
Windows 8 productivity: Who moved my cheese? Oh, there it is. - nigelsampson
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows8ProductivityWhoMovedMyCheeseOhThereItIs.aspx
======
jader201
> Here's another __crazy idea __for shutting down your PC or Laptop - __Press
> the Power Button __.

You can thank Windows for this. Back in the day when we went from DOS to
Windows, this notion of a "proper shutdown" was introduced, and God forbid you
press the power button, or bad things would happen.

I'm not positive Windows was the first to do this, but I think it's safe to
say it was the one that started this habit for most people.

And now, it has became so engraved in our brain that it's nearly impossible to
un-train. I to this day _never_ use the power button on any device to shut it
down out of uncertainty that I don't know what will happen[1] if I do.

[1][http://www.aeropause.com/wordpress/archives/images/2008/11/a...](http://www.aeropause.com/wordpress/archives/images/2008/11/accf-
resetti.jpg)

~~~
Dylan16807
Was that an actual 'closes circuit when depressed' button or was it a switch?
Either way, flipping a power switch unexpectedly is bad. Lots of video game
consoles had power switches. You shouldn't flip the power switch on a modern
computer either. But giving the power _button_ a press is safe in every single
device I own or am aware of.

~~~
yuhong
I think ATX changed from a switch to a button, and ACPI added OS support for
intercepting it.

~~~
Maakuth
Before ACPI there was APM that allowed catching it as well.

------
makmanalp
> There's a bunch of folks who have said that you have to "swipe up" or "slide
> away" from the Login or Lock screen to log in. Some websites have even
> suggested you disable the lock screen. That is stupid and wrong _cough_
> NBCNews _cough_ and you shouldn't turn off the lock screen. Just press any
> key. Or just start typing. Or click the mouse. Or ANYTHING. You don't have
> to "swipe up" to log in just click or press anything.

What happened to affordances? <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance>

All these people aren't stupid. They're coming up with these crazy ideas
because they don't know what else to do.

One task of good design is to make it obvious what I _can_ do and how I can do
it. No one likes to discover, 3 months later, that you could do a 3 finger
pinch with a middle finger wiggle gesture to do what you wanted. I shouldn't
have to sit there and try all the combos of what I can do.

~~~
ender7
In older versions of Windows 8, swiping up was indeed necessary. And, in fact,
there was an affordance (of sorts) to let you know that that was what you were
supposed to do: if you did anything that was not a swipe-up, the screen
bounced up slightly, revealing a little bit of the login screen underneath.
After seeing that, it was a little more obvious what to do.

Now, obviously that was still a pain in the ass and Microsoft wisely axed that
requirement for mouse-based computers. Now I think things are much better --
yes, there is no affordance telling you what to do, but if you do literally
_anything_, then you get what you wanted. That's not too bad.

~~~
nigelsampson
It's had the "do anything" behavior since the Consumer Preview back in
February.

------
corporalagumbo
Nice to see someone thinking constructively about W8. Too many people have
just been nit-picking, and I think failing to see what W8 represents: a
radical first-step in a long-overdue next step in the evolution of computer
UIs. People like us should be applauding Microsoft for their audacity, not
obsessing over the details. Change is always complicated. W8 is just one step,
one which Microsoft will continue to evolve. People complained when DOS was
being replaced by Windows right?

It had to happen eventually. Windows 7 and OS X 10.8 are really nothing more
than highly-polished iterations of the basic WIMP GUI. Apple has done nice
work with iOS but seems loathe to rethink OS X beyond tossing in a few
multitouch gestures. Enough has changed in computing technology, from
processor power to network connectivity to interface technologies to the whole
suite of activities people use computers for, that WIMP is really starting to
show its age. And even more will change over the next 20 years - we should
prepare ourselves for departures even more radical than W8. The WIMP desktop
isn't the pinnacle for UI evolution. At least, let's hope it isn't! It is
pretty clunky.

Microsoft, now in the weaker position to Apple, is the company to usher in
that shift. We should be glad we have a Microsoft in 2012.

~~~
gizmo686
Do you mind pointing out what radical first step Windows 8 is taking. The
metro interface stikes me as an adaptation of smart phone interfaces, and the
desktop is a minor change to the old desktop system.

~~~
corporalagumbo
(apologies for the long response)

I see W8 as a reaction to a new world of computing: more powerful computers, a
proliferation of device formats, ubiquitous connectivity, a dissolving
desktop-cloud barrier, pervasive social/identity services, mass-consumer
computing, mostly for a whole emerging range of novel, non-traditional
computer tasks.

The WIMP desktop is a legacy product from the days of computers as
workstations and computer-users as skilled specialists. The desktop is very
static and rigid. Windows only move when clicked and dragged, only change size
when their edges are pulled. The desktop can become as cluttered as you want
with multiple windows and desktop folders and icons. This made sense in 1995,
but now computers are far more powerful, and graphical display techniques are
better too. W8 is fluid and dynamic where WIMP is sluggish and static. Tap or
click on a tile and a whole new screen flips up, filling the screen. Even
compared to iOS, Metro is far more dynamic, mainly due to its radically
simpler design language. The basic fonts and block colours of Metro can squish
and stretch and dynamically resize in a way which is largely impossible with
the carefully detailed chrome of iOS.

This fluidity also extends to the way the tasks flow into one another in the
OS. Talking mostly from my experience with WP7, it’s remarkable how wall-less
the OS can be. The way you can move from a messaging thread to your messagee’s
contact card, simply by tapping their name, and seeing all their latest social
activity on Facebook, is great. Ideally, Metro is wall-less - the opposite of
iOS’s carefully segregated app ghettos. The platonic Metro ideal is that all
the parts of the OS flow seamlessly together (it remains to be seen how
successfully Microsoft can pull this off - also this quite different model may
be difficult for developers used to iOS to get their heads around and take
full advantage of).

Furthermore, visually the Metro frontend is clearly the cleanest and simplest
consumer OS ever. It's a massive decluttering effort to display only relevant
info, and much much easier to understand than any previous OS. And Microsoft
is aiming to make this design language uniform across phones, tablets and PCs,
and their web presence. It has the most common net identity services baked in
- and the whole platform is tied together with Windows ID, and all your files
and info synced seamlessly across all of your Windows devices with Skydrive.
So, for example, if I made an account on a W8 PC, it would prepare all of my
contacts from Facebook and my calendar appointments because it knows me from
my Windows phone. The aim as I understand it is radical flexibility - you can
shift seamlessly from device to device and the environment is consistent
throughout - it just works. Also part of the idea with Metro is to dissolve
the web/desktop barrier - instead of just accessing web services through a
browser and some dedicated programs (IM, torrent clients etc) and perhaps some
desktop widgets, the web is baked in to the skeleton of the OS. Which makes
sense.

Not sure if I'm explaining this well... As I said, it remains to be seen
whether Microsoft makes good on this potential. I’m just trying to articulate
what I think Metro represents, what I sense is possible here. And trying to do
so without just sounding like Microsoft PR :)

It seems like maybe a lot of people are offended by W8 because it's too simple
and potentially interferes with the quite complex workflows I assume average
HN readers do with their computers. But for the average user, I think W8 is
going to be great. Computers need to be democratised further - right now, the
vast majority have almost no idea how to use WIMP. It’s just too complex. OS X
is just as bad - in some ways even worse than W7! The value of W8 will be
through hiding 95% of the compexity of computers from the average user, while
preserving the technical backend for more advanced users. Normal users get a
massively more approachable experience, allowing them to think less and spend
more time doing the stuff they really want to with their computers. Advanced
users can still go deeper (unlike Apple, which seems intent on locking down
their entire system at the expense of advanced desktop users - and without
giving any real gains in useability to justify it!)

People forget, I think, that Microsoft focuses a lot on useability. Metro is
the result of a lot of hard work thinking how to make computers more useable.
Apple focuses on products that wow people. But from my experience with the
iPad, it seems Apple thinks less about useability than people might expect
(non-resizable thumb keyboard, I’m looking at you...)

I think W8 is best seen as a transition product, making the first steps away
from the old WIMP desktop. So yeah, right now, they haven't tinkered with the
old desktop much. But a split is forming: between the simple easy-to-use
frontend of the OS and the technical backend. Expect this split to become more
coherent in W9.

~~~
timc3
Thank you for writing this. This is perhaps the best summary I have seen to
date, and I too hope it's the start of something great.

~~~
corporalagumbo
You're very welcome. I hope it delivers too!

------
makecheck
It's good to see an article that focuses on more than the usual changes people
obsess about in Windows 8.

These "not bad" changes in Windows 8 also underscore a recurring problem with
software: people are forced to choose between "take the good and the bad" or
"nothing", they can't just take the "good". Software updates are too big and
bundled when the reality is that a lot of components could sensibly be
upgraded by themselves.

Changes in Task Manager for instance could have been folded into any version
of Windows to date, and if a few programmers had access to the right source
code I'm sure they could have added this at least to XP. Yet they _can't_ ,
and Microsoft _won't_ , and users of any version other than 8 are kept from a
perfectly sensible improvement.

Rather than charging $200 for an "upgrade", sometimes I think it would make a
lot more sense if you could pay Microsoft $10 for the "new system utilities
package" (which would update your Windows XP Task Manager alone, and whatever
else falls into that category). In other words, don't restrict access to the
truly useful upgrades just because no one wants Metro.

~~~
jinushaun
Best idea I've heard to date regarding Windows 8. I would pay to get the Win8
desktop improvements on Windows 7: task manager, file transfer dialog, file
explorer ribbon, etc.

~~~
WiseWeasel
Explorer Ribbon is an improvement?

~~~
Refefer
You have your workflow, he/she has theirs.

------
ck2
Windows 8 is the Digg of OS. Complete redesign for no purpose at all.

And the fact they HAD a start menu interface until the final release (it was
in the beta/candidates) is just a bigger insult.

W8 is actually usable once you add back in the start menu and have it go
immediately to the desktop via a 3rd party program. Why microsoft didn't allow
that option when they original did, is clear demonstration of them being
obstinant.

Once again the lesson is - if you must change your product:

    
    
         1. change it gradually
         2. give an option for the old way

~~~
vitobcn
I wouldn't say for no purpose at all.

From my perspective there seems to be a very clear purpose: unifying the
interface across platforms, which is one of the disadvantages they had when
compared to Apple. With Windows 8, they will basically have the same UI for
desktops, tablets and phones.

Even hotmail.com's look has been revamped into outlook.com; and not only that,
but Microsoft went as far to even update their logo from 1987, to match their
new tile approach.

Were all these changes necessary? Time will tell, but strategically it seems
to make sense to unify the desktop experience (where they are dominant) to
grow 2 of their new market segments: windows phone and tablet (surface).

~~~
ck2
Windows/Metro on mobile has terrible sales.

Why would they want to unify DOWN to that level?

It's crazy how much a lead Microsoft had with personal computers in the 80s
and how far they've fallen. Once arm starts becoming powerful enough for
desktops, Windows is pretty much done and the days of the wintel tax are over.
We're almost there, give it about 3-4 years.

~~~
corporalagumbo
Did WP7 sell poorly because of its interface and styling - i.e. because the
product itself was bad? Or did it sell poorly because iOS and Android are
monoliths and MS was late to the smartphone game and - dare I say it - didn't
put their full weight behind WP7 because maybe they had their eye on a more
distant goal and maybe WP7 was just a warm-up for their full product-line
revamp?

Do you really think Microsoft is so stupid that they would expect WP7 to
become an instant runaway success against their competitors, without putting
even a fraction of the necessary effort into pushing it? They're realistic
about their products. How do you know that Microsoft didn't achieve all of its
internal goals that it set for WP7? Visible market success is only one
possible goal for a company as large as Microsoft, especially with a small and
isolated product like WP7. And Microsoft has clearly been driving towards it
Metro-revamp for a while now (Zune HD, WP7, W8). They're a big company after
all and I'm sure they do analyse likely long-term trends in technology and
make plans for how to navigate the future. WP7 is only one move in a long-term
maneuver.

~~~
polyfractal
So true. I have a WP7 and love the hell out of it. I can't stand using my
girlfriend's iPhone - it feels clunky and designed for an elementary school
child. I have several friends and family that also love their WP7 dearly.

WP7 is a great OS. Unfortunately, it has been stigmatized and beat down
because A) Microsoft B) Not Apple, and C) poor marketing/strategy

------
hdivider
I've been using Windows 8 for months (always upgrading to the latest version),
and don't have any problems whatsoever. In fact, I'm certain the thing
actually runs way faster than Win7.

This is because I've basically got everything configured like Windows 7 (I
don't really use the Start screen), but the Win+(key) combination is what
makes the difference.

Take a typical almost-every-day activity for instance: checking the weather
report. On Win7 (unless you had things specially configured for this event),
you'd have to go online via a browser, find a suitable website, and wait for
results - quite possibly having to physically type in your location if the
site couldn't get it automatically.

On Windows 8, I just press Windows + (the letters w e a) and the search
instantly finds the Weather app - I've got it open in less than 0.3 seconds,
and the app itself fetches the data in just a few seconds. This kind of stuff
works straight out of the box, and wasn't possible on Win7. It shows that even
desktop-only users like me can make at least >some< good use of the RT apps.

~~~
brisance
I'm not sure if you've tried OS X but it seems to me this feature is similar
to the Dashboard which is a screen where widgets like weather, stock info etc
are displayed. Activation is just a two finger swipe on the trackpad.

~~~
ghshephard
I can four-finger swipe, or move to my hot corner (or, more typically, F4) -
what two finger swipe gets you dashboard?

(Note - I use Dashboard a dozens of times a day for one function - I have
eleven international clocks running to help me keep track of what time it is
when I'm IMing or SMSing one of my international colleagues.)

------
Axsuul
The overall feeling of Windows has changed dramatically with 7 and now 8.
Before it felt like a very enterprise and cold operating system. Now, it
actually feels refreshing, futuristic, and dare I say hip? Great job to the
Windows team for this amazing feat.

As for Windows 8 itself, I feel like the Task Manager alone is something worth
upgrading for.

~~~
gizmo686
I had a very similar experience with Gnome3. After months of complaining about
how they completely ruined the UI and all the other flames (enough to motivate
me to switch to a tiling window manager), I logged into it to see what was
going on, and it looked really cool, and seemed more productive than the old
Gnome2.

I suspect I would have had a simmilar experience with Windows 8 if not for its
horrid use of green, but that was an early developers preview, and I will be
shocked if they haven't improved the cosmetics for the general release.

------
nhebb
I'm an avid Win+{Key} user, so I won't have problem adapting. My family,
though ... I'm not so sure.

I'm a Windows developer, and I confess that I haven't tried Windows 8 yet. I'm
usually eager to try new OS's and learn new things, but this time I'm not. I
think it's a sense of dread about having to spent several hours learning an
environment that just seems tedious.

~~~
danieldk
I guess it's not really important. Many companies and consumers will stay for
Windows 7 for a while and Windows 8 will enter the markets primarily via
tablets. By the time Windows 8 SP1 or Windows 9 we'll see how that strategy
worked out, and they'll probably tune the experience to make it an acceptable
desktop operating system (either on real desktops or docked x86 tablets).

That said, I have used Windows 8 out of curiosity for some weeks (as a UNIX
user since 1994), and I have to admit that I quite liked it. I didn't really
use Metro, except for checking Facebook and Twitter every now and then. Of
course, I am not a regular Windows user who has learnt usage patterns over the
years, but I think there's also a lot of inertia.

~~~
melling
Microsoft has a 90% desktop market share. How many new PC's are sold every
year? Win8 sounds like a solid product so I think the adoption rate will be
good. Is there really a really to ask for Win7 on a new PC after Win8 is
released?

~~~
sigkill
You've got a point.

I've been scouring the internet for an MSDN iso to go with the key. On certain
ocean-theme based web sites I see people activating Windows 8 by the automated
phone option. Assuming this is legitimate, is it a bug from Microsoft's side?

Strategically, since this represents a paradigm shift I can't help but have
this sneaky suspicion that MS is going a bit lax on pirates. I mean, they
_are_ trying your new PC OS, aren't they? Once you've got them converted, you
can milk them in the future directly (when they buy Windows phones/tablets) or
indirectly (when they recommend the entire Windows eco-system to their
family/friends by bragging about how they got their copy and how awesome it
is).

~~~
shoota
Why not just download the 90 day developer trial of the OS?

~~~
sigkill
No. I have the key, but not the iso. As I understand from MS site there will
be no way for me to convert it to a legit full copy.

------
nileshk
I love seeing useful keyboard shortcuts being added. I've always used various
Window key shortcuts whenever I use Windows. I even use the context menu key.
But I wish the Window key was more like the Cmd key in OS X. That is, I wish
it was a modifier key that can be used in key combinations, and ideally have
it be the primary modifier.

When you have 3 different modifier keys, this increases the number of key
combinations exponentially vs 2. So take for example a cross platform IDE that
is keyboard shortcut friendly, with lots of actions you can assign to keyboard
shortcuts, like Eclipse. In the Windows version you only have shortcuts that
can be a combination of Ctrl and Alt plus another key. With OS X (and Linux),
you can have any combination of Ctrl, Alt, and Command plus another key,
giving many more possibilities. I miss the lack of context menu key support in
OS X, though.

As a UNIX/Emacs user, a side benefit of having Command as the primary modifier
key in OS X, used for many of the typical actions, is that typical OS X
keyboard shortcuts don't generally get in the way of UNIX/Emacs keyboard
shortcuts, which use Ctrl and Alt as modifiers exclusively. I can use Emacs
keyboard shortcuts right alongside OS X keyboard shortcuts in the same
application (I'm accustomed to both; for example, I might paste with either
Cmd-V or Ctrl-Y, depending on whether my right hand is on the home row or
not). But I don't expect that most Windows users would benefit from that
particular aspect. However, I think having an extra modifier key, available to
applications, would benefit a good portion of Windows users.

~~~
davidp
> But I wish the Window key was more like the Cmd key in OS X. That is, I wish
> it was a modifier key that can be used in key combinations, and ideally have
> it be the primary modifier.

I disagree; the entire point of the Windows key is that it _isn't_ interpreted
by applications. It provides instant keyboard-driven access to OS/shell
functions (i.e. cross-application functions), and I love it.

Linux (really X Window and window managers, I suppose) could benefit from
using that key in the same way; Ubuntu's Unity does so to a limited extent.
Imagine having useful keyboard-driven system/window management that's
guaranteed not to conflict with any of your applications. (If that already
exists, someone please clue me in, I'm less familiar with Linux than I am with
Windows.)

~~~
gizmo686
My experience with Linux is that the Windows key is used exclusively by window
managers. Most of the mainstream window managers have windows-like
keybindings, so they inherited the WM/app confilt from Windows.

If you explore some less mainstream WMs, you will see a completely diffent
standard of key-binding, which uses the windows key in all of its commands.

For example, ALT+F4 would be WIN+SHIFT+C And ALT+TAB would be WIN+j

The only time I ran into a problem with an app conflicting with keybindings in
this system was when I ran windows in a virtual machine, and my window manager
kept thinking I was giving it commands when I used the windows key.

------
cs702
Quoting from the article: "It's initially confusing but I have been using it
every day all day since it was released and have got myself productive again."
In other words, it's just like learning to use a _different_ OS!

~~~
corporalagumbo
So Microsoft should be condemned for, after 20 years or so of WIMP, trying
something really new?

~~~
gizmo686
No, but they should follow the GNU/Linux model of desktop UIs: have them be a
seperate program and allow the user to choose which one (s)he wants to log
into, and allow the user to install one from a third party, as apposed to
having it be an irreplacable part of the OS.

I believe (weakly) that OS X treats window managers the same way Linux does.

~~~
acdha
> No, but they should follow the GNU/Linux model of desktop UIs

Not to completely dismiss this but … have you noticed how much extra burden
this places on developers and how this is almost always cited as one of the
reasons why the OSS desktop experience isn't as good as OS X? There are many
parts of the desktop experience which require more than cursory integration
and that becomes a much harder problem to make generic and plugable.

~~~
gizmo686
> There are many parts of the desktop experience which require more than
> cursory integration and that becomes a much harder problem to make generic
> and plugable.

Do you mind mentioning some examples. My desktop runs Awesome, but I make
extensive use of Gnome widgets and programs. The fact that these work out of
the box without issue, despite the fact that they were developed to be part of
the Gnome desktop, seems to suggest that the standards work fine.

Besides, thinking back to when I used Windows, I cannot think of an
application/desktop integration that does not work on Linux.

I always imagined that OS X had a "better" experience because it had teams of
developers whose job it was to make it have a better experience for the user.
Also, never liked the OS X experience, icons don't automatically un-clutter in
folders, it is difficult to tell the difference between what is and isn't
running, and I still cannot figure out how to reliably rename a file without
using the terminal.

------
podperson
Good article -- more constructive than whining -- but none of this seems easy
to learn (or remember) which is probably the problem.

~~~
sequoia
If you use windows regularly it is easy to learn/remember. Win+E.xplorer
Win+D.esktop Win+left move win left. Start there then learn a new one every
few days, soon you'll be a power user ;)

~~~
DeepDuh
I'm pretty sure podperson wasn't talking about himself. The main problem with
Win8 seems to be that it's going to be difficult to learn for not so
technically versed people, e.g. at least 80% of their userbase. And no, it's
not true that they will just 'stay on win7'. a) They don't even know what
version they're on anyway, b) they will just buy whatever is in store. I
expect a _massive_ wave of complaints to store support and OEM support
hotlines, possibly enough to give some traction to easy-to-use preinstalled
linux distros.

~~~
gizmo686
From a usability standpoint, Windows 8 seems to be one of the easiest full
desktop OSes I've seen, the windows key takes to to a large icon screen with
all of your programs, and you click on the one you want to run. I think that
some of the decisions made to accomplish that goal hurt productivity for more
experienced users, and those experienced users experience that as a hard
interface. I had the same reaction when I had to use windows 7 after years of
a tiling window manager and the terminal.

------
jpxxx
As someone who is spent the last 20 years of my life on a computer for a
minimum of 10 hours a day, I can confirm that Windows 8 stumped me for 5 to 10
minutes while I tried to figure out how to invoke the login screen.

While I am so thrilled that this power user enjoyed his experience, mine was
infuriating for the first two hours and made me feel stupid. Those with
dramatically less patience and investment in personal computing will probably
feel the same way.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Perhaps this is a good experience for all developers to have at one point or
another. I'm sure the majority of everyday users feel like this _all the
time_. It's good to gain some perspective once a decade.

------
pbz
This is a classic example of solving the vendor's problem rather than the
user's problem. A unified UI is scratching MS's itch. They have a problem with
tablets eating away at their pie so they sacrifice usability because they
don't want to have to write two different OSes, or rather two experiences.
They already tried this when they brought the mouse to a phone, now they do
the reverse.

------
lawdawg
When I see this image from the article:

[http://www.hanselman.com/blog/content/binary/Windows-Live-
Wr...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/content/binary/Windows-Live-Writer/How-I-
learned-to-stop-worry-and-learned-_1365A/image_22.png)

I have to ask myself, how can anyone think this: 1\. Looks good. 2\. Is ideal
usage of screen real estate.

And even this:

[http://www.hanselman.com/blog/content/binary/Windows-Live-
Wr...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/content/binary/Windows-Live-Writer/How-I-
learned-to-stop-worry-and-learned-_1365A/image_25.png)

Now you have a bunch of icons without text labels, how do you know what does
what? Obviously the 3rd party apps are clear if you use them, but the main
Windows apps aren't clear. For example, what is that purple icon next to the
blue clouds? (And what are the blue clouds? Weather? or is the Sun weather?)

~~~
corporalagumbo
1) Compared to a normal desktop, where most of your functional navigation is
crammed into a small bar (which has pop-up cascading menus filled potentially
with stacks of small application shortcuts, and lots of folders) a full screen
of evenly-sized tiles with prominent identifying symbols seems okay to me.
Maybe even an improvement, once you factor in live-tile info display. And
certainly it seems far simpler to use - it only has one level of depth - click
on anything and you're in an application.

2) Metro does look a little odd with such a tall screen. It makes more sense
on a widescreen laptop or tablet display. Also he chose a pretty garish
background.

3) Also remember most of these icons are legacy. Will look better when more of
your apps are Metro-ised.

4) And of course Metro looks best - really only makes sense - when seen and
used in motion. Metro is an extremely fluid, motion-heavy OS - traditional
WIMP in comparison is as heavy and immobile as a pile of rocks.

5) Purple icon is maps. Blue clouds are skydrive (cloud service.) Sun is
weather (once you've used the app once, local weather conditions are displayed
on the tile.)

~~~
slantyyz
>> Compared to a normal desktop, where most of your functional navigation is
crammed into a small bar

This is a taste thing. Myself, I'll take the crammed bar over the grid any
day.

Even though I'm primarily a Mac user these days, I'm a Luddite when it comes
to Windows - I still prefer the look and feel of Windows 2000 over its
successors.

------
jfb
I'm always surprised at how many of my non-techie friends struggle with
keyboard shortcuts; it seems to be deeply counterintuitive to me, some of the
contortions that people go through because, cognitively, they wont or can't
devote space to the shortcuts. I have a sneaking suspicion that the sort of
fearful respect with which they treat computers is the norm. Anything that
makes using a computer simpler is IMHO a good thing; if it increases the
utility f computers for the 99% at the cost of messing with the expectations
of the 1%, well that seems like a reasonable trade off to make.

------
EpaL
Just installed Win 8 in Parallels on an rMBP and I have to be honest, I don't
hate it as much as when I tried the preview release in a window on an iMac.

Some of the tips in this article are great and the more you dig, the more you
find they actually HAVE improved a lot of things in the 'old' OS as well (this
seems to get ignored/glossed over in alot of reviews, especially the negative
ones).

So far, Metro/Win8 is just a toy without touch. I honestly can't see myself
getting much work done here but it seems to keep out of the way enough.

Ultimately (for me), would I use Windows at all unless I had to for work? And
would I replace OS X 10.8 with Win8 as my primary OS? Quite simply: hell no.
You'll have to pry this rMBP out of my cold dead hands (not just because
Retina is such a game changer visually - I still MUCH prefer the speed, power,
efficiency, apps and overall experience of OS X. It's no competition IMO).

Whether Win8 is a winner on touch devices like Surface, time will tell.
Metro/Win8 is nice enough but there are next to zero apps for it. I'm also
still not convinced having the 'old desktop' on a tablet really is what people
are going to want. Obviously it's a stopgap until Win8 takes off but is it
really much of a selling point? Anyone who has done RDP or Citrix from an iPad
can get an idea of what it's like (I've used it enough times to know): It's OK
in a pinch, but shoot me if I had to use it to actually get serious work done.

Microsoft have definitely thrown a Hail Mary here, not long to find out if it
will work...

~~~
numo16
> I'm also still not convinced having the 'old desktop' on a tablet really is
> what people are going to want

Just a note that ARM tablets running WinRT will not have the desktop, except
for few Microsoft programs, specifically office. So, we really don't need to
worry too much about the old desktop on a tablet problem. For tablets like the
surface pro, running Win8 x86, I don't see why using a mouse would be a big
deal if you are power user-y enough to specifically get the not ARM version of
the tablet.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I really like the new Windows 8 Task Manager. It actually works as you would
expect!

------
hhudolet
I really didn't like idea of mixing metro with normal desktop style of work.
Now, after two weeks of using it on work and at home, I can just say that it
works great - metro doesn't interfere with desktop apps, I'm using them like i
did on win7, and win8 is better with regular desktop style of work in every
way!

Startup/shutdown speed is also totally awesome, even I basically don't power
off my computer, never. So, now, when there's no much metro style apps, win8
as desktop OS works great, and in about one year when Store fills up, it'll be
even better.

Other things I really like that are much improved over win7: HyperV inside OS,
ISO Mount, multi-monitor support (taskbar, wallpapers), cloud integration,
copy/delete/move dialogs with speed graph, task manager.

------
lmm
So I guess windows 8 is fine for super-experts who know all the shortcuts, as
well as for the completely new. But I expect both categories make up quite a
small proportion of the userbase.

~~~
ralfn
This seems a more common trend. Windows really was the exception, where they
aimed to please neither professionals, nor "average consumers", but this
mythical "poweruser".

They didnt exist, Microsoft created them. And that was not a good thing. Many
of them had a beaten wife syndrome: they became experts because even doing
mundane trivial tasks, like burning a cd, organising your documents,
installing software, required "poweruser level skills". Now they are afraid of
change. They worry, they have to relearn all they know. They prefer to stick
to the man they already know. Sure, he may beat them, but after all these
years they know where its going hurt, and what his triggers are. Who knows how
much more another man will beat them?

Im glad Microsoft is cleaning ship, and i understand that the windows "power
users" will need counseling. I dont like the walled garden future though. But
wouldnt it be great if my mom buys a new pc and she was actually capable of
doing things with it, like she can with her ipad, without needing the
assistance of a power user?

So, there i stand: death to the poweruser. They have to either man up and get
professional, or lounge in the casual area, but lets not have them keep things
back. From people being scared of shortcuts or powerusers dismissing linux
because they have nightmares of terminal commands. Grow a pair, or embrace the
new usability for casual users.

~~~
spinchange
>Im glad Microsoft is cleaning ship, and i understand that the windows "power
users" will need counseling.

I think the subtext of these posts is that time will tell if they're cleaning
ship or just filling it with a whole new generation of powerusers around a
system designed primarily for casual use. That's nothing to say if casual
users find it useful either. Ultimately the whole casual/power user is sort of
a false dichotomy. On a long enough curve, all users are powerusers for their
case.

~~~
ralfn
I agree that time will tell if they were able to clean the ship succesfully.
But all the complaining about how radical the changes are for powerusers at
least suggest they are honestly trying for once.

I like the curve analogy. It seems to suggest that good UI is like a partial
ordering of usecases, where there is a clear relationship between complexity,
position on the learning curve and popularity of the usecase.

From that perspective one might say the traditional windows desktop starts off
its learning curve with too much complexity and puts system maintainance tasks
too far down on the curve.

------
mavis
Hadn't heard about Hyper-V support getting added. Goodbye VirtualBox.

------
simplexion
If you pander to people who are scared of change you will move forward so
slowly you might as well stop. I feel that Microsoft haven't pushed hard
enough for change. I'm tired of all the people complaining about change. I
love Unity on Ubuntu. It took a little getting used to but it didn't stop my
computer from being functional. I could do everything I could before just in a
slightly different way. Change is awesome and all you bitches need to stop
tripping on some old bullshit.

~~~
eckyptang
You in the minority of people who actually give a shit about the thing that
sits in front of them in the office and find it interesting.

The rest of the planet just want it to work just how it always did and piss
off at the end of the day so they can go home, cook dinner, dig holes in the
garden, watch television, build LEGO with their kids and play golf.

Our job as software engineers is to SERVE those people unconditionally, make
their lives less laborious and to reduce the burden of their jobs. After all
what else is technology for?

Marketing driven change does nothing but enslave people further and demand
more attention. Incremental changes and improvements are much more useful as
they allow people to adapt slowly without having to deal with life-changing
events every few years.

To hell with everyone who doesn't see it this way - you are doing a disservice
to humanity.

~~~
recoiledsnake
That way there would no progress at all. When Windows 95 came out, there was a
huge bunch of folks that wanted to stick to Windows 3.11 because Windows 95
was a big change. There was even an animation at boot-up that pointed to the
Start button saying 'Click Here'. If we listened to those folks, we would not
even have a task bar that no wants to switch from now.

Also, see the below:

The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is
no evidence that people want to use these things. -- John Dvorak

~~~
eckyptang
But there has been precisely no progress.

It still takes just as long to manipulate your computer (possibly longer) and
it's more complicated and more unpredictable too.

Progress now is considered to be adding more features which guide people
through the mess in front of them.

Every new operating system release is a symptom of that.

~~~
gizmo686
That depends on how you define progress. If you are talking about efficiency
of getting things done, then I would say the move to GUI/mouse based
interfaces as the standard is a step in the wrong direction. As is the to a
composting window manager. I'm not saying there are not uses where these
systems are more efficient, but for most cases they are less efficient.

However, these are examples of improved usability for inexperienced users. For
example, typing "cp -r important /mnt/thumbdrive" is more efficient than
opening the file explorer, copying 'important', navigating to 'thumbdrive' and
pasting (especially with tab completion), however it is far easier for a new
user.

In the same way, it looks like Microsoft is again trading productivity for
usability. Unfourtuantly, it is very difficult to avoid the trade-off, because
productivity comes from the interface making commands as short as possible,
and making the feedback contain as little non-content information as possible.
Where as usability comes from making the input verbose/forgiving (which
requires repetition) and the output needs to provide information on how to use
the interface, which takes away from the ability to output content.

For example, vim is a highly productive editor, there is 1 line at the bottom
for non-content information, and the input is short and (necessarily) cryptic.
You also have gedit, another plain-text editor, however, instead of the
cryptic key bindings, it has a slow and easy interface. So "ESC /foo/bar/g"
becomes "(hand to mouse) Search>>Replace (hand to keyboard) foo (hand to
mouse) (mouse move, click)(hand to keyboard) bar (hand to mouse) (mouse move,
click) (mouse move, click)" Or, if you are good with key commands, geddit has
"^H, foo TAB TAB bar TAB*7 enter ALT+F4", still slower then vim, and it takes
up more precious space.

------
sharms
As someone who primarily runs Ubuntu Linux and Mountain Lion, the interfaces
and screenshots in the article definitely look pretty neat. I haven't had a
chance to install Windows 8, and I definitely don't like the ideas about
restricting the platform more. However, from an interface perspective, am I
alone in thinking that it could be a positive change? (Maybe I am jaded from
going through the Ubuntu Gnome -> Unity transition)

------
Bill_Dimm
I haven't used Win8, so maybe I'm completely off-base here, but from the
article it sounds like removal of the Start Menu has made it difficult to do a
lot of things without either typing in commands or memorizing special key
combinations (see, for example, the section called "Run Power User or
Administrative Tools - WinKey+X is EVERYTHING").

So, how does anyone get anything done using Win8 on a tablet that doesn't have
a keyboard?

~~~
jodoherty
Just out of curiosity, does anyone try to get things done with a tablet? With
the exception of pen-based note taking and drawing, all the activities I do on
a tablet are consumption based (reading, web browsing, etc.) and easy to
accomplish using Windows 8's metro interface. With that in mind, I think the
added keyboard shortcuts really help clean up the interface for tablet users
while giving desktop and notebook users a fast way of getting things done.

But to answer your question, I think the real plan is that you don't try to do
your work on a Windows 8 tablet without a keyboard. Instead, you get a
lightweight, convertible Windows 8 tablet. That way, you can have your cake
and eat it too.

------
meatpopsicle
I especially liked the "Disclaimer: I don't work for the Windows Team" line.
Nowhere does he say anything about Microsoft proper, just the Windows Team.

Just wait, in 6 months, we'll see that Mr. Hanselman was paid for this pro-
Metro blog post. By then, the positive spin will have made us all forget the
past two months of anti-Metro postings.

------
Negitivefrags
I really love the improvements in Windows 8 that have been made to the
standard desktop applications.

It's just a shame that they bolted on Metro and then force feed it to you by
making it your start menu. The metro interface is truly unintuitive. I feel
more at home on in OS X than I do in Metro, and I hate OS X.

~~~
allwein
I wouldn't be surprised to see some pushback from "normal" Windows users that
return new machines because they expected "windows" and got "some sort of tile
OS".

------
peacebeuntoyou
Thank God I'm using Linux now - and a tiling window manager...

I have been too long on the MS side. That's my only regret.

------
DodgyEggplant
Something weird or hard to catch in those screenshots. Can't put the finger
where though

~~~
vacri
Glass isn't enabled?

~~~
Auguste
Wasn't Aero removed altogether to make way for Metro?

~~~
panacea
I think you mean [+], the interface paradigm formerly know as Metro.

------
ehosca
windows 8 is particularly bad on a 30 inch monitor when running its native
metro apps in full screen with no ability to re-size anything.

this may work great for a 10 inch tablet screen but its a serious problem for
any modern professional workstation/content creation setup.

i also had issues (explorer freezing) with my external USB3 drive even for
simple things like copying files back and forth. it seems like with each
iteration of Windows the basic file copy operation gets slower and slower. all
this on hardware that's current. (win7 experience score 7.9)

i'd rather be focused on making cheese instead of figuring out who moved it
where.

~~~
numo16
How likely are people using a professional workstation/content creation setup
to use metro? Until their creation/development/productivity apps are developed
and optimized for the type of machines they use (large monitors, etc..) as
metro apps, they'll continue to use them in the desktop as they always have. I
think the only time I really see the metro/start screen when I'm in windows 8
is when I'm developing metro apps, everything else I see in the desktop.

------
BasDirks
Once in a while I will throw out a useless and nonconstructive comment:

Isn't it super cute to see these windows "power-users" at work? Pretending
that their new OS is for anything other than their grandma checking their
email? And look at all you "hackers" congratulating Microsoft for an
improvement on the dumbest series of operating systems (per dollar spent on
it) of the last two decades. Awww, the intellectual poverty is really
adorable.

