Windows 8 six months in: Thoughts from a power(less) user

Crave's Eric Mack has felt at home in Windows for decades. Now that his home has a fresh coat of paint, he's still not sure if it's an improvement.

Since then I've been courted by other colonial powers, but I was conditioned at a young age to the ways of Windows and -- no matter how it came to be this way -- it still feels like home. Now my home has just received a fresh coat of paint. And even if the painters did a shoddy job and painted over all the switches and outlets and left a mess on the hardwood floor, I'm willing to wait for them to come clean things up and get my home looking better than ever.

Windows 8 six months in: Thoughts from a power(less) user | Crave - CNET

 

[jimbo45]

One sociologist and one psychologist equals three disturbed individuals.

And why is someone who criticises some aspect of Windows 8 called a H8er, or hasn't taken the effort to learn, is a Luddite etc?

When someone who simply wants the option of using something that works, not remove the new, they are generally disparaged by those who shun the old.

Kari, your subtle putdown of those who see things differently hasn't gone unnoticed.

Some clarifications needed, I see.

First, at least I have never called an anti 8 advocate as a hater. Talking about anti 8 users or advocates I however find not only "politically correct" but also quite a neutral definition. If you feel better I can start using something more neutral term. Would "Windows users who do not like the version 8" cause less distress?

Second, I have never had nor do I have anything against users who will continue use XP or Windows 98 or whatever. Quite an opposite, I really think everyone is entitled an opinion and has right to use whatever feels good. Trying to tell and show how some things could be done easier with a newer version is hardly hatred or anything negative.

Last, I have never "putdown" another member only because he/she sees things differently. I am against giving wrong information and telling half truths to justify a case so yes, I might occasionally use quite a harsh language to criticize that; it serves nobody's interests to spread lies and untruths.

I would like ask you to do me a personal favor: Please help me to learn how to behave. Show me a post where I have "putdown" another member who has presented undisputed facts. Show me a post where I have called someone a hater. Show me a post where I have bashed or otherwise negated another member simply because his/her opinion has not been as mine.

Respectfully,

Kari

Hi there
@Kari -- I for one have always valued your posts - especially on some of the more obscure features of Virtual Machines.
Honestly though it's not worth getting into tizzies even if you are 100% in the right -- just ignore them. The REAL people on these Forums know who to trust and respect --and you are definitely ONE of that group.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Ray8]

Kari

I wasn't saying that you personally were calling people names etc, I was being rhetorical on the points/examples that you were making and how things pan out, in general, on this forum. You are a Windows 8 advocate and thus see things differently to those who have reservations and issues with Windows 8.

However, some of your examples and anecdotes can be very easily interpreted as a putdown of those who have a differing view of the world. Your examples and anecdotes allude to people being simpletons or stuck in yesteryear as the world changes.

The issues about Windows 8 raised by myself and others are quite different to the examples that you give, be it views on XP or European development. We're now talking about issues raised by people who have been using Windows 8 at least since its release in Oct and often well before that. The opinions that they express are not those of Luddites or nut cases, but they are often opinions that others don't want to hear.

 

[pcRat]

Been using Alt+F4 for years to close programs and web browsers. Mostly to close a browser after an unsafe looking popup appears.

I always use Alt+F4 to close programs on the Metro side of 8 because I forget about dragging the window down.

Ctrl+F4 will only close the current tab in your browser.

 

[SIW2]

We're now talking about issues raised by people who have been using Windows 8 at least since its release in Oct and often well before that. The opinions that they express are not those of Luddites or nut cases, but they are often opinions that others don't want to hear.

Exactly. People are entitled to like 8 if they want. I don't see how being called a lover of something is in any way an insult.

If I am referred to as a theatre lover, it pleases me.

Of course, there are a few on the net who want to bash anything MS - there are also a few who want to bash anything Apple, etc. They do exist.

There are aslo the so called Apple fanboys - now we are getting 8 fanboys, I don't recall that with windows before.

Those are the ones who are giving the lovers/supporters a bad name.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Geez. When I started driving at 13 with my first job back on the farm the ignition switches (on/off) were on the dashboards. Sometimes in the late 70's or early 80's they started to place them on the steering columns. That was so difficult to learn!

I don't know about anyone else, but when I'm on a hunt to find an item and find it, I usually remember where to find it the next time. Given two or three times I'll really have it down pat for sure.

MS saw fit to move items around due to touch centricity, which is the new market demand. Hot corners, Charm bars, and that new fang dangled slide out "open apps/programs" menu (or whatever it's called) are the new ways of navigation. How on God's blue planet is this so difficult to learn and use with any input peripheral on any machine or device is beyond my comprehension.

Is 8 perfect? Not by any means. Nothing is. I find it to be a great attempt on their first try as the market has changed. It's a rather radical change yes, but as in the past, things will only get better.

Disclaimer: This statement is only my opinion as it stands now. It may change at any given time. How others decipher it is their business. All replies are certainly welcome.

 

[mdmd]

You get the usual imbecilic sub-teen response often saying "Delete Tiles" -- but these idiots who are so full of themselves and haven't a clue what people are saying much less understand the problem -- but you have to remember that this might be easy for us but to someone who say just wants to use photo shop or Office isn't usually clued up about what tiles can be safely deleted.

This is funny ...

Why not write a letter to Microsoft explaining to them that you know better and you think the general public is stupid and cannot figure this out. Tell them that you listen to their complaints and that Microsoft doesn't have a clue. Explain to Microsoft that you have all the answers and that they should listen to you.

An unpin is not a delete.

 

[legacy7955]

You get the usual imbecilic sub-teen response often saying "Delete Tiles" -- but these idiots who are so full of themselves and haven't a clue what people are saying much less understand the problem -- but you have to remember that this might be easy for us but to someone who say just wants to use photo shop or Office isn't usually clued up about what tiles can be safely deleted.

This is funny ...

Why not write a letter to Microsoft explaining to them that you know better and you think the general public is stupid and cannot figure this out. Tell them that you listen to their complaints and that Microsoft doesn't have a clue. Explain to Microsoft that you have all the answers and that they should listen to you.

An unpin is not a delete.

He doesn't have to, the general public and enterprise has spoken loudly....by not buying Windows 8 in droves...and MS has admitted there are big problems with it because of their decision to return the start button and default boot to desktop.

 

[mdmd]

... because of their decision to return the start button and default boot to desktop.

Speaking to The Verge, sources claim the button’s return will allow users to access the Start Screen,
though it won’t include the traditional Start Menu.

Windows 8.1 Will Bring Back the Start Button | TechnoBuffalo

Boot to desktop already happens in Windows Server 2012 with a GUI. It defaults to the server dashboard.
Although, with server, there are passwords that must be entered.
Server 2012 also has no store or apps. Everything is desktop but still runs off of the WinRT shell with a GUI.
Without a GUI, it's just a command prompt. No metro at all.

 

[XweAponX]

Wasn't this on the discussion block say, oh, about at least once a month. Just love it when something that finally ran it course a month or two ago is brought back as sometime new and wonderful to talk about; especially when all the hate stuff starts to disappear off the front page of the "News Forum.". . .

I agree, but it chalks up as "Parallel Development" - One guy at ZDnet posted this maybe, 4 months ago, then someone at Cnet did 2 months ago, all without reading the original rants. Now this guy does it - Its the same way Trigonometry got developed by two different inventors all thinking along the same lines.

And this guy, well he is not coming out and saying flat out "Windows 8 Sucks" - He actually likes it, and he'll keep using it.

 

[XweAponX]

I have to comment about the shut down thing in Windows 8. It's interesting because it shows how people will interact with devices JUST because of what they are. With PCs, apparently one MUST go to Start, and hit shut down to shut down the PC. On a phablet or smartphone, to shut down, one must hold the power button and slide something. To sleep, just hit the power button. On the PC, you go to Start, and hit Sleep or maybe close the laptop lid. On modern devices that are mobile, there really isn't a single piece of software UI that is used to control those power settings. But on the older PC, we're still doing that in the way of Windows 95 whereas you literally can hit the PHYSICAL power button on the PC to shut down or to sleep. After thinking about this, this is SO weird when this becomes about laptops, because they have the button right there under your face, yet it is never used other than to resume the PC from sleep or to turn it back on. There seems to be this rigid tradition with Windows that 8 has fleshed out. On tablets however, even with Windows 8 on, turning the PC off is the same way as other tablets and smartphones: hit the physical power button. On a laptop that is also mobile like the tablet, use the UI to sleep or shutdown. See the strangeness there? It actually doesn't make sense to me.

And personally, part of the design on my new desktop tower will ACTUALLY be a power button that is used as much as a modern mobile device. If you tap the button piece from the front, it will shut down as usual. Tap it from the top of the piece, it will go to sleep. I sleep my PC a LOT throughout the day, as I find it genuinely pointless to do a cold shutdown. Rigid tradition ruined right there.

Yes, I think I see this and agree with it - My iPhone never gets shut down. I can reboot it, but I have to do certa8in "hidden things" to do it, or, I jailbnroke it and installed an actual set of BUTTON on the Springboard which gives me the choice of "Safe Mode/Respring/Reboot/Shut Down.

Because if Windows 8 is to be for devices too, then it will normally stay on all the time, just go into Sleep more after 3 minutes, like I have my iPhone set to do.

Now, for computers all the way back to XP - I do it all with the power button, which I assign to HIBERNATE, which is my default Power Button choice. I can make my computers sleep by hitting the sleep button on my keyboards. Except on the cheap Dell keyboards I like to use that I got for 2 bucks at salvation army.


Think about it, how do you use a device? How do you use a Computer? I use my iPhone AND my computers in much the same way - They stay ON 24/7. Now my iPhone gets futzed up and needs to be rebooted just like my Computers do - And as long as I know how to do it, I'm fine. The most dangerous button for a PC would be a hard-reset button, I have one on my Tower. Developers used to have this Hard Reset button as large and available as the regular Power button. But in the Mid 2000's, the OEMs began either hiding the reset button in a pencil-point sized hole, or, they took it out completely, so now, you'll never see a Reset button on an OEM computer.

They are treating the OS the same way, the power options are there, but now they are hiding them in a "Pencil-point" sized hole called Alt-F4.

 

[DavidY]

I have to comment about the shut down thing in Windows 8. It's interesting because it shows how people will interact with devices JUST because of what they are. With PCs, apparently one MUST go to Start, and hit shut down to shut down the PC. On a phablet or smartphone, to shut down, one must hold the power button and slide something. To sleep, just hit the power button. On the PC, you go to Start, and hit Sleep or maybe close the laptop lid. On modern devices that are mobile, there really isn't a single piece of software UI that is used to control those power settings. But on the older PC, we're still doing that in the way of Windows 95 whereas you literally can hit the PHYSICAL power button on the PC to shut down or to sleep. After thinking about this, this is SO weird when this becomes about laptops, because they have the button right there under your face, yet it is never used other than to resume the PC from sleep or to turn it back on. There seems to be this rigid tradition with Windows that 8 has fleshed out. On tablets however, even with Windows 8 on, turning the PC off is the same way as other tablets and smartphones: hit the physical power button. On a laptop that is also mobile like the tablet, use the UI to sleep or shutdown. See the strangeness there? It actually doesn't make sense to me.

I still have burnt in my memory the day (I think in my first job), when I accidentally knocked the power button on a mini-computer (one of those things as big as two old-fashioned washing machines) and killed a demo which the salesman was doing in another room to some customers. And of course the machine took about 15 mins to start up again. Oops... But it certainly got ingrained in me that day to use the software shutdown and to stay away from the hardware power button!

Geez. When I started driving at 13 with my first job back on the farm the ignition switches (on/off) were on the dashboards. Sometimes in the late 70's or early 80's they started to place them on the steering columns. That was so difficult to learn!

The tractors I was using when I was a teenager had an ignition/starter key on the dashboard or steering column, but once the engine got going, you could turn the key all you liked and it made no difference - you had to pull another handle to switch it off.

 

[ARC1020]

I still have burnt in my memory the day (I think in my first job), when I accidentally knocked the power button on a mini-computer (one of those things as big as two old-fashioned washing machines) and killed a demo which the salesman was doing in another room to some customers. And of course the machine took about 15 mins to start up again. Oops... But it certainly got ingrained in me that day to use the software shutdown and to stay away from the hardware power button!

Yeah, I still use software shutdown out of habit too, and also because my tower's tucked right out of the way where the cooling fans don't drive me crazy. Although, because I have the shutdown shortcut on the top left of the start page, it's just a case of hitting Win key then Enter to shutdown anyway.

The tractors I was using when I was a teenager had an ignition/starter key on the dashboard or steering column, but once the engine got going, you could turn the key all you liked and it made no difference - you had to pull another handle to switch it off.

I remember to start an old Fergie we had, you had to pull the engine cut-out lever over, spray Easy Start in the air filter, press a button on the side of the gearbox in with the heel of your foot, then simultaneously push the gear lever forwards somewhere around 3rd gear to activate the starter motor, then after the engine started to turn over a couple of seconds (to suck the Easy Start in) quickly flip the engine cut-out lever back. In it's defence though, it never got stolen.

 

[MisterMike]

Hi Guys,
Let me tell you about my nearly unbelievable first 3 weeks after buying my HP Windows 8 64 bit computer. I got used to or found my way around most of the things that new users complain about fairly quickly. I was personalizing and loading in my files and music and generally trying to make this PC as much like my old XP as possible. I noticed that every time I took a bathroom break and came back it had gone to the lock screen and I had to log in again. Each time this happened I went through all the settings I could find that could possibly be causing this. Each time I thought I had solved the problem. And each time it happened again. Now I will tell you I always disable the screensaver (by setting it to none) very early in the process of setting up any PC. I learned very early on that screensavers can play havoc with defrags and the like. Well anyway, After about 3 weeks of trying over and over to solve this problem I was about to try fixing it with a hammer. But I managed to restrain myself and started going through the settings for the millionth or so time when I noticed that Microsoft in their infinite wisdom had set the screensaver to come on after 2 minutes and to require a password upon resume. Could it be? Even with the screensaver set to "none"? I tried setting the wait time to 9999 and unchecked the password on resume option. Guess what? It worked! Problem solved! Are you kidding me? This had been happening with the screensaver set to "none"? Come on Microsoft!!! Give a guy a break. Must have been one of those "Internal Jokes" that they build in so they can get a good laugh at idiots like me pulling their hair out and going utterly insane trying to fix a simple (to them) problem. Like I said earlier. It was / is almost unbelievable.

 

[Ray8]

Well, I had my first 'play' with an Android tablet today. A neighbour of my in-laws (who is 80+ years of age) has an Acer Iconia A200, which she just uses to play games, and her daughter had visited her and did things to it that set up apps that required internet access. The old girl didn't know how to get rid of these from the main screen, so my wife brought it home for me to look at.

I have to say, it was the easiest thing in the world to sort out. It took just a few minutes to find the settings control, hunt up the offending apps (one being Google+) and disable then from showing up on the main screen and starting. I played around with the tablet briefly to get a feel for it and, seriously, this is how a tablet based just on apps should work.

What I found most impressive was that once you were in the settings menu, everything was available at your fingertips (literally, as that's all I used). This is completely the reverse with what I've experienced with Windows 8 and the stupid way things are buried in the system. WiFi, Bluetooth, security etc; all controls were available on the one screen, on a side panel, and all you had to do was select one and the controls would open next to it.

If the Windows 8 start screen had been designed this way, I would have applauded it. As it is, it's a cluster, especially for someone who doesn't have a lot of technical knowledge.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

If it was so easy why didn't the "old girl" figure it out?

Have you ever thought that perhaps MS might have made it a little more difficult for the commoner to get at system settings so they don't screw the system up? One gets three months support with 8. How much do you think MS or any business spends on that department? Is it evil that a business attempts to keep this at a minimal as much as possible? Besides, when all else fails, READ the help files. They've been around a long time.

Lol! There's a thread here recently on the Snippet tool. A few of us (including me) were trying to figure out the problem, when lo and behold someone posted that it was in the help file. Go figure.

 

[goodintentions]

Well, I had my first 'play' with an Android tablet today. A neighbour of my in-laws (who is 80+ years of age) has an Acer Iconia A200, which she just uses to play games, and her daughter had visited her and did things to it that set up apps that required internet access. The old girl didn't know how to get rid of these from the main screen, so my wife brought it home for me to look at.

I have to say, it was the easiest thing in the world to sort out. It took just a few minutes to find the settings control, hunt up the offending apps (one being Google+) and disable then from showing up on the main screen and starting. I played around with the tablet briefly to get a feel for it and, seriously, this is how a tablet based just on apps should work.

What I found most impressive was that once you were in the settings menu, everything was available at your fingertips (literally, as that's all I used). This is completely the reverse with what I've experienced with Windows 8 and the stupid way things are buried in the system. WiFi, Bluetooth, security etc; all controls were available on the one screen, on a side panel, and all you had to do was select one and the controls would open next to it.

If the Windows 8 start screen had been designed this way, I would have applauded it. As it is, it's a cluster, especially for someone who doesn't have a lot of technical knowledge.

You answered your own question. Android is an os that is based solely on apps. It is impossible to mess up the device by screwing around with the settings.

Windows is a much more complex operating system with much much more settings. You could seriously screw up the OS through the settings. If you don't believe me, just let me be alone with your PC for 5 minutes and see what I can do to it. I promise you, I can make you not able to ever connect to the internet again. Or I can do a whole host of other things that will make the common user cry.

This is why there's really no devastating android virus out there. Yes, there are some questionable apps, but when they get found out all you have to do is uninstall them. Unless you're messing with the bootloader, you could never really totally mess up your android device. Again, give me 5 minutes alone with your PC and see what happens. What's that? You don't want your taskbar anymore? I'll make sure no amount of settings changes will ever bring back your taskbar. I got a program that does just that.

 

[SIW2]

this is how a tablet based just on apps should work.

Seems clear to me.

No idea why you are twisting that into an advert for 8.

I spoke to friend last night - she use her iphone for everything. She has a windows laptop, but never turns it on.

Hard to say how many people are fine with just their iphone/galaxy or android/ipad, and have no desire whatsoever to run windows programs.

Could be tens or hundreds of millions.

There is clearly a challenge for MS.

 

[fourthofjuly]

Perhaps I should have mentioned that it should be on an empty desktop, for Alt/F4 continues to close apps/programs. Therefore, one should save files and close programs before doing so.

Grrrrr..........

I second the motion... Grrrrr.... (I was working on a 3D model).....

 

[sajara]

Hey Hippsie Gypsy,
Great tip about ALT + F4 !!!!!! Why does Microsoft keep such things so secret?

It's no secret, it has always been there. I used it since Win 95

 

[goodintentions]

Hey Hippsie Gypsy,
Great tip about ALT + F4 !!!!!! Why does Microsoft keep such things so secret?

It's no secret, it has always been there. I used it since Win 95

Even power users miss certain features that have been there forever. For example, if you press control key and roll the scrolling wheel on your mouse, the webpage will zoom in or out. I always thought this was obvious. I know this one guy that prides himself in being a techie. He's a developer by trade. And he claims to know everything there is to know about windows. Anyway, when I showed him this last year, he was amazed. Before that, he had no idea you could zoom in and out the webpage by doing that.