[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Live Long and Prosper SteveSi ( Hal's (Im)Perfect Vision 2012-11-13 )

Interesting blog. So interesting that Sinofsky drops by to add a comment.

Sinofsky speaks, denies he tried to take over Windows Phone division at Microsoft ( The Verge 2012-11-15 )

Reaction to the drive-by from Sinofsky.


Ballmer praises Sinofsky, still no reason for exit ( NeoWin 2012-11-15 )

But look at what they are calling praise ...

Quote

Steven has made one of most amazing contributions anybody will ever make to any company in terms of guiding key activities and engineering systems, I wish him well. He's always recommended if you make a change you make it on a product boundary.

Man that's cold!

Spoiler

( Images at CNet and Regulus )

EDIT: added link

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 19 November 2012 - 12:36 PM

[JorgeA]

MagicAndre1981 just posted on the "Ways to Bring Back the Start Menu/Button in Win8" thread with this article:

Will Microsoft Restore the Start Menu to Windows 8?

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 16 November 2012 - 01:21 AM, said:

Spoiler

( Images at CNet and Regulus )

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Paul Thurrott offers thoughts that may surprise some in his personal "verdict" on Windows 8:

Quote

I don’t honestly think that most people will dislike Windows 8 on traditional computers. I don’t really believe that the lack of a Start button is unsurmountable, that any normal person can’t, after just a few days of use, figure out how things work and be efficient in this new system.

But I also have a hard time believing that any normal person—that is, any non-enthusiast—would want to, or should, go through the time, effort, and potential disaster of upgrading a perfectly good Windows 7-based PC to Windows 8.

(Of course, it's not hard to think of computing "enthusiasts" who won't be coming anywhere near Windows 8...)

And here he expresses frustration at the insertion of ads into Metro apps:

Quote

Ads are unacceptable in Windows 8 for the same reason they’re unacceptable in the Xbox 360 Dashboard, another place where Microsoft is pushing the boundaries: You pay for these products, so they don’t need to be further subsidized. (And why Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers still see ads in the 360 is an insult I’ll never understand.)

There should be no ads in Windows 8. Period.

--JorgeA

This post has been edited by JorgeA: 16 November 2012 - 09:23 PM

[JorgeA]

Here's an incisive critique of the Windows 8 UX from somebody who evidently gave it a lot of thought.

Quote

For touch, having cascading menus is harder because the gigantic icons to cater for the huge finger hotspot takes up too much space and leave little room for cascading menus to be practical. For PC users, we don't want icons (we have since graduated from kindergarten), and often, we use fast keys (because we have a keyboard) to jump to a menu item, and grouping and cascading menus is a time-tested excellent scaling solution. Textual lists are easier to search as they can be in sorted in alphabetical order. What is the sort order for icons? Colors? Picture complexity? Faced with a 1920x1080 screen of icons, I have a hard time locating what I am looking for. For the type of work I am doing, the difference between 0.2s and 2s is 10X, a big number.

Quote

Right now the Metro Modern UI is unsuitable for the PC. As an example which I face many times a day, I press the Windows key and type in something, the letters I type are shown on the FAR RIGHT of my 1920x1080 screen. The search results of what I type appear on the FAR LEFT of the screen. But the thing I want is under Settings instead of Apps and so I have to swing to the FAR RIGHT of the screen to select Settings. Then my attention has to switch to the FAR LEFT of the screen for the results. And if I right click an item shown, the context menu is not in context but at the FAR BOTTOM of the screen. Don't you think this is a giant leap backward if not comical?

And check out the concurring opinion by @xpclient three posts down.

--JorgeA

[tomasz86]

@JorgeA
The second citation has a very good point. Windows 8 is much more usable on a smaller screen than on a big one. I can say it from my experience as I've used it on a 17" monitor with only 1024x768 resolution.

[JorgeA]

tomasz86, on 18 November 2012 - 12:03 AM, said:

@JorgeA
The second citation has a very good point. Windows 8 is much more usable on a smaller screen than on a big one. I can say it from my experience as I've used it on a 17" monitor with only 1024x768 resolution.

You're right, scanning search results in Metro requires a lot more eye movement. In the regular Start Menu, everything's close together in one corner of the screen so you don't have to look around for the results of your search.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

I just found this in another forum:

Quote

Just to keep you posted, the Geek Squad of Best Buy finally gave me back my pc with Win 7 Home Premium OEM installed. They say HP desktops bought before 2011 are simply incompatible with Win 8 Pro Upgrade. So, it's not an antivirus affair in my case. Long live Win 7 for Productivity and features...!

Is that a bunch of hooey they told him? I thought that Win8 was supposed to be able to run on any PC that could run Vista or Win7.

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

JorgeA, on 17 November 2012 - 11:55 PM, said:

Here's an incisive critique of the Windows 8 UX from somebody who evidently gave it a lot of thought.

Great thread Jorge. I recognize those commenters from many other threads over there and it is nice to see them all in one place clearly summarizing the Windows 8 and Metro debacle. This has been going on for well over a year now with practically no backtracking or mea culpa from Microsoft. Consequently, the opinions of several of those commenters are being proved correct. This is bad news for traditional Windows users and bad news for Microsoft. It's bad news all around. Suicide is an inexplicable act.

JorgeA, on 19 November 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

I just found this in another forum:

Quote

Just to keep you posted, the Geek Squad of Best Buy finally gave me back my pc with Win 7 Home Premium OEM installed. They say HP desktops bought before 2011 are simply incompatible with Win 8 Pro Upgrade. So, it's not an antivirus affair in my case. Long live Win 7 for Productivity and features...!

Is that a bunch of hooey they told him? I thought that Win8 was supposed to be able to run on any PC that could run Vista or Win7.

Without knowing the specifics of this case, we can say one thing absolutely for sure about any given computer: If an an Operating System works on a given computer, but the next Operating System does not, something changed in the Operating System. This is entirely consistent with Planned Obsolescence. When this happens, we can no longer call it an Operating System at all.

[jaclaz]

JorgeA, on 19 November 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

Is that a bunch of hooey they told him? I thought that Win8 was supposed to be able to run on any PC that could run Vista or Win7.

Have you actually READ WHO actually told that to the user?

Quote

Geek Squad of Best Buy

JFYI:
http://geek-squad.p***edconsumer.com/
http://geek-squad.p*...0815339421.html

(you'l have to replace the three asterisks "***" with "iss", the board bad words corrector kicked in)

You have very, very, VERY small chances of finding anyone belonging to the Geek Squad that actually knows any better than re-partition/re-format/re-install as the ONLY solution to ANY hardware or software problem (of course there are good an competent peeps among the ranks, but they are an exception).
Some time ago, some of the Geek Squad test questionnaire was leaked:
http://gizmodo.com/5...eek-squad-test/
http://www.maximumpc...quad_yes_you_do

http://www.maximumpc...uad_incompetent

Judge by yourself.

jaclaz

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Some assorted articles hinting at problems with Windows 8 and related launches...

Surface sales numbers are really poor? ( social.technet.microsoft.com 2012-10-30 )

Rumor: Windows 8 sales "well below" Microsoft's expectations [Update] ( NeoWin 2012-11-16 )

Survey: Win8 only HALF as popular as Win7 among IT bosses ( UK Register 2012-11-16 )

Windows 8 PC sales reportedly 'well below Microsoft's internal projections' ( The Verge 2012-11-16 )

Windows 8 Selling Far Below Expectations, But Don’t Count It Out Just Yet ( NeoWin 2012-11-18 )

NewEgg: Windows 8 sales are "slow going" so far ( NeoWin 2012-11-19 )



Articles sure to raise the blood pressure of MicroZombies ...

Is Microsoft Planting Windows 8 Comments? ( John C. Dvorak PC Magazine 2012-11-13 )

Microsoft has failed. Their actions erase any lingering doubt. ( Charlie Demerjian 2012-11-14 )

With Sinofsky Gone, Start Menu Could Return to Windows 8 ( Tom's Hardware 2012-11-18 )

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen: Windows 8 UI is disappointing ( NeoWin 2012-11-19 )

Design guru: Windows 8 is 'a monster' and 'a tortured soul' ( UK Register 2012-11-19 )

Downgrading from Windows 8 to 7: What you need to know ( PC World 2012-11-20 )

EDIT: re-arranged, added link

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 20 November 2012 - 08:03 AM

[jaclaz]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 19 November 2012 - 01:18 PM, said:

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen: Windows 8 UI is disappointing ( NeoWin 2012-11-19 )

Design guru: Windows 8 is 'a monster' and 'a tortured soul' ( UK Register 2012-11-19 )

Better getting it directly from the mouth of the wolf:
http://www.useit.com.../windows-8.html

the good news are that almost everyone on this thread could from now on pride him/herself with:

• being older that 5 years
  
• sharing the same views of a "Design guru", actually saying the SAME things long before he did

(and of course the "Design guru" doesn't have an idea about what productivity is, since he praises the Office ribbon )

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 19 November 2012 - 01:29 PM

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

jaclaz, on 19 November 2012 - 01:27 PM, said:

the good news are that almost everyone on this thread could from now on pride him/herself with:

• being older that 5 years
  
• sharing the same views of a "Design guru", actually saying the SAME things long before he did

(and of course the "Design guru" doesn't have an idea about what productivity is, since he praises the Office ribbon )

That's a good point. I was think exactly the same thing: What took him so long!

[JorgeA]

jaclaz, on 19 November 2012 - 01:27 PM, said:

Better getting it directly from the mouth of the wolf:
http://www.useit.com.../windows-8.html

Yeah, that article is a treasure-trove of insights, including a number of points that have been made in this thread:

Quote

The Windows 8 UI is completely flat in what used to be called the "Metro" style and is now called the "Modern UI." There's no pseudo-3D or lighting model to cast subtle shadows that indicate what's clickable (because it looks raised above the rest) or where you can type (because it looks indented below the page surface).

@CharlotteTheHarlot has come up with another winning collection of Web articles. It'll be interesting to monitor Win8 sales -- the last couple of times I've been at my favorite big-box office supply store, the computer department was deserted, more so than in the final months that they offered Windows 7 systems. Anecdotal, but suggestive.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

jaclaz, on 19 November 2012 - 12:56 PM, said:

JorgeA, on 19 November 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

Is that a bunch of hooey they told him? I thought that Win8 was supposed to be able to run on any PC that could run Vista or Win7.

Have you actually READ WHO actually told that to the user?

Quote

Geek Squad of Best Buy

Hmm, I wonder if telling the guy that he'd need to buy a whole new PC in order to use Windows 8 Pro might be, not ignorance, but a deliberate sales tactic to push sales of new computers...

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Small sampling of heartburn causing stories for MicroZombies ...

Metro's mother to replace defenestrated Windows boss Sinofsky. Larson-Green also invented Office Ribbon. Just sayin' ( UK Register 2012-11-13 )

Steve Ballmer fired Sinofsky, clearing the way for faster progress in mobile ( ExtremeTech 2012-11-19 )

A Rosier Year Ahead for Windows 8? Yeah, Right ( John C. Dvorak PC Magazine 2012-11-19 )

Did Sinofsky kill off Windows 7 tablet design? ( NeoWin 2012-11-20 )

Oprah Winfrey too late to save Microsoft's Windows 8. Signs are that Redmond has produced a turkey this Xmas ( UK Register 2012-11-20 )

Also note that the Mini-Microsoft blog is now up to 261 comments with many from Softies past and present chewing the fat over these events. Lots of interesting information.

Almost forgot about this next one. It is fascinating! It is about email correspondence between Sinofsky and a Brit techie just over a year ago when the Windows 8 leaks, //Build/ and DP were in the news and the ridiculous direction they were taking was becoming clear. The arrogance and touchy temper of Sinofsky is visible, and frankly it makes perfect sense as to the way he dismissed all the criticism seen in those self-serving blog posts.

The Sinofsky Letters: Defenestrated Windows overlord corresponds. 'How can I offer you death by a thousand cuts?' ( UK Register 2012-11-18 )

EDIT: added another link.

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 21 November 2012 - 02:05 PM

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

These articles are describing a recent event where Jensen Harris, one of the principal destroyers on the Destroying Windows Team presents their twisted rationalization yet again ...

Windows 8 UI vision mockups from 2010 ( istartedsomething 2012-11-20 )

Microsoft shows off early Windows 8 user interface mockups ( The Verge 2012-11-20 )

Mockups show what Windows 8 looked like in 2010 ( NeoWin 2012-11-20 )

Jensen Harris ... Video

He begins by pointing fingers at other devices that underwent significant evolution like the PS2 controller to WII to Kinect. He moves on to Cellphones and other things, espousing the self-serving meme: ' Modern trumps Familiarity '.. Barf. He goes as far as using the natural and logical evolution of software such as WordPerfect to Word. Ummmm, WordStar first of course, but the text-mode keyboard-centric word-processing universe evolving to to graphic-mode WYSIWYG was a perfectly logical and beneficial change ( and we still have Notepad and other non-WYSIWYG down-level alternatives don't we? ). He even has the temerity to state: "as it turns out, people are willing to change if you provide them something better". Cognitive Dissonance, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

But here is the real doozy: it is on display at 11:49 in the video which itself is a video spoof of a Subaru commercial they called: "Mediocrity". It is absolutely illustrative of the contagious brain cancer that has plagued the Devs up there in my opinion. Jensen Harris tells us that this commercial makes the point of "re-imagining Windows" perfectly. This video, "Mediocrity", is of an imaginary car company where the engineers are featured telling all about the blandness but pinnacle-ness of this automobile, no further advancement is needed ( he's insulting us again ). This is the proof that these Microsoft devs in 2010 had already associated this bland "Mediocrity" with then-current Windows 7 and desired to leapfrog to some re-imagined futuristic upgrade. ( Lamborghini? Ferrari? I don't think so ). What is most offensive is that now, this "GUI developer" wants us to suspend common sense and logic and associate "Mediocrity" with Windows 7. Aero Glass? 3D chrome and effects? These are "Mediocrity". Period. Playskool pastel color tiles? These are advanced and futuristic. Period. The only thing to understand IMHO, is that these are overpaid under-achievers, have zero taste logic and common sense, and everything that emits from their mouthes is completely inverted to reality. Whatever it is that they say, we should just believe the opposite. The video that these devs should have been watching at the time was called "Idiocracy". A real movie that with very little stretch of the imagination perfectly illustrates the Redmond operation. Art imitates Life once again.

Skipping on past much propaganda, including digs at other products like Win95 of course ( when are they gonna learn how offensive it is to attack like this? ), BSOD screens ( yes, I am not joking ), Apple, Skeumorphism again ( propaganda talking point ) we start to see mock-ups of Windows 8 finally. Jensen Harris tells us that "in early 2010" they got the team together and showed these mockups and started making early decisions. This is important because we now know that in "early 2010" they had nothing coded and the future was being re-imagined at that very moment.

Or was it? What else was happening in "early 2010"? Well we can skip back to Post #518 in this very thread where I summarized what was found about some existing software in the wild. Software that I imagine someone up there also had seen. Once again ... Nemulator ...


Nemulator version 2.0b1 ( release date: 2009-07-07 ) ( original image )

And that is not just a mockup. It was already a side-scrolling menu-system with animated tiles ( probably not "live tiles" in the sense that they pull data from a running program but that is the only real difference ). Here is the video ...


Nemulator video, mirrored at YouTube, that shows the interesting menu side-scrolling of the 2009-July release. (ruh-roh!).

Compared to the very questionable "look and feel" issue with Apple and Windows 2 ( bogus IMHO ), this one has much longer legs. If Microsoft hasn't already donated a huge sum to the author of Nemulator, James Slepicka, most likely they will eventually have to.

EDIT: added original source for article and link to video., updated image URL, and again

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 06 May 2013 - 06:20 PM

[JorgeA]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 21 November 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

A Rosier Year Ahead for Windows 8? Yeah, Right ( John C. Dvorak PC Magazine 2012-11-19 )

Dvorak hits another home run. Most apropos for me is the following part:

Quote

Microsoft and its PR machines are part of the problem. It has gotten to the point where they will not listen to the critics. Back when they used to, things went better. Most critics have observations that are valuable. Ignore them at your own risk.

Instead, Microsoft studies everything internally. It runs closed focus groups. It cajoles bloggers. It meets with strategists. Employees say "yes, boss that's great!" and they nod their heads at meetings in agreement with whatever is being presented.

Reason this speaks to me is that I overcame my resistance to giving MSFT any more info about myself than strictly necessary, and I answered one of their Microsoft Panel surveys hoping that it had to do with Windows 8 and I wanted to tell them what I really think.

The e-mail link came into Outlook on my Vista system. I clicked on it and started the survey. A couple of questions in, the survey asked which OS I was on, and I truthfully replied Vista. Then it asked if I had Win8 on another computer. I said Yes. Then it said that the focus of this survey was MSN for Win8, and could I switch to a Win8 system to finish answering the survey:

Quote

Please open up the survey invite again using Windows 8. It will take you back to this question...

Once you are using Windows 8, please click "Next".

So I copied the link over to my Win8 RP machine and tried to pick up where I left off. The survey page loaded, but I was stuck on the OS selection screen. I could change the selection from Vista to "Windows 8 beta," but then nothing happened when I clicked on "Next," except that it changed the OS selection back to Vista. Hitting "Previous" to get to the question that preceded it, also did nothing. After trying various things, I gave up on participating in the survey. Great piece of programming, folks!

Not that it matters really, as the survey turned out to be about MSN and not about Win8 itself. But still, it's not an impressive user experience. Why ask me to switch to a Win8 PC, if the survey then won't work? (Maybe it detected that my browser homepage is not MSN, but Ixquick. ) Oh, and the last time they had a survey about Windows 8, there was a question with a list of adjectives to describe Win8. I chose all the ones that went something like "disappointed," "angry," "frustrated" or similar unflattering things. Even though the survey progress bar was only at like 60%, as soon as I hit Enter for this list of choice words, instead of taking me to the next question the survey thanked me for my feedback and stopped the questions. I guess they wanted to explore further only if I gave positive responses. So much for "listening."

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

A U.S. big-box electronics retailer issued a coupon for $100 off the purchase of Windows 8 computers this week.

I could be wrong, of course, but it seems to me that -- less than four weeks after their introduction -- if Win8 machines were selling well, then such large coupons wouldn't be offered. In the past, this retailer has given such large coupons only during clearance sales.

 Win8 Coupon.jpg (21.44K)
Number of downloads: 6

--JorgeA

[HeavyHemi]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 19 November 2012 - 12:31 PM, said:

JorgeA, on 17 November 2012 - 11:55 PM, said:

Here's an incisive critique of the Windows 8 UX from somebody who evidently gave it a lot of thought.

Great thread Jorge. I recognize those commenters from many other threads over there and it is nice to see them all in one place clearly summarizing the Windows 8 and Metro debacle. This has been going on for well over a year now with practically no backtracking or mea culpa from Microsoft. Consequently, the opinions of several of those commenters are being proved correct. This is bad news for traditional Windows users and bad news for Microsoft. It's bad news all around. Suicide is an inexplicable act.

JorgeA, on 19 November 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

I just found this in another forum:

Quote

Just to keep you posted, the Geek Squad of Best Buy finally gave me back my pc with Win 7 Home Premium OEM installed. They say HP desktops bought before 2011 are simply incompatible with Win 8 Pro Upgrade. So, it's not an antivirus affair in my case. Long live Win 7 for Productivity and features...!

Is that a bunch of hooey they told him? I thought that Win8 was supposed to be able to run on any PC that could run Vista or Win7.

Without knowing the specifics of this case, we can say one thing absolutely for sure about any given computer: If an an Operating System works on a given computer, but the next Operating System does not, something changed in the Operating System. This is entirely consistent with Planned Obsolescence. When this happens, we can no longer call it an Operating System at all.

Or call it Apple Computer....come on how about a little iChuckle? I'm not sure I'd call Staples a 'big-box electronics retailer'

This post has been edited by HeavyHemi: 23 November 2012 - 02:39 AM