[CoffeeFiend]

Fredledingue, on 20 May 2012 - 04:19 PM, said:

Next step will be removing True Color support, only 16 colors.

At this point I'd only be somewhat surprised. The Metro start screen already looks like a 16 color app: huge blocks of solid colors everywhere that all look the same, with fugly solid white logos on them.

I'm half expecting them to add a "groups" feature to the start screen that opens big square Windows just like Win 3.1 had.

[JorgeA]

CoffeeFiend, on 20 May 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

Another nice article on zdnet: Windows 8: Does Metro actually work? It's on Mary-Jo Foley's page but it's written by Matthew Baxter-Reynolds, a developer/consultant

That was an excellent rundown of the main problems with Metro, thanks for posting it. I'd be curious to see how Metro fans respond (didn't see much that was sensible in the comments when I checked).

CoffeeFiend, on 20 May 2012 - 02:26 PM, said:

Edit: I'd like to quote Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple:

Quote

Anything can be forced to merge. But the problem is that the products are about tradeoffs. And you begin to make tradeoffs to the point where what you have left at the end of the day doesn’t please anyone. And you can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user.

That is exactly what happened with Win8. They tried to make a desktop OS and a tablet OS into a single OS that sucks for everybody, particularly desktop users which happen to be their only market right now. Way to shoot yourself in the foot.

Right on point. It's ironic that the Win8 slogan is "no compromises," because they sure as heck are asking their desktop customers to compromise their UX big time.

--JorgeA

[UltimateSilence]

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has written an article titled "Five ways to avoid Windows 8" at ZDNet. The link is here.
A while back, he made very good points in his article titled "Windows 8's five biggest enemies". Available at this ZDNet article.

From his new article:

Quote

Some people are still sure Windows 8 is going to be the cat's meow. I'm sure Windows 8 and its Metro interface will be more like a cat's yowl of pain. The more I look at Metro, the more I'm sure that Microsoft's new desktop will flop as badly as the Facebook IPO.

This post has been edited by UltimateSilence: 20 May 2012 - 09:31 PM

[JorgeA]

UltimateSilence,

Very good articles, thanks! Great digging work you did there.

This is my "favorite" excerpt from the "Five Biggest Enemies" article:

Quote

To me, the real question isn’t whether Windows 8 will fail. It will. It’s whether by 2016 the changing IT would will have room left for Windows 9 to matter at all.

--JorgeA

[xpclient]

I hope there are huge legal ramifications of what Microsoft did with Windows 8. Some government, huge corporation or their partners or anyone in authority forces Microsoft to stop removing random features from Windows - there should be an oversight over them so that features that a certain % of customers demand are not dropped ignoring all feedback. They need to be punished for removing features people want because in the end some day users will forced to upgrade to Windows 8 or its derivatives. If not in the US, the EU has always seen through Microsoft's ways and I sincerely hope it sues their a** off or teaches them a lesson.

[Tripredacus]

CoffeeFiend, on 18 May 2012 - 08:10 PM, said:

Meanwhile, MS keeps suing competitors instead of making a product people want to buy, by banning the import of competing devices due to a trivial patent. Yep, forget about making users want to buy your stuff because it's great -- just sue the competition into oblivion, then everyone will be stuck with your garbage that currently no one wants of.

Well that's not really fair to single Microsoft out for that. Apple has been heavy on the mobil lawsuits as well. For example, Apple, Samsung and Motorola have been doing some court battles over stupid things as well. Such as the "look" of the devices and even dumber things like how a slider looks too similar.

[CoffeeFiend]

JorgeA, on 21 May 2012 - 12:35 AM, said:

Very good articles, thanks!

Allow me to disagree there. SJVN is a well known rabid "freetard" that people have been laughing at for years. I give that guy exactly *zero* credit (just like Robert Pogson). And if you look at his article, he basically quotes himself as his only references. It's kind of sad. He seems to be rather detached from reality and a lot of what he typically says makes no sense. 95% of his articles are dumb Linux praise and the remaining 5% is typical baseless MS bashing (he'd be saying the same thing even if Win8 was going to be great -- he merely lucked out this time i.e. a broken clock is right twice a day). If you read some of his other articles you'll quickly realize that Linux is the one and only solution according to him (but anything else is acceptable, so long as it's not from Microsoft)

Quote

It’s whether by 2016 the changing IT would will have room left for Windows 9 to matter at all.

That should be beyond obvious to anyone who's ever worked in IT at any level. As an IT person, you'd have to be a *complete* imbecile not to know this. Just like I was saying, he doesn't get it at all. Will Windows matter in 3 or 4 years from now (BTW, some large companies will still be working on their migration to Win7 by then)? You honestly think that's long enough for Windows to just die or become irrelevant, especially when ~99% of the software businesses use only runs on Windows and that there are no suitable alternatives to them? Then again, he's been pronouncing Windows dead for years. I have no idea why there are still magazines who are willing to publish his tabloid-grade drivel. Probably because shocking headlines and controversy brings in readers.

What's going to happen should be fairly obvious to anyone who's seen the Vista fiasco (not saying it's a bad OS, just that it had a bad reputation due to launch issues and didn't sell well). People will just skip it, or downgrade (not as in "worse" but "version before") their OS, or just keep using the OS they had on their existing PC. 3 short years later, the next version is out, and everybody will jump on it if it's any good. In that 3 year time span, a little bit more people (those who aren't totally locked-in to Windows-only software) will move to Macs than usual. End of story.

Now, if Win9 was going to be another Win8-like disaster then people would start looking for a way out for sure (Win7 is still supported until 2020). But even then, hundreds or thousands of companies who write extremely useful software would have millions of lines to port before we can use it on another platform. And all companies would have to do something about their "in-house software" (from MS-DOS apps, to VB6 apps, to MFC apps, to .NET apps) as well. This is going to take a LOT of time and money, even with proper planning.

Even if you were planning *today* about moving a company from Windows to Macs, there's still so much software you'd need to replace and so much that you'd need to rewrite. Like, SolidWorks doesn't run on Macs yet. Do I just wait for a Mac version? Do I keep Windows PCs for engineers? Do I try to retrain users on a new CAD program that might not be as good? ... All these apps we have to rewrite? What languages, toolkits, platforms, databases and such do we use to rewrite them all? Do we even have the necessary resources to do it (time, money and talent)? Do we just virtualize everything? ... And when your entire network architecture and backbone is built around Windows technologies (Active Directory, Exchange, SQL Server and possibly also SharePoint, Dynamics, BizTalk, etc), what do you replace it all with? It's a gigantic endeavor that's full of though questions, big price tags and compromises at every level. Only a complete moron could think a new UI on Windows could (in 3 years no less) make this all irrelevant and a non-issue.

Windows isn't going to die overnight. Even if MS closed shop tomorrow morning, there would still be tons of Win7 users a decade from now (they'd likely still be the majority of users)

Then again, we have no idea whatsoever what Win9 will be like. I don't think Ballmer will keep working for MS much longer. I believe he was pretty much due for retirement anyway, and if Win8 turns out as bad as I think it will, then the shareholders will most likely get rid of him (that'd be a great move, only not soon enough). Other heads may roll tool. After another fiasco and with change in management big changes might happen. We could speculate all day about what Win9 will be like but nobody knows yet what the future holds.

[CoffeeFiend]

Tripredacus, on 21 May 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

Well that's not really fair to single Microsoft out for that. Apple has been heavy on the mobil lawsuits as well. For example, Apple, Samsung and Motorola have been doing some court battles over stupid things as well.

My intentions were not to single them out for that, just to show they're being litigious scumbags. Apple is definitely guilty of it too. Not that "they're doing it too" excuses this kind of behavior. I for one, would like to see Android devices become better than iDevices (a lot more more choice, likely cheaper, etc) but right now MS and Apple are trying to crush them. Not cool.

[Fredledingue]

XPClient wrote
__________________

Quote

I hope there are huge legal ramifications of what Microsoft did with Windows 8. Some government, huge corporation or their partners or anyone in authority forces Microsoft to stop removing random features from Windows - there should be an oversight over them so that features that a certain % of customers demand are not dropped ignoring all feedback.

__________________
I don't hope, I'm sure, that Microsoft will not be able to sell a single version of windows 8 to professionals.
Professionals are working with a dozen windows open, countless tabs, constant mulitasking...
They will be flooded with poeple requesting to remove Metro.

Everybody is used to an interface that works perfectly well for 30 years. The Start Menu and the Task Bar and multiple Windows are encoded in the DNA of our civilisation. The fruit of decades of evolution.

And they want to remove that? It's like Toyota removing the steering wheel on the new Prius.

Some experts compare the future w8 flop to Vista's. IMO it will be way worse than Vista because Vista was still a usable OS with enormous bugs. If you take w7, a Vista update, it's a very good OS.
no, IMO commercialy it will be like BOB.

And even worse than BOB because with BOB, Microsoft didn't pretend that it will be the future we are all herded into. MS never forced anyone to use it.

With W8, MS will face an uproar because there isn't another product beside it. W8 is meant to replace w7, and not only, it's meant to replace all our habits in computering.
It will never work.

Also BOB wasn't such a bad concept. It would have been nice for kids, and even fun for adults to some extent.
And it was designed for desktop. The technology behind it was top.
BOB was just overpriced for what it was.

Metro, by contrast is a flawed concepted from the beginning because it's not designed for desktops, and totaly irrelvant on large screens.

It doesn't meet any customer demand. It's an extention of the Vista's gadgets that nobody realy uses. It could be cool if it was there just for fun, as an option or something you can remove easily.
As the future of windows, taken seriousely it's moronic.

[CoffeeFiend]

CoffeeFiend, on 29 April 2012 - 12:40 PM, said:

Yet another incredibly stupid move by MS. Not only Visual Studio 11 doesn't compile for XP which still has a market share over 50% and that the interface is a step backwards (I wouldn't even want of it as a free update!), but they're severely crippling their free "Express edition" (free) IDEs. They won't compile traditional desktop or command line applications anymore. Visual C++ Express which was already far too limited (no MFC? ouch) ceases to exist altogether. You want to create desktop/command line/WPF or silverlight apps in C# or VB? Then you have to buy the $500 Pro edition now for the same amount of basic functionality that was free in VS2010. The only thing the new versions (all two of them) do now is web development (express for web) and Metro (express for Metro Windows). That's it. They might as well have killed the entire "express" product line as far as I'm concerned because they all became completely worthless.

MS just gave the finger (a GIGANTIC finger) to all hobbyist and open source developers. You used to make good quality software in C# (or VB)? Well, you're now a dinky phone app developer! They're also sending a strong message to the rest that desktop development is very much being pushed aside, and that Windows is quickly turning into a dumbed down smartphone-like appliance. The end result will be that people will move to other development tools and platforms. The useful editions of Visual Studio now cost between $499 for the Pro edition to $13299 for the Ultimate edition (which again supports less C++11 features than open source GCC does). Meanwhile, Apple's Xcode is $5 for the one and only edition (call it ultimate if you want), unless you're already registered as a developer in which case it's free.

Paul Thurrott covered this stuff today. MS says that the latest stuff will only compile for Vista and newer. Unless you "target the .NET framework 4" which means you're using the old compiler and libraries, making the new version completely pointless (it's just a $13299 text editor then). Same for VC++: you can set it up to compile with VS2010's compiler and libs (which of course requires already having a license for it), which means using none of the new language features of C++11, making the new version totally pointless again.

The free tools are now worthless crap which attempt to cram Metro down your throat out of desperation (if you make Metro the only option, then maybe people will develop for it) but will just force people to keep using the old version or move to their competitor's tools. As for paid versions, you can either use the new features that you bought the new version for *or* compile for XP which makes it a non-starter as half the computers (and corporate desktops) are still running XP. I can't see a single reason why I'd use the new version, even if it was a free update.

Microsoft products are all turning to complete sh*t. The best we can do is hope that things will change once Ballmer's fired.

[jaclaz]

Fredledingue, on 21 May 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

Also BOB wasn't such a bad concept. It would have been nice for kids, and even fun for adults to some extent.
And it was designed for desktop. The technology behind it was top.
BOB was just overpriced for what it was.

Ow , comeon, I have been told to wash my mouth with soap after having uttered much less offensive sentences!

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

UltimateSilence alerted me (thanks!) to the following excerpt from the MSDN blog post rationalizing Metro:

Quote

In 2006, Windows Vista substantially changed the visual appearance of Windows, introducing the Aero visual style. Aero gave the appearance of highly-rendered glass, light sources, reflections, and other graphically complex textures in the title bars, taskbar, and other system surfaces. These stylistic elements represented the design sensibilities of the time, reflecting the capabilities of the brand-new digital tools used to create and render them. This style of simulating faux-realistic materials (such as glass or aluminum) on the screen looks dated and cheesy now, but at the time, it was very much en vogue.

So, what six years ago Microsoft called beautiful, they now have a spokesman describe it as "cheesy." Amazing.

I don't give a hoot whether a certain look is "dated," it only matters to me whether it works and (since I look at it all day) how attractive it looks.

Anyway, how exactly is Aero "cheesy"? My dictionary gives two definitions for the word: (1) like cheese, and (2) inferior. Supposing that Aero is not like cheese, how then can the Aero design with its various refined elements -- transparency, Flip, shadows and other 3D effects -- possibly be viewed as "inferior" to the Metro design with its flat surfaces and square corners? That's like saying that a red Lego block looks superior to a ruby.

Perhaps the real explanation is that the Central Committee has changed the Party Line, so all loyal Party Members must do a 180 and talk up the New Truth.

Apropos of this, the following remark in the comments section:

Quote

Microsoft circa 2015: "Metro looks old and outdated, look at how we rounded the corners off!"

Excuse me while I go and not jump on the bandwagon.

Another head-scratcher from the MSDN blog, with respect to the "trends that influenced the design of Windows 8":

Quote

In 2009, desktops were 44% of the worldwide market and laptops were 56%. Just 3 years later, over 61% of the PCs sold are laptops and the trend is accelerating—this is globally, measuring all Windows PCs sold. Among consumers in the United States buying a PC this year, more than 76% will purchase laptops—the absolute number of all US desktops sold will be fewer than the number of tablets in 2012! That is a fairly stunning change in the role of different form factors. Even in businesses, laptops are now purchased more than half the time.

Never mind that worldwide desktop sales have actually gone up slightly -- the writer is either confused himself, or is deliberatly obfuscating the enormous differences between laptop computers and tablets. Sales of laptops have nothing to do with sales of tablets. Why? Because the experience is different. Try using screen touch on a laptop: it's only slightly less awkward than using a touch screen on a desktop PC. On a tablet (where the screen is truly on your lap, not raised in the air as with a laptop), the touching distance is much closer, the angle is much more natural, and the touch movement is easier to control.

Quote

Gadgets, introduced in Windows Vista, held the promise of providing a more connected UI surface, but failed to relate to the apps and services we care the most about.

Such as, what? I have a financial gadget that updates me on the stocks I've invested in. What are you talking about, "failed to relate to the apps and services we care the most about"???

In any case, it's obvious that tens of millions of real PCs will continue to get sold each year around the world. Why embark on a redesign of Windows that makes it harder and more awkward to use the OS on a desktop (and yes, even a laptop) computer? If the idea is to respond to users' increasing embrace of social media, then all you need is the right Gadgets to put on the Desktop so that anybody who so wishes can follow the latest tweets, Facebook status updates, and other trivial cr*p (sorry). But no, you've basically killed off Windows Gadgets, presenting the Metro abomination as the answer to our suffering.

In Vista and Win7, I can have the Gadgets I want showing while I get work done in two or three open windows. Under Metro, if I want to see the current weather or stock averages I have to interrupt my work and switch apps. How is that preferable?

--JorgeA

[MagicAndre1981]

MSFT is an island and they have no idea what the rest of the world is. Steve Ballmer thinks that 1 year after Win8 shipped 500Million users use Windows 8

http://www.winsupers...ers-2013-143161

Quote

“Windows 8 is certainly the most important piece of work we've done, It's really, in some senses, a dawning of the rebirth of Windows.”

But I can only laugh when I read this. Unbelievable this stubbornness in Metro and Win8.

[Fredledingue]

The Metro core is even more useless since such capability exists -but were not exploited- on every Windows version since w98 (if not w95)!

You can have a Metro like interface on w98 and above with an HTA application launched at start-up, played in full screen mode or without without border and caption.

I could write a Metro interface in HTA in... what... 2 hours?
Give me one hour more and I'll do a thing that will fool anyone into believing it's w8!

But no, Microsoft is spending millions in coding this s***t, creating new code, raising uncompatibility issues etc...

Another way to Metro-fied pre w8 Oses is Active Desktop.
Not as close visualy, but it can be also very cool.

I once had the TV programs summarized on my desktop, so that I can easily record or watch them (on the same computer).

Instead of reinventing the wheel again and again, they'd better develop new stuffs on existing technologies. And that would fit on smartphones too.

[JorgeA]

MagicAndre,

Thanks for the laugh!

Remember that "scary" picture of Ballmer that Tripredacus posted a few days ago? Maybe the "scary" description needs to be reinterpreted in light of Ballmer's remarks: is he delusional?

Quote

“Windows 8 is certainly the most important piece of work we've done, It's really, in some senses, a dawning of the rebirth of Windows.”

All I can think of is the song "Aquarius" from the musical "Hair." This is the dawning of the age of Metro-style...

Your link led me to this one. We see there that, for 2013, even the fast-growing tablet market is still projected to be less than one-third the shipments of regular PCs. Thus, MS is handicapping itself on the desktop market for an indeterminate share of a much smaller market: the tail is truly wagging the dog!

--JorgeA

[Fredledingue]

Jacklass wrote about Bob:

Quote

Ow , comeon, I have been told to wash my mouth with soap after having uttered much less offensive sentences!

Everybody was making jokes about Bob until today.

Mind you, I was reading a website recently explaining what Bob was exactely and the concept was indeed a very good one.
Just look how many internet games are based on a room, on an interior, where kids have to feed puppies, dress a model, tidy up things, cook a cake... If you have kids you know what I mean.
Bob just created that 15 years before anyone else.

Mixing games with the desktop is a nice way to bring fun to your home computer.
The comercialization was terrible but that's another story.

Now with Metro, it's the same ludicrous mentality, without the fun, sadly ... well, austerity is hitting even OSes nowadays...

[Fredledingue]

Ballmer is climbing so high that it will make the fall even more funny to watch.

[JorgeA]

Fredledingue, on 22 May 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

You can have a Metro like interface on w98 and above with an HTA application launched at start-up, played in full screen mode or without without border and caption.

I could write a Metro interface in HTA in... what... 2 hours?
Give me one hour more and I'll do a thing that will fool anyone into believing it's w8!

Huh, that does sound pretty cool. And YOU didn't even need a "reimagined" Windows to make it work!

Fredledingue, on 22 May 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

Another way to Metro-fied pre w8 Oses is Active Desktop.
Not as close visualy, but it can be also very cool.

I once had the TV programs summarized on my desktop, so that I can easily record or watch them (on the same computer).

I never used Active Desktop on my Win98 system, there just didn't seem to be enough value in it to bother with. But I have to admit that if you found a way to watch and record TV on Windows 98 -- that's pretty neat.

More generally, you're right that MS has been pushing this basic concept of self-updating thingies on PC screens for 15 years -- without notable success. Why would it be all that different this time? (Maybe because this time they're "in your face" to the point where you can't avoid them?)

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

One of my favorite comments from that long MSDN post:

Quote

I can only hope they actually get Windows 8 working with a touch screen or a mouse, whereas the previous consumer and developer previews worked with neither. Have a mouse? Sorry, you can't efficiently use our operating system as it's touch based. Have a touch screen? Sorry, you can't access half of what you need to access to do anything worthwhile... and you have to spend a minute making enough gestures to shut down, despite the 3 seconds you spent with previous operating systems.

Perhaps Microsoft will push us on Kinect motions for Windows 9. To shut your PC down you have to rub your belly five times counter clockwise, pat your head four times, wave your hands frantically six times and follow up with your thumb on your nose and fingers wiggling in the air.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

More bad news for the prospects of Windows 8: it looks like WinRT tablets will be entering the market already at a disadvantage vs. the iPad.

--JorgeA