Windows 8 Milestone 2 compiled

[Quillz]

That's interesting because Windows 8 is mean't to be a major release while Windows 7 wasn't. It's too early to say that they won't bump up the version numbering because they could.

I'm pretty sure consumers do not identify between "major" and "minor" releases, regardless of what Microsoft thinks. They see Windows 7 as a new version of Windows, to them, it's a big deal, even if at a kernel level, it really wasn't.

I think consumers see any new boxed version of Windows (this even includes WinXP SP2) as a major release, while anything that can be delivered over Windows Update, like Win7 SP1, as a minor release.

[.Neo]

Maybe because OS X is different from Windows? What are you talking about " Aero is just being disabled"? If the PC can't run it then that is a given.

On Windows its possible for poorly coded applications to make the entire system revert back to Windows Basic. Not to mention stuff like UAC windows are Windows Basic as well. I love how the transparent dark overlay behind an UAC window still pops up instantly without any smooth animation or whatever. There's so little attention to detail found in Windows. It's a shame really.

To me Windows Aero feels like a slapped on hack job with the old legacy stuff still lurking underneath, ready to peel of at any second.

You never see that sort of thing happening in Mac OS because it handles its UI completely different to windows.

For Windows to work like that they would need to re write their theming engine.

Maybe it's time Microsoft did.

[Zain Adeel]

that is just becoz of the majority of ppl with old hardwares.

they dont want to leave them in the dark u know.

Thats the reason for the old UI..

but i think they will have to totally rewamp it.. now that the release is pushed further. But im pretty sure MS will play safe and work on win7 add more features and refine.. thats gona be it.

No UI rewamp. I wont consider a rewamp unless they get rid of the OLD GRAPHICS STUCK frm win98 :p

[Glassed Silver]

On Windows its possible for poorly coded applications to make the entire system revert back to Windows Basic. Not to mention stuff like UAC windows are Windows Basic as well. I love how the transparent dark overlay behind an UAC window still pops up instantly without any smooth animation or whatever. There's so little attention to detail found in Windows. It's a shame really.

To me Windows Aero feels like a slapped on hack job with the old legacy stuff still lurking underneath, ready to peel of at any second.

Maybe it's time Microsoft did.

This.

I also always hated Windows keeping icons from AGES and decades ago...

Yes... for compatibility it's okay, when old applications request them, you don't want a sudden and maybe unwanted change never intended...

Anyhow... at least Windows OS-wide it should not be visible anymore in standard applications Windows ships with.

Glassed Silver:mac

[.Neo]

that is just becoz of the majority of ppl with old hardwares.

they dont want to leave them in the dark u know.

Thats the reason for the old UI..

My iMac from 2000 was able to run Aqua and it had a joke of a video card. My 2003 and 2005 eMacs are capable of running Mac OS X Leopard's Aqua, the latter even with Core Animation (Dashboard ripple effect, transparent Menu Bar etc.). I fail to see why Microsoft couldn't design Windows Aero in such a way that it runs on older hardware as well. Apple managed to so with Aqua, be it that some of the more advanced effects are turned off. But then we're talking about hardware predating 2005.

[Zain Adeel]

exactly

i can even show u some icons from win98 :p

[Mr. Gibs]

I love how the transparent dark overlay behind an UAC window still pops up instantly without any smooth animation or whatever. There's so little attention to detail found in Windows. It's a shame really.

Why should there be a smooth animation? It's designed to get your attention, not to make you stare in awe at the smooth transitions :rolleyes:

Maybe it's time Microsoft did.

As for programs that revert to basic, there aren't that many. Sure if all you use is ancient poorly coded legacy applications then yeh...maybe you should upgrade. But pretty much the only software that I can think of that does that for me is Flight Sim 2010 (funnily enough its made by MS). All the other software I've used in the past couple of years haven't done that.

[Zain Adeel]

i agree with that.

i see the apple UI have NO AFFECT on performance.

but windows UI does.

they will have to rewrite the UI code if they want to make it better.

Im Happy with the UI style

e.g the glass and all

but if they rewrite the code and make the same UI over it.. It will be far better. With better performance, lower requirments, better effects and no old icons and such.

and im not a fan of the OSX UI.. yea i like the effects and font smoothing.. but thats where it ends.

I dont like any other element.

But i do love the Iphone UI.

[.Neo]

Why should there be a smooth animation? It's designed to get your attention, not to make you stare in awe at the smooth transitions :rolleyes:

It's called attention to detail instead of going for a look that seems as if your monitor is about to have a seizure. If anything, Apple gets that. And what are you talking about in the first place? Microsoft most definitely designed Windows Aero to make you stare in awe at your desktop. If you're going to say A, say B instead of leaving users with a half finished job littered with legacy interface elements and twitchy transitions.

Aqua feels like it's baked into Mac OS X, an inseparable part of the OS. Aero just feels like something that's been slapped on to mask the old stuff.

As for programs that revert to basic, there aren't that many. Sure if all you use is ancient poorly coded legacy applications then yeh...maybe you should upgrade. But pretty much the only software that I can think of that does that for me is Flight Sim 2010 (funnily enough its made by MS). All the other software I've used in the past couple of years haven't done that.

The UAC window is a very prominent example of Windows Basic, even though you set your PC to Windows Aero. The fact is that there's still this old system in place underneath Windows Aero that can be randomly triggered. My point is that you'll never ever see this happen on Mac OS X: Authentication windows are full Aqua, instead of Mac OS 9's platinum or the old NextSTEP interface and so far I've only seen 1 legacy icon left in Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

This isn't meant as something to rip on Windows. I really think Microsoft should get rid of as much legacy stuff as possible and focus all efforts on making Aero just as smooth as Aqua is, instead of trying to maintain three different themes two of which are still based on older systems.

[Mr. Gibs]

It's called attention to detail instead of going for a look that seems as if your monitor is about to have a seizure. If anything, Apple gets that. And what are you talking about in the first place? Microsoft most definitely designed Windows Aero to make you stare in awe at your desktop. If you're going to say A, say B instead of leaving users with a half finished job littered with legacy interface elements and twitchy transitions.

Seizure? That's quite an exaggeration. As for what I was talking about UAC is designed to get your attention (and the black background is part of secure desktop)...I wasn't talking about Aero.

[.Neo]

Seizure? That's quite an exaggeration. As for what I was talking about UAC is designed to get your attention (and the black background is part of secure desktop)...I wasn't talking about Aero.

I've seen so many PCs where the AUC background flickers into place. Making the transparent black overlay come into view with a quick smooth animation as seen in Mac OS X' Exposé and Dashboard will get your attention all the same, only looking better. Last time I checked the UAC window is part of the Windows interface. Again, it's a level of attention to detail you see with Aqua which Aero lacks.

Same can be said of the mishmash of Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP and even older icons scattered throughout the system. Like I said, so far I've only come across one legacy icon in Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Windows startup folder seen in the Startup Disk preference pane uses the old Mac OS X Tiger styled icon. But that's about it.

[Jaydon H]

Aren't we still all excited about Windows 7? I mean, the rumours are interesting, but Windows 8 already, 2 years after Windows 7?

[kiwi89]

Aqua feels like it's baked into Mac OS X, an inseparable part of the OS. Aero just feels like something that's been slapped on to mask the old stuff.

Thats exactly it. It'd be pretty cool to see MS rewrite their UI/theme code to get it all to integrate a whole lot better, but I don't know how much

success they will have considering that Windows generally has a slap together feel about it.

[Glassed Silver]

Why should there be a smooth animation? It's designed to get your attention, not to make you stare in awe at the smooth transitions :rolleyes:

[...]

Windows way of thinking... (no offense! If YOU are cool about how things are, well great for you :yes: Just ignore my few things I don't like about it then ;) )

And that's exactly why EVERY WINDOWS past 2k looked like a job completed at 80-90% leaving out the love for detail and last fine tuning...

It's happening with every Windows version and that's why Windows' UI fails to really make me like it even more.

I adore Windows 7's UI, it's really beautiful, just those rough edges pull it down the second I thought "niiiiice..."

Glassed Silver:mac

[Zain Adeel]

its the only reason i made a VS myself :p

[kiwi89]

Aren't we still all excited about Windows 7? I mean, the rumours are interesting, but Windows 8 already, 2 years after Windows 7?

With the exception of Vista/Longhorn 2 years is a pretty standard release time frame for windows releases.

Mac OS is pretty similar and Linux distros are often more frequent then that.

[Jan Veteran]

Hmm - I just want a cleaner, more polished interface. Also, in Mac OS, when you resize a window it isn't somewhat laggy and have a White background - unlike Windows :(

[game_over]

I hope they do the party promotion on release like they did with Windows 7 hahaha.

what a stoopid promotion, i bet like 5% actually had a party.

[techguy77]

Do you guys think Windows 8 is coming way too early (2012?)

[ViperAFK]

I've seen so many PCs where the AUC background flickers into place. Making the transparent black overlay come into view with a quick smooth animation as seen in Mac OS X' Expos? and Dashboard will get your attention all the same, only looking better. Last time I checked the UAC window is part of the Windows interface. Again, it's a level of attention to detail you see with Aqua which Aero lacks.

Same can be said of the mishmash of Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP and even older icons scattered throughout the system. Like I said, so far I've only come across one legacy icon in Mac OS X Snow Leopard: The Windows startup folder seen in the Startup Disk preference pane uses the old Mac OS X Tiger styled icon. But that's about it.

In the windows vista beta it actually did fade nicely in. I believe the current design of the UAC prompt is something to do with a security feature but I am not totally sure.

EDIT:

In windows 7 its actually extremely easy to disable the fade effect completely, go to control panel, move the uac slider down one notch.

[computerwizkid]

In the windows vista beta it actually did fade nicely in. I believe the current design of the UAC prompt is something to do with a security feature but I am not totally sure.

EDIT:

In windows 7 its actually extremely easy to disable the fade effect completely, go to control panel, move the uac slider down one notch.

Never disable the fade effect. It will disable secure desktop which prevents malicious programs from hijacking the UAC dialog.

[hdood]

In the windows vista beta it actually did fade nicely in. I believe the current design of the UAC prompt is something to do with a security feature but I am not totally sure.

If you do that, you disable what's known as the secure desktop. What Windows actually does when it shows a UAC prompt with a faded background is take a screenshot of your desktop, switch to a separate desktop, apply a faded look to the screenshot, set it as the background and then shows the actual prompt. The reason it does this is because desktops are isolated from each other, which means no programs running on your desktop can manipulate the UAC prompt on the separate "secure" desktop. This is also the reason the aero glass effect isn't present on UAC prompts. The Direct3D desktop window manager responsible for those effects only supports a single desktop. When you switch desktops, you get the old GDI variant. All of this switching back and forth isn't always very smooth and sometimes takes a little too long.

It's not just a simple visual effect like you see on OS X. If you want an example of that kind of thing on Windows, hit win+tab. That should be super smooth.

I'm not excusing Microsoft here, just pointing out that there are technical reasons and architectural limitations behind it, not just a lack of attention to visual design.

[Owen W Veteran]

It's worth noting that any "Beta" that lands -- or at least the first one -- will not feature the new UI or many other things, but will just be a chance for developers to start working on it. Same thing they did with Windows 7. Proper beta is at least 6-12 months away.

Do you guys think Windows 8 is coming way too early (2012?)

No. 3 years.

[Mr. Dee]

It's worth noting that any "Beta" that lands -- or at least the first one -- will not feature the new UI or many other things, but will just be a chance for developers to start working on it. Same thing they did with Windows 7. Proper beta is at least 6-12 months away.

No. 3 years.

Windows 7 Beta (build 7000) looked almost exactly like the final RTM, it even had the improved Taskbar in fact, the preview that Julie Larson Green demoed at PDC 2008 looked like the final product. It was pretty much baked, all the feature set was frozen. I suspect the same for Windows 8. Its a lesson the Windows Team learned during Longhorn, not to be working on new features during the products development, beta's and RC's should be about refinement, quality and evaluation.

The pre-release distributed at PDC 2008 (build 6801) looked almost like Windows 7, except for the Taskbar having a gradient look.

Taking into account the Kernel version is 6.2, I don't expect this to be a huge overhaul like Windows Vista or Windows 2000 were. There is no need either. I remember Jim Allchin saying during Vista's development that it would be the version of Windows that defines the platform for the next 10 years. We are only half way into that. All the foundations needed to build new experiences are already in Windows today, its about innovating on those tools and technologies, Windows 7 was an example of that. Windows 8 will probably focus further on innovation I believe, of course it will target new form factor devices such as Architectures, Tablets, Touch Centric with it actually being a first class citizen on such form factors. More Cloud aware. These are the targets I am seeing for Windows 8, this does not require any major overhaul to the underpinning's of the OS to accomplish, but industry partnership and execution are certainly key.

[remixedcat]

I am hearing windows 8 will launch oct 13th 2013