Windows 8 Consumer Preview Feedback Thread

[rockyct]

Microsoft has done it before. Millennium was released in 2000 (Microsoft's version of New Coke) and XP was released the following year. Nothing will ever compare to the abomination that was Millennium but people soon forget. They did it again in late 2006 early 2007 with Vista and then had 7 released in 2009.

ME was pretty much a pure money grab. One last release on the Win9X code before they moved consumers to the WinNT kernel. With the exception of Vista, the goal was, and still is, to release a new version of Windows about every 2-3 years. Win7 was pretty much on schedule and Win8 is as well.

 

[Dominato3r]

yup. im saying i think ms knows this too, and since win7 is so well adopted now why even try to aim for a market thats not even there? they know this is their chance to really shake things up, so they have to try. people are complaining that they have to learn a whole new ui, and all i can think of is how ive been seeing the SAME GOD DAMN UI since win95. hell, before that even!

Yeap. If anything this is a big showcase for touch. OEM's will begin shipping tablets along side laptops with touch screens.

I don't find it too bad with a mouse and keyboard, but I really want to try this thing on a tablet.

 

[ViRGE]

So am I safely assuming the Pinball game included isn't avilable for Windows 7? I'm over Windows 8, it's a huge POS and I want to stab it with a knife, set it on fire and shoot it with a full clip from my AR-15. But I really like the pinball game a lot. I'm too slow to remember the name tonight though, so I can't Google to find out. I refuse to boot back into that hunk of junk until I'm told "sorry the game only runs on Windows 8" I will keep Windows 8 around *IF* it's the only way I can play that shit.

That game owns

Pinball FX2 is an existing Xbox Live Arcade title. That said, on Windows it's going to be the replacement for Space Cadet Pinball and will only be for Windows 8.

 

[BD2003]

Yeap. If anything this is a big showcase for touch. OEM's will begin shipping tablets along side laptops with touch screens.

I don't find it too bad with a mouse and keyboard, but I really want to try this thing on a tablet.

I just wonder how people are going to react to the flip side of this....the windows desktop on their tablet. It's always been a shitty experience before, and although Im sure they'll try to isolate people as much as they can from it....it'll still be there. And god forbid if I ever see a desktop on my smartphone....

Dunno why they didn't just scale up WP7.

 

[Pia]

So the solution is to just say screw it, let's go back to windows 2.0? This doesn't solve that problem. It dodges it entirely by removing functionality.

Wrong - those problems are already solved. None of Metro's screen space is ever wasted on a desktop or non-application surface, and user doesn't have to do any extra housekeeping while distributing screen space.

Do you think any of that would ever *really* have been fixed if Microsoft just did iterative improvements like you suggested?

You are mad about having lost functionality, but that always initially happens when a new UI is built from the ground up. It's precisely because the two are fundamentally different that the tools on top must also be built differently. Rushing to do everything immediately will lead to half-baked "solutions" crudding up the new UI, and if they get entrenched, that leads to the need of a reboot of some sort in the future.

 

[Modelworks]

MS is making a lot of mistakes with win8. I tried the consumer preview yesterday and to me it was a worse experience than the developer preview. I see more services added, more fluff and little substance. I see more resource usage and more hoops for developers to jump through without providing something in return that actually counts.

The UI may work for tablets but for desktops or work environments it is a set back to productivity. MS spends a lot on UI design experts and the problem with that is experts tend to be out of touch with the people they claim to be experts on. My test for a UI is to sit someone down at it who has never used it before and tell them to do different task.

Compare this task, find the page setup information for the printer. Something people have to do to set printing preferences or check the ink level or maybe what ip the printer is using.

The easiest way to do this was actually windows 98. Anyone sitting down could see the word START on the button, clicking it brought up a list of stuff they could read and find the printer.

The new metro UI has the problem of in trying to look clean it leaves the user in a ???? moment where they don't know how to do anything except what is already displayed. There is no exploring other parts of the computer without already knowing how to get to those places.

 

[BD2003]

Wrong - those problems are already solved. None of Metro's screen space is ever wasted on a desktop or non-application surface, and user doesn't have to do any extra housekeeping while distributing screen space.

Do you think any of that would ever *really* have been fixed if Microsoft just did iterative improvements like you suggested?

You are mad about having lost functionality, but that always initially happens when a new UI is built from the ground up. It's precisely because the two are fundamentally different that the tools on top must also be built differently. Rushing to do everything immediately will lead to half-baked "solutions" crudding up the new UI, and if they get entrenched, that leads to the need of a reboot of some sort in the future.

Those "problems" simply weren't of such a high degree that the entire system needed scrapping. It could always use improvement, but it's a tried and true system that has served literally billions of people well for decades. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[Termie]

I see a lot of people in this thread acting as if everyone was always happy about the desktop environment. I'm sure there were plenty of people crying foul when MS-DOS move to Windows, and then when Windows went to Windows 95.

Folks...we can't stand still. Do you really think that 100 years from now, people will be interacting with a blank desktop, showing only a start button and a recycling bin? Microsoft is thinking big here, and that's what they need to do. We've been stuck on the same interface since 1995. That's longer than MS-DOS stuck around. It's time to move on, and yes, it will be slightly painful.

Maybe we need new peripherals for the desktop, like touchpads or touch tablets, assuming we won't all be touching our screens while sitting at our desks. That's not such a big leap. I'm excited about W8, but I think MS still has a bit of work to do. I'd like the desktop to be entirely removed from the experience - I don't see why we can't run programs from the Metro interface. MS hasn't completed the transition yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if W8 doesn't require desktop use when released.

 

[Pia]

Those "problems" simply weren't of such a high degree that the entire system needed scrapping. It could always use improvement, but it's a tried and true system that has served literally billions of people well for decades. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

But that's the thing - it was always broken.

Two decades from now, are you going to think it's all right that we are still doing manual housekeeping on a bunch of windows?

If not, then when should we fix it, and why is that time a better time to fix it than now?

 

[BD2003]

But that's the thing - it was always broken.

Two decades from now, are you going to think it's all right that we are still doing manual housekeeping on a bunch of windows?

If not, then when should we fix it, and why is that time a better time to fix it than now?

I'm certainly going to think its alright if this is the alternative. It's replacement has to be better. Metro isnt better. It's drawbacks way, way overshadow its advantages.

Don't get me wrong...I'm not the worlds biggest desktop fan. I don't want it anywhere near my tablet or phone. But when I sit down at a PC, I'm expecting a certain level of functionality beyond what metro can offer. Take that away and it defeats the purpose of a PC.

 

[cboath]

I see a lot of people in this thread acting as if everyone was always happy about the desktop environment. I'm sure there were plenty of people crying foul when MS-DOS move to Windows, and then when Windows went to Windows 95.

Folks...we can't stand still. Do you really think that 100 years from now, people will be interacting with a blank desktop, showing only a start button and a recycling bin? Microsoft is thinking big here, and that's what they need to do. We've been stuck on the same interface since 1995. That's longer than MS-DOS stuck around. It's time to move on, and yes, it will be slightly painful.

Maybe we need new peripherals for the desktop, like touchpads or touch tablets, assuming we won't all be touching our screens while sitting at our desks. That's not such a big leap. I'm excited about W8, but I think MS still has a bit of work to do. I'd like the desktop to be entirely removed from the experience - I don't see why we can't run programs from the Metro interface. MS hasn't completed the transition yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if W8 doesn't require desktop use when released.

I remember lots of people hating the 95 interface. Of course, it had more to do with change and people not liking it than anything else.

It's an inherent human condition - the majority of people are adverse to change.

If they truly view this as a beta, and are willing to change things it can work out well. Apps, at least on the pc, need a close button. The setting 'hot corner' in the top right is a pain on a monitor. It needs a button or better access. The ability to create your own tiles for things like 'my computer' or 'control panel' would go a long way as well. That may exist for all I know, i've not spent too much time in it. I also need to find the feedback tool because I want them to fix the code for my monitor which they haven't seemed to be able to do in win7 or 8.

 

[lowrider69]

I'll try the Windows 8 Consumer Preview version in VMware just to check it out. Now I can trash the developer version I installed in VMware last year...I hated it. This will most likely be more of the same I assume.

 

[BD2003]

I remember lots of people hating the 95 interface. Of course, it had more to do with change and people not liking it than anything else.

It's an inherent human condition - the majority of people are adverse to change.

If they truly view this as a beta, and are willing to change things it can work out well. Apps, at least on the pc, need a close button. The setting 'hot corner' in the top right is a pain on a monitor. It needs a button or better access. The ability to create your own tiles for things like 'my computer' or 'control panel' would go a long way as well. That may exist for all I know, i've not spent too much time in it. I also need to find the feedback tool because I want them to fix the code for my monitor which they haven't seemed to be able to do in win7 or 8.

People are only really averse to change if the benefit to that change is not immediate and obvious. Plenty of new technologies and ideas are immediately adopted despite being radical changes to what we know.

If they're really dead set on metro as the future, they need to sell it better. This is half assed. Perhaps there needs to be a more gradual transition, or some killer app or capability that didn't exist before that gets people excited. They need to iterate more and get this right the first time or it will sour people for good and tarnish their already suffering brand further. They can't just toss people in the deep end and expect people to follow.

You put anyone who's ever used a PC in front of metro and they're baffled. Put them in front of OS X and while it's different, it's still relatable. They don't have the monopoly over mindshare like they used to.

 

[Pia]

I'm certainly going to think its alright if this is the alternative. It's replacement has to be better. Metro isnt better. It's drawbacks way, way overshadow its advantages.

Whenever something with over a decade of polish behind it gets replaced with something fundamentally different, I don't expect the replacement to be overall better instantly. Certainly not better across the board. That would be unrealistic.

For example, this was a much, much smaller leap UI-wise than classic to Metro is, had serious issues at first and almost certainly wasn't as usable as its predecessor for the bulk of users, but I don't think anyone would argue it was a bad decision to make the jump.

I would be very disappointed if Microsoft stopped here and froze Metro in place instead of improving it with stuff like increasing the amount of apps that may be shown simultaneously, and properly supporting multiple displays.

Don't get me wrong...I'm not the worlds biggest desktop fan. I don't want it anywhere near my tablet or phone. But when I sit down at a PC, I'm expecting a certain level of functionality beyond what metro can offer. Take that away and it defeats the purpose of a PC.

But do you expect a level of functionality beyond what Metro may offer in a year or two from now?
My point is: the sum total of the functionality you see right now, or at release of Windows 8 for that matter, is not a reasonable yardstick to judge Microsoft's decision to release Metro at this point in time. If you have concrete reasons to think Metro can't/won't gain more power and surpass classic in usability, that's another matter. It's precisely because Metro is still in infancy that the classic desktop has to stay in the OS for now - if Microsoft thought Metro was ready and app support was ready, they would give classic the boot. It's obvious that the two do not fit well together.

 

[dagamer34]

People are only really averse to change if the benefit to that change is not immediate and obvious. Plenty of new technologies and ideas are immediately adopted despite being radical changes to what we know.

If they're really dead set on metro as the future, they need to sell it better. This is half assed. Perhaps there needs to be a more gradual transition, or some killer app or capability that didn't exist before that gets people excited. They need to iterate more and get this right the first time or it will sour people for good and tarnish their already suffering brand further. They can't just toss people in the deep end and expect people to follow.

You put anyone who's ever used a PC in front of metro and they're baffled. Put them in front of OS X and while it's different, it's still relatable. They don't have the monopoly over mindshare like they used to.

If you gave someone an iPad when it FIRST came out and told them it was going to be their PC, the first thing they would have asked was "Where is the keyboard?"

Power users can either assume that normal people are stupid, in which case Windows 7 is too complicated, or that people are smart, in which case they are capable of adapting to change. You cannot have it both ways.

The reason I am extremely bullish on Metro is that if you show a brand new computer user the Windows 7 desktop or the Windows 8 Metro interface, I think it is extremely clear which one is preferred.

Also, some cold, hard facts. Of the 7 billion people on the planet, only 1.2 billion of them have a computer. That's 17%. The next billion computer users will not have a keyboard and mouse. That is the future Microsoft needs to be striving for, and they need to start NOW.

 

[BD2003]

Whenever something with over a decade of polish behind it gets replaced with something fundamentally different, I don't expect the replacement to be overall better instantly. Certainly not better across the board. That would be unrealistic.

For example, this was a much, much smaller leap UI-wise than classic to Metro is, had serious issues at first and almost certainly wasn't as usable as its predecessor for the bulk of users, but I don't think anyone would argue it was a bad decision to make the jump.

I would be very disappointed if Microsoft stopped here and froze Metro in place instead of improving it with stuff like increasing the amount of apps that may be shown simultaneously, and properly supporting multiple displays.
But do you expect a level of functionality beyond what Metro may offer in a year or two from now?
My point is: the sum total of the functionality you see right now, or at release of Windows 8 for that matter, is not a reasonable yardstick to judge Microsoft's decision to release Metro at this point in time. If you have concrete reasons to think Metro can't/won't gain more power and surpass classic in usability, that's another matter. It's precisely because Metro is still in infancy that the classic desktop has to stay in the OS for now - if Microsoft thought Metro was ready and app support was ready, they would give classic the boot. It's obvious that the two do not fit well together.

I don't care about potential, I care about results. Whatever they do in the future, I'll judge in the future. This is not good enough for release right now.

 

[Pia]

I don't care about potential, I care about results. Whatever they do in the future, I'll judge in the future. This is not good enough for release right now.

If all you care about is right now, not the future, why are you complaining? You have the classic desktop so whatever else Microsoft tinkers with should be irrelevant.

If Apple went by your logic, they would never have overhauled the UI between OS 9 and OS X. Many initial OS X users would have been pleased; they would have had a more familiar interface and rich, polished functionality instead of the laggy and poorly featured "eye candy" UI which they actually got. But the state-of-the-art window manager that we have in OS X today would not exist. Apple's Mac business would never have taken off the way it did after the transition.

To take this on a different path: what things would you need to see in Metro to start considering it may be a good UI on a non-touchscreen desktop computer?

 

[Dominato3r]

If you gave someone an iPad when it FIRST came out and told them it was going to be their PC, the first thing they would have asked was "Where is the keyboard?"

Power users can either assume that normal people are stupid, in which case Windows 7 is too complicated, or that people are smart, in which case they are capable of adapting to change. You cannot have it both ways.

The reason I am extremely bullish on Metro is that if you show a brand new computer user the Windows 7 desktop or the Windows 8 Metro interface, I think it is extremely clear which one is preferred.

Also, some cold, hard facts. Of the 7 billion people on the planet, only 1.2 billion of them have a computer. That's 17%. The next billion computer users will not have a keyboard and mouse. That is the future Microsoft needs to be striving for, and they need to start NOW.

This is exactly it.

 

[BD2003]

If all you care about is right now, not the future, why are you complaining? You have the classic desktop so whatever else Microsoft tinkers with should be irrelevant.

If Apple went by your logic, they would never have overhauled the UI between OS 9 and OS X. Many initial OS X users would have been pleased; they would have had a more familiar interface and rich, polished functionality instead of the laggy and poorly featured "eye candy" UI which they actually got. But the state-of-the-art window manager that we have in OS X today would not exist. Apple's Mac business would never have taken off the way it did after the transition.

To take this on a different path: what things would you need to see in Metro to start considering it may be a good UI on a non-touchscreen desktop computer?

OS9-OSX was a pretty straightforward transition. Still the same UI paradigm...they've just continued to improve it to something very, very good. They continually moved in the right direction.

Metro is a derailment. There's nothing at all that makes this a logical transition from a desktop. What do they need to do to make it better? I dunno really...I'm not convinced you can have your cake and eat it too. Anything they do to cater to tablets makes mouse/kb more difficult. I'm not convinced there's any value in the unified UI either. I just dont accept the premise this entire kludge is built on. I much rather prefer the UI and apps be tailored specifically for the device, which they are admittedly not doing. It's a compromise that hurts the experience for everyone in the end.

Ultimately what I want out of win 8 is one really good UI, not two half assed ones.

 

[BD2003]

This is exactly it.

Then they should build an OS 100% focused around touch, instead of half assing it on that end as well.

 

[cboath]

I don't care about potential, I care about results. Whatever they do in the future, I'll judge in the future. This is not good enough for release right now.

That's kind of the point of this. This IS a beta, it's not a final release. Windows 7 needed very little polish from beta to final. I tested 95se2 through 7 and most of those OS's had a good amount of tweaking, fixing, and adjusting between beta and final release. My hope is that that continues here. I think if the public speaks loud enough, you will see things changed/fixed. Hopefully some things aren't beyond reproach for them.

The point of the release isn't for people to switch to as their primary/only OS and just deal with it like this forever, it's to find what does and does not work and report it back to Microsoft. That's why the next time i'm in it I want to find the reporting tool and file some reports about likes, dislikes, and flaws. If there are things you don't like or find broken, you should do the same. Telling them nothing simply means they have no feedback to base their decisions on going forward. They get a million messages saying 'this feature' is bad and needs fixed - odds are, they'll fix it.

 

[Pia]

OS9-OSX was a pretty straightforward transition. Still the same UI paradigm...they've just continued to improve it to something very, very good. They continually moved in the right direction.

Not continually. The UI of OS X 10.0 was worse, not better, than the UI of the last OS 9 version. There is wide agreement of that; it was laggy and a great many features were missing that people were accustomed to. Just like Metro, it was accused of prioritizing "eye candy" over functionality. If there was someone at Apple who, like you, insisted the new version must always be "better" with no exceptions, the 10.0 UI could not have been released.

Metro is a derailment. There's nothing at all that makes this a logical transition from a desktop.

You mean apart from fixing the basic assumptions leading to the ugly UI logic we have had to tolerate for the last decade?

What do they need to do to make it better? I dunno really...I'm not convinced you can have your cake and eat it too. Anything they do to cater to tablets makes mouse/kb more difficult. I'm not convinced there's any value in the unified UI either. I just dont accept the premise this entire kludge is built on. I much rather prefer the UI and apps be tailored specifically for the device, which they are admittedly not doing. It's a compromise that hurts the experience for everyone in the end.

If you can't name any specific improvements, then it sounds like you can't actually name anything bad about Metro except the fact it doesn't quite yet do everything you would want it to.

Designing for touch promotes large click targets and ubiquitous drag and drop, both of which are improvements for the mouse. Windows has traditionally sucked at those things at least compared to OS X. I don't know why you think touch functionality should mean worse keyboard functionality.

Putting the same amount of resources into designing specifically for one device does produce better results than putting it into designing for several. But that's never a real-world choice. if we are going to design for several devices, it's quite possible we get better results by spending most of our resources on a solid unified design and doing some customization, than if we have to split the same resources developing a number of designs from the ground up and ending up with many of them half-baked. The unified design really starts looking good when you factor in ease of further development and maintenance.

What is the "premise this entire kludge is built on"?

 

[gmaster456]

except the fact it doesn't quite yet do everything you would want it to.

that's reason enough to not like something.

 

[Dominato3r]

Then they should build an OS 100% focused around touch, instead of half assing it on that end as well.

I'm not finding it halfassed at all. If anything I have to learn new ways of doing some things in Windows 8 but that's not enough to make me hate it.

 

[BD2003]

Putting the same amount of resources into designing specifically for one device does produce better results than putting it into designing for several. But that's never a real-world choice. if we are going to design for several devices, it's quite possible we get better results by spending most of our resources on a solid unified design and doing some customization, than if we have to split the same resources developing a number of designs from the ground up and ending up with many of them half-baked. The unified design really starts looking good when you factor in ease of further development and maintenance.

What is the "premise this entire kludge is built on"?

Apparently Apple didn't get that memo.

Building a unified UI is a choice, and it's not an inevitability. MS is obviously trying to leverage their dominance in the desktop to get people familiar with their touch UI by forcing it upon people. I think they know damn well this isn't optimal with a mouse. I think they're overplaying their hand.

An example: One of my favorite apps in all the world is reeder (a google reader client). I have it for iPhone, iPad and lion. Even though they share some design language and serve the same purpose, each is custom designed for its platform, and the end result is far superior than if they had tried to force a single design to all shape and sizes of device. That's the level of thoughtfulness I'm coming to expect, and Win 8 is a step in the other direction. Theoretically one UI saves resources, but that's a form of corner cutting, and I'm not getting behind that.