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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions


JorgeA

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From second page of the linked to article:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2411445,00.asp

I realize I'm not part of Microsoft's target audience anymore, but I still think power users like myself—I've been using Windows for 22 years—deserve better. If I've been using GUI-based operating systems for nearly three decades and this one regularly for over a year, and it still fails to suffice for basic tasks, there's something seriously wrong.

I fully subscribe, it couldn't have been put better in words. :thumbup

jaclaz

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Yeah sales of Windows 8. This cannot even be compared to Vista... Now my market is not to cater to retail type end users... but well there seems to be "passing" interest from customers about Windows 8, but people just aren't putting the money where their mouth is. I can't really say much more than that... but suffice it to say that I expected at least a Vista level of first day sales.

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Just for the record:

http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-ballmer-not-ready-to-reveal-windows-8-surface-sales-7000006602/

As for Windows 8, I have to say that this is the most subdued Windows launch that I can recall. The buzz doesn't seem to be there, and instead it's been replaced by confusion over pricing, hardware requirements, and the whole issue of touch. There also seems to be a great deal of confusion over the differences between Windows 8 and Windows RT, specifically nobody quite knows what the latter is even for.

This much consumer confusion at the point of release seems to suggest that the industry -- specifically Microsoft and its hardware partners -- have not done a good enough job of educating the masses about Windows 8.

The linked to interview to the Wall Street Journal contains IMHO a pearl):

WSJ: How has the public reception been for Windows 8 and the Surface in the first few days?

Mr. Ballmer: Numerically there's not really much that's interesting to report. If you were to call the retailers, they would say, 'Hey, off to a very good start.' We're out of stock a lot of places on touch [screen] machines. I was at a dinner in San Francisco last week, and I brought out this beautiful, very thin [touch-screen] laptop, and they said, 'Wow, I never thought touch could be valuable and important in a laptop.'

(I bolded the pearl)

During an interview with one of unarguably one of the most influential financial newspapers in the West world, the very Top Eecutive of one of the largest software companies worldwide, as an answer to a serious question, provides (senseless) anecdotal evidence AND the interviewer accepts this nonsense? :w00t:

I mean ;):

Wow, I never thought touch could be valuable and important in a laptop.

sounds too similar to :

"It is a public journal; I will explain what that is, another time. It is not cloth, it is made of paper; some time I will explain what paper is. The lines on it are reading matter; and not written by hand, but printed; by and by I will explain what printing is. A thousand of these sheets have been made, all exactly like this, in every minute detail—they can't be told apart." Then they all broke out with exclamations of surprise and admiration:

"A thousand! Verily a mighty work—a year's work for many men."

"No—merely a day's work for a man and a boy."

They crossed themselves, and whiffed out a protective prayer or two.

"Ah-h—a miracle, a wonder! Dark work of enchantment."

to be plausible .... in 2012 ... and presuming that the very Top Executive of MS does not fly to San Francisco to have dinner with a bunch of morons (or maybe it was a form of flattery raised to the power of n). :whistle:

jaclaz

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windows_8_metro.gif

( image from Brand New, can't find any at Microsoft, did they scrub them? )

As you're probably aware, the name Metro has been ditched since a little while now because of some legal threats from a german retail giant of the same name it would seem.

However I find that pic rather interesting as it's a good summary of the whole Windows 8 marketing campain, which seems to consists into piling up as many empty catchphrases and slogans as possible, which are in addition often completely meaningless, what the heck are in motion or authentic supposed to mean here.

Pathetic really, as have been Balmer, Sinofsky and other MS reps performance on stage lately.

You're right -- that's just a bunch of meaningless slogans! What does "Metro" have to do with being "modern" and "clean," anyway? On the subway lines that I've been on in three different countries, I can think of many other, much more appropriate words! :puke: And THOSE words would be equally applicable to Windows Metro... :whistle:

Glad that the image above still resides somewhere on the 'Net: it makes it hard for MSFT to deny that they ever officially endorsed the use of the name "Metro." Nice find, @Charlotte. (You may want to save that image before it's made to disappear.)

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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Wow, I never thought touch could be valuable and important in a laptop.

Yeah, they must have been trying to be flattering to their guest, or at least polite. More than two seconds' thought is enough to realize that touch can't be important on a laptop PC -- in fact, it's a detriment, as anyone can determine for himself by placing a laptop on their thighs and actually trying to touch the raised screen repeatedly for an extended period of time. The angle and distance are just wrong.

Then again, considering how awful the ergonomics are, maybe the orthopedic surgeons' society invested in MSFT to push "touch" on desktop and laptop computers, figuring that it would increase their patient base...

On a tablet, maybe, but not on a laptop PC.

--JorgeA

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Dvorak pretty much mirrors what many of us have said here, that the RT version of Windows 8 uses extremely deceptive naming to the average computer purchaser ...

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33642_7-57454524-292/just-what-is-windows-rt-anyway-faq/

From that article:

• There doesn't seem to be a way to visually distinguish a Windows RT tablet from a Windows 8 tablet, which could lead to buyer confusion, to put it mildly.

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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Yeah sales of Windows 8. This cannot even be compared to Vista... Now my market is not to cater to retail type end users... but well there seems to be "passing" interest from customers about Windows 8, but people just aren't putting the money where their mouth is. I can't really say much more than that... but suffice it to say that I expected at least a Vista level of first day sales.

My observation is purely anecdotal, but I've been to five different computer stores in the last week, and there hasn't exactly been a rush of prospective buyers flocking to learn what Windows 8 is all about.

--JorgeA

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Recall from only a few days ago ...

Microsoft Design Language is the new "Metro" ( NeoWin 2012-10-29 )

Then there was this a day later ...

The curious case of Microsoft's Metro, a design language that cannot be spoken ( The Verge 2012-10-30 )

And there was this yesterday ...

Metro apps renamed Windows Store apps ( CNet 2012-10-31)

Are you confused? Yep. Here is a great summary of this mess ...

Nobody knows what to call Microsoft's ex-Metro UI. Not even Microsoft, it seems ( UK Register 2012-11-31 )

When asked to clarify the situation, Tschumy offered little insight into why company staffers are no longer allowed to utter the M-word.

"I'm not going to get into the details of why we're not doing that anymore," Tschumy said, but added that the correct term for apps built based on Microsoft's new UI style is "Windows 8 Store Apps."

That's actually slightly more of a mouthful than we've been told previously – and we've been told several things – and Tschumy himself stumbled over the awkward phrasing as he was pressed with further questions.

The article has lots more quotes from him, and you can't help but get the feeling that this could be a transcript from a hostile witness taking the Fifth Amendment. But over what? What is the big secret requiring such masterful obfuscation? Beats me. But don't they realize that developers and stockholders are listening and reading about this wondering just what kind of crazy chemical has been released into the water supply in Redmond. You would think by now that someone would realize how this looks because Perception is Reality.

There is also this gem ...

Speaking at the annual Build developer conference in Redmond this week, Microsoft Principal User Experience Advisor Will Tschumy said the company has been investing heavily in design since 2003, to the tune of $20bn per year.

Those efforts resulted in the Office 2007 and 2010 revamps, he said, and culminated in . . . well, in whatever you call the Windows 8 look and feel.

Now there was money well-spent. :no:

At the end of the Verge article is a little update ...

Update: Microsoft has reached out to us to clarify that Tschumy misspoke when describing new apps as Windows 8 Store applications. "The correct nomenclature is 'Windows Store Apps' says a Microsoft spokesperson. The confusion continues.

You can't make this stuff up.

EDIT: added another quote

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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Speaking at the annual Build developer conference in Redmond this week, Microsoft Principal User Experience Advisor Will Tschumy said the company has been investing heavily in design since 2003, to the tune of $20bn per year.

I'm no design professional, but give me 0.1% of that $20 billion and I can come up with something more attractive than that Start Screen, and then they can distribute the balance to the company shareholders. But then, I'm not a design professional...

Oh, and after four years of daily use I'm still hunting and pecking my way through the Office Ribbon.

Update: Microsoft has reached out to us to clarify that Tschumy misspoke when describing new apps as Windows 8 Store applications. "The correct nomenclature is 'Windows Store Apps' says a Microsoft spokesperson. The confusion continues.

LOL, even their Principal User Experience Advisor can't get the name right.

So, MSFT would have us say, "Desktop IE was fine, but I couldn't download the file through Windows Store Apps Internet Explorer"? Have they even tried to verbalize all these syllables, or to see if they even make any sense -- Windows Store Apps IE, what?!

--JorgeA

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Does anyone noticed that GDI 2D graphics is sooooooo slow in Windows 8?

Here is what I get when I resize the engine selection Windows of ProcExp:

Wow. Is that a screengrab while it was still painting the window, or did the artifacts stick and not get painted over?

It reminds me of what used to happen when using integrated Intel graphics on Win9x after a long session and all resources were depleted, but even then I think the window eventually finished painting. No I haven't seen it ( that I can recall ) on anything since WinXP.

Maybe this is because you are not using the Official, "New and Improved"© ™ ® Task Manager. :lol:

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I used to rely on Task Manager in Windows 7 (and older) when monitoring silent installs to verify the installation process ran/was running/etc. Now that the process name doesn't show, it is difficult for me to determine not only a) if the process is running but B) what the name actually is. The only one that is easy is anything that uses msiexec.exe because it shows up as Windows Installer.

Also some old problems still exist. For example, MMC will lock up if you open Computer Management or Event Viewer and you try to do something right away. Even as an example, you can run Event Viewer and as soon as it opens, hit the maximize button. Those screen drawing problems exist there too. There is also an issue if you are in Computer Management, click on Disk Management, then click on something else... the screen will stay on Disk Management, with that message on the bottom and MMC will become unusable until you close it and re-open it again. I had done that and let it sit there for an hour. :rolleyes:

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