Windows: It's Over - ZDNet Article

[DJ...]

Yep. The 'it's great because you don't really need to use ModernUI if you don't like it' argument is flawed right off the bat. For one ModernUI intrudes on you whether you like it or not - you find yourself yanked into an environment of no right clicks and letters where icons should be. For another the good old Windows environment is Windows 7 minus, not plus. The only plus is the enhanced Windows Explorer which I mean..really?

The new explorer got rid of half of the menu items. Where did they go?!

But wait, I must google, fiddle and try to fix this problem now, or I am lazy. It's not the fault of the operating system that I'm now less efficient because of a change that as far as I can tell, makes no sense.

But then again, compare the explorer to finder in Mac. Wow, Finder is a heap of schit in comparison in my opinion...

 

[Fudzy]

It's been changed to become more accessible from a tablet POV I think. What option are you looking for? I quite like the way you can zoom (ctrl-scrollwheel) and it changes the file view from thumbnails to details.

 

[cerebus]

It's been a while since I used a Mac (and I never liked it much then either) but the OS isn't very filesystem oriented. It's got the same basic structure as Unix because it's based off of it. The whole thinking of Apple around file management is completely different than Microsoft - Apple takes a functional associative approach where strong metadata defines the way the OS manages a file. Microsoft takes a folder hierarchical approach where location and right click menu defines the way the OS manages a file.

 

[crysis]

And I just keep on laughing at these Windows 8 evangelists telling me "I could never go back to Windows 7".

Now let me tell you a little secret - Windows 8 IS Windows 7 when you see the desktop in front of you.

Take away metro (new start menu) and you sit with Windows 7 basic.

It's ..... a bummer.

You obviously haven't used windows 8



I could honestly write an essay explaining why windows 8 has gotten so much flack. But the simple answer is: Most people don't like change. Those that do, are people that are easily adaptable to changing environments and can therefore enjoy more success over those trailing behind using outdated tools. It happens in all facets of life (For instance old timer architects s taken out of business because CAD took over. Or the ****ty development 3DS MAX and Maya has been receiving) . When something new comes out thats faster and better than its predecessor, most people aren't willing to change their own tried and tested methods of working to some other workflow.


I would rather have something new, fresh and enhanced. And as it turns out, you don't need a start menu.

 

[DJ...]

It's been a while since I used a Mac (and I never liked it much then either) but the OS isn't very filesystem oriented. It's got the same basic structure as Unix because it's based off of it. The whole thinking of Apple around file management is completely different than Microsoft - Apple takes a functional associative approach where strong metadata defines the way the OS manages a file. Microsoft takes a folder hierarchical approach where location and right click menu defines the way the OS manages a file.

So are you telling me that in Mac I can save a document anywhere on the system and always be able to pick it up in the finder under documents? That would be cool.

But I usually go exploring all over the system and save all over the show. In Mac, I have the option to navigate the favourites folder of items which as far as I can tell I cannot edit, and that is that. Nothing else. I find it endlessly frustrating, so I inevitably land up having a remote deskptop connection to my Windows PC for that and a few other things...

 

[DJ...]

It's been changed to become more accessible from a tablet POV I think.

Brilliant. My laptop will no doubt be better off for it now.

Apologies, but the sarcasm is just my form of showing my disgust...

 

[cerebus]

So are you telling me that in Mac I can save a document anywhere on the system and always be able to pick it up in the finder under documents? That would be cool.

That's the theory yes. Like I say it's been a while since I used it. But OSX treats the filesystem as a content management system, not just a flat file structure. Actually it's a better approach BUT it can be less empowering, and coming from Windows it can be like that scene in The Abyss where he has to breathe the oxygenated water.

 

[NeoNarchy]

Don't see how you can complain this is the operating system's fault.

Dude the Metro interface is not the real issue I am done with 8 & see it as an unproductive OS, like I have stated above I have punted Classic Shell a lot & I mean a lot, that's the first thing I disable when installing 8.
Its the OS as a whole that just doesn't suite a corporate/home environment unless you lived under a rock & never used computers.
The only people who really adapt fast to 8 is either 6 year old's or grannies like stated by Kilobytes above.
Ill will say it again in a practical business environment its just not that great or practical.
I have a little internet cafe that we run as a extra in our IT store try "training" every walk in to use 8, not that easy hence Classic Shell, now you have to deal with the shIItty network options wanting to join a home group every time, just getting your sharing permissions sorted is cumbersome.
Now we have to deal with the constant "you have more apps that can open a specific file" issue. Lets get stuck in the Metro interface again trying get out of the crap reader program, instead of using Acrobat, the same goes for pics or any other attachment that gets download.
My WHOLE issue with 8 is it wants to do EVERYTHING on its own or open everything with its built in software, ala metro interface being the whole screen, its fancy & nice at first but it just gets to much after a while.
Why is Security Essentials/Defender not on my status bar, now I need to pin it to easily access it.
Why do I also have to sign in to MS to download apps like skype? They seem to be alienating 3rd party developers that's why the like of Valve & Minecraft devs aren't that happy with 8.

This has now actually turned into a rant & that is not where I wanted to end up while writing this, I will give 8 credit its a beautiful touch OS & I m certain surface will be nice, but out of a perspective or viewpoint of a "normal" computer user it just doesn't work like it should, unless of course you load 3rd party apps, hack the registry tweak stuff here etc, but that's not how it was released, was it?

The BIG PICTURE is that as a stock OS without your tweaks(consumers not developers), fixes & hidden links for "normal" apps the OS doesn't work. I believe in a working or not working philosoph,y if i need to put band aid on something to work then its not working, because your only plugging holes & not fixing the real issue.

My 2c as a average PC Techie.

 

[image132]

I can't say if it's well suited for business' because I've never tried it in that environment but from a home user I can say it's awesome.

I absolutely HATED the windows 7 method of sharing stuff. On a simple 2 pc lan you have to go through 2 sets of sharing options to share a folder, what kind of bs is that? As for homegroup windows 7 has that as well. Just turn it off.

Ugh I'm not in the mood to fight through all the hate. Windows 8 can do everything 7 does in the same time or less you just have to have a little patience. I like it and I've always hated the start menu. Was silly of me to post in a hate thread.

 

[abandonallhope]

What makes me lazy, exactly? I do try to learn. I just don't know what it is I'm supposed to be learning. I was never spoonfed anything - I taught myself everything I know about, for example, excel, with which I am more than likely more proficient than most of you around here. Does that make you lazier than me? Does me knowing more about corporate finance and the financial markets than you make you lazy too, by extension of your fscking pathetic accusation?

I don't believe so.

Get over yourself. There are more types of end users than you, and not all of us are proficient in operating systems. For the record, I am typing on a Mac now, but I am not a fan of the operating system either. I cannot figure it out. I don't know wtf half the stuff is here, why it is here, what I'm supposed to do with it etc. And I've tried Linux too. Unfortunately that still requires a degree in geekology to figure out and my graphics card simply doesn't work in Linux, no matter ow many bloody guides I follow or headers I change, or whatever the hell it is that all of that code does.

So sudo-apt-get_fscked as far as I'm concerned...

When you travel to another country do you also rage your face off about how they drive on the right side of the road ?

I thought I was just being curious and had a desire to master something new, basic human traits, this being something that I use extensively. Turns out I'm actually proficient in operating systems :|

You managed with the change from windows NT5 (2000, XP) > NT6.0 and 6.1 (vista, 7) , and you will be fine with NT6.1 > NT6.2.

 

[cerebus]

I can't say if it's well suited for business' because I've never tried it in that environment but from a home user I can say it's awesome.

I absolutely HATED the windows 7 method of sharing stuff. On a simple 2 pc lan you have to go through 2 sets of sharing options to share a folder, what kind of bs is that? As for homegroup windows 7 has that as well. Just turn it off.

Yeah that was improved quite a lot.

Ugh I'm not in the mood to fight through all the hate. Windows 8 can do everything 7 does in the same time or less you just have to have a little patience. I like it and I've always hated the start menu. Was silly of me to post in a hate thread.

Why? It's just different views.

 

[cerebus]

When you travel to another country do you also rage your face off about how they drive on the right side of the road ?

I thought I was just being curious and had a desire to master something new, basic human traits, this being something that I use extensively. Turns out I'm actually proficient in operating systems :|

You managed with the change from windows NT5 (2000, XP) > NT6.0 and 6.1 (vista, 7) , and you will be fine with NT6.1 > NT6.2.

You can't seem to get that it isn't the newness of the thing that Win8 critics dislike - it's the actual implementation of it. The glaring flaws that it has, the breakdowns in normal OS design language principles - and not in a good way. It does some things well, but a lot of the things they implemented were done sloppily and with a fairly obvious (to me) departmental breakdown at MS HQ. Here's Jacob Nielsen on Windows8.

 

[NeoNarchy]

You can't seem to get that it isn't the newness of the thing that Win8 critics dislike - it's the actual implementation of it. The glaring flaws that it has, the breakdowns in normal OS design language principles - and not in a good way. It does some things well, but a lot of the things they implemented were done sloppily and with a fairly obvious (to me) departmental breakdown at MS HQ. Here's Jacob Nielsen on Windows8.

That"s well said a lot more eloquently than I could have put it, its not about the "hating" but more about the lack of ease of using it or the reward in using it.

 

[abandonallhope]

You can't seem to get that it isn't the newness of the thing that Win8 critics dislike - it's the actual implementation of it. The glaring flaws that it has, the breakdowns in normal OS design language principles - and not in a good way. It does some things well, but a lot of the things they implemented were done sloppily and with a fairly obvious (to me) departmental breakdown at MS HQ. Here's Jacob Nielsen on Windows8.

Who the **** is Jacob Nielsen ?

 

[AlphaJohn]

Who the **** is Jacob Nielsen ?

Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., is a User Advocate and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group which he co-founded with Dr. Donald A. Norman (former VP of research at Apple Computer). Dr. Nielsen established the "discount usability engineering" movement for fast and cheap improvements of user interfaces and has invented several usability methods, including heuristic evaluation. He holds 79 United States patents, mainly on ways of making the Internet easier to use.

Jakob Nielsen has been called:

"the king of usability" (Internet Magazine)
"the guru of Web page usability" (The New York Times)
"the next best thing to a true time machine" (USA Today)
"the smartest person on the Web" (ZDNet AnchorDesk)
"the world's leading expert on Web usability" (U.S. News & World Report)
one of the top 10 minds in small business (FORTUNE Small Business)
"the world's leading expert on user-friendly design" (Stuttgarter Zeitung, Germany)
"knows more about what makes Web sites work than anyone else on the planet" (Chicago Tribune)
"one of the world's foremost experts in Web usability" (Business Week)
"the Web's usability czar" (WebReference.com)
"the reigning guru of Web usability" (FORTUNE)
"eminent Web usability guru" (CNN)
"perhaps the best-known design and usability guru on the Internet" (Financial Times)
"the usability Pope" (Wirtschaftswoche Magazine, Germany)
"new-media pioneer" (Newsweek)
One of the "world's most influential designers" (Businessweek)

http://www.nngroup.com/people/jakob-nielsen/

or Check out the Wiki Jakob Nielsen (usability consultant) if you really wanna know.

 

[NeoNarchy]

@AplhaJohn Well played Sir & here is a little picture to illustrate what just happened:

http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-and-boom-headshot-6.png

 

[abandonallhope]

http://www.nngroup.com/people/jakob-nielsen/

or Check out the Wiki Jakob Nielsen (usability consultant) if you really wanna know.

Amongst some of the bull**** points he raised I like the way he ended that stupid article cerebus posted : OK you guise I really like MS's ribbon and the xbox and like I have many friends working there so this makes my write up really legit.

 

[BigAl-sa]

Let me just say that most of you, if not all, appear to be atypical users in that you are well versed in the very technical details of this all.

For us non-geek users, it is incredibly frustrating. Well, for me at least.

We don't know what this classic shell stuff is.
We don't know how to open apps on different screens now when previously it was a simple drag and drop.
We don't know that apps are now required to do things that were previously native to the OS.

Basically, all of this technical stuff that most of you guys take for granted is stuff that we don't know, nor care to know. It should just work out-of-the-box, and as far as I am concerned, it doesn't. That makes it a complete flop in my books...

Well said Boet!

It's like hearing "everyone" telling me that win is better than anything else because my granny can use it...

 

[Roman4604]

Its the OS as a whole that just doesn't suite a corporate/home environment unless you lived under a rock & never used computers.

Dude, every issue point you raise indicates to me you don't even have an intermediate understanding of Windows (in general not just Win8).

The BIG PICTURE is that as a stock OS without your tweaks(consumers not developers), fixes & hidden links for "normal" apps the OS doesn't work

What tweaks, I'm talking about spending 30min customizing stock Win8 up front to be 99% Desktop centric (i.e. like Win7 with a big Start menu). All you need to do is uninstall all the Metro apps (simple right click for each), replace them with your desktop programs (pin to Start) and finally fix any default extension handling.

None of these concepts are new to Win8, pinning (shortcuts) and default extension handling were there in Win7. If you don't understand them in Win8 its highly unlikely you understand them properly in Win7.

My 2c as a average PC Techie.

Well, we'll just have to disagree on that one.

 

[DJ...]

When you travel to another country do you also rage your face off about how they drive on the right side of the road ?

Nominated for worst analogy of the year. How one drives might have been better or the car itself, perhaps. Driving on the other side of the road? Do you bother to read through what you post before hitting the submit button?

I thought I was just being curious and had a desire to master something new, basic human traits, this being something that I use extensively. Turns out I'm actually proficient in operating systems :|

So, avoid the post altogether and carry on with your point of view as if nothing was posted at all. Well done...

You managed with the change from windows NT5 (2000, XP) > NT6.0 and 6.1 (vista, 7) , and you will be fine with NT6.1 > NT6.2.

Thanks for talking on my behalf. Let me give it a shot:

You have a bank account and understand how interest works, therefore you'll be fine understanding arbitrage opportunities inherent in collateralised derivative instruments, particularly convertible issuances.



You calling me lazy for not understanding it is the exact same as me calling you lazy for not understanding what I just posted. You tell me to go out and learn the thing is the same as me telling you go learn the intricacies of the financial market.

You geeks are the worst when it comes to empathy for non-tech-savvy users. You bitch about our inability to conceptualise things, yet put in our world would in all likelihood be out of your depth too.

Stop assuming that you are the standard benchmark. You are not...