Final thoughts on Windows 8: A design disaster

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Final thoughts on Windows 8: A design disaster[/h]By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
June 7, 2012, 8:59am PDT

Summary: The biggest problem with Windows 8 is that it wasn’t born out of a need or demand. Its design failures, particularly with ‘Metro UI’ will likely be its downfall. Here’s why.

A week ago, Microsoft delivered the Windows 8 Release Preview, the final pre-release of the platform before the forthcoming operating system hits the release-to-manufacturing stage. OEMs get their hands on the final code at this stage, followed by Windows 8’s general availability where it’s available to us all.

I’ve been following Windows 8 closely over the past few months, spending a lot of time not only with the official releases but also with a number of leaked builds, and I’ve had the chance to install the operating system on a variety of hardware platforms, both old and new. However, since my primary working platform is a desktop system, this is where I’ve had the chance to spend the most time with Microsoft’s new operating system.

I’m now ready to sum up my Windows 8 experience with a single word: awful.

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The Developer Preview failed to install here on any VM. Likewise the RP refused to go on a VM as well while the CP went on two different releases of VM Player without a hitch except no internet connection on one VM Player release(Dec. 2011) but would connect on the later(Feb. 2012). Besides those two issues that last line would seem to sum things up on how many feel about where MS is going!

 

[Night Hawk]

It won't be the desktop market for the average user! Someone going to buy a new OEM premade system to trade in their old XP boat achor will be in for tremendous shock! "Hey!" as the outrage consumer inquires the retailer "Where the .... is Windows 8 or whatever? And what is this crap?!"

For those who don't like going back and forth to the Start>Programs menu MS made things quite a bit easier with the option to "pin shortcuts to the taskbar"! That option replaced the previous Quick Launch option seen with the previous versions to avoid repeat back and forth trips! Another "W7" success I might add!

The Metro itself wouldn't be any major annoyance if it had been set up like the Vista side bar with the right click option to simply uncheck the start up with Windows box! Then you would the chioice of Start>Programs or Start screen! Instead MS decided to strip the Start>Programs menu entirely in favor of a Tablet PC touchscreen gui suddenly being imposed on the desktop users!

Adding to that you cannot change the sizing of the Start screen buttons which start off a LARGE or Smaller and fill the entire screen "Lightning fast" requiring you to scroll endlessly to the right once you have a volume of programs and often multiple shortcuts as well as any others you elect to pin there. "Scroll, scroll, scroll the screen! Not so happily seen! by most users...." ddaaaaa...

 

[alphanumeric]

I have to admit I'm not all that familiar with todays tablets. I've played with a couple at Staples and Future Shop but that's a about it. I don't own a smart phone either. To me the Metro Start screen looks pretty bland, even with live tiles. Compare that to a tablet with the Android desktop or whatever it is, and the Android looks a lot better. To me it looks more like Windows than the Windows 8 tablet does. I can't help but think that anybody that doesn't know Windows from Android, is going to buy the Android tablet. To me the Metro Start screen looks unfinished and unpolished. IMHO It's brand new and it already looks dated.

 

[Night Hawk]

Even the beta fish and subsequent RC look for 7 was off. But this like those builds for 7 is all pre-release. Once you get any new Windows install you work out your own themes for the most part anyways.

Hopefully someone will come up with some options to improve the appearance and sizing for the Start screen until a method or option still to be seen with the RTM is there to disable it. It's rather sad and disappointing at how they are simply throwing it "In Your Face whether you like it or not!" out without taking into account the desktop users whether or not the mouse can still be used for touchscreen gui.

The transition from XP all Classic theme to the newer Aero was seen to over two not one version as was 3.1 to 95 and now 7 to 8! Inbetween XP and 7 you had Vista with both Aero and Classic.

 

[HPDeskjet]

Yes I can see that Microsoft will regain their position in the market.

Is that the 'My First Toy PC' market you're talking about? I hear Fisher Price absolutely love the Metro UI.

Business 'aint interested in it, even MS accept that, and, nobody that I've let had a go on it wants to touch it with a barge pole. They all seem to hate Metro and will not be buying Windows 8. 'They' being people at work, family and friends.

The utterly laughable thing is that it could all be solved by simply allowing users to switch off Metro if they so wish. But no, the MS Metro Mafia are camped out in Redmonds bunkers, eyes shut tight and earplugs stuffed in their ears. They fully deserve the self created disaster that is coming to them. Their arrogance in forcing the Metro UI on everyone will be their nemesis.

 

[pparks1]

I've now get it installed on a testing desktop which is now situated on my desk at work and am trying to force myself to use it. Like others, I don't call it a design disaster, but it's a bit too much of 2 different designs for my tastes that are integrated a bit clunky.

At the present time, I'm trying to stick to only what I can do by default. So, if you cannot add a start menu back without 3rd party applications, at the present time I am doing without. I've gotta judge it by what it can do by default...not what I can make it do with lots of effort and research on my part. Once I am more familiar, I am sure that I will add all of these functionality pieces back.

 

[Night Hawk]

That's one way to look at it! Each will have their own opinions as well as assessment of 8 if they elect to run it long enough to look at what else the next version will bring. Many hated Vista without even giving the older version a good run simply complaining about the larger version without realizing it was far more stable then XP SP2 ever thought of being!

In fact many grew so attached to Vista they ended up dumping 7 when briefly looking at it to back to the previous! Likewise 98 1st edition fell flat on it's face there until 98SE came out. Missed getting 98SE PLUS! back then.

But wait! MS once again fudged the works up with ME while 2000 was loved by many that ended up skipping over XP entirely considering that to be a crap OS! Yet Vista gets the bad rap due to the extended delay and XP being the only new version for those extra years.

The assessment here on 8 deals it never being a replacement for 7 since i can run just about everything I want on the 64bit 7 while a few items would need to be run on the 32bit instead. Those few however are the non essentials.

With 8 on the other hand from what has been so far several software companies will need to release newer versions of their wares soon or 8 will have to be left out of the equation. Otherwise it would be a dual boot only not any replacement OS.

 

[DonC]

I've been testing Win 8 about 6 weeks. I've been asked to be our point man for our 1400 member Computer. I must admit that coming in I expected a debacle (SHORT MSFT!). For my first few days I thought my expectations had been realized. But soon I began finding out that I was easily navigating from app to app with ease -- and that's with my mouse!

I should note that I am part of a group supporting about 50 Win 7 machines but also support members with their XP and Vista machines so I have to know my way around very fluidly. I've quickly come to the realization that Win 8 is MUCH easier to navigate than XP, Vista or Win 7 once you get to know the system.

That said, my current opinion is that MS has a pretty good design concept poorly implemented - at this point. I expected the Release Preview to show a refinement and fleshing out of the concept. Instead I think they've slid backwards.

Examples: the concept of having a one click email app accessible at the start page is great. But they supported only Hotmail, gmail and exchange until Release when they dropped back to only Hotmail. Good Lord! They have the starting blue print in Windows Live Mail. Right now I have 5 email addresses (2 Cox, 1 Hotmail 1 edu) I can access in one app. Now WLM ain't perfect but like I say, it's a good starting point and about a million times better than what's in the Release version.

Another: the photos app is lame at best. Nice try. Bring all your pictures together with one click. So what do we get: Skydrive, Face Book, Flickr and My Pictures. Trouble is My Pictures at least on my installation can't seem to access my 20gigs plus of of local pictures in any meaningful structure. I know they're link to them since they have a slide show running on the face of the app.

And so it goes. Almost every app is lame, lame lame which could be acceptable in early beta releases but not a release supposedly targeted for this fall.

I'll repeat (at the risk of getting slammed) it's a good concept but at the rate they're progressing, we may have to wait until Windows 9 to see it come to fruition.


If I was giving my presentations and classes soon instead of in October, I'm sure I'd be discouraging our members from even considering early implementation.


My 2 cents,
Don

PS- you need a bigger reply window! (just another 2 cents)

 

[Night Hawk]

Point taken! Generally you would have thought the RP would have seen a variation as each stage progressed towards retail. But the Metro is still tossed in your face without any options just for appearance alone except the initial color slider setting for background. The first thing I do with any RP install is remove the clutter you first see on the Start screen for things I wouldn't using to start with. Before the Refresh PC option was tested to how that would turn out I did have numerous other programs pretty well organized.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
using the "Power shell" you can get an orb with the classic start menu back on W8.

The trick also is to pin a few apps to "the taskbar" and send others to the desktop.

To send an app to the desktop get into the metro screen and choose open file location on the application say MS word.
When you get to the file location right mouse click and choose send to desktop.

I've deleted almost everything possible from the metro stuff and with the "power shell" classic menu, stuff on the desktop and taskbar I've found W8 a very useable OS -- runs a lot faster than 7 and find things like the native mounting of .ISO files really useful especially on a small laptop without a physical DVD device.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Night Hawk]

The funny thing is even on 7 I generally only use the Start orb to restart or shut the system down. Shortcuts for each of those as well as logging off and other things aren't any major project either. I had some of those when using the Start Menu 7 addon that lacks the shutdown button to begin with. The Classic Shell has it however. What most are looking for however is how to disable the Start screen from being the first thing rather then the desktop when booting up or logging on. The rest of the stuff to work out is gravy except for running into the all too familiar compatibility issues you would expect with nay newer version. I'm sure something else will ask: "How did you get the Start orb and Programs menu back using the Windows Power Shell?" so I have to ask that here.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi Nighthawk



Cheers
jimbo

 

[Night Hawk]

Looks great! I see you found a solution. Here's how I handle a large number of programs without ever even having the need to click on the Start>Programs. Note the additional tool bars on the taskbar will need a close look in order to see the 5 of them besides RocketDock.



The next screen shows how the addon bars look and can be created on any version of Windows from XP through 8!



Now combine RocketDock with 5 or 6 dropdown Quick Launch type additional toolbars and you can handle quite a bit without ever needing to bring out an extended Start>Programs menu.

 

[lehnerus2000]

How many pages ...

Looks great! I see you found a solution. Here's how I handle a large number of programs without ever even having the need to click on the Start>Programs. Note the additional tool bars on the taskbar will need a close look in order to see the 5 of them besides RocketDock.

...

The next screen shows how the addon bars look and can be created on any version of Windows from XP through 8!

...

Now combine RocketDock with 5 or 6 dropdown Quick Launch type additional toolbars and you can handle quite a bit without ever needing to bring out an extended Start>Programs menu.

Holy cr#p! :shock:

I wonder how many pages of Metro tiles you'd need for all of those items?

 

[Night Hawk]

I wouldn't want to find out! You might end up needing to scroll the length of a good novel!

If I do get to load 8 up with about the same number of apps and pin all shortcut to the Start it might start to look like an encyclopedia! That's why the first thing I took care right away was all of the "unnecessary" items I wasn't going to use the RP sees on the Start by default just to get several to appear in some type of organized fashion.

That takes care of most all of the oversized buttons you start off with. From there on you scroll your life away trying to dig through screen of Start items unless you create new groupings note for various catagories. Put your browsers in one clump while office type apps in another. Games in another and so forth rather then "scroll, scroll, scroll the screens...".

 

[crawfish]

Now combine RocketDock with 5 or 6 dropdown Quick Launch type additional toolbars and you can handle quite a bit without ever needing to bring out an extended Start>Programs menu.

What does RocketDock give you? I no longer need any third party software as the Windows 7 taskbar is sufficient by itself, as I described here, complete with screenshot. I'm also not a fan of using menus to launch programs, because just like the Start Menu, they go away when you select something from them. Plus, the chevrons annoy me. So instead of turning them into toolbars, I just use folders reminiscent of Program Manager folders to hold shortcuts for infrequently used programs. (See last paragraph of referenced message for some useful navigation made possible by the Explorer breadcrumbs.) With Windows 7 I finally didn't need any third party program launchers/organizers, which had been an absolute requirement ever since the NT4 beta to get out of Start Menu/desktop fail. As for why this so much better than Windows HE's Metro thing, like I said, in part:

I rarely use the Start Menu for anything, I never use the desktop for launching programs, and the Quick Launch Bar is nowhere to be found. I pretty much live in the taskbar all day long. It's the best interface I've used in 30+ years, and it ain't close.

When I see the Windows 8 "Metro" thing, I just see another desktop or Start Menu, only worse. It's horribly modal, and the "Metro" apps exist in their own little universe, fractured from the traditional Windows environment, in particular, the taskbar, where real Windows programs can be pinned and have jumplists, show progress, etc, and you can use the taskbar while you're working with a program maximized in the space above it. The "Metro" thing is not better in any way than what I already have; it's actually much worse in every way that matters to me.

 

[Night Hawk]

Once you start adding a good number of programs on you won't have room on the taskbar for them! That will fill right up even when setting it to the "always combine, hide labels". Since the Quick Launch was removed for 7 seen in XP, Vista the new toolbar option found when right clicking on the main taskbar becomes an asset for organization regardless of which version of Windows you are running at the time.

The author's statements regarding the Metro are quire obvious to most who wouldn't want to be a "Where's Waldo" champ? Or "now where is that shortcut for....?". The addon toolbars on the other hand serve to group shortcuts of the same type together in one fast dropdown list when exceeding the number of items you can pin on the taskbar.

As for RocketDock that's flexible when running dual monitors since you can set it for left, right, or center display while the taskbar is limited to only the primary. If you have something running full screen on one you can still click on something on the other screen. That's where the 3rd party app has a use.

With 8 it was never about performance, stability, security but usability as far as the drastic changes with the gui itself. While pop out sidebars are handy for things some have found the way MS implemented the Metro out of touch with reality! And this is where the main beef about 8 is being seen.

At first before 7's launch the discussion was on dumping the 32bit kernel entirely to only see 64bit editions for any newer version to follow 7. 8 so far has still seen 32bit DP, CP, and RP releases generally aimed at who? The consumer! Obviously that wasn't going to happen anytime soon as well as seeing any 128bit Windows. Reality check for blog writers required!

As for performance at least the writer there offers an accurate assessment in saying it is comparable to 7 in that the next version will also see the MinWin kernel only developed a little further along being more of a modular platform over the "Bloated OS" rep tossed at Vista.

The main complaint about 8 simply goes back to how MS trashed the main gui making the Metro appalling rather then Appealing to the majority of users. No Control Panel to find until seeing that visible in any WE window. Instead a right click menu pops up where the Start screen pops up where no one without a hint from some other user would even know where to look!

Some of the ideas could work out if MS had better reworked the design and accessibility before trying to toss this out as the next version of Windows. The side bar becomes a joke since no novice will know how to logoff, restart, sleep, hibernate, shutdown without creating their own desktop shortcut! Or they will simply press the power button on the custom or OEM system's case.

The smart move they didn't make was offering two different types of main guis through the Windows installer as for those with touchscreen enabling Metro and for those without a standard desktop with something newer then Aero style themes to be "new" as the alternative option. Instead the new system requirements for 8 should be "OS Geek Required to run Windows 8!"?!

 

[crawfish]

Once you start adding a good number of programs on you won't have room on the taskbar for them! That will fill right up even when setting it to the "always combine, hide labels". Since the Quick Launch was removed for 7 seen in XP, Vista the new toolbar option found when right clicking on the main taskbar becomes an asset for organization regardless of which version of Windows you are running at the time.

Well, I call 49 programs pinned to the taskbar on my 1680x1050 monitor a "good number", and that was clear in my earlier message I linked to. Even with just two rows, I could have upwards of 30-40 with room for some transient programs depending on how big I make my folder area. I explained in my last post why I don't like the toolbars and why I find folders more effective.

 

[Night Hawk]

That's simply due to stretching the taskbar and tossing everything onto it. The toolbar method on the other hand separate things by catagory here. Here I keep icons on the taskbar small as well to allow for more viewing area.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
a lot of this depends on how many applications you actually run on your PC -- in Nighthawk's case I think probably an order of magnitude more than the average user.

The "switchable GUI" idea IMO seems the best idea and should be in theory easy to implement. -- Most Linuxes once you install the basic 'X-Server' or whatever they call it these days allow you to choose from a number of different desktop GUI's - the two main one's being GNOME and KDE. Having these doesn't actually alter the basic kernel and main parts of the OS either so in theory Windows should be able to select at say a Windows setup menu option : specify GUI ===> Touch screen
===> Classic desktop.

That's what I would have done -- but I'm only an old fashioned Engineer so what do I know about this stuff .

Seems this way you'd get the best of BOTH -- users to go to W8 while the other part of the OS could be incredibly more optimized fot Tablets etc -- as you'd ONLY need the metro components and touch stuff. You'd have to build some decent apps of course like being able to at least READ EXCEL sheets on a tablet or maybe even to have some type of METRO OFFICE appls too.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Kat]

I gave you the benefit of the doubt, Craybob, and tried your way (albeit on W7, not W8).

No, sorry, not for me. My brother actually uses a similar setup to yours, in W7, and has
done sosince he got Vista, he always has all his progs in the taskbar. Drives me mad.

We'll all use what works for US as individuals.

I know that you have an issue with understanding that.

I'm running W7 64-bit on this machine because W8 64-bit won't
play nicely with most of my games.

But my other laptop is running the 32-bit CP, and the desktop is
running the 32-bit DP.

And they've BOTH got a Start button/menu, and they BOTH have
Quick-Launch!!!!

I'm not a 'hater', I just want the CHOICE!

WTF is wrong with that? Huh?