windows 8 Here's why Metro is awesome in general, and for desktops too

[AWilliams87]

Oh, you mean like Growl? Cool!

For the past 17 years, what have the masses been groomed to do?

A: The power button is off limits and that they should shut down through Windows. So that's what they think they're going to have to do with Windows 8.

You're wrong dude. ACPI has been around for the past few versions.

I'm glad Microsoft stopped taking much input from outside tech nerds such as those on neowin. The complexity of the OS should always have been hidden away from the general user base. Apple has been taking this approach and now Microsoft is in pursuit. If anything, Microsoft needs to expediate the death of the classic desktop as quickly as possible. Had the the tech nerds have their way, Windows 8 would just be Windows 98 with a logo change.

[123456789A]

Please, every microsoft fanboy, get off the asses of people who don't share the same opinion of you concerning windows 8.

Then could all the people complaining about Metro do the same? Wasted energy.

[trag3dy]

Could you be more specific? I'm curious, and I'm not trying to be a tease. Sorry if I am. What (more specifically) do you do faster on your Windows 7 machine?

I could yes, but I don't see any reason why I should. Either you get that the metro start screen doesn't work well on a desktop pc for most people or you don't.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Curious, has anyone installed Photoshop on Windows 8...and all the apps that come with it (Bridge, Help, Extension Mgr, Device Central, Extend Script, etc?). Do you get tiles for each of these apps in Metro? I haven't really got around to installing Photoshop...but before I wrote the below it just popped into my head.

In regards to Windows 8, guess I am a "hater". I loath the Metro and it looks like some cheap "fisher price" interface that distracts from the regular windows desktop. There needs to be an option for the start menu...simple as that. Everything else about Win8 is pretty cool. Metro is just some ugly 3rd party desktop replacement wannabe.

[AWilliams87]

I could yes, but I don't see any reason why I should. Either you get that the metro start screen doesn't work well on a desktop pc for most people or you don't.

Metro works much better with a mouse and keyboard than the classic desktop did. You see how this works? You provide information without evidence, therefore I do the same.

[trag3dy]

Metro works much better with a mouse and keyboard than the classic desktop did. You see how this works? You provide information without evidence, therefore I do the same.

Just go back and reread any of the other threads about it if you want to. There is no reason for me to restate them all.

[+Warwagon MVC]

So you are saying pressing the power button on the tower will trigger a shut down and not put the computer to sleep? I just tried it on my laptop and it put it to sleep.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

So you are saying pressing the power button on the tower will trigger a shut down and not put the computer to sleep? I just tried it on my laptop and it put it to sleep.

Really? Sort of hoping that you are joking

[+Warwagon MVC]

Really? Sort of hoping that you are joking

Just asking because he said

Pressing your power button on the computer itself will shut down your PC as default in Windows 8, so why bother anyway?

I don't have Windows 8 on an desktop system just a laptop, but since Vista and 7 pressing the power button on the tower usually just put the computer to sleep.

[AWilliams87]

So you are saying pressing the power button on the tower will trigger a shut down and not put the computer to sleep? I just tried it on my laptop and it put it to sleep.

For me by default, it shuts down. You can change it by typing power on the start scr... Wait, you're on Windows 7 right? I can't remember how to navigate the endless set of menus to get to where I need to be in Windows 7 anymore.

[+Warwagon MVC]

For me by default, it shuts down. You can change it by typing power on the start scr... Wait, you're on Windows 7 right? I can't remember how to navigate the endless set of menus to get to where I need to be anymore in 7.

Well yes 7 on my desktop, but i don't really care what my power button does, because my computer never gets shut off.

[farmeunit]

For me by default, it shuts down. You can change it by typing power on the start scr... Wait, you're on Windows 7 right? I can't remember how to navigate the endless set of menus to get to where I need to be in Windows 7 anymore.

Like hitting Start and typing in Power? God that's hard. You're right . . .

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Just asking because he said

I don't have Windows 8 on an desktop system just a laptop, but since Vista and 7 pressing the power button on the tower usually just put the computer to sleep.

Just had to reload a fresh copy of Win7 on my notebook post hard drive death. The power button is defaulted to shutdown which I changed to sleep. Of course the OEMs may have it set differently and I honestly do not remember what setting it came with from Dell.

For me by default, it shuts down. You can change it by typing power on the start scr... Wait, you're on Windows 7 right? I can't remember how to navigate the endless set of menus to get to where I need to be in Windows 7 anymore.

Funny, thought you Metro folks liked the ability to type commands making it "easier". Win7 you can type "power o" which takes you to the proper area. If you don't have powerdvd you may even get away with typing just "power'

[AWilliams87]

Like hitting Start and typing in Power? God that's hard. You're right . . .

Hahaha. I laughed out loud in person at that one. You're a funny person.

Funny, thought you Metro folks liked the ability to type commands making it "easier". Win7 you can type "power o" which takes you to the proper area. If you don't have powerdvd you may even get away with typing just "power'

Man, I like Windows 8 for a lot more reasons then that. And to be honest, I didn't think it would be good before I downloaded it. For one, I'm glad they're doing away with those endless menus and icons which we've come to know. Realize this, no one sat down to conduct a study on what the best desktop experience would be and came up with the current desktop we see today. The reason we've seen the classic desktop for so long is because of a kind of path dependence: The menus with icons was what was first introduced (courtesy of xerox) in the 80's and that's what people have gotten use to.

If a study was conducted, however, on say 200 volunteers who've never used a desktop computer before, one would never come with an endless array of menus, icons and folders within folders within folders. I would bet those 200 volunteers would overwhelmingly find Windows 8 far easier to use than every version prior.

[br0adband]

I'll take that post above and add somewhat of a corollary with the idea that what we've been using and how we've been doing things with it might not be the best possible way of getting things done by saying one "word" of sorts:

QWERTY

The QWERTY keyboard layout was created with the specific intention of making typing difficult so people would not be able to type fast(er) - in the times of the original mechanical typewriters by IBM and Remington and the like, the metal hammers that actually impacted/imprinted the letters onto the paper (by hitting the ribbon, etc) could get jammed if you typed too fast. The hardware literally had a "buffer" of sorts that couldn't handle the hammers more than 1 at a time soooo...

The QWERTY layout came into being when a study was done to find out "Ok, we spend more time fixing typing machine jams than actually typing, and productivity is absolute crap because of it, we have to find a better way to do things" and someone thought it would be ok to design a keyboard layout with letters in the most inefficient ways possible to slow people down. "Let's make it hard to type, that'll work..." was the idea and it's stuck for over 130 years now.

Funny thing for me and many others is that if we test ourselves we can get pretty high speeds on QWERTY after using them for so long. I can manage about 115 wpm on a good day, with a typical speed of about 80-90 which is about what I'm at banging this post out right now. But... if I switch to Dvorak and give myself and my hands about 2-4 days to adjust and adapt, I can bang out 180-200 or more words per minute without much trouble at all.

The way things have always been done is rarely the actual best way to get them done, and when a new idea comes along, people don't like change and will resist it with every fiber of their being until, after some experience, they can learn that yes it's possible to change, and with change comes potential.

Like it, don't like it, doesn't matter. Change is coming, is already here, and it's got no intentions of stopping anytime soon.

"IMPROVISE, ADAPT, OVERCOME!" - Gunny Highway, "Heartbreak Ridge" ;)

[Astrum]

The QWERTY keyboard layout was created with the specific intention of making typing difficult so people would not be able to type fast(er)

This is simply not true. http://home.earthlin...r/whyqwert.html

As for keyboards, some design mistakes cost a lot. In the Russian standard layout some smart-ass did put the comma in the upper register (i.e. we need to press SHIFT contrary to English layout), yet comma is statistically showing up much more often than the period (in Russian). I don't think it is easy to change now, but to me it was a big mistake.

So we have a miserable chance to still influence Microsoft (and we should do that) to remove from Metro UI that ugly PowerPoint cognitive taint.

[Steven P. Administrators]

The problem is with the shutdown talk, that isn't the argument at all.. we're talking about restarting the computer, switching users etc which has become more complicated. We have been able to Shutdown since XP just by pressing the power button, and in some cases windows 98 computers supported that as well.

[AWilliams87]

The problem is with the shutdown talk, that isn't the argument at all.. we're talking about restarting the computer, switching users etc which has become more complicated. We have been able to Shutdown since XP just by pressing the power button, and in some cases windows 98 computers supported that as well.

No, it is about the shutting down. All the comments on every blog/website I have read about the subject always said it in the context of shutting down the PC. What you're attempting to do here is reframe the argument as to make it easier to refute. Now another question is why would you want to do that? I don't know, but nonetheless, I'll take your bait: how often are you going to restart your PC as to even make this an issue?

[Steven P. Administrators]

No, it is about the shutting down. All the comments on every blog/website I have read about the subject always said it in the context of shutting down the PC. What you're attempting to do here is reframe the argument as to make it easier to refute. Now another question is why would you want to do that? I don't know, but nonetheless, I'll take your bate: how often are you going to restart your PC as to even make this an issue?

I only restart, and in my article on a compromise for desktop users I made that point clear as well. I work full time from home and my PC is always on, unless I need to restart, and that includes switching from Windows 7 to 8 and back.

Also the boot loader is highly annoying, boot to Windows 8 boot manager, select Windows 7 and the whole PC restarts because the boot manager has already assumed you want to quickly boot into 8 (after already loading a bunch of files).

[AWilliams87]

I only restart, and in my article on a compromise for desktop users I made that point clear as well. I work full time from home and my PC is always on, unless I need to restart, and that includes switching from Windows 7 to 8 and back.

Also the boot loader is highly annoying, boot to Windows 8 boot manager, select Windows 7 and the whole PC restarts because the boot manager has already assumed you want to quickly boot into 8 (after already loading a bunch of files).

Well if that's the case, you can change the power button to restart instead of shutting down when pressed.

[Steven P. Administrators]

Well if that's the case, you can change the power button to restart instead of shutting down when pressed.

Nevermind,. seems you don't get it.

[ichi]

Well if that's the case, you can change the power button to restart instead of shutting down when pressed.

The power button alternative is a cop-out, and only addresses the problem for some home users.

I have access to exactly zero physical Windows machines, every Windows instance I work with is either virtualized or remote. Or both.

All the Metro stuff about invisible hotcorners only works (kind of) for the single scenario where you are running Windows fullscreen on a physical box next to you, and as soon as you try to work with it any other way it's utter failure.

The OP goes about how people not liking Metro can't think out of the box, yet it's all that people saying that using the power button is a perfectly fine alternative or that invisible hotcorners are awesome because of infinite precision that don't seem to be able to get in their heads that there are more use cases that their own home desktop, and that Metro is a PITA in all those other use cases.

Same goes for window managemente and snapping: just because you can snap your chat and some other window together and don't see the point of needing any more windows at sight at the same time means exactly nothing. To begin with I might (and most time do) need to see more that just a couple of windows, and then not all of them benefit from horizontal snapping as some are useless with a reduced width.

I MS wants to go with chromeless tiling window management then implement a frigging tiling window manager, not a half assed one with a single 75/25 snap.

Regarding notifications, I'm already getting all my notifications unified through a single notificacion system (heck, I can even reply to chat messages from the very chat notification without opening a chat windows if there's no need, now how cool is that?) and I'm getting all that without losing sight of my work on the desktop.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't like notifications on Metro tiles. I don't like them, but it's perfectly fine if you do. What I'm saying is that I'd be getting absolutely no advantages over my current desktop when using Metro.

Some people seem unable to grasp this simple concept: just because you find Metro to be an improvement doesn't mean it's an improvement for everyone else. And those individuals go into lengthy explanations about how eveyone complaining are likely wrong: "if you don't like Metro then it's because you are using it wrong, not because there's something wrong with it".

See, maybe you should consider that a)not everyone uses the computer the same way or for the same things, and b)maybe some people's desktops were more advanced than your own previous desktops, and hence don't see Metro as an improvement in the same way you do.

[johnporter29]

Why no regular start menu while browsing Metro?

The Metro Start Screen is the Start Menu. I personally don't mind this at all, and I am sure once I get the chance to use it more then I'd like it even more. Not everyone's cup of tea but I don't have a problem with it.

Metro for desktop computers

I have to admit this can be seen that we have 2 interfaces to one OS, but then again, no-one is forced to use the Metro Apps. I'm particularly looking forward to trying some and see what they are all about with the knowledge that the desktop is only a click or 2 away.

Turning your computer off is harder - or is it?

Okay, the functions are an extra click than what they are in Windows 7 depending on the method chosen, personally not an issue and unsure why it's been made to be such as issue with others but as people say, everyone has there opinions. On my laptop I will press the power button, on my desktop which is generally out of the way and not as accessible, I generally use the start menu, in Win 8, I'd most probably create a shortcut on the Start Screen.

[xWhiplash]

I have to admit this can be seen that we have 2 interfaces to one OS, but then again, no-one is forced to use the Metro Apps. I'm particularly looking forward to trying some and see what they are all about with the knowledge that the desktop is only a click or 2 away.

You are forced to use the Metro UI. So yes, you are forced to use two different UI designs at the same time. This is a bad idea.

[johnporter29]

You are forced to use the Metro UI. So yes, you are forced to use two different UI designs at the same time. This is a bad idea.

Yes you have to use the Metro UI, however I stated that you are not forced to use the Metro Applications.