats funny to me is that back in the 90's and even towards XP everyone had there apps and shortcuts linked on the desktop (desktop clutter) and it was also common to run everything in full screen because of screen sizes back then. Then Vista comes out and now you can pin your apps to the new start menu, next Windows 7 and you can pin to the taskbar as well. People fussed a bit on this

Now with Windows 8 and the start screen, you have a desktop environment with your apps pinned to it like the old days and now they can be grouped. And wait people freak out again. Haha.

I know this is only a small part of peoples freak out, but does no one else see this besides me?

[Wyn6]

Power Options mockups Microsoft should look into:

I like the second better. A bit more elegant, I think. Doesn't add any more clutter to the interface. I can get with this.

[Wyn6]

I spent the afternoon thinking about the reviews, negative reaction and the idea of a "power user"

The difficulty with judging the rave reviews, is that most of them are based on evaluation tablets provided by Microsoft. There haven't been many reviews using Windows 8 Consumer Preview on the desktop. That was deliberate by Microsoft. Metro is a wonderful tablet interface and they wanted to show that off. They're learning in leaps and bounds lessons from Apple in this release, when it comes to media management and presentation.

People do tend to have self selection bias when leaping to the internet to voice their displeasure about a product or service. I think Yelp is a great example of that, and Amazon's hilariously sarcastic reviews of Monster cables are another. That being said, there has been a turnout of users that like the new hybrid UI a lot, and compliment it. There has been a significantly larger turnout of users that don't like it. My completely arbitrary measurement, that across multiple sites, and forums the likes are 1 in 10. So, even if I bring that ratio down to 1 in 5 just to throw out trolls and so forth. You're still looking at a hefty number of 4 out 5 people not liking it. So that should give MSFT some pause. By far the most visceral reaction has been around ditching the start menu.

People love their inefficiency. If you ask them "if we made something better would you use it?" the answer will be yes. Then you go do a ton of research, come back with it and they don't like it. As they prefer the inefficiency. So we get to the "power users."

In this case I've decided "power users" aren't just us geeks downloading ISOs, dual booting systems and having multiple displays. It's people that create and consume content. Your average user, at home, isn't creating content typically. They're certainly consuming it in terms of watching youtube for cute kittens, or netflix while they're in an airport. Metro is great for content consumers. Then we dial up what I've rethought as "power users"; people that create content, in significant and meaningful ways. This can be the act of editing home video, ripping/burning mix cds, using spreadsheets to balance their budget and so forth.

Power users tend to have multiple windows, multiple documents and tasks running at the same time. They switch between them. Going with an excel spreadsheet, you're editing your budget and go "oh geez, I need to scan in those receipts." That Neat Scanner has dialed down the experience you need to accomplish that task, so you fire that software up. Pretty soon you have a half dozen windows open and it's terribly inefficient. But, that's the way you do things. As programmers, IT professionals and tech aficionados we have the same number of windows open if not more, we're just doing different things. So in that sense, just because what we're doing in our windows is more complex usually doesn't make your average, run of the mill user any less of a "power user"

So the outrage over the start menu being gone, the interaction and workflow being changed isn't just the outcry of the "power users." It's the users who have been doing simple things in inefficient ways and don't want to change, because they now how to eek efficiency out of their process. They're "power users" as well In that sense, that's where Microsoft has always been good to the regular user and power users. The choice is yours in how you want to accomplish the task at hand. Even though there's been dramatic change since Windows 95 to Windows 7, the general concepts are still the same. People are comfortable with those concepts. So it's no concession, from MSFT to say "hey this is where we're going, we're going to leave it as the default, but if you want to accomplish the same things, your way, then we'll leave that option open to you"

So should there be an option to turn the start menu back on, and turn metro off? Yup. MSFT, you're not Apple ;) The main selling point for Windows has been ubiquity, choice and consistency. You decide to leave anyone of those in the dust, and it's going to hurt I think.

What's funny is, I see this entirely differently. I'm not seeing the overwhelmingly negative responses that you claim to have seen. From Twitter to various blogs and sites I've seen at least an equal number of people who like it as don't like it. I've also seen people who say they don't like it stay with it or uninstall then reinstall it only to come back and admit it's growing on them. Now, the tech blog comments are a little biased as many of these people are geeks and many geeks are gonna rail against change good or bad. Not all the time but a lot.

Anecdotally, I've played Dungeons and Dragons off and on since I was a kid. So, yes... I'm a geek too. Shocker. But, I can recall the transition from Advanced DnD to 3rd Edition and then again to 4th Edition. The outcry was eerily similar. People yelling about why they took this away and added this, how much the game was dumbed down, the emphasis on "roll-playing" at the expense of roleplaying, a beloved race, or class changed, etc. Then there was the converse of all that as well. Which was, I love this change, now the game plays faster, they cut redundancies and unnecessary mechanics and game elements, this race is now a player race? cool, I'm buying some new dice, where's the Mountain Dew? and so on.

Most of these battles were witnessed on the internets, and now I'm witnessing the exact same arguments over and over again with Windows 8. Which incidentally came with the transition to other iterations of Windows as well. Anyway, eventually new players climbed onboard, others stayed onboard and others who'd left returned after awhile, and still others gave it up permanently. That is the nature of change. Some will accept it good or bad, happily or grudgingly, blindly or skeptically. Some won't accept it at first, some won't accept it at all and will go kicking and screaming. But, it will still occur in some form or fashion.

New people will come to Windows 8, others will stay with Windows 8, others will stay with previous versions. Some of those who have gone off to OSX and Linux will return, and others will give up Windows permanently. This has all happened before and it will happen again. It is the nature of change.

[Dot Matrix]

This has all happened before and it will happen again. It is the nature of change.

Frack me. ;)

[BetaAddict]

Anyone else having issues with sleep wake where the computer powers up but the display does not turn on? Any ideas on what might be causing it or do I have to resort to using the new one-click reset feature for a clean install?

[ilovetech]

anybody noticed that the start screen thumbnail that appears on lower left corner actually reflects the actual layout of tiles in start screen i.e its dynamic rather than static based on your groups & layout.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

^^

Thats one of the things I like about it. (Y)

[FalseAgent]

anybody noticed that the start screen thumbnail that appears on lower left corner actually reflects the actual layout of tiles in start screen i.e its dynamic rather than static based on your groups & layout.

aaaaand did anyone notice the animation of the Windows 8 logo when you open up the charms menu (winkey+c)?

it's very subtle, but it's there.

[techguy77]

anybody noticed that the start screen thumbnail that appears on lower left corner actually reflects the actual layout of tiles in start screen i.e its dynamic rather than static based on your groups & layout.

What's funny about that screenshot is that you have weather gadget opened on your desktop and yet you will switch entirely to Alien OS within Windows 8 with its Metro App Weather Application. :cry:

[ilovetech]

What's funny about that screenshot is that you have weather gadget opened on your desktop and yet you will switch entirely to Alien OS within Windows 8 with its Metro App Weather Application. :cry:

True. Initially i liked metro but now it feels that two OS are trying to behave properly as one. There is huge inconsistency all around for eg. take Media center or Zune in full screen, it gives the feel of metro app but actually they are not. You cant close them by dragging down etc nor they appear in task switcher seperately. Instead of considering desktop as an app wouldn't it be better if they would consider "each desktop app" as a separate app? It would have been much natural transition to metro if there was a task-bar in metro. Metro simply is not for multitasking.

Whats's more funny is the fact that metro weather app is not available in my market. I simply don't understand logic behind dividing weather app based on market?

[justmike]

1. Metro IE is for touch. Don't bother using it on a desktop device.

2. To close a Metro app, grab the top and drag it to the bottom of the screen. This was shown in the keynote video more than once.

3. Yes. Windows 8 will be designed for tablets, which you would usually put into sleep rather than shut down to be able to go back to your session later.

1. On a touch, would you not want those options also?

2. That's crazy on a 27" desktop screen.

3. So what about desktops?

[PGHammer]

Then don't use Metro apps. Use a desktop app.

Precisely, hagjohn.

Use what works for you.

One thing I've been doing with Messenger (which is also linked to my Facebook account) is that it pops up alerts whenever I get a chat message via Facebook chat (the alerts use the upper right corner) - if I want to answer it, I open up a new tab and launch my Facebook homepage in desktop IE10 (using Yahoo Toolbar, oddly enough, which works just fine). It's basically tag-teaming a Metro applet and the traditional way of doing things - something that Sideshow was supposed to do, back in the Longhorn days. Once Mail gets improved (specifically the addition of POP/SMTP support, which it lacks), the same sort of tag-teaming would be usable by me with Outlook (Exchange and Hotmail users can do this now). It's not either/or - unless you want/need it to be.

WLM in Windows 7 (which also supports Facebook chat) is nowhere near this slick when it comes to Facebook chat, let alone alerts for Facebook chat. (Yahoo Messenger isn't either - yet.)

[Buendia]

What happened to Aero Peek (when you position mouse in the area next to the clock it shows desktop)?

In Windows 8, Charms Bar appears, but how to make it to show the preview of the desktop?

[ilovetech]

What happened to Aero Peek (when you position mouse in the area next to the clock it shows desktop)?

In Windows 8, Charms Bar appears, but how to make it to show the preview of the desktop?

It is still there, right click at that to enable it back. But it causes problem as both the functionality (charm + Aero peek) are triggered at same time.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

What happened to Aero Peek (when you position mouse in the area next to the clock it shows desktop)?

In Windows 8, Charms Bar appears, but how to make it to show the preview of the desktop?

It is still there.

Not just its icon or whatever you wanna call it

[Stoffel]

Precisely, hagjohn.

Use what works for you.

One thing I've been doing with Messenger (which is also linked to my Facebook account) is that it pops up alerts whenever I get a chat message via Facebook chat (the alerts use the upper right corner) - if I want to answer it, I open up a new tab and launch my Facebook homepage in desktop IE10 (using Yahoo Toolbar, oddly enough, which works just fine). It's basically tag-teaming a Metro applet and the traditional way of doing things - something that Sideshow was supposed to do, back in the Longhorn days. Once Mail gets improved (specifically the addition of POP/SMTP support, which it lacks), the same sort of tag-teaming would be usable by me with Outlook (Exchange and Hotmail users can do this now). It's not either/or - unless you want/need it to be.

WLM in Windows 7 (which also supports Facebook chat) is nowhere near this slick when it comes to Facebook chat, let alone alerts for Facebook chat. (Yahoo Messenger isn't either - yet.)

How did you manage to get messages from the Message App from your facebook people?

I can only see the people online that I have in messenger

[Buendia]

It is still there, right click at that to enable it back. But it causes problem as both the functionality (charm + Aero peek) are triggered at same time.

Thanks! I was beginning to get worried a little bit :)

Yeah, I can see that it causes usability issues, but I can use top-right corner for Charms Bar and lower-left corner for Aero Peek.

[Wakers]

If you shift the taskbar to the left edge of the screen, this issue goes. I've had it like that since Windows 7 though, due to having a widescreen monitor.

[downhillrider]

i dont know if this has been brought up but why doesnt the metro ie have no favorites.

[FalseAgent]

i dont know if this has been brought up but why doesnt the metro ie have no favorites.

I was wondering the same thing too, but I guess they want you to pin sites to the start screen instead. I think that kinda makes sense, because the start screen has a TON of space.