Windows 8 Consumer Preview Feedback Thread

[Spicedaddy]

Put everything you need in the desktop taskbar, and don't use the Start screen if you're using a mouse/kb. That's how I use Windows 7 anyways, only time I open the Start menu is for the control panel or very rarely used programs.

If you're still launching everything from the Start menu in Windows 7, then I understand the frustration, but that's the old way of doing things...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Wow, Windows 8 is PURE CRAP (as far as the UI goes). DO. NOT. WANT.

Having to log off, before you can shut down the machine, and having to do something un-intuitive (for keyboard+mouse), like slide a picture upwards and off of the controls, before you can shut down your machine, is horseshit.

I disable the User-select screen normally in Win7, with Win8, I don't know how I would ever shut down the machine.

 

[Dominato3r]

Lol welp, if you think this is bad watch out because Windows 9 will rid of all desktop features most probably.

A simple case of adapt or die

 

[Spicedaddy]

Wow, Windows 8 is PURE CRAP (as far as the UI goes). DO. NOT. WANT.

Having to log off, before you can shut down the machine, and having to do something un-intuitive (for keyboard+mouse), like slide a picture upwards and off of the controls, before you can shut down your machine, is horseshit.

I disable the User-select screen normally in Win7, with Win8, I don't know how I would ever shut down the machine.

to shut down: mouse over the top right of the screen-->Settings-->Power

login screen: instead of dragging the mouse upwards, press Enter on your kb

 

[rockyct]

Lol welp, if you think this is bad watch out because Windows 9 will rid of all desktop features most probably.

A simple case of adapt or die

Actually, it probably won't just because the next version of Office will still be for the desktop.

 

[Infraction Jack]

Sadly classic shell/explorer does not work with this release.

 

[ViRGE]

For those of you finding navigation difficult, don't forget to check out Paul Thurrott's WinSuperSite. He has articles up on new keyboard shortcuts and general navigation improvements.

 

[lxskllr]

Playing with it a bit more, I like it better than my first impression. I think it's the Metro apps I don't like. Is IE Metroized? I don't like the way the interface is "detached" from the application. Firefox works as expected, as did a couple other apps I tried. The start screen is nifty. I can see potential in it, and the real desktop is a click away, so no big deal one way or the other.

I don't have a problem with it if apps keep the same desktop paradigm. If everything goes Metro, I'd consider it unusable.

 

[RavenSEAL]

I'm gonna go ahead and repeated what everyone's already said, this damn UI was NOT designed with desktop PCs in mind.

Holy **** :thumbsdown:

 

[Deeko]

I seem to be a minority on this, but I dont mind it. The desktop still works as well as expected, and the interface is plenty efficient once you get the hang of it / learn the keyboard shortcuts. I cant remember the last time I navigated the Win7 start menu - I pin the programs I want, and use Win+type to launch others, which still works as you'd expect.

I'm not a big fan of some of the built in metro apps - People isn't nearly as nice as its WP7 equivalent, for example, and I wish the different versions of IE had better interop - but these things can be fixed. Lets remember....we are dealing with a beta, here.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

You guys are harsh. I was reading the Gizmodo article and they LOVE it.. I wanted to try it out after reading it. Hell just look at what they did for their main page because of W8

www.gizmodo.com

http://gizmodo.com/5889001/windows-8-consumer-preview-hands-on-no-going-back

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

You guys are harsh. I was reading the Gizmodo article and they LOVE it.. I wanted to try it out after reading it. Hell just look at what they did for their main page because of W8

www.gizmodo.com

http://gizmodo.com/5889001/windows-8-consumer-preview-hands-on-no-going-back

There are those who despise change. I've been using computers since the original Macs came out in the 80s and this same sort of argument about UIs has been raging every time a change comes along. There is always that vocal subset who are comfortable with what they know and hate anything that causes them to move out of their comfort zone.

I'm an old fart. It took me about 30 minutes of futzing around to learn what Windows 8 was all about. It's really nothing that drastic and it isn't nearly as bad as some in here would lead people to believe.

Sheesh. Buck up people.

 

[Infraction Jack]

Has anyone tried an alternative shell such as lite step on this release?

 

[HexiumVII]

Really excited with Win8, but not much has really changed, and a lot is for the worst. The only two awesome features i want is the copy (but teracopy will do) and the task manager. That new one is amazing! But can probably be replicated with third party tool. The ribbon is useless in explorer. There is just not that many things one needs to do in explorer that would require such a large bar. And it takes up so much vertical space. I mean if we were stuck in the 4:3 world, maybe. But we are now in a 16:9 freakin world. There are like what, 2 maybe 3 laptops that even offer 16:10? I see they brough back the up button, thats nice, but they need to put the change view button back where it belonged, because it was the only button i use and use often. I mean they put it there for a reason. When you have hundreds of programs, the start button works great. We don't need a app viewer for phones on desktops. I was one of the first to get a Zune (no lines!) and really liked the interface, its super pretty, but it was somehow too confusing, even for me. We don't need a duplo color version in windows. Ah well, I need a new tablet later, hopefully 8 will translate better on tablet, i've been using tablets since Compaq TC1000!

 

[M0RPH]

BTW - If anyone from Microsoft HR stumbles on this.... Please, hire this guy: http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/24/2822891/windows-desktop-ui-concept (proposed alternate Windows UI)

That looks better than anything in Windows 8.

It's a shame that this is the best MS could come up with. It feels like a tablet OS and a desktop OS cobbled together. The spent all their time on the tablet OS part and did very little with the desktop OS. All the innovation went into Metro and if you disable that, you are left with the same old boring start menu / taskbar concept, with only minor changes. Very disappointing.

By the way, it's very convenient to install this to vhd: instructions
After you're done you can just delete the vhd.

 

[rockyct]

There are those who despise change. I've been using computers since the original Macs came out in the 80s and this same sort of argument about UIs has been raging every time a change comes along. There is always that vocal subset who are comfortable with what they know and hate anything that causes them to move out of their comfort zone.

I'm an old fart. It took me about 30 minutes of futzing around to learn what Windows 8 was all about. It's really nothing that drastic and it isn't nearly as bad as some in here would lead people to believe.

Sheesh. Buck up people.

Personally, I love the metro UI and I have a WP7. I really like the live tiles and all the information up front, but in a very intuitive way. The only dissapointment for me is multi-tasking and windowed apps. You can't do true multitasking of metro apps and they are always fullscreen. However, since the desktop remains, and most likely will so for Win9, I'm not too worried overall. Maybe there will be a way to background task metro apps or even some way to run multiple apps on the same screen.

I absolutely want this UI on a tablet though and I'll probably get one of the first ones out.

 

[zinfamous]

You know, I was a business minor in college. Don't have a BBA or MBA like the people at Microsoft pushing this. Just a simple social science major.

But I did learn one thing in my business classes.... A serious business mistake called "escalation of commitment" that all business majors should be familiar with. It is commonly cited in regards to the Challenger disaster.

Basically, it occurs when it is obvious that a planned undertaking is going to be a failure, but rather than cutting your losses and running, you continue to push the project forward ignoring all warning signs. Eventually, it culminates in a disaster of epic proportions for your organization.

I suspect that this "consumer preview" was released to as a feeble attempt to win people over to Windows 8. Never before has Microsoft found it necessary to release a "consumer preview" of this scale before.

The problem is, Microsoft is in too deep. No one wants to pull the plug on this disaster and take responsibility for it. Doing so would mean taking a loss on countless millions of dollars spent on development and not mention years of development. The next version of Windows would have to be started from scratch, and it could be 3 more years until we see a new version of Windows. They are simply in too deep. Microsoft will continue to escalate their commitment to this train wreck until it falls off a cliff.

Mark my words - this will go down in computing/business history as one of the worst mistakes ever made. Business and computer science students will be reading about this for thirty years.

I forced myself to use this "consumer preview" on my desktop all day. I will say it now - it is nearly unusable. No, not because of bugs. In fact, I was pleased with the stability. It is simply not a viable UI for a desktop computer. It does not help me do more, it does not help me work faster.... It has impeded me all day. And yes, I know how to use it.

And as far as corporate environments go..... I can't even begin to imagine this being even remotely considered in such an environment.

So, it looks like for me it will be a couple more years until I get a viable Windows upgrade considering Microsoft will have to ultimately scrap this whole OS. This, combined with Apple locking down their OS more and more with each new release, means I am out of these corporate operating systems. Looks like I better start looking in to Linux distributions.

On the upside, this Microsoft/Apple shenanigans could finally be what puts Linux in the mainstream.

they did the same thing with Windows 7. the preview and Beta were available and active for ~1 year before official release.

lol--business "science."


lol


I agree, though--this looks to be a huge mistake in terms of use/need/platform. But such is mere common sense. It doesn't need a field of pseudo knowledge to explain why.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Has anyone looked at the GPO of the local machine? Maybe we can disable the metro layer and just have the desktop. That would be a start.

There's no way a metro is going to work in a corporate setting so there must be a way to disable it.

 

[QueBert]

Right now I triple boot Win 7, OSX & Ubuntu, if I attempt to install 8 will it screw the pooch for the 2 non Win OS's? I have a feeling it will but I guess if it doesn't I'll try it as it's something to do and I'm bored.

 

[ViRGE]

Right now I triple boot Win 7, OSX & Ubuntu, if I attempt to install 8 will it screw the pooch for the 2 non Win OS's? I have a feeling it will but I guess if it doesn't I'll try it as it's something to do and I'm bored.

It'll replace the stub for GRUB with the stub for BCE in your MBR. But if you've used Linux for long enough I'd think that's something you're used to.

 

[QueBert]

It'll replace the stub for GRUB with the stub for BCE in your MBR. But if you've used Linux for long enough I'd think that's something you're used to.

Not use to it at all, I installed Win 7 -> Ubuntu -> OSX SL. I probably did something incorrectly there as if I let my system start up on it's own I get the System Commander or whatever I installed in Win 7 that works as my boot loader. And if I hit ESC during the POST and select my other 1tb drive I get the OSX bootloader. I'll read up on GRUB and see if this will be worth my time, it sounds like it could lead to a bunch of hassle

 

[BD2003]

There are those who despise change. I've been using computers since the original Macs came out in the 80s and this same sort of argument about UIs has been raging every time a change comes along. There is always that vocal subset who are comfortable with what they know and hate anything that causes them to move out of their comfort zone.

I'm an old fart. It took me about 30 minutes of futzing around to learn what Windows 8 was all about. It's really nothing that drastic and it isn't nearly as bad as some in here would lead people to believe.

Sheesh. Buck up people.

People will gladly adapt to change if it's for the better. I'm still struggling to see what's actually better here for a desktop. "Not nearly as bad as I thought" isn't a reason to upgrade. Some people pushed back on the ribbon because it was different, but a lot of people (including myself) loved it because it was an improvement in so many ways and helped you get stuff done. It was well thought out.

It doesn't have to just merely work or be tolerable, it has to be better. Metro actively impedes your ability to get things done on a mouse/kb. Fail fail fail.

 

[Demo24]

VMWare has a Windows 8 option that works. It won't let you install the VMWare Tools, but you can manually mount the ISO for that.

I see, my version of player didn't. Maybe Linux issue or i need to update. Good to know since I think I broke it with vmware tools anyway, lol.

 

[ViRGE]

Not use to it at all, I installed Win 7 -> Ubuntu -> OSX SL. I probably did something incorrectly there as if I let my system start up on it's own I get the System Commander or whatever I installed in Win 7 that works as my boot loader. And if I hit ESC during the POST and select my other 1tb drive I get the OSX bootloader. I'll read up on GRUB and see if this will be worth my time, it sounds like it could lead to a bunch of hassle

Ahh, I see. So basically in a triple boot system you'd usually use something like GRUB, since it plays well with Mac OS X, Windows, and Ubuntu. System Commander isn't the same thing obviously, but the principles are similar.

Windows does not play nicely with other bootloaders, and will always overwrite the MBR on your boot disk to point to the Windows BCE bootloader. So in this case installing Windows 8 will cause BCE to once again take over bootloader duties from System Commander. I'm not familiar with using System Commander, but after installing Windows 8 you will need to go through the process to have it write itself back to the MBR (it sounds like you installed it through Windows, so that shouldn't be too hard).

I see, my version of player didn't. Maybe Linux issue or i need to update. Good to know since I think I broke it with vmware tools anyway, lol.

I'm using Workstation 8.0.2. I have no idea what the state of Player is.

 

[Pia]

Going to a corner and having to click equals hidden button (since when were these a good idea in UI?). Not a hot corner.

Hot corners like the ones I use constantly on Mac are fast and efficient precisely because you just throw the cursor into the corner and back in one gesture, no targeting at all, no pausing, no clicking.

Having a real hot corner to trigger the Start screen sounds fantastic but I better be able to disable the need for click.