Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They started running after the touch segment and deliberately removed the keyboard interface. They didn't get the app-buyers and the keyboard people (like me) probably left them. I get that for ordinary users it's a dealbreaker, but I never understood this complaint about the Windows 8 touch UI from power users or developers. It takes maybe 5 minutes to download and install Classic Shell and suddenly you have a cla…
To shutdown Windows 8 (not 8.1), you had to swipe from the right to bring up the "charms" thing and that's where the shutdown option was. I remember myself having to search for "how to shutdown Windows 8" and feeling like a moron because I really couldn't figure it out on my own.
Microsoft begins work on its 2020 Windows releases in new preview
31–40 of 87 posts
Re: Microsoft begins work on its 2020 Windows releases in new preview
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
To shutdown Windows 8 (not 8.1), you had to swipe from the right to bring up the "charms" thing and that's where the shutdown option was. I remember myself having to search for "how to shutdown Windows 8" and feeling like a moron because I really couldn't figure it out on my own.
I agree. It’s been a while, but using OG Windows, you’d open start, then ctrl + u or similar (it’s been a while), and you could restart without touching the mouse. I couldn’t figure how to do it (if possible) in win 10.
Re: Microsoft begins work on its 2020 Windows releases in new preview
#33Windows was once quite exciting, it punched above its weight and enabled people to do stuff that they didn't know they wanted to do but were grateful for it. This energy is now in the browser with Chrome being where the innovation is at. Microsoft can do whatever they like with their venerable operating system but the days of it being exciting and newsworthy are over. The fun is elsewhere and they have missed the boa…
That's just biased to macbook pros. I might be biased because I work in gaming but windows workstations are pretty great and getting better. Meanwhile, dealing with Apple's increasing anti-professional hardware offering is getting worse every year.
Re: Microsoft begins work on its 2020 Windows releases in new preview
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. It’s been a while, but using OG Windows, you’d open start, then ctrl + u or similar (it’s been a while), and you could restart without touching the mouse. I couldn’t figure how to do it (if possible) in win 10.
Alt + F4 ... been the same for a long time
Re: Microsoft begins work on its 2020 Windows releases in new preview
#35The last OS that doesn't try to babysit me.
Re: Microsoft begins work on its 2020 Windows releases in new preview
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They started running after the touch segment and deliberately removed the keyboard interface. They didn't get the app-buyers and the keyboard people (like me) probably left them. I get that for ordinary users it's a dealbreaker, but I never understood this complaint about the Windows 8 touch UI from power users or developers. It takes maybe 5 minutes to download and install Classic Shell and suddenly you have a cla…
Looks changed, but a lot of actions worked the same in Windows 8 from what I remember. The start screen obviously looks different from the old start menu, but in both 7 and 8, you could hit your super key and start typing something to search, which for me was often how I launched applications or found settings. You could still open the run box with super-r, they added that new menu with lots of options like shutting…
This was in stark contrast to early MacOS which was specifically designed to be unusable without a mouse.
Re: Microsoft begins work on its 2020 Windows releases in new preview
#37The biggest problem with Microsoft is them not sticking to their strength. I was an avid fanboy till Windows 7. This was an OS that could cater to power users- keyboard shortcuts, powershell (shitty console but anyway). They started running after the touch segment and deliberately removed the keyboard interface. They didn't get the app-buyers and the keyboard people (like me) probably left them. Linux is mature now,…
> They started running after the touch segment and deliberately removed the keyboard interface. They didn't get the app-buyers and the keyboard people (like me) probably left them. I get that for ordinary users it's a dealbreaker, but I never understood this complaint about the Windows 8 touch UI from power users or developers. It takes maybe 5 minutes to download and install Classic Shell and suddenly you have a cla…
That statement shows the complete misrepresentation of what happened and the size of the players:
- Microsoft is a company worth 750 billion USD. There are around 1.5 billion users of their OSes in the world. They decide to change the way the users use their OS.
- Microsoft releases "a new OS", people can't use the knowledge they already acquired, and the new implementation is intuitive, buggy and ridden with real UI problems.
- It remains so for a while.
- Eventually one programmer invests a lot of his time to be able to fix the problems intentionally introduced by the 750 billion USD company. He releases his program for free.
- Every new Microsoft's update of OS again breaks the free program of the single programmer again. He has to invest his time to re-implement the functionality that already existed. Before he fixes it, the OS would again effectively be broken on each user's machine (sometimes actually not functioning due to the interaction of the OS and the non-compatible version of the Classic Shell, at best if the Classic Shell is disabled the OS is in its "original" brokenness). The programmer has to maintain the updates and care how his users get them, but he still fights the 750 billion Goliath.
- So the programmer has to be fast enough to adjust his releases with every new Microsoft release, to work a lot for each of those as Microsoft absurdly doesn't care for a single programmer who actually makes their own product significantly more usable for many of its users.
- Eventually the programmer just decides he can't do it anymore: http://www.classicshell.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8147
In short it's a tale of a single programmer making Windows more usable to many millions of users against the active work of the whole managerial structure of 750 billion USD Microsoft(!), the structure directly being paid to effectively make many of their users less satisfied and less productive, to the point of the users being unable or even unwilling to use the OS. It is that absurd.
All that is completely misrepresented with: "I never understood this complaint ...It takes maybe 5 minutes to download and install Classic Shell."
Re: Microsoft begins work on its 2020 Windows releases in new preview
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks changed, but a lot of actions worked the same in Windows 8 from what I remember. The start screen obviously looks different from the old start menu, but in both 7 and 8, you could hit your super key and start typing something to search, which for me was often how I launched applications or found settings. You could still open the run box with super-r, they added that new menu with lots of options like shutting…
Pretty sure that early versions of windows were specifically designed to be usable without a mouse as it couldn’t guarantee that the ropey-old DOS-era IBM compatible it was running on actually possessed one. This was in stark contrast to early MacOS which was specifically designed to be unusable without a mouse.
Excel has amazing keyboard shortcuts. Last time I used it (admittedly in 2003) you could do everything except drag the fill handle by using the keyboard.
Re: Microsoft begins work on its 2020 Windows releases in new preview
#39I'll stick with Windows 7, thanks. The last OS that doesn't try to babysit me.
Re: Microsoft begins work on its 2020 Windows releases in new preview
#40I know I won't get that wish fulfilled.