[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Fredledingue, on 04 July 2012 - 03:23 PM, said:

It's Microsoft's deliberate ignorance of how we use computers and denying the most basic and most useful tasks: copy-paste and saving content on your hard disk.

First came the PDF format which prevented copy paste and editing.

Then Flash/YouTube made a second huge step in the entertainement consumer oriented IT and view-and-forget philosophy.

And now we have Metro which is one more attempt to make the the content basicaly visual and not written.
You are not supposed to save on disc or to copy paste from Metro.

There is deliberate ignorance, yes, but also a component of irresponsibility, as in 'with great power comes great responsibility'. In my opinion all facets of computers and technology, except for data, are expendable. Data is the only thing that matters and really is the only thing that carries forward through generations. It should be treated sacredly, not willfully destroyed ('reformat the system!' says Tech Support).

Microsoft first began to worry me when the tired but widespread HLP format was forsaken with Windows 6. Yeah there is a download to fix it (though in Win8 it is doubtful) but they were definitely trying to kill it. There is a lot of DATA, not just program help but statistical and historical data locked up in those files all over the world and no easy way to convert them. Expect the same thing to happen with CHM shortly which contain far more data. I am not saying they are perfect formats at all (far from it!), I am saying keep the viewers in Windows because that is the responsibility you have taken upon yourself by maneuvering yourself into a position of authority and of monopoly. Besides, they regularly support countless other far more obscure formats in many of their applications.

What worries me is the cavalier attitude they and many others display concerning user data in general. Deliberate data destruction through bad advice (reformat it!) or the usual planned obsolescence IMHO is a high crime of Computer Science, like a Doctor violating their Hippocratic oath. Their feet need to be held to the fire. If they fail to respect users' data or *any* data in general because of short-sighted marketing or profit decision-making, then something will need to be done.

Moving, as you say, to a content consuming model, which is really the Twiiterizing or Facebooking of Microsoft is the easy and lazy thing to do (but the WRONG thing given their unique position). It suits the empty-headed executives in Redmond and it also suits Wall Street as well because the talking heads do not care if Windows even works at all, just that the perception is good. When Microsoft begins layoffs in a year or two Wall Street will cheer again for their bravery and willingness to appease shareholders (but no discussion of the effect their incompetence has on the technological world that depends upon their products). Very few feedbacks will ever make it into the executive boardroom that concern quality, only quantity and perception.

The immediate problem I think is the undeniable envy, the Apple-envy and the Google-envy. As to which is stronger it is a coin-toss, but it exists and they are once again operating at a disadvantage, in full copy the enemy mode even though the window of opportunity will have likely closed by the time they get their footing. They learned nothing from the Internet and Netscape fiasco. In fact, the visible response was that horrific Channels thing on the Win98 desktop, a proto-Metro attempt at turning the desktop into an internet appliance. Almost nothing has changed! If they want to get out of the OS business (admittedly a very tough job) maybe they should just release the Windows XP or 7 source code as a gift to the world and step aside. If they are too cowardly to do that and insist on playing in this game they have to re-commit to their responsibility which is very large.

People out here like us, long timers with the various platforms, are probably the only ones who really care at all about data and the literal Operating System. Ironically I think we are the only ones that even care about Microsoft itself. So we have to use the few tools we have to be heard, criticize them, ridicule them, influence them, and ignore the fanboys, before they complete their corporate suicide and forsake the awesome responsibility of their position.

[JorgeA]

Fredledingue, on 04 July 2012 - 03:23 PM, said:

Quote

what I'm worried about is that new Windows users (those who start using Windows with Win8) might never get to experience the richness of "real" Windows.

Yes this is a source of worry. IMO W8 will be too short lived for any effect to occure but we never know.

Freledingue,

Thank you, you have provided good and plausible reasons for hope!

Fredledingue, on 04 July 2012 - 03:23 PM, said:

You are all making jokes but the issue is truely deeper than just added complexity.
It's Microsoft's deliberate ignorance of how we use computers and denying the most basic and most useful tasks: copy-paste and saving content on your hard disk.

First came the PDF format which prevented copy paste and editing.

Then Flash/YouTube made a second huge step in the entertainement consumer oriented IT and view-and-forget philosophy.

And now we have Metro which is one more attempt to make the the content basicaly visual and not written.
You are not supposed to save on disc or to copy paste from Metro.

There does seem to be a progression there, no?

I remember one of the first annoying things I discovered about Windows (vs. DOS) was that you could no longer output a directory listing to the printer. Itr seemed like such an obvious function. Never did understand why MS didn't provide that capability. But eventually others came out with utilities to do that.

Fortunately, we now have PDF-to-Word converters, and things like YouTube Downloader to defeat that view-and-forget philosophy. With any luck, someone clever will find a way to hack into Metro and enable saving/copying from it onto their computer. And if they can't, then maybe that will help to hasten the demise of Metro (for the reasons you describe later on).

--JorgeA

[UltimateSilence]

A "nice" little translated article that explains how Metro is ugly.

That gorgeous picture of Windows Vista illustrates more than just beautiful UI design, it shows how Metro was designed by school children after lunch.

This post has been edited by UltimateSilence: 04 July 2012 - 11:07 PM

[jaclaz]

UltimateSilence, on 04 July 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

it shows how Metro was designed by school children after lunch.

On behalf of IACDUIAL, the International Association of Children Designing User Interfaces After Lunch , I want to signify how your statement is higly offensive of the professionality of the Members that have designed in the past and will design in the future MUCH BETTER interfaces than Metro.

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 04 July 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

Expect the same thing to happen with CHM shortly which contain far more data.

That ball is already rolling. In the ADK, there seems to be a bunch of info about how to create help files with HTML5. I personally love CHMs.

[submix8c]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 04 July 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

Microsoft first began to worry me when the tired but widespread HLP format was forsaken with Windows 6. Yeah there is a download to fix it (though in Win8 it is doubtful) but they were definitely trying to kill it. There is a lot of DATA, not just program help but statistical and historical data locked up in those files all over the world and no easy way to convert them. Expect the same thing to happen with CHM shortly which contain far more data.

BARF!!!
A way to convert HLP to CHM - get it while you can (haven't tried it - have used the MS HTML Help Workshop - what fun!).
Another way (includes links to Viewers)...

HTML Help Workshop
WinHelp Compiler - HCWSETUP.EXE (not a direct link - folder and filename given)

This post has been edited by submix8c: 05 July 2012 - 07:36 AM

[JorgeA]

UltimateSilence, on 04 July 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

A "nice" little translated article that explains how Metro is ugly.

That gorgeous picture of Windows Vista illustrates more than just beautiful UI design, it shows how Metro was designed by school children after lunch.

UltimateSilence,

Well, that was extremely interesting!

With the understanding that Google's machine translation may not be, um, totally comptetent, the following passage caught my eye. It speaks to something we've been saying here:

Quote

If you look at the characteristics of the Metro I described earlier, it is easy to notice that the principles dictate very simple interfaces, not just a simple user, but also simple computer.

(emphasis added!)

What the writer says about CPUs getting less powerful jibes with what I've been seeing at electronics stores. Lately there's been a rash of new desktop and laptop models bearing CPUs with obscure names from both Intel and AMD that you have no idea how good they are. When you look them up, they're cr*ppy-specced processors that can't hold a candle to what you could find AT THE STORE a year or two ago. (You can still buy powerful, known processors, but more and more you have to go to the manufacturer directly to get them.)

And -- yes, that Vista screen is just gorgeous. If I have to look at a computer screen all day long (and in my work, I do), I'd MUCH rather look at the refined, detail-rich Vista screen than at the plain, flat, and boring Windows 8 screen.

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

submix8c, on 05 July 2012 - 07:24 AM, said:

BARF!!!

A way to convert HLP to CHM - get it while you can (haven't tried it - have used the MS HTML Help Workshop - what fun!).
Another way (includes links to Viewers)...

HTML Help Workshop
WinHelp Compiler - HCWSETUP.EXE (not a direct link - folder and filename given)

Well I would hope the "BARF!!!" is directed at Microsoft for trying to kill even the possibility of viewing HLP files in Windows 6+, another clear manifestation of planned obsolescence. I've got all those things you mention and more, all the official help dev tools, unofficial decompilers, all those pages saved and bookmarked, been there, done that. But my original comment stands - "... and no easy way to convert them".. The reason it is so difficult to 'convert' HLP to something else is because the format really does suck, but it is what we had back in the Windows 3.x era. CHM on the other hand is much easier to handle, which is just really a ZIP-like archive of HTML pages with relative links. Extracting them is fast, lossless, recompiling can be done in seconds (big plug for HTM2CHM by Yaroslav Kirillov), converting the extracted source files is as easy as processing any HTML. With one caveat, some people (~cough~ Microsoft) go to outrageous lengths to make the source unmanageable with over-use of Javascript and randomized anchor names and other tricks. But it is still not insurmountable.

For a very long time, all the good programming references were only available as HLP, the Intel Opcodes, Assembler, the entire Win32 and other API's, C, C++, Javascript, Pascal, (fortunately most everything was re-done in CHM, er maybe unfortunately?). Many non-programming topics as well, country historical data, population statistics, even books and things. Again, much was redone later, but I doubt everything. I guess my point is simply that Microsoft must tread carefully here because they are more than just a software company. People rely upon them to access actual data, not just Twitter. But we're off the subject really. All I was saying is that Microsoft chose to deprecate HLP and later, CHM, which even that is fine. Deprecate their use for future development. But it is criminal to try to make it impossible to simply view existing files by eliminating the viewers. There is no excuse for that. What, they would have us believe that there isn't room in a distribution for a tiny Winhlp32.ex_ or Hh.ex_ taking a few KB as loose files or even less when scrunched into a WIM. They can tell that nonsense to their fanboys who will swallow anything but it doesn't fly with any logical person.

What worries me even more than the HLP and CHM planned obsolescence (and it is just one example) is the danger of precedent should it pass UN-criticized. For example look at photography. There is a real possibility that an entire generation of photographs could be lost to the ages because of the fickle consumer that gobbled up cheap cameras and printers with no thought about the future, and the businesses that willfully feed them because of the race to the bottom. Their photographic 'negatives' exist as downloaded images on HDD's, often in lossy JPG format only. Few people if any even care that they are a single 'reformat the system' or 'HDD click of death' or 'lost cloud access' away from vanishing forever. As long as the cameras keep selling and Microsoft keeps making live tiles everything is just peachy to the bean-counters and the sheeple. But lots of data is truly at risk of being lost. Wouldn't it be ironic if a century or two from now a big gap of missing photos exists from the early 21st century but 1st generation photographs from the 1840's like Daguerreotypes still survive. Great thought and care needs to expended as technology moves forward. The consumerist model is an easy, selfish way to do business, it is probably irresistible to a modern executive or an average computer user. The adults who were not born yesterday need to stand up and point out the potential dangers of fleeting trends.

EDIT: typos

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 05 July 2012 - 06:40 PM

[TELVM]

This bad joke of OS survived ten minutes in my comp.

After just five minutes the itching, burning sensation was:

Spoiler

However I thought 'come on, give it a chance, something good it must have'.

But after ten minutes I couldn't endure it anymore. No way, thanks. Then to my inmense joy & happiness I discovered that W8 had sabotaged my system, to the effect that Se7en took now ten times longer to boot.

So I exorcised the aberration, reformatting the partition with rancor, and savoured the monumental upgrade back to Se7en.


I guess if the W98 folks are still using it 14 years later, I can run W7 until 2023 at the least.

[Tripredacus]

TELVM, on 06 July 2012 - 06:27 AM, said:

Then to my inmense joy & happiness I discovered that W8 had sabotaged my system

That's not very fair. It seems to me that you sabotaged your system with Windows 8!

[TELVM]

Yeah, guilty as charged.

[CoffeeFiend]

In other news, Microsoft abandons Windows Home Server. I guess there must be more money into pushing for their 2nd rate cloud services. Then again WHS was good idea with a a poor execution, which is very typical of MS.

Meanwhile, Win8 is likely going to RTM in about a week. Their plan seems to be: alienate users by pushing a inadequate tablet UI on existing desktops to p**s off users and drive them to Macs, offer discounted copies to reduce your revenue (the only people who'll buy it at first are the extremists who would have bought it at $150), making piracy difficult to greatly reduce its market share, then once it has its "Vista 2" reputation well established from people using it on their desktops, release your iPad wannabe platform which will be as popular as the Zune or Windows Phone -- just to create confusion due to CPU incompatibilities (and alienate your business partners by releasing your own hardware in the process). There's no way in hell any business is going to touch it, and developer support (mindshare) for Metro seems to be almost non-existent either.

Now they just need to make a poor product demo, where it BSODs or freezes, with almost no information available, and trying to demo hardware that doesn't work. That would be the cherry on top of the fail sundae. Oh, wait...

How could possibly any of this go wrong? The only MS news I care for now is the upcoming headline "MS fires incompetent Ballmer and Sonofski".

Meanwhile, Apple is working on a smaller iPad that will rival other tablets selling at lower price points (basically Android tablets). It's more portable than a regular iPad and it has all the great software (closer to an iPod touch, with a larger screen which is better suited for apps). It should be released sometime between the back-to-school period and the holidays -- perfect timing and execution as usual The're going to sell crazy amounts of them for sure.

[Fredledingue]

JorgeA said:

With any luck, someone clever will find a way to hack into Metro and enable saving/copying from it onto their computer. And if they can't, then maybe that will help to hasten the demise of Metro

We are at such point where one wish not hacks to be developed so that W8 can burried and forgotten faster.

Developing apps that redo what Microsoft undoes persistently is a waste of time.
It's ok to fix a semi-decent OS like XP, Vista or 7. But fixing W8? Seriousely?

We have better do a W7 to W8 service pack installing all the good system files from W8 into W7 (as MDGx had done with W98 to ME).

The second thing, is that those who realy like Metro won't need the fix that we will make.

CharlotteTheharlot
Yes, Microsoft is not taking the responsabilities that you described above.
Why removing HLP support on a swollen 12Gb OS while a HLP reader takes, what, 400 Kb?

Sometimes we wonder wether it's deliberate or sheer stupidity.

They are not respecting ethics.

Nut there is no commonly accept ethic in this domain unfortunately. And MS is not the only one.
The software industry is a real mess against common sens and good practice.
It's only about who will write the software the faster and the cheaper, no matter how inneficient, bloated and backward uncompatible it is. Only crap duplication.

It's a lack of respect for the users.

Datas preservation/readability is the most important ethical rule.
Perhaps we could try to enumerate a list of other ethical IT rules:

-Respect CPU usage by producing software which don't cause useless processing operations.

-Respect of Hard Disc space by not inflating uselessly softwares, datas installed installed with this software or generated by thios software

-Respect of Bandwith of the user as well as of the global community by not spamming, uselessly transfer datas, uselessly requiering a connection

-Respect of productivity and of the work of others by creating ergonomical software interfaces.

... etc

But the most important IMO is still the RESPECT of LIBERTY by allowing users to opt in or out.

Here Microsoft is deliberately reducing our Liberty in many ways, in an unprecedented manner.

- The most famous example so far is preventing us to restore the classic start menu.

- The other is to prevent to disable Metro.

- Puting by default tiles for commercial softwares and outright advertising. Tiles which are difficult to remove.

- Making IE10 "metro only".

- Making sure Metro apps can't be used on another environement.
(I bet you money that as we speak there is already file format which you can read only on Metro)

Sinofsky can tell what he wants: I'll bash W8 to the point characters get erased off my keyboard, as long as Metro cannot be easily disabled on Windows 8.

As long as they don't return the options to the users (for the Start Menu and other things) I'll bash Microsoft as a whole, and MSFT as a stock investment more specificaly.

[Fredledingue]

Maybe MS wants to revive this: The end of Minitel (G translated)
La fin du Minitel

[JorgeA]

Another tech observer predicts that Windows 8 will flop:

Quote

With its vision of the future finally becoming a reality (thanks entirely to its far cooler rival), Microsoft has gone all out to embrace touch, creating an operating system designed specifically for it, but has thrown its core user base under the bus in the process.

Echoing a sentiment that's been expressed in this thread, the writer asks:

Quote

Yes, you can tweak the OS to disable or hide Metro, and clearly there will be lots of freeware tools that will let you completely remove it once Windows 8 has been released. But, really, why would you bother to upgrade to the new OS if all you’re going to do is roll it back to Windows 7.5 at the earliest opportunity? Surely it’s better, and easier, to stick with the OS you already own, and know how to use?

(I do have a possible, personal answer to that one. As a Windows Media Center user, if the WMC pack that we'll be able to buy in addition to Win8 ends up having the same life cycle as the OS, then I would get three more years of WMC support for my HTPC. Of course, there's that big "if" in there -- as a separate add-on, it's entirely possible that MS might treat it separately and eventually forget about WMC as they seem intent on doing. But this would be the only reason for me to buy a single copy of Win8.)

And then there's this writeup, looking ahead to the consequences of a Win8 failure.

Quote

Ironically, it is Microsoft that is leading the charge to kill Win32. With WinRT (the API, not the tablet OS), the company is frog marching its developer community away from what has long been its proprietary “ace in the hole”. In Win32’s place, they’re pushing HTML5, a generic, web-centric standard that runs great on all of those non-Windows devices from Apple, Google, Research in Motion, etc.

--JorgeA

This post has been edited by JorgeA: 08 July 2012 - 10:08 PM

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

JorgeA, on 08 July 2012 - 10:04 PM, said:

Quote

Ironically, it is Microsoft that is leading the charge to kill Win32. With WinRT (the API, not the tablet OS), the company is frog marching its developer community away from what has long been its proprietary “ace in the hole”. In Win32’s place, they’re pushing HTML5, a generic, web-centric standard that runs great on all of those non-Windows devices from Apple, Google, Research in Motion, etc.

--JorgeA

This is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. I notice that few of the fanboys will touch it either.

Microsoft is attempting to leverage and cash in on their unique monopoly position: their almost complete domination of the x86 computer world. They are acting out of desperation because other, newer, different markets escaped their grasp, it is palpable. This is their 'all-in' move, betting all the good will they earned, betting all the ground they gained in over 30 years of development. The seething anger at this move is also palpable among those that were part of this same history. Let us remember the path that took Microsoft here.

The old saying 'Dance with the one that brung ya' comes to mind. It is undoubtedly true that the whole free-wheeling 16-bit and 32-bit x86 hardware and software world is who brung ya. This is how they got here. It was primarily the open-architecture driven by IBM (against all logic really, and could now be seen almost as a gift to the world) that invited everyone, hardware or software to the party. It was also Intel who steadily improved the x86 architecture (I believe with IBM input) and gave us the 286 and 386 even before the mid-1980's while Microsoft was not exactly lighting any fires to speak of. The hard work was getting done but most of it not in Redmond. Yes, Microsoft developed a few nice bits of code along the way (Excel and later NT were outstanding), purchased others, and by hook and by crook now control the entire segment. Perhaps the fork at the OS/2 vs NT fiasco is what hurt us, I don't know. Many others were more than capable of also writing an OS, but it is a very tough job, and seems pointless once standards are accepted and the ball is rolling. Nevertheless, Microsoft wound up on top and here we are.

Many of us see betrayal here, it has been mentioned throughout this thread and many others. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is a plan hatched in the executive boardrooms in Redmond, 'how can we create an eco-system completely under our control' (Apple-envy) and 'how can we capitalize and monetize this huge user base we have accumulated'. Put simply, Microsoft wants to build a software system where they are the gatekeepers to what is allowed, they take a Sopranos sized cut on other people's work, they control the advertising and even the OFF switch. It is certainly a new business model for them, and like I said before, Wall Street will no doubt cheer because ethics and morality are in short supply these days. But is it okay? Is it responsible?

To be sure there really are ethical issues, perhaps even legal ones too ('look and feel', anti-trust) that will come in to focus now. But this is almost unprecedented. Try to imagine if after John Rockefeller built Standard Oil and after nearly everyone was using his product he decides to change to natural gas phasing out petroleum so you need to get new cars and he takes a 30% cut on those cars as well, picks the models allowed on the road, and turns them off if he chooses (yeah, no auto analogy is perfect, but this one is very difficult to write because it is so unique). Ethically it is unsavory to take advantage of a captive audience, particularly one you are simply lucky to have in the first place. Microsoft is barely out of the last government action and already I see quite a few possible points of vulnerability. Perhaps they think they have bought off enough Congressman this time around?

Some extra pro-active measures will need to be taken. I hope many more people are contacting their reps in Congress and as well as their State Attorney Generals making sure that Microsoft is kept on a shorter, tighter leash. The Netscape vs. MSIE thing was nothing compared to this. This is treading on dangerous ice with respect to anti-trust and they need to be reminded again and again. Something else that needs to be scrutinized is the OEM hardware industry. We have to make sure Microsoft does not try to pressure them into phasing out older Windows drivers, which is the surest way to murder the previous working OS in favor of the new Windows Tiles. Email MSI and Gigabyte and tell them to continue making Win7 and even WinXP drivers, ignore Microsoft. Again, pressure on the political Reps and State AG's will help, not to mention contacting the OEMs like Dell and HP directly warning them not to collude with Microsoft in an effort to save Metro. This is probably an easier sell now than in the past since Microsoft is actively competing against some of them.

Most importantly we simply have to speak our mind. I feel the same as most commenters here. I can sense the anger. No-one likes to be lied to and no-one likes to be betrayed.

[john29]

windows 8 is the best operating system from microsoft.

[jaclaz]

john29, on 09 July 2012 - 04:58 AM, said:

windows 8 is the best operating system from microsoft.

You see, that's the WHOLE point .

You are perfectly free to post that, it is your opinion, and though you provide NO backing for it, and it is clearly completely WRONG , we do respect that (somewhat )
This is freedom .

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

Quote

In other news, Microsoft abandons Windows Home Server. I guess there must be more money into pushing for their 2nd rate cloud services.

There was a major problem with this product. It was sold and supported under the server line, but anyone who bought it would use it on a desktop board. Even Intel only had support for WHS on their Workstation and Server products. I remember getting escalations to me from tech support at my last company where customers bought it couldn't find drivers. But there was nothing we could do since there are few official drivers for desktop boards for Server 2003.

Quote

Meanwhile, Win8 is likely going to RTM in about a week.

Its possible this month. I am and am not looking forward to it. Partly because I can't wait to get all this past me, and also I'll have to update to the new WinPEs finally.

[MagicAndre1981]

Win8 will be RTM in first week of August and GA in October:

Quote

Tami confirmed that Windows 8 is on track to Release to Manufacturing (RTM) the first week of August. For enterprise customers with Software Assurance benefits, they will have full access to Windows 8 bits as early as August. A

Tami went on to say that Windows 8 will reach general availability by the end of October!

http://windowsteambl...ers-at-wpc.aspx

Also Microsoft will use 500Mio $ for Windows 8 ads:

http://translate.goo...ng-1634284.html