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State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

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Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UI and logic are probably not as decoupled as we’d like to think.

So decouple them. Microsoft has annual revenue of $143 billion . Their flagship product should not be a neglected mess.

Thrre are literally people with scripts that click around the UI every hour to achieve something in a factory. The motto of windows is write once, run forever. I think there is a certain beauty to that

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now it could be done to maintain backwards compat and have everything completely up to date, but the juice is not worth the squeeze and there are more important things to focus on You state that as fact, but I believe the poor UI situation is holding windows back from gaining market share. It’s not just the way things look, but uniformly communicate a single experience. Microsoft used to be very integrated and had…

I believe the poor UI situation is holding windows back from gaining market share. I hope you jest. Windows has far bigger problems than the uniformity of their UI - there's the whole forced update thing, the whole "we really need to spy on literally everything you do on our OS" approach, online advertisement built and integrated with the OS (based on the spying) ... these are the major issues that they need to fixed…

I tried win 10 recently on older hardware with 2gb ram. Long story short: totally unusable. Turned on Win 8.1 on machine with 2gb ram. That was pretty usable and almost pleasant by comparison. I used to think that distro was a stinky turd. The UI in 8.1 was very inconsistent and gave me hives. 10 has changed markedly already between big updates.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#203
post #158

This issue is way overblown here on HN. In day-to-day usage, I have rarely been annoyed by these "inconsistencies". The best example to illustrate this article is: Installing a driver with the Windows XP layer. That's probably something that will only happen to people installing very old hardware with drivers from over 10 years ago. I consider that a backward compatibility win: It is great that it even works in Windo…

> In day-to-day usage, I have rarely been annoyed by these "inconsistencies". Don't you ever have to change sound settings? Because I have to deal with that every week, and have to dig through 3 different style of UIs and several different windows/dialogs to get to what I need. Everything related to control panel / settings is a giant mess, and it's often really hard to find the settings you want, especially if you d…

Right click on the volume icon > Sounds - goes straight to the old XPish UI, which offers most if not all settings.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#204

The only consistency issue that really has bothered me is the constant mauling of the control panel. Windows 95 basically got it right, and every major release they just hide things further and further. And now the competing "Settings" thing is just an embarrassment. So now we have two competing ways of configuring the system, except the new one sucks and is incomplete, and the old one is kinda unmaintained.

I rarely use Windows but this is indeed ridiculous. I find myself guessing which button or link is hiding the dialogue that I really want. In almost all cases I just want the one from Windows 95, like display settings, but end up opening the wrong ones and seemingly going in circles before I finally crack the code.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#205

This issue is way overblown here on HN. In day-to-day usage, I have rarely been annoyed by these "inconsistencies". The best example to illustrate this article is: Installing a driver with the Windows XP layer. That's probably something that will only happen to people installing very old hardware with drivers from over 10 years ago. I consider that a backward compatibility win: It is great that it even works in Windo…

I don't understand why the UI is such a big deal to people here. I can deal with UI. I'll (grudgingly) accept changes to UI that break my hard-learned muscle memory and figure out the "new way" to do things.

I just want a version of Windows that I am in control of. I don't want my machines (or my Customers' machines, for whom I am responsible to support) torpedoing themselves with shoddy updates that try to install at inappropriate times (need to shut down your laptop to put it into a bag and head home-- tough-- we're installing updates!).

I can deal with UI. I've been learning new UI my whole life. The whole "it's not your computer anymore" tack Microsoft took with Windows 10 is condescending and abusive.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#206

The sad part is that old win32 UI from the win95 era, rendered with a modern style, are the most useable and nicer looking, in my opinion.

Metro/fluent apps always look "broken" to me. Like someone forgot to add styling and that's why a bunch of stuff ends up with some kind of default 3px solid black border. Transient popups (e.g. drop-downs) have some kind of shadow but it just looks weird and broken. Clicking on "cards" (I believe that's what they're called, e.g. a program in the new software manager) animates them but it just looks completely broken…

Same. It just doesn't work for my brain. We're looking at pixels on a screen so you need to somehow trick the brain into registering this as an interface and the metro/fluent ones completely fail in this regard. I see something more like a dense information sheet than an interactive interface.

Technically it seems broken too. There was a bug in the calculator app where one button was off by 1 pixel. It boggles the mind to imagine how that kind of thing is possible.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#207
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot about PC gaming. Kid growing up with Windows is a huge advantage. I think it cannot be overstated and Mircosoft played this game well.

I know stadia is so poorly managed that it is not even a worthy competitor but the concept is sound and nVidia’s GeForce Now and Microsoft’s x cloud will eventually work well enough on Google Chrome that between that and Proton, Windows’ gaming advantage should become a little diminished over time? I haven’t used android games on chrome os but things like candy crush should work just fine in chrome os by now?

Interesting thought. Is it really stadias management to blame or are there other limits hard to overcome?

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#208
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stating that the UI consistency issues are due to backwards compatibility is stretching the truth to the point of outright deception. Backwards compatibility is not what stops Microsoft from updating the GUIs for their own components. It is not the reason that the components that have been updated failed to carry forward 100% of the features of the components they're replacing, necessitating the ongoing use of the le…

This may explain why Microsoft have created so many email clients and none of them 100% work. * Microsoft Mail * Windows Messaging * Outlook Express * Microsoft Outlook * Windows Mail * Windows Live Mail * Mail.app There are also Microsoft Entourage for Mac OS, few different apps for mobile, and at least two web clients, Hotmail and Outlook.com. Did I miss any?

Why Outlook does not work?

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now it could be done to maintain backwards compat and have everything completely up to date, but the juice is not worth the squeeze and there are more important things to focus on You state that as fact, but I believe the poor UI situation is holding windows back from gaining market share. It’s not just the way things look, but uniformly communicate a single experience. Microsoft used to be very integrated and had…

> I believe the poor UI situation is holding windows back from gaining market share. I'm having a hard time believing that. While some Mac users who are used to a more integrated user experience might be deterred, I'm not sure that the os's ui esthetics really affect windows adoption. My feeling is that most people who use Windows do so because they're either (a) told to use it or (b) they choose to use it because it…

Most people use it because most people use it. It's what's compatible and widespread, and comfortable and known. It's the reason that people send docx files.

Re: State of the Windows: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 10?

#210
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot about PC gaming. Kid growing up with Windows is a huge advantage. I think it cannot be overstated and Mircosoft played this game well.

I would say that happened unintentionally, given how hard they tried for years to undermine the PC gaming market in favour of Xbox.

MS put a lot of effort in DirectX, did not loose focus with the rise of mobiles and still is ahead of all other graphics apis.
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