Windows 8 designers are blind.

[bandit_liberty_rumble]

Wasted resources. I wouldn't want to have used time on a skin, instead of system performance/stability.

And that's probably why Microsoft doesn't spend any time on this stuff...Not enough people that demand it.

By the way though, one doesn't have anything to do with the other. Whoever is responsible for performance and stability would not be responsible for also designing the UI. So it's a completely false dichotomy.

Edited August 18, 2012 by CJEric

[SubZenit]

Guys, try this: put a file in recycle bin/erase a file from recycle bin and tell me if you hear any sound, I think they forgot to add sounds to the Recycle bin, LOL!

[McKay]

Guys, try this: put a file in recycle bin/erase a file from recycle bin and tell me if you hear any sound, I think they forgot to add sounds to the Recycle bin, LOL!

They also removed the Login/Logout sounds, whether or not these have been "forgotten" Im not sure, they completely redid the sound scheme for Windows 8 RTM, It seems a huge thing to forget, I don't know.

[anidais]

No it doesn't. Those issues in OP are minor and will have no impact at all. Wasted resources. I wouldn't want to have used time on a skin, instead of system performance/stability.

Performance is more important, but there are people who care about the UI. It feels like Microsoft listened to the response from the community about merging the desktop and the start screen better, and began work on it but stopped before completing it. They just touched it slightly but didn't put much effort into making it feel more complete. They don't want aero glass anymore, but why still leave bits of it? Why no new icons? Some people may think we are crazy for caring about this little things but they do matter in the end, for some users.

I think the desktop will indeed disappear once more apps begin to have "metro" versions. It may not happen in the next Windows release, but it will happen sooner or later imho.

[+Warwagon MVC]

This is why it baffled me that they would make this big of change after the RP. Adding a theme that nobody was able to test first.

[robert_dll]

I feel I'm going to hate the post-Win7 UI era/pre-Win9 UI era... the "Modern UI" doesn't fit everywhere imo. I do prefer the Win7 desktop, but I feel I'm going to be forced to upgrade, fortunately I don't have a good reason to do it yet

[anidais]

This is why it baffled me that they would make this big of change after the RP. Adding a theme that nobody was able to test first.

Because they didn't plan to add a "metro" theme to the desktop until the community asked for it after trying the consumer and release previews. What more proof than the fact they polished the aero interface and made it simpler and even updated the caption buttons and other things? I mean, if they had in mind to get rid of aero since the beginning, why waste resources updating the aero theme and making changes up until the release preview? They could've had the RTM theme in the developer preview or at least in the consumer preview and let people test it.

It seems at the last minute they said "people are asking for a better integration between the start screen and the desktop so let's see what we can do". I am just speculating, but what other reasons could there be? This also explains why the old aero icons are still there. They didn't have time to update those and probably were not planning to change them at all. Again, I am just speculating.

[Noir Angel]

I'm not keen on the current trend either, computers are starting to be treated as tinker-toys.

[Robyn Score]

I just keep wondering why Microsoft changed the back and forward buttons in Explorer except for everything else :rolleyes:

What happened there?

[MorganX]

I don't see a difference between mine and yours? Am I blind? :p

I don't notice any of this stuff but don't doubt it's there and it should be cleaned up. But saying it's messy and indented to move people away from the desktop is not really rational.

[koolguy]

wow so much hard work for perfection? why can't MS check that before?

[SuperKid]

Windows 8 is just one big mess, that UI is absolutely disgusting and inconsistent.

[wasd-]

This theme owns Windows 8

[~Johnny]

They also removed the Login/Logout sounds, whether or not these have been "forgotten" Im not sure, they completely redid the sound scheme for Windows 8 RTM, It seems a huge thing to forget, I don't know.

They were removed for performance reasons - loading and playing a sound during operations that should realistically be as fast as possible is a waste of time and CPU resources.

[RandPC]

They were removed for performance reasons - loading and playing a sound during operations that should realistically be as fast as possible is a waste of time and CPU resources.

Unless the kernel were to treat operations synchronously, and/or you're incredibly limited on processing power... ie. pre i486 type speeds, the amount of processing time required for playing a small audio clip is infinitesimal. There is no chance whatsoever that it would save them even a half second worth of boot time on even the slowest ARM cores.

It's definitely an aesthetic design choice that boot sounds are disruptive.

[argonite]

Unless the kernel were to treat operations synchronously, and/or you're incredibly limited on processing power... ie. pre i486 type speeds, the amount of processing time required for playing a small audio clip is infinitesimal. There is no chance whatsoever that it would save them even a half second worth of boot time on even the slowest ARM cores.

It's definitely an aesthetic design choice that boot sounds are disruptive.

The overhead of loading from a hard drive, especially when every other process is fighting to load/unload their own resources is quite large. Have you ever seen the message "Playing logoff sound..." appear when logging off Windows XP? Yeah, the delay is large enough to get it's own, [sometimes] fleeting, message.

[McKay]

Unless the kernel were to treat operations synchronously, and/or you're incredibly limited on processing power... ie. pre i486 type speeds, the amount of processing time required for playing a small audio clip is infinitesimal. There is no chance whatsoever that it would save them even a half second worth of boot time on even the slowest ARM cores.

It's definitely an aesthetic design choice that boot sounds are disruptive.

Whats funny is they also took away the option to have login/logout sounds. I used my own on Windows 7 and when I tried to put them on Windows 8, the option was completely stripped out.

[Denis W. Veteran]

Because they didn't plan to add a "metro" theme to the desktop until the community asked for it after trying the consumer and release previews. What more proof than the fact they polished the aero interface and made it simpler and even updated the caption buttons and other things? I mean, if they had in mind to get rid of aero since the beginning, why waste resources updating the aero theme and making changes up until the release preview? They could've had the RTM theme in the developer preview or at least in the consumer preview and let people test it.

It seems at the last minute they said "people are asking for a better integration between the start screen and the desktop so let's see what we can do". I am just speculating, but what other reasons could there be? This also explains why the old aero icons are still there. They didn't have time to update those and probably were not planning to change them at all. Again, I am just speculating.

Plausible theory, but one problem: "Aero Lite" coexisted alongside the old Aero in some older leaked builds and probably the previews.

Perhaps they always had the intention to replace Aero, but were too incompetent to do it timely while they plunged resources into the Metro/modern UI.

Unless the kernel were to treat operations synchronously, and/or you're incredibly limited on processing power... ie. pre i486 type speeds, the amount of processing time required for playing a small audio clip is infinitesimal. There is no chance whatsoever that it would save them even a half second worth of boot time on even the slowest ARM cores.

It's definitely an aesthetic design choice that boot sounds are disruptive.

Playing sounds isn't an intensive task, but initializing the audio stack and drivers is probably noticeable enough to delay the login process by a small amount.

Also, sometimes the login sound plays a few seconds after the desktop appears on Windows 7 when there's lots of disk I/O.

[~Johnny]

Unless the kernel were to treat operations synchronously, and/or you're incredibly limited on processing power... ie. pre i486 type speeds, the amount of processing time required for playing a small audio clip is infinitesimal. There is no chance whatsoever that it would save them even a half second worth of boot time on even the slowest ARM cores.

It's definitely an aesthetic design choice that boot sounds are disruptive.

On it's own it's not much - but it's part of the bigger picture of things they stripped down to increase boot speeds. Every little counts.

[hotdog666al]

I'm glad so many people realise this.

Was anyone else hoping for a new icon set too, or was that just me? Why didn't they update the Aero icons to a more suitable flat/Metro style!?

[anidais]

Plausible theory, but one problem: "Aero Lite" coexisted alongside the old Aero in some older leaked builds and probably the previews.

Perhaps they always had the intention to replace Aero, but were too incompetent to do it timely while they plunged resources into the Metro/modern UI.

You are correct, but if they had the intention of replacing Aero why bother polishing it up until the Release Preview? Doesn't make sense. Aero changed little by little from the DP to the CP and finally felt "complete" in the RP, with new caption buttons and other tweaks. If they intended to replace it, why waste resources working on it? It seems they scrapped aero at the last minute after tweaking it. Maybe not the best example, but that's like spending money on an old PC even when you know you want to replace it. The logic would be to save that money towards a new one.

[anidais]

Was anyone else hoping for a new icon set too, or was that just me? Why didn't they update the Aero icons to a more suitable flat/Metro style!?

Most people expected new icons, specially after they announced they would get rid of Aero. I read some rumors that Microsoft did try new icons, but looked "jarring" so decided against it. Don't know if that's true or not.

[trag3dy]

No it doesn't. Those issues in OP are minor and will have no impact at all. Wasted resources. I wouldn't want to have used time on a skin, instead of system performance/stability.

Yeah because themers/artists are coders.

People use the same excuse for video games. It doesn't work there either. It's lazy and amateurish and there is no excuse.

[bandit_liberty_rumble]

Yeah because themers/artists are coders.

People use the same excuse for video games. It doesn't work there either. It's lazy and amateurish and there is no excuse.

And if people said the same thing about cars, we'd all be driving ugly pieces of s&!%.

[grayscale]

This theme owns Windows 8

Where's the touch of Windows 8 on that?