

Walt Mossberg's Windows 8 Review - martingordon
http://allthingsd.com/20121016/windows-pushes-into-the-tablet-age/

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Luyt
The video shows people interacting with a vertical touch-screen. For short
amounts of time, like getting money from an ATM, this works OK, but for
prolonged usage like working on office documents, it leads to Gorilla Arm [1].
I'm afraid people will find out the hard way and will get desillusioned about
their touchscreen user experience. Why doesn't Microsoft foresee this?

From the Jargon File:

 _"Gorilla Arm: The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a mainstream
input technology despite a promising start in the early 1980s. It seems the
designers of all those spiffy touch-menu systems failed to notice that humans
aren't designed to hold their arms in front of their faces making small
motions. After more than a very few selections, the arm begins to feel sore,
cramped, and oversized — the operator looks like a gorilla while using the
touch screen and feels like one afterwards. This is now considered a classic
cautionary tale to human-factors designers; “Remember the gorilla arm!” is
shorthand for “How is this going to fly in real use?”._

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla_arm#.22Gorilla_arm.22>

~~~
notatoad
The vertical touch screen use case will really only be a factor at kiosk-type
installations, which have a short usage time. Any extended use is going to be
done on a laptop or desktop, which has a trackpad or mouse to fall back to if
it even has a touchscreen, or a tablet, which can be held in an ergonomic
manner. You seem to be inventing a form factor that Microsoft isn't promoting,
just to be able to criticize it.

~~~
aggronn
I don't think that's necessarily true, though I disagree with the GP. He
mentioned in the video, and they're already demoing this at places like best
buy, ultrabooks will be coming out with touch screens en masse once windowes 8
is released. A lot of them pivot, but after using one briefly in a normal
mode, I found that I was clicking smaller things with the trackpad, but that
for big things (like the start screen), it was much more convenient to quickly
flick the screen than to go and use my dexterity on the trackpad. you wouldn't
use touch in office, for example, but you might use it for navigating around
the operating system quickly and easily.

~~~
hexvector
Touchscreen only works on mobile devices for extended durations, end of story.

The only input scheme that would be an enhancement to mouse/trackpad and
keyboard is something akin to Leap Motion: <https://leapmotion.com/>

~~~
aggronn
Who said something about extended durations? These would be very short
durations.

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HardyLeung
I have been running Windows 8 (RTM version) on my laptop for two weeks (as I
am a MSDN subscriber, thanks to BizSpark). The Metro interface is cute but
after a while, I am completely back to the Desktop environment. To my
surprise, it is _exactly_ like Windows 7, minus the start menu. I even wonder
whether this is because I upgraded from Windows 7?

So I would say, if you are worried that it'll destroy your Windows experience
as you know it, don't. It's still there. Really still there, with some minor
improvements (e.g. task menu). If I didn't get this for free, I would have
felt cheated (as in, this is just an UI skin over my existing Windows 7). What
I miss the most is the start menu, and I guess I'll download some start-menu
app to replace that.

I don't use my laptop as a tablet so I can't comment on the Metro interface,
other than that it's fluid (like the Windows Phone). I don't see there is any
chance I'd buy the Surface RT though... The App Store is very limiting at this
point. But then, I am not their RT audience.

~~~
Stratoscope
> The Metro interface is cute but after a while, I am completely back to the
> Desktop environment. To my surprise, it is exactly like Windows 7, minus the
> start menu. I even wonder whether this is because I upgraded from Windows 7?

It's not because you upgraded from Windows 7; a vanilla Windows 8 installation
has the same desktop too.

In particular if you use the Windows 7 Start menu with the keyboard - typing
in a name to search for it - that works much the same in the Windows 8 start
screen. Some useful keyboard shortcuts:

* Windows+W to go directly to the Settings

* Windows+F to go directly to Files in the new start screen

* Windows+X to get a quick popup menu of power user tools

* Windows+I to open a panel of quick settings

If you want something more like the Windows 7 Start menu, try Start8:

<http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/>

I've been trying it out a bit and am not sure whether I prefer it or the Metro
start screen. I very much like the lack of animation in Start8 - that was the
main thing I missed from Windows 7.

One other subtle thing I miss from Windows 7 is that shortcuts to apps like
Notepad will start multiple instances of the app. For some unfathomable
reason, the Windows 8 start screen always goes to the first instance of the
app if you try to start Notepad or the like multiple times. That would be OK
but I can't find any way to override it and easily start multiple instances.
Start8 brings back the old behavior here.

~~~
HardyLeung
> _One other subtle thing I miss from Windows 7 is that shortcuts to apps like
> Notepad will start multiple instances of the app. For some unfathomable
> reason, the Windows 8 start screen always goes to the first instance of the
> app if you try to start Notepad or the like multiple times. That would be OK
> but I can't find any way to override it and easily start multiple instances.
> Start8 brings back the old behavior here._

You can do that by right clicking the icon on the bottom taskbar and click the
app to start. It did drive me crazy until I figured this out.

~~~
gman99
Does middle click not work? It does in Win7 (and Ubuntu/Unity too) and I'd be
very surprised if they removed that feature

~~~
Stratoscope
Interesting... Thanks for the tip!

Middle click does work on my Windows 8 start screen; it always launches a new
instance.

It doesn't do anything on my Windows 7 machine's start menu, though. But
that's no problem because left click does what I want.

Testing a bit more... Now I see! In Windows 7, middle click works on the
taskbar but not in the Start menu. In Windows 8, it works on both.

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tomhschmidt
This was more of a restatement of the press release than a review.

~~~
undergroundhero
That was exactly how I felt reading it. Very little detail and no criticism.
It was a page-long description of Windows 8 that offered no unique perspective
of how it feels to use the new OS.

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cjc1083
Windows has always been the base OS on my home computers. I've used a separate
ESXi box, or local virtual box VMs for development. Thus far windows 8 tells
me that it is time for me to shift totally to Linux and just sacrifice gaming,
which was the sole reason I held onto my windows 7 environment on my primary
home PC's. I also dread the day I will have to deal with it at work. I have
between 20-30 windows open at any given time with anything from ArcSight to
multiple putty sessions running. How will that possibly translate to this
blocky touch screen interface?

I can't be alone in this feeling, although I do feel a bit like the old man
yelling at kids to get off his lawn..

I really can't stand this environment and

~~~
HarshaThota
You know that the regular desktop interface is still there, just as it was in
Windows 7, Vista, etc., right? You could be using Windows 8 and never have to
see the Metro interface, save for when you are doing a search for an app.

~~~
throwaway64
the problen with this viewpoint is that metro represents a fundamental shift
in the window system. Stuff like appstore only, forced sandboxing and tons of
restrictions that have never been an issue on windows before. Microsoft has
made it very clear this is how they think everything windows should be moving
forward.

Desktop mode might be there for now, but how comfortable should a user remain
when everything that gives the system value for them just got marked "legacy"

I for one am moving away from windows as much as i can

~~~
Locke1689
What gives you the idea that Desktop mode is "legacy" mode?

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colmvp
I tried out Windows 8 on a laptop a few weeks ago. I used to use Windows
extensively (3.1, 95, 98, XP) before eventually switching to OSX.

Some things I like:

\- Transitions between windows are super fast and smooth.

\- Style is clean and lightweight. A distinctive approach.

Things that made me uncomfortable:

\- No Start button (although you can download 3rd party programs to bring it
back)

\- Trying to have two windows next to one another felt much harder to
accomplish. Using Snap! just felt way more complicated than what'd you
normally do in Windows/OSX.

\- Start-up screen is kind of overwhelming and inefficient. It's a cool
concept but the variety of boxes just makes it hard to interpret information
quickly. It reminds me of iGoogle. I just don't need all that information at
once.

\- Some of the features are hidden and require a lot of exploring to get it
right, like remembering which corner does what when your mouse moves there.
I've never found those type of mouse gestures intuitive.

But I should note that I've spent decades learning one paradigm so this could
very well work with a younger generation that isn't as married to a UI
concept.

~~~
mariusmg
"No Start button" Great thing actually. Instead of hitting start and fumbling
with the mouse to find a certain app, you just start typing the app name,
press Enter and done.

"Start-up screen is kind of overwhelming and inefficient". The new start
screen is basically a launcher + notification. You can always turn live tiles
off and get a static screen.

"Some of the features are hidden and require a lot of exploring to get it
right" Win+C to show the charms bar, win+shift+. to dock/undock app to right
side. No need to even move the mouse.

~~~
gman99
>>Instead of hitting start and fumbling with the mouse to find a certain app,
you just start typing the app name, press Enter and done.

Isn't this exactly the same as in windows 7? Hit start button and start
typing? The only real difference is that the start menu is now full screen and
the small icons have been replaced with constantly updating "tiles".

I'd rather I had the choice of a traditional start menu, but then you always
have the option of booting direct to desktop and pinning the common apps to
the taskbar. So not really sure what the fuss is about.

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pixie_
Every rational developer at Microsoft must be screaming in their heads, but
can't say anything because god knows how many levels of management have beat
the will power out of them to speak out about the horrible decision of making
the start menu a full screen affair. It's funny having watched this horrible
design decision keep going on for a year now. It's only going to get worse
once windows 8 is released. It's been like watching a train wreck in very very
slow motion.

~~~
ladzoppelin
I love Windows 8 and think its the best one yet because of the design and
detail. If you can't recognize the good changes made to the regular desktop
it's probably because you have already made up your mind to not like Windows
8. Hyper-V mode is also another reason why I am upgrading to a new laptop in a
month.

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protomyth
"The only major program that will run there will be a new version of Office,
modified to work on these machines and lacking Outlook."

The new tablets don't have Outlook? Do they do mail and can they hook to
exchange?

~~~
ghurlman
Yes, the Metro apps cover email and calendaring, and connect quite easily to
Exchange, Hotmail, Yahoo, and Google.

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Derbasti
I think the defining feature of Windows 8 will be its transformability. On the
go, you will use it in tablet mode, like an iPad. But at home or at work, you
will put it into some kind of docking station and it will connect to your
monitor, mouse and keyboard and you will use it like your desktop today.

While the contrast between those two modes (Metro vs. Desktop) is kind of
jarring, the utility of having both interfaces available at all time is a
major boon that no current tablet or tradional laptop can match.

The point here is that you can substitute one Windows 8 device for both your
tablet and your desktop, without sacrificing either. This is something I look
forward to and I am willing to pay the usability price for. That said, I don't
see tablets being powerful enough for my kind of work just yet. But they will
get there, eventually.

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andrewfelix
Windows 8 looks gorgeous. For everyday use I'm sure it works great.

However outside of email I generally only use a text editor and a large
portion of the Adobe suite. At best, for me, it looks like the new Metro
interface will be little more than a novelty. At worst it will be a hindrance.

Never thought I'd say it; But after 13 years with Windows, I'm switching to
Mac

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metatronscube
As far as Windows 8 goes, I have already made up my mind. This is the 'review'
that sealed the deal for me <http://youtu.be/X0fsyb-ttcw>

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lifeguard
" it’s not just a menu, it’s a whole computing environment "

