Everyone cries and whines and moans about UI changes. It's like facebook changing their UI. It'll keep happening for a while, until eventually people will accept it and realize that they're being stingy.
Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one
#22Has there ever been an OS release where (at first) people prefer the new one? Windows 7 might be the exception only because the previous incarnation was so awful. Ubuntu with Unity? we want the old desktop! IOS6? we want IOS5 and our maps! OSX Mountain Lion? We want Lion! Change is always hard and almost never goes down well - this is not a new phenomenon and occurs naturally at the beginning of most major software v…
Yes. Windows XP and Windows 7. If you don't recall the abortion that was Windows ME, then you are lucky. Windows 98 was so clunky compared to Windows XP. All the little improvements and features were fantastic. Then came Vista and that was another train wreck. But Windows 7 was a dream. It magically found drivers, everything "just worked."
I think you can gauge the success of future OS by the enthusiasts (early adopter) reaction.
Windows XP and Windows 7 had lots of love pre-release. The Windows 8 reception is mixed (as was that for Vista).
Some people are going to love it. I am using it on two machines (a dekstop and an HTPC).
Here's they point though. I _won't_ be installing it on the computers of family/friends (I'm the family tech support).
Watching my wife use it (and the issues with slow user switching, multiple versions of browsers, etc) means its just not worth it. I don't need the extra support calls.
Windows 7 is just fine, especially for legacy hardware (those without touch screens and tablets).
Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Search is still there. Just press the windows key and start typing. It's all there, sans the textbox which tells you it's there. Probably not the pinnacle of intuitive design, but it is there ;)
The search is broken, unless you remember to do Windows + W, the search by default won't search files or system settings, just apps. I don't get that, even though there is room on that full paged search screen, they only show a couple of apps. You have to click on options at the right to have it search settings or files. What a stupid, stupid oversight.
It really doesn't matter. The reason this was done is because it fits in better with each application being searchable (you see how this is more consistent?). Once the user realizes this once, the problem is gone. It's really not much harder to search 'settings' if you're looking for a setting than to search apps if you're looking for an app now is it? I don't understand how people make a big deal out of things like this.
Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one
#24Poor windows. It is damned if you do and damned if you don't. First they aren't radical enough. Now they are too radical. sigh.
Apple didn't remove core features from OSX to create iOS on the iPad. I think that is one of the issues here. The idea that Microsoft's tablet OS will run the same "Windows" that the PCs run. If anything, Microsoft probably should have left the regular mode alone, and done all of the radical stuff in 'Metro-mode' so that people on a desktop PC could ignore it if it got in the way of their workflow. If Microsoft thoug…
I'd take Microsoft's approach with Windows 8 over Apple's tack any day. 10.8 is the most convoluted, user-unfriendly OS X yet. Microsoft is right to strip things down so radically and get the basics of the post-WIMP PC right.
Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one
#25What I really want is to make my Win7 install look like Win8. Not the touchscreen-friendly big buttons, but the flat color style, ala outlook.com
Does anyone have any pointers on this?
Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one
#26Has there ever been an OS release where (at first) people prefer the new one? Windows 7 might be the exception only because the previous incarnation was so awful. Ubuntu with Unity? we want the old desktop! IOS6? we want IOS5 and our maps! OSX Mountain Lion? We want Lion! Change is always hard and almost never goes down well - this is not a new phenomenon and occurs naturally at the beginning of most major software v…
Yes. Windows XP and Windows 7. If you don't recall the abortion that was Windows ME, then you are lucky. Windows 98 was so clunky compared to Windows XP. All the little improvements and features were fantastic. Then came Vista and that was another train wreck. But Windows 7 was a dream. It magically found drivers, everything "just worked."
So the trick is to release something terrible and then your locked in users won't have anywhere else to turn and get excited about the next 'fixed' release? Got it!
Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
The search is broken, unless you remember to do Windows + W, the search by default won't search files or system settings, just apps. I don't get that, even though there is room on that full paged search screen, they only show a couple of apps. You have to click on options at the right to have it search settings or files. What a stupid, stupid oversight.
It really doesn't matter. The reason this was done is because it fits in better with each application being searchable (you see how this is more consistent?). Once the user realizes this once, the problem is gone. It's really not much harder to search 'settings' if you're looking for a setting than to search apps if you're looking for an app now is it? I don't understand how people make a big deal out of things like…
When you dont have immense amounts of data to search, having to put in effort to pre-filter your search results feels like unnecessary work.
Filtering should only be needed/useful when the result-set is bigger than the user can handle.
There is a fine line here, but I feel Microsoft missed it and stepped on the wrong side.
Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one
#28Poor windows. It is damned if you do and damned if you don't. First they aren't radical enough. Now they are too radical. sigh.
Windows 7 had the perfect balance. It made significant improvements in many areas that XP was insufficient at and Vista sucked at, while keeping the fundamentals the same. Windows 8 though... I haven't used it myself, but from what I'm hearing, it sounds like it's slated to be a bigger disaster than Vista.
I think the jury's out on that.
Vista was a disaster because of MS' focus on security. UAC is a usability disaster, both because it's not clear exactly when it is triggered, and the behavior of the system when it is triggered(blanking out the screen then the dialog, etc.). Also, the driver signing meant that a lot of suppliers weren't able to get drivers out quickly enough.
Plus, Vista was a pretty huge system hog, and bogged down even with the "recommended" requirements. That, I think, was the deal breaker for the majority of people.
Comparatively, the complaints I've seen so far about Win8 are either centered around things that aren't really that much of an issue(See Notch's complaints about MS reaching out to him to certify Minecraft), or just new UI/UX designs that they're not used to. I haven't see many complaints about the stuff that matters: performance or driver compatibility.
Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Search is still there. Just press the windows key and start typing. It's all there, sans the textbox which tells you it's there. Probably not the pinnacle of intuitive design, but it is there ;)
The search is broken, unless you remember to do Windows + W, the search by default won't search files or system settings, just apps. I don't get that, even though there is room on that full paged search screen, they only show a couple of apps. You have to click on options at the right to have it search settings or files. What a stupid, stupid oversight.
> The search is broken
It's not broken. They intentionally split apps from settings from files. It's a different search style that takes some getting used to, but it's not broken. All the functionality is still there.
> I don't get that, even though there is room on that full paged search screen, they only show a couple of apps.
This is exactly why they split them. In the Windows 7 start menu, you get 3 programs, 3 emails, 3 documents, etc (and these change based on what got returned). There's not enough room to display a significant number of results if your search hit multiple types.
Now, instead of getting 3 programs, of which none might be relevant, you'll get all the app results. Or all the settings. Or all the files. Or all the store results. Or all the Bing results. Or whatever else you choose.
> You have to click on options at the right to have it search settings or files. What a stupid, stupid oversight.
Tab works fine.
I get why you're annoyed with this. It's a very different style of search than what Windows 7 trained us on. And personally, I'd prefer if settings had been rolled into apps instead of being a separate category, because, e.g., I don't think of the ClearType tuner as a setting. However, I think on the whole the search functionality is greatly improved, because now 3rd party apps can plug in trivially.
Re: Even Windows 8 early adopters prefer Windows 7 by two to one
#30My take on Windows 8 is simple, as a desktop OS - you can't take core features and remove them without a viable alternative. My biggest beef is the removal of the start menu and the search bar on it - I could do/find anything from there. My other beef is that the Metro UI gives you all these "fullscreen" applications, but no way to window them. Windows provided me with a train of thought, but when you make everything…
I've found that I end up heavily reliant on the VMWare Fusion app menu for anything other than launching Internet Explorer - which, to be fair, is 99% of what I use Windows for.