Windows 8 Consumer Preview, hands-on

[JorgeA]

I've spent my spare time over the past couple of days duplicating in the Consumer Preview many of the things that I tried in the Developer Preview. The idea was to get a read, from an end-user's perspective, on whether and how Microsoft improved the "beta" product over the "pre-beta" version, and to get a sense of the working environment that the company intends to provide for its customers. I'm neither a developer nor an electrical engineer, so my commentary doesn't involve getting into the inner workings of the hardware or the operating system -- rather, it has to do with the "user experience" for a non-IT professional who would use Windows 8 to get serious, sometimes complex and intense work done.

For context, I'll be quoting from earlier notes in the "First Impressions" and "Deeper Impressions" threads for the Developer Preview, and then compare them to how things worked in the new Consumer Preview. To make reading easier, I've divided the post into three parts, each one focusing on a different general aspect of the Windows 8 experience.

I. Looks and Clicks

The first sign that things are better comes right during the installation process, when at one point the user is given a choice of background colors for the Start Screen. The same old bilious green is still offered, but now you can change it to one of a variety of colors that you might find more pleasing. I chose a dark blue background.

Many (including myself) complained about how difficult it was to perform certain basic operations in the Developer Preview, relative to current versions of Windows. The Consumer Preview mitigates but does not fully eliminate these concerns:

Finally, unless someone can point me to a better way, shutting down the system now takes four actions (hover the mouse to the lower left corner, click on Settings, move the cursor to the opposite end of the screen to click on Power, then click on Shut Down) instead of three as is the case in Vista (Start-->hover over right arrow-->Shut Down). Since there is no Windows orb on the desktop from which you can shut down or restart the system, you have to go back to the Metro tile screen to accomplish this, so potentially that represents a fifth action to shut down.

It still takes four actions to shut down the system: Hover the mouse cursor at the upper or lower right edge to bring out the charms, then click on Settings, then click on Power, and then click on Shut Down. Now you can accomplish this from the Desktop, so there is no need for a fifth action to shut down. This represents a marginal improvement in CP over the DP.

if you take the mouse cursor to the left edge of the screen, a thumbnail of the Desktop pops up that you can click to get back there

This is still the case, but only in the corner (which I think has been dubbed the "hot corner"). By the same token, if you're in the Desktop, taking the cursor to that lower left corner will show a thumbnail of the Metro Start Screen.

To run a program as an administrator,

Now, let's do a click comparison. Suppose you're in the Desktop and wish to run Spybot (or any other program) as an administrator, and you don't have a desktop icon for it, but it's listed (without being pinned) on the Start Menu because you use it fairly regularly. In Vista and Windows 7 you can click on the Start orb, then right-click on the icon for Spybot (or whatever), then click on "Run as Administrator." That's three steps.

In Windows 8, to accomplish the same thing from the desktop (which is where most real work will be getting done from), you click on the Start thingie that replaced the orb, then (assuming you've moved the tile to the initial screen because you use it fairly regularly) you right-click on the program tile. Next you click on "Advanced Settings," and then click on "Run as administrator." That's four steps.

This now works as well as in Vista or Windows 7. Open the Start Screen, right-click on the program tile, and you get a bar across the bottom with choices for various functions, one of which is to "Run as administrator."

And if you want to rename the file, or scan it with an antivirus program, or view the Properties, then after clicking on Advanced Settings you have to click on "Open file location," then right-click on the file in Windows Explorer, and only then finally get to perform the action you desire. That's two additional steps, for a total of six, or twice as many as in today's Desktop.

The "Advanced Settings" option has been removed, but instead now you can click directly on "Open file location," which saves one step off how it was done in the DP. However, this is still two more steps than needed to do the same thing in Vista/Win7.

Launching Windows Defender:

In the Vista desktop, it takes at most four actions to launch Windows Defender: Start --> All Programs --> scroll to Windows Defender (if necessary) --> click on Windows Defender.

From the Windows 8 DP desktop, you can click on Start, type "def" (three keystrokes), click on Settings, and then click on Windows Defender. That's a total of six actions. How is that better?

Again, this is a little better in the CP. Now you go to the Start Screen, and when you type "def" Windows Defender is listed as the top choice in the app results, which is the default category (the other categories are Settings and Files). So you can get to Defender in five strokes instead of six, but that's still a longer process than in Vista and Windows 7.

And I still haven't found a simple way to open a context menu for an application, comparable to right-clicking the program's listing on the current Start Menu.

Still the case, although the right-click option in Metro (as described above for Spybot) reproduces some of the context menu's functions, though by no means all of them.

Navigating programs:

On the desktop you can easily move the cursor to the right place on the taskbar to get directly to the program you want.

In the CP, when in Metro you can go to the hot corner, scroll the cursor up, and a panel opens along the left edge that shows the currently open Metro apps. Much smoother than before.

So there is definite improvement from the viewpoint of usability, but still plenty of room for more.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

II. Using Windows 8 CP

Concerning the installation of new programs, and how they are listed on the Metro Start Screen:

Program compatibillity is of course one of the most important factors in deciding whether to switch to a new OS. I was also curious to see how the Metro interface would handle newly installed programs. So I downloaded and installed current versions of Firefox (9), HandBrake, and Spybot Search & Destroy (1.6.2). These three programs have worked flawlessly so far.

If the program goes through an installation process, a new plain tile with the program's name will appear at the far end of the Metro start screen. If you expect to use the program often, you can drag the tile over to the left end, although that process is somewhat clunky.

One interesting (not sure if good) outcome is that the individual subprograms within a main program get their own tiles. For instance, after installing Spybot I ended up with tiles for main Spybot, the file shredder, the update function, and uninstall. I wonder if it's possible to merge these back into one tile -- install enough applications, and you could end up with hundreds of tiles and tons of Start screen pages to scroll through. The current, "classic" All Programs menu makes for a much more compact lookup experience.

The same three programs (except that it's now Firefox 10) installed and operated just as well in the CP as in the DP. As a bonus, only three Spybot tiles showed up in the Start Screen (the uninstall executable didn't get a tile this time).

Of course, avoiding the need to wade through a proliferation of icons/links in a list of programs is the point of the tree/folder structure in the classic/legacy/stale/outdated/tired/old-hat Start Menu. In this respect, the Start Menu is still clearly superior to the Metro Start Screen.

Some notes on miscellaneous functions:

1. In the Win8 preview, putting a CD or DVD in the optical drive has zero effect for me -- that is, not only does the autoplay window not pop up, but the disc isn't even listed in Windows Explorer. (The same discs show up fine in the same PC if I boot into Windows 7.)

2. On the other hand, USB flash drives are found right away. Playing a movie in Windows Media Player (again in Win8) gave me audio that was quite a bit behind the video. (The same file, when played on our TV -- the TV has a USB port -- was much better synchronized, though not perfectly.)

3. There is no Word or Microsoft Works installed, so out of curiosity I tried to open some DOC files off the flash drive. Though I was in the Desktop, a Metro-style popup appeared, inviting me to visit the app store for a program that could open the file. This is in contrast to Windows behavior up till now, which is to ask, in a neutral way, which program I'd like to use to open the file.

#1 is unchanged -- Win8 CP is still not detecting an optical disc in my drive, unless a CD or DVD happens to be sitting there already at bootup.

As for #2, in the CP when you insert a flash drive you hear a little tinkle sound, and a box pops up in the upper right, asking what you want to do with the USB drive. A clear improvement. However, the same movie file (which plays almost fine in Vista and on our TV) still has the audio way behind in Windows Media Player for the Consumer Preview.

I also tried playing an MP3 and an MP4 file. When you double-click on an MP3 in Windows Explorer (therefore, in the Desktop), you're dragged over to Metro for a music app, which invites you to agree to a nebulous "music beta program agreement." And if you click on an MP4, likewise you get yanked over to Metro for a "video beta program agreement." Presumably, this is for a license to use some unspecified music or video app. Happily, in either case you also get the little blue box offering to play the file in Windows Media Player.

Regarding #3 above, when I opened a .DOC file, now Windows 8 (in addition to suggesting the app store) offers to look for apps on the Web and in your PC. Significantly, it also gives a list of possible applications to open the file with (including Notepad), as has traditionally been the case when Windows doesn't know what to do with a file you want to open. More definite progress. But I don't believe for a minute the official BMS line that all of these improvements had been planned for the CP already when the DP came out. If the original intent were not to push the app store hard, why then would the DP have given an app store as the only choice to look for applications to open a file that it couldn't figure out? Somebody with a brain at MS must have come to realize that customers would rebel at being herded into an app store like this.

With respect to the Windows Updates process:

Tonight I downloaded and installed a bunch of Windows Updates. When the process was finished, I wanted to check the details for each update, knowing that that would take me to the relevant Microsoft page.

Even though I was on the Desktop, IE10 went into what I've learned is called "immersive" mode

Now, in the CP, if you view the Update History and click on the info for a particular update, the browser window opens in the full-eatured Desktop IE10.

Getting Windows Update information prior to downloading:

Clicking on the Metro tile for Control Panel to check for updates takes you to a screen that merely tells you that there is an update available -- there is no useful information about the update (other than the file size -- not even the name!) to help you decide whether you want to download it right away. Looks like another attempt to get users to unquestioningly download whatever comes down the pike.

If you want actual information on the update, you have to go to the "classic" Windows Update window. To get there from the Desktop takes six actions: click on Start --> Control Panel --> scroll down to "More Settings" --> click on it --> click on System and Security --> click on "Check for updates" under Windows Update. In my Vista Desktop, it takes three actions: Start --> click on Control Panel --> click on "Check for updates" under Security.

There is no longer a Control Panel tile in the Start Screen. Instead, in Metro you reach the Windows Update by hovering the cursor in the lower right screen to bring up the charms, then click on Settings --> More Settings. Now that page contains a button which provides some more details about the Update.

From the CP Desktop, you can get "classic" update info by putting the cursor in the lower-left corner of the screen, then right-clicking to bring up the context menu, followed by clicking on Control Panel, then System and Security, and finally Check for Updates. If you don't count moving the mouse to the corner as an action, that's four steps, or one more than in Vista/Win7.

Now to the most controversial aspect of Windows 8, the (Metro) Start Screen.

Apparently there are tools to disable Metro, and registry hacks to retrieve the Start Menu. It remains to be seen, though, whether these methods will still work in the Windows 8 beta and then the official release. Maybe MS will make it easier to disable Metro and/or to work in the Desktop exclusively.

These did work in the DP, but not in the CP. MS has not (yet) assented to the widespread market demand for user choice in this important respect.

However, they did introduce a context menu containing a variety of useful administrative tools, which you can reach by hitting the hot corner in the lower left and then right-clicking. Now you can reach the desktop Control Panel, for example, with that action. The choices include (among others) Network Connections, Event Viewer, Device Manager, and an administrative-rights Command Prompt. It even works if you're in the Start Screen. IMO this is the biggest single usability improvement in the Consumer Preview.

Lastly, MS has given the user a way to actually close a Metro app:

Eventually I figured out that I could get back to Metro by hitting the Windows key, and then back to the desktop by clicking on its Metro tile... so that THEN I could click on the IE icon in the taskbar and THEN at long last click on the red X to close it.

The Metro UI now has a neat feature enabling the user to close out the app: If you move the mouse cursor to the top edge of the screen, the arrow changes to a hand; you can then drag this hand down to the bottom edge and then out to the left edge, and the app image will first get small and then disappear off the edge.

There was one disturbing incident during my trials. After downloading and then running and closing the F-Secure Easy Clean on-demand malware scanner, next time I went to switch from the Desktop to the Metro Start Screen, the "hot corner" at the lower left no longer brought out the Start Screen thumbnail, nor did right-clicking there bring out the new context menu; hovering in the lower-right corner no longer made the charms appear; and after hitting the Windows key and launching a Metro app, trying to close the app by dragging it down from the top edge no longer did anything. All of a sudden, the only way to shut down the computer was to hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Hmm.

The next time I tried running this tool (after a reboot), it just kept scanning endlessly. I closed the program after half an hour (in my Vista system, which contains a lot more stuff to scan, it takes less than ten minutes). Fortunately, this time there was no loss of functionality, but there is evidently some incompatibility issue with this tool and Windows 8.

--JorgeA

Edited March 7, 2012 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

III. Internet Explorer 10

The Metro IE screen is now much more informative:

The "immersive" screen lacking in controls or browser information, now sports an address/search bar that shows the URL of where you are, plus some buttons across the bottom. If you click in the address/search bar, you're shown a half-screen of "frequent" sites. Not quite a Favorites list where you can place a seemingly unlimited number of links, but it's something.

In addition, under some circumstances if you hover the cursor around the middle of the left and right edges of the screen, you see a small black arrow in a light gray background that you can click on to get to the previous or next page.

The icon in Metro IE that looked like a Word icon has been changed to a wrench, which is less confusing.

next time I clicked on IE in Metro I was taken to the last page I had visited, rather than to a homepage

This is still the way Metro IE10 behaves. Apparently the concept of a "home" page has been abandoned.

Downloading files in Metro IE10:

when downloading, there is NO indication of where the file is being downloaded to, let alone a choice as to where you prefer to download it. If they ever do get rid of the Desktop, this is going to be a nightmare.

There is no change here. You just have to know, or figure out, that files get downloaded to the same place they go when you download via Desktop IE10.

What happens when you right-click on a Web link:

Also right-clicked on a link to a text page, and it took me to the page showing the text, but there was no option to download it.

There are still no options to download such a file in Metro IE10. You do get four choices: Copy, Copy link, Open link in new tab, Open link.

The CP SmartScreen Filter is less aggressive than in the DP:

I went to download Classic Shell for the purpose of testing the feature to restore a functional status bar in Internet Explorer 10 (desktop version). IE10's SmartScreen Filter prohibited the download, claiming that it was malware, and offered no choice to perform the download anyway.

This time, I was able to download Classic Shell via Desktop IE10 without interference by the filter. Good.

While better than before, this version of the browser can still stand improvement. At one point I had several pages open, but when I closed a single one, all of them became unavailable. Also, the behavior of the "black arrows in gray background" that sometimes appear, seems to be related to whether you have tabs or separate instances of the browser open. However, since Metro IE10 shows neither tabs nor windows, this distinction is lost, and so as you surf it's hard to know when or if you'll get those back and forward arrows in any given case.

Moreover, from both an esthetic and a practical viewpoint, the new scrollbar used in both versions of IE10 (it's flat and gray, not standing out in relief from the rest of the screen) is harder to find quickly. More than once I found myself clicking to drag the scroll bar in what turned out to be an empty spot.

Bottom line for me: I am not a fan of chromeless browsing. In fact I dislike it intensely. I rely on the status bar to tell me what's going on and what the websites are trying to do to me, and I use the toolbars to get things done. As long as I retain the choice to put up my menu and status bars and other toolbars, IE9 or 10 doesn't make much of a difference to me. If only someone would recreate a status bar that has ALL of the functionality of the IE8 status bar (displaying, for example, the Privacy Report and the SmartScreen Filter notices -- I don't want to have to look elsewhere or remember every time to click on something to see these). I can live with 9 or 10, but I'll probably stick with IE8 for as long as it works. Metro IE10 I would use once in a blue moon, just to remind myself what a constricted and frustrating experience it is.

If nothing else, preparing these comments helped me to increase my understanding of Windows 8. I hope they might do the same for you.

--JorgeA

[vinifera]

the only and only thing I like 8 will have and both 7/vista lack

is DWM in non DWM compliant apps, as they turn off DWM then and spit user out in Basic (XP) theme engine where we lose

the functionality of mainly important taskbar which is frustrating if you work in just 1 program that disables all that

and you still use OS for other things

(sorry if I intruded this topic btw)

[Aloha]

JorgeA,

Your topic is very impressive. Thanks.

I just want to talk a little about launching Windows Defender. I am curious why you have to open it manually. I let it start automatically with Windows and can forget about it. My computer is always in protected status. Windows Defender will notify me of any malicious threat it finds.

[JorgeA]

the only and only thing I like 8 will have and both 7/vista lack

is DWM in non DWM compliant apps, as they turn off DWM then and spit user out in Basic (XP) theme engine where we lose

the functionality of mainly important taskbar which is frustrating if you work in just 1 program that disables all that

and you still use OS for other things

(sorry if I intruded this topic btw)

vinifera,

Not intruding at all! All "angles" of this are welcome.

Hmm, you drove me to look up DWM in Wikipedia. I learned something.

Which programs have you used in Vista/Win7 that disable DWM? I haven't run into that issue. I've seen some where the windows and dialog boxes show up in a basic theme (without the Aero transparency), but without affecting anything else.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

JorgeA,

Your topic is very impressive. Thanks.

I just want to talk a little about launching Windows Defender. I am curious why you have to open it manually. I let it start automatically with Windows and can forget about it. My computer is always in protected status. Windows Defender will notify me of any malicious threat it finds.

Aloha,

Thanks for the nice comment, I appreciate it.

Like you, I let Windows Defender start when Windows boots up, so that it's always running in the background. But once a week I also launch Defender to do a manual scan of the whole system, just in case. So since I use it regularly, and it doesn't have a tile in the Metro Start Screen, it was a good choice to try the search function in the Metro UI. (Note that the Vista/Win7 Start Menu does list Defender.)

--JorgeA

[vinifera]

well Adobe Audition (in my case v1.5) does it

but in past I did encounter some more apps doing the same

[MagicAndre1981]

In Win8 DWM is always on because Metro won't work without DWM.

After using the CP 1 week I can say that from the Desktop world it is what I expected from Windows 7 3 years ago. So if I would have desktop only version I would pre-order it today. But this Metro sucks. Metro world no longer uses ClearType and this hurts my eyes. This ugly font rendering + Fullscreen is why I'll never use Metro Tile 1.0 (codename Windows 8).

[Tripredacus]

Which programs have you used in Vista/Win7 that disable DWM?

The only ones that do it for me are in the Macromedia MX 2004 suite. Its annoying because it disables Aero, but other older programs like Leetch and CDex don't use Aero and still don't disable DWM. It would be nice if exceptions could be made.

Here are some other findings posted on reboot if you are interested in them:

http://reboot.pro/16468/

[JorgeA]

This ugly font rendering + Fullscreen is why I'll never use Metro Tile 1.0 (codename Windows 8).

"Tile 1.0" is right.

The CP is definitely better than the DP in terms of how quickly and easily you can get to system functions (that is, clicks or actions needed), but still not as good as Vista/Win7.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Here are some other findings posted on reboot if you are interested in them:

http://reboot.pro/16468/

Tripredacus,

Thanks for that link. I see your name in there!

That was a very informative thread, BTW. When I get the chance to, I'll be trying the Start Menu 7 and the suggested method to get the computer to boot into the Desktop (see post #30). Maybe, just maybe, the combination of these two changes might make it possible to use Windows 8 without ever having to see the Metro Start Screen. (Or at least, only rarely.)

--JorgeA

[Tripredacus]

This ugly font rendering + Fullscreen is why I'll never use Metro Tile 1.0 (codename Windows 8).

"Tile 1.0" is right.

I'd think it as Tile 1.1 or Tile 2.0 (1.1 is probably better) since MS already uses Metro in Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360 right?

[JorgeA]

Tripredacus,

OK, I just finished trying out some of the ideas in the thread that you told us about from the other forum.

Haven't used it extensively, but it looks like if you put together the suggestion in post 16 with the idea from post 30, then you can (1) boot to the Desktop and (2) easily access files, programs, and tools without (maybe) ever having to go into the Metro Start Screen. You can still go into Metro if you want, and you'll still be seeing that screen for a few seconds during startup, but otherwise it appears that it may be possible to live and work in Windows 8 without that Metro clunkiness+ugliness.

The Start Menu solution doesn't look like the Start Menu from Windows 7 and Vista, but it seems to have more functionality than the ViStart product. Some people may not care for the way that programs or documents flare out to the right, Windows 98-style, but as a Win98 fan that doesn't bother me. And they pop out automatically, so it requires no additional action by the user. You can customize the skin, and it's simple to resize the menu by dragging the edges in (and they'll stay the way you left them the next time you open the menu).

The best features are that you can shut down the computer (or access other tools) every bit as fast as in Vista. I can launch Defender (or any other program) in just two clicks. And that shutdown menu is quite impressive.

And... we got the Start Orb back!!

We're getting closer and closer to the optimal solution that Microsoft has thus far refused to offer -- choice with "no compromises."

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Here's what the Windows 8 desktop looks like with the Start Menu X displayed in its full glory. Also, a shot of the program's extensive shutdown menu. And, note what's back in the lower left corner...