*Boots up Win8 Enterprise N* First Impressions: Yikes!

1. The font/icons all look blurry! The Win8 RP was perfectly fine. OK, so I'll go into screen resolution settings and see if I can fix up the blurryness... I can't select anything other than the recommended screen resolution because the drop-down menu is greyed-out. Great. And... no, adjusting the ClearType font settings does nothing to help the overall blurriness of the screen.

2. OK... so let's fix-up those windows borders. No option to turn off the transparency anymore, though increasing the color intensity seems to do that on its own. Not impressed with how my window borders are now a nice solid dark blue, yet the taskbar is semi-transparent and as such blends with whatever the desktop background is. SO disorientating to see the windows borders one color and the taskbar another.

The Desktop area user interface has taken a massive step-backwards from the RP from the above two problems alone.

At least ClassicShell & Ribbon Disabler v2 still work. Oh, and Windows Media Player is officially in the Win8 Enterprise N version, and is working fine with my video files.

WMP is there but it won't play mpeg4 files like windows 7... Or does it?

What kind of files are you playing? wmv would work of course and some simple avi, with mjpeg encoding and a few others I'd guess. But mp4 files using h263/4 encoding, aac, m4v or m4a files etc I'd guess do not work (But would LOVE it if they did!)

Oh and yeah... looking at the screen shots, they really did a number on the poor desktop. I have a feeling that they fuglied it up to make the start screen look prettier and therefore make you want to spend more time there or something.

I think the new Desktop is a tad strange. I for one was expecting Microsoft to remove ALL Aero styled icons and replace them with a metro styled set or a hybrid designed set like in Office 2013. But I think it'll be strange for many because we've all accustomed to transparent, glassy window borders and transparency everywhere. Then again, the new Desktop isn't a NEW concept so much, it actually looks a lot more like the design concept of Windows vista 10 years ago.

What it looks like, is a dog's breakfast.

And is getting worse with each release.

Would you happen to have a link to any Vista design concepts? My interest has been piped.

With Win8 RTM it's the little things that are annoying me. There's the semi-transparent taskbar, not being able to select any other screen resolutions, and the general 'blurriness' of the icons/fonts (it literally looks as though someone has smeared grease or something over the screen, RP was clear and normal) that I mentioned in the OP.

But I also forgot to mention that the option to 'enlarge fonts/icons' thingy in the display area has taken away the 'large' choice, leaving me with only small (default) and medium now. I was hoping and praying that they'd also fix the god-awful transparent pixels around the borders of the windows, as seeing the little gap in-between windows really pisses me off for some reason.

That's weird .

I don't get any transparency at all. If there is - I can't see it.

general 'blurriness' of the icons/fonts

Click to expand...

I don't have that problem.



@Cokie,

it actually looks a lot more like the design concept of Windows vista 10 years ago.

Click to expand...

Huh? I can't imagine anything more different - Vista looks a million times better than this .


Well, there is one upside.

It will be great for Ivo, Dennis, Happy Bulldozer, all our friends at Deviantart, etc...

Thank goodness for those guys.

lilsting10 said:

Would you happen to have a link to any Vista design concepts? My interest has been piped.

With Win8 RTM it's the little things that are annoying me. There's the semi-transparent taskbar, not being able to select any other screen resolutions, and the general 'blurriness' of the icons/fonts (it literally looks as though someone has smeared grease or something over the screen, RP was clear and normal) that I mentioned in the OP.

But I also forgot to mention that the option to 'enlarge fonts/icons' thingy in the display area has taken away the 'large' choice, leaving me with only small (default) and medium now. I was hoping and praying that they'd also fix the god-awful transparent pixels around the borders of the windows, as seeing the little gap in-between windows really pisses me off for some reason.

Click to expand...

Download: Windows UX Guidelines - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details

Be great at "look" and "do"
● What is your UX great at? Does its look reflect what it is great at?
● Does the first thing users see reflect what the UX is great at?
● Does the UX match expectations?
● Is it obvious what users can do?
● Are you providing only the necessary steps?

Click to expand...

Looks like the guidelines have changed - Messtro screws them all up.

fafhrd said:

lilsting10 said:

Would you happen to have a link to any Vista design concepts? My interest has been piped. With Win8 RTM it's the little things that are annoying me. There's the semi-transparent taskbar, not being able to select any other screen resolutions, and the general 'blurriness' of the icons/fonts (it literally looks as though someone has smeared grease or something over the screen, RP was clear and normal) that I mentioned in the OP. But I also forgot to mention that the option to 'enlarge fonts/icons' thingy in the display area has taken away the 'large' choice, leaving me with only small (default) and medium now. I was hoping and praying that they'd also fix the god-awful transparent pixels around the borders of the windows, as seeing the little gap in-between windows really pisses me off for some reason.

Click to expand...

Download: Windows UX Guidelines - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details

Be great at "look" and "do" ● What is your UX great at? Does its look reflect what it is great at? ● Does the first thing users see reflect what the UX is great at? ● Does the UX match expectations? ● Is it obvious what users can do? ● Are you providing only the necessary steps?

Click to expand...

Looks like the guidelines have changed - Messtro screws them all up.

Click to expand...

Right. Following the vista/7 UX guidelines makes easily useable programs. W8/Metro just does the opposite.

I restarted the machine on the day I got it, and suddenly not only could I select different screen resolutions (the drop-down list was no longer greyed-out), but also the 'Larger' option which had been missing from the 'resize fonts and icons' page that I forgot to mention in my opening post had magically reappeared. I'd have to go back on the laptop in question, but I don't immediately gag at the 'blurryness' of it all now. I guess there was just something really messed-up visually with that first go where the installation dropped me into the desktop.

The semi-transparent taskbar doesn't really bother me much anymore, I guess I'll just have to remember to not use desktop backgrounds that will be REALLY visible through the taskbar, haha. I also tend to have my taskbar up the left side of the screen, so maybe it's not as much of an issue for me now, that it was when I loaded the default RTM where the taskbar was on the bottom.

I use Media Player Classic with K-Lite Media Codec Pack, so it doesn't really bother me, but in regards to Windows Media Player on Enterprise N RTM... if I recall correctly avi's/mpg's played fine audio/visually, and either mp4 or mpeg had only sound, not visual. Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic and Windows Explorer all let me access my DVD Drive/play a movie. I was really worried for my DVD playing functionality after reading some confusing posts on here/some Win8 blogs talking about Media Center/Windows Media Player being taken away.