
Saying Goodbye To Windows 8 - samaysharma
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/10/saying-goodbye-to-windows-8/
======
vanderZwan
EDIT: Guys, just because typing "Visual Studio" works for you doesn't mean I'm
lying - I just made the mistake of saying "Visual Studio" instead of "Visual
Studio Express", I really do need to type "VS" to find it. Typing "Visual
Studio" nets me one shortcut: "Try Other Visual Studio 2012 products". I can
share a screenshot as proof if you want.

My biggest (actually, only real) issue with my Windows 8.1 installation is
with the type-to-search feature not being good enough.

Let's say I want to start visual studio. You'd expect Windows Key + "Vis" \+
autocomplete to work. Nope. Visual Studio uses "VS 2012" as the shortcut name.
Visual Studio is the name of the start menu _folder_ , but the _shortcuts_
themselves have names that are very unclear and unsearchable on their own.

This is not limited to Visual Studio, lots of software (old and new) does
this.

Similarly, a lot of older software seems to simply have "uninstall" as a
shortcut, without the name of the program. So typing "uninstall" will give me
dozens of icons without any context about what program it belongs to. If I
want to uninstall a program (without going through "Add or Remove Programs") I
have to manually look up the start menu folder and click on the uninstall
icon.

The fix is easy enough: include start menu _folders_ in the searching. First
as labels giving context to search results. Second as search queries that can
be done directly, or (ideally but more difficult to implement) as contextual
information aiding the search. So something like "[program name] uninstall"
resulting in the program name folder, the contents of which are then filtered
to the shortcut with "uninstall" in the name.

~~~
hudo
I never noticed this. When I type "vis", I always get VS 2013, 2012, etc ...
shortcuts.

In win 8 you have to explicitly search for files vs control panel items, and
in 8.1 they removed that annoying feature, so you can just use win key + s for
everything. It just works.

~~~
dhimes
Yeah, this is a pain in Linux too. The menu item "Document Viewer" was
actually "evince." Say what? You could hunt the menu to see the command to be
able to call it. Until Ubuntu did away with the menu.

~~~
allegory
This.

I'm liking MacOS X. It's had "preview" in it since day one and it just works.
It also displays PDF ToC nicely as well and allows annotations.

Ubuntu always confuses the crap out of me from a desktop perspective.
Fortunately I only have two machines deployed with it on now and they are
headless servers.

------
jpalomaki
I would have preferred them to work on these new ideas to make them work
better.

The idea of modern UI was good. The traditional freely movable windows are
usually not using the desktop space very efficiently unless you spend a lot of
time positioning them or use some third party utilities and configure them
properly. I have a feeling that especially "normal users" very seldom use for
example two windows side-by-side - even though this might be good for
productivity.

The modern UI style was more like a tiling window manager. 8.1 made it
possible to split the screen vertically among n applications. It would have
been nice to see them explore this further to allow other kind of
configurations as well.

The main problem with modern UI from my perspective was the lack of
application. There was only few modern UI apps available and most of them
pretty useless, tiny utilities. Now Office (even Outlook), no Visual Studio
etc. A "simple" fix would have been to allow users to run the old applications
the same way as modern UI apps.

~~~
7952
As a tiling window manager it could have been very good. You could have had
slots that matched the Windows Phone aspect ratios instead of dividing the
screen vertically. The slots could feel like a mobile app whilst the rest of
the screen would feel like a normal windows desktop.

------
anon4
I don't know why you say goodbye, did I say hello?

Here's hoping that Windows 9 will be good enough for me to move away from 7. I
just want to dual-boot it for gaming, I have zero patience to deal with their
new UI paradigms.

~~~
higherpurpose
So Microsoft will get you to pay for something that's essentially Windows 7
SP3, and it's biggest feature is that "it looks like Windows 7 _again_ "? Even
if I liked Windows 9, I wouldn't buy it in principle.

~~~
freehunter
OSX got people to pay for the same OS, slightly updated, for a decade and a
half. Only recently did they make updates free. Windows is quite exclusive in
making major changes between OS releases (and now quite exclusive in charging
for them).

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george_srs
The article currently mentions this in the "Update":

> Update: Your author is a moron. Microsoft did in fact promise this [running
> Metro apps in windowed-fashion] in the future. I had my wires crossed.

~~~
castell
It is still there. I wonder if it's a joke from an editor?

------
NicoJuicy
Best productivity shortcuts (even when on 2 screens)

{Windows Key} + {Arrow Left}

{Windows Key} + {Arrow Right} (hit multiple times, to transfer a screen from
left to right)

{Windows Key} + {Arrow Down}

{Windows Key} + {Arrow Up}

I seriously don't care about any of the other windows tools as i don't use it.

~~~
Vaanir
Like the others have mentioned, use <Shift> to add extra awesome.

Also, I would love it if Microsoft implemented a way of having multiple
desktops, so I could switch between them with a shortcut like those.

I am sure there is a possible 3rd party solution though?

~~~
yulaow
There are already strong rumors that multiple desktops will be a feature in
the new windows9. In an interview on the /build/ 2014 some MS devs said that
now that they have made a dumb-ui for the common consumer they can finally
improve the desktop to the needs of power-users

------
baconstrp
Sold my beloved SurfacePro on eBay last week. It is a great piece of hardware,
but .. in one word: Windoze8, alas

As a grown up PC fanboy, I found myself work/dev more efficient with less
frustration on mac nowadays. Operating system is a productivity tool, and
Windows has turn into this emo teen girl I can not recognize or share an easy
conversation with anymore.

Picked up a refurbished MBA to keep me coding on the move.

~~~
guardian5x
What were you productivity issues? What made coding so difficult? I use a
Surface Pro 2 daily. Its like a Netbook replacement for me as it is very
mobile and still capable and with the docking station at home i have a full
keyboard and big screen.

~~~
allegory
Just a note from me, as I tried one for a week.

Not enough RAM!

My 2011 MBP has 16Gb of RAM and my 2014 HP Z420 has 32Gb of RAM.

I can barely spin up our product on a machine with 8Gb of RAM without killing
everything else I'm doing on first. Then SQL Server doesn't give the RAM back
inevitably leading to the service being restarted to release it. Granted this
is a big product but in this day and age, 8Gb shouldn't be the cap for
anything.

Also both the keyboards were shitty and the thing crashed occasionally (blue
screen) when I tried plugging it into my desktop monitor - an old 22" Dell
TFT.

The big thing for me, is that I actually had a better experience using my
Android tablet with a keyboard/mouse plugged in and remote desktop to my
workstation in the office. That kills the massively powerful portable computer
use case dead for me. Was perfectly usable over a 3G connection as well.

~~~
GFischer
I wonder what the heck are you developing :) .

Maybe a solution would be to have SQL Server on a virtual machine, or use an
Azure SQL instance (in my very limited trial latency was a bit annoying
though).

~~~
allegory
15 years of legacy crap :)

I need a full data volume available as a lot of the stuff requires heavy
performance testing.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Real or not, that screenshot looks awfully nice. I wouldn't mind having live
tiles on the Start Menu.

~~~
Cakez0r
I love the start menu too. Though I don't understand how it fits in if they're
keeping the start screen too...

~~~
supergauntlet
Perhaps they’ll allow the use of both through some settings option.

------
chatmasta
Ugh, yet another version of windows I need to help my dad transition to. He
was happily using Windows XP until a month ago, when his computer stopped
working and I finally convinced him to switch to the new Windows 8 laptop I
got him for Christmas last year.

He's a very smart guy, and yet switching from Windows XP to Windows 8 was
incredibly unintuitive for him. Now just when he's getting used to it, he
needs to switch to another version?

Microsoft is doing a great job of alienating its users by forcing them into
new releases with constantly changing, unintuitive "features." Most people
I've talked to who use windows were perfectly happy with Windows XP, and the
subsequent releases have been definite downgrades in terms of usability.

How long before non-Enterprise/government Windows users just start switching
to Mac? If Apple released a $500 laptop, I imagine they would capture a
massive percentage of the non-Enterprise Windows market. It's only a matter of
time before Apple opens its doors to budget consumers. Personally, I can't
wait.

------
chrisan
So is the "every other Windows is good" rule remaining true?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4415403](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4415403)
/ [http://i.imgur.com/hVhvEhr.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/hVhvEhr.jpg)

I've held back on win8 initially. I was going to try 8.1 once I found free
time but now I feel like waiting for the beta of 9

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Considering you didn't list Windows 98 SE (which was a stand-alone release)
and called Windows 95 "shit" (which is laughable if you were around in 1995
when relatively speaking it was far from "shit," pretty groundbreaking
frankly), no.

There is no pattern, people just alter history because they want there to be a
pattern. We also have to ignore NT4, 2000, and the servers also.

~~~
chrisan
Not my graphic, however I agree with it as I used to be on the student
helpdesk at college when we had to support 3.1, 95, and 98. Naturally our
individual call center team's experience is an insignificant sample size.

I don't think anyone believes it is actually every other exact release (hence
the original quotes), but the feeling/humor is shared. Sorry you disagree.

------
qwerta
Obligatory question: can you maximize console window in Win9? It will be 20
years soon and I am still waiting for bug fix.

~~~
ygra
You're not waiting for a bug fix but for a feature to be implemented. A
feature that might have compatibility constraints, some cost attached to it
and might lead to another feature being cut because there's only finite time.

How many average users see and use a console window regularly?

------
al2o3cr
Wow, talk about low expectations. "We're pretty sure the _next_ version will
remove the misfeatures the current version added!"

------
lectrick
I said goodbye to Windows XP, clearly I was ahead of the game ;)

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josephyu0305
Hmm, for me it is ok if windows 8 will say good bye, because windows 7 for me
is best stable OS and User friendly than other OS

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higherpurpose
I think the 8 in the title is unnecessary.

