
Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8 - smcgivern
http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2015/01/31/windows_10_re_crappifying_windows_8/
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jqm
I'm thinking this fellows opinion is a minority one, and his psychology degree
must have come in the mail so he probably isn't licensed to diagnosis people
in my state.

Not a fan of Windows8. The 10 preview I played with was an absolute step in
the right direction.

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ptx
> You can design user interfaces that work for both, and mouse-driven systems
> profit from many of the UI changes that make for good touchscreen user
> interfaces — a clean, simple interaction design and large click targets, for
> example.

I don't think this is true. With a mouse, you can easily make very precise
small movements, so a tiny button positioned right next to where you already
have the mouse cursor (perhaps, for example, over another tiny button) is very
easy to reach. A tiny button farther away is much harder to hit because you
make larger and less precise movements to get there from where you were. The
size of the target is not as important as its proximity to the cursor's
current position.

On a touch screen, with no relative movement, the situation is pretty much the
opposite: If you have tiny touch targets right next to each other, it's very
hard to hit the right one, and you can't see if the cursor is positioned
correctly before you click. If they're farther apart, it's easier to hit the
right one, or at least harder to hit the wrong one. (And obviously larger
targets are better.)

~~~
bjmarte
You can't do both at the same time, true. That doesn't mean that you can't
make a system that works well as both at separate times.

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Yaa101
The biggest mistake that Microsoft made was calling it Windows, if they called
it Surface instead of only their hardware that way, and kept on selling
windows non crippled for the desktop, they probably would have gotten away
with it. Nobody cares if they share the same engine under the hood.

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guard-of-terra
He sounds unicorny towards Windows 8. Nobody ever uses Windows 8 in Metro mode
(because no, your PC is not a tablet), and the way which you randomly fall in
and out of Metro is atrocious. A lot of things they just did not bother to
think about; for example, wi-fi connection dialog overlays keyboard layout
indicator, ruining hope of correctly inputting password.

The whole Windows 8 thing is embarrasingly make-believe.

~~~
tluyben2
Exactly. I like Metro & Desktop but whenever the two mix (randomly) is just
mad. It's one of the most horrible experiences I currently know in computing
and I have no clue why people think this is ok. Smart people at that. It feels
like they never tried it themselves after delivering their product. It drives
my absolutely bonkers and keeps me from using the Surface more than my macbook
air & ipad air. Yes I have to carry around 2 devices but at least I won't just
go and break them in 2000 pieces out of frustration. I love the hardware of
the Surface3 pro, but for me, exactly that point ruins Windows 8(.1)
completely. Is 10 better?

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SlipperySlope
Windows 8 was a failure in the enterprise desktop market. Loss aversion meant
that corporations did not want to train their staff to use an unfamiliar UI,
and the great majority of corporations either postponed upgrades or stayed
with Windows 7.

[http://bgr.com/2014/02/04/windows-8-adoption-
analysis/](http://bgr.com/2014/02/04/windows-8-adoption-analysis/)
[http://www.crn.com/news/applications-
os/300073591/windows-8-...](http://www.crn.com/news/applications-
os/300073591/windows-8-adoption-hits-standstill.htm)

With Ballmer gone, Windows 10 can return to the familiar Windows 7 look and
feel for enterprise desktop purchasers - so hopes Microsoft.

When the iPad and iPhone first dominated their respective markets, Ubuntu was
first to respond because Linux evolves faster than Microsoft. The Unity
Desktop was the canary in the coal mine with respect to how desktop users
would react at the software vendor's natural desire for UI convergence.

Notably, Steve Jobs and Apple, maintained two UIs, one: MAC OS for the desktop
and laptops, and two: iOS for touch/mobile. Apple routinely mocked Microsoft,
and ignored Ubuntu as non-competitive.

Desktop and Laptop, e.g. keyboard and mouse, multi-monitor, are better for
content creation, such as writing software.

Mobile - touch and voice and camera - are better for content consumption,
messaging and always-with-you intelligent services, e.g. navigation.

Tim Cook at Apple famously said Windows 8 was converging a ‘Toaster and a
Refrigerator’.

I really don't care about Windows as I am a Docker application developer, and
routinely use Ubuntu Unity which I grown accustomed to. Good luck Microsoft on
Windows 10.

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jagermo
Good points and well written (not the usual troll rant).

However what I dread most are the vendors and their crapware bundeling
programs. Uch.

~~~
Filligree
However, here's the thing: _Windows are useful_. An UI which pretends you
shouldn't use them isn't good for anything complicated, when you use more than
one application at a time.

Hierarchical start menus are also useful, for that matter.

~~~
dragonwriter
> However, here's the thing: Windows are useful.

I'm increasingly convinced that _overlapping_ Windows are not particularly
useful (they are better than one-thing-maximized-is-the-only-option), but
tiled windows are very useful.

~~~
Rusky
I'm torn between tiled and overlapping windows. A lot of the time I just don't
have a big enough screen to go fully tiled, because it forces things to squish
when I would rather just keep one partially visible underneath (e.g. a browser
window, a text editor, and a terminal).

One thing that makes overlapping windows infinitely nicer for me is a feature
in a lot of Linux WMs where window borders "catch" on other windows and the
edge of the screen when being moved or resized. That, and having a key to move
windows from anywhere, rather than just the titlebar.

edit: And focus-follows-mouse/x-mouse.

~~~
Zancarius
> One thing that makes overlapping windows infinitely nicer for me is a
> feature in a lot of Linux WMs where window borders "catch" on other windows
> and the edge of the screen when being moved or resized. That, and having a
> key to move windows from anywhere, rather than just the titlebar.

I also like the feature of using the scroll wheel to change window position
(above/below), especially if I'm browsing and have a few related windows open
on a desktop. I didn't realize how much I missed the feature until I tried
Plasma 5 on KDE briefly (it has it, too, but it didn't migrate my
configuration).

~~~
Rusky
Ah, yes. I should have included focus-follows-mouse, that's pretty crucial to
how I work too.

There's actually a registry setting to enable it on Windows, but so many
things are so completely unaware of it in their design that it breaks a lot of
stuff.

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byuu
Everyone loves consistency, but it really is a fools errand to try and make a
universal OS experience. Desktops with keyboards and mice require different
design paradigms than touch screens with no physical buttons. Vendors like
Microsoft that try and cater to both will simply face an eternal tug of war,
and nobody will end up happy.

 _Very_ few people on a tablet want to touch-type code for eight hours a day.
_Very_ few people on a desktop want to hold their hands in the air tapping
their expensive monitors for eight hours a day.

What Microsoft needs to do is produce a clean "OS base" (kernel, drivers) used
by both, and then produce two separate products: Windows Office (for desktops)
and Windows Metro (for touch devices.) They should have never tried to merge
the UIs together.

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tanglesome
This article presumes that Windows 8.x was a great tablet OS. Since Windows 8
failed on mission one: Getting people to switch from Android and iOS.
Objectively some people may love it--I'm not one--but from a business
viewpoint it failed on tablets and it was hated on the desktop. The only real
surprise isn't that MSFT is returning to an Aero style desktop, it's that it
took them so long to do so.

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alyx
I don't think he realizes that he's critiquing and reviewing a preview OS.

~~~
ZenoArrow
I don't even think he's reviewing Windows 10 in its current preview form. Look
at the picture he uses to show off the start menu, then compare it to the
start menu in any other recent Windows 10 demonstration. Notice any
differences?

~~~
asyncwords
Actually I think he _is_ on the current Windows 10 build. Right now there's a
button at the top-right of the start menu that switches it between full-screen
and regular mode. This [1] is what it looks like on my system when full
screen. It looks much worse in the article however, because the author only
has three apps pinned to their start menu, and the three apps are in their
'medium' size rather than wide or large.

[1]: [http://i.imgur.com/xKCH1td.png](http://i.imgur.com/xKCH1td.png)

~~~
ZenoArrow
Thanks for the info.

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daigoba66
I think what this article demonstrates, more than anything, is how hard
(impossible?) it is to build a single user interface for all possible form
factors and keep your users happy.

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misuba
Does 1Password not have a keyboard app for iOS 8? Keyboard apps in general are
a pretty good way to get a lot of what people want from multi-window views on
touch devices.

~~~
shadesandcolour
No they have an extension instead that people have been building into their
apps that give one tap access to 1Password on the login screen. I suspect they
stayed away from building a keyboard because it's a lot harder to get right,
and to risk building a not-so-great keyboard to add one button didn't seem
worth it.

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higherpurpose
I actually preferred Windows 10 in the previous build. Now everything in the
desktop modem makes me uncomfortable when using it and I think it's slower as
well.

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engendered
The whole bit on loss aversion (which is a tactic to undermine people's
opinions by ascribing them to unproductive emotional reactions, rather than
objective evaluations that have people liking Windows 8 less than 7), and then
the "I don’t really see anything positive about going back to an interaction
design originally devised in 1995", undermine the piece and do make it seem
more like a rant than an unbiased evaluation: Someone with a touch screen
tablet likes Windows 8, and doesn't like some of the changes in Windows 10.
Welcome to the party the rest of us have lived in.

Windows 8 on the _desktop_ was objectively terrible. The charm bar, the weird
interactions, the gigantic click points that completely undermined the benefit
of a highly precise mouse. It was a step backwards as Microsoft tried to force
touch metaphors and designs on a mouse world. Now this user is complaining
that they're forcing mouse metaphors on his tablet.

~~~
Mikeb85
> Windows 8 on the desktop was objectively terrible.

Not a chance. IMO, not only was the the best Windows from a technical
perspective, I quite liked the interface. I use Linux mostly for philosophical
and technical reasons (much easier to program in Linux), but Windows 8 has
great UI.

~~~
wfunction
No, it was terrible, unless you installed a classic shell.

~~~
arthurfm
I wouldn't go that far. I manage perfectly fine without it.

I like the fact that the Start Screen makes full use of my 27" 2560 x 1440
LCD. With the Windows 7-style Start Menu all of your shortcuts are shoved into
a tiny corner of the screen.

~~~
wfunction
Or you can look at it another way: I can comfortably fit more on my 1600x900
monitor with Classic Shell's start menu than you would on you 2560x1440 LCD
with the Windows 8 start screen.

In other words, it's both modal _and_ it wastes real screen estate.

~~~
arthurfm
> In other words, it's both modal and it wastes real screen estate.

The Windows 7-style Start Menu is modal too in the sense that you can't
interact with the desktop at the same time you are interacting with the Start
Menu.

The other thing I don't particularly like about the Start Menu is that
shortcuts and folders with long names get cut off due to the width of the menu
itself.

Screens are a bit like RAM in my opinion. There to be used.

~~~
wfunction
> The Windows 7-style Start Menu is modal too in the sense that you can't
> interact with the desktop at the same time you are interacting with the
> Start Menu.

Huh? If you define it that way then _everything_ is modal because you can only
ever interact with one window at a given time (one mouse, one keyboard, etc.)

~~~
AndrewDucker
No, Windows 7 Start Menu is different.

If I open it, start typing, and switch to a different window, then it loses
all of its state, and has to restart from scratch if I go back to it.

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WorldWideWayne
In Windows 10, the only feature I'm looking for is a simple on/off switch like
Android has: Allow installation of apps from sources other than the [default
app store].

