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Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1

#61

Post by kvb »

potatolicious wrote: post #36
Tomdarkness wrote: post #18

For me, personally, none of these changes interest me, perhaps with the exception of IE11. I've had Windows 8 installed on my desktop PC since it came out as I took advantage of their cheap upgrade offer from Windows 7 (I'd not of paid full price for it). So here are my thoughts on the improvements in Windows 8.1 as someone who uses it on a desktop, with a keyboard and mouse. Personalization: The only time I ever see…

> "I don't get it, they seem to be ignoring their whole previous customer base; those who used Windows on their non-touch desktops and laptops." This is what frustrates me also. I've had Windows 8 installed since (almost) day one on my desktop. I also have a Surface (that hasn't been touched in months, oops). MS was accused for years of advertising Windows' touch capabilities without actually putting any real thought…

Well, it seems like Microsoft is betting that touch is an inevitable feature of most computing devices in the near future (which seems like a good bet to me, even if it might be a year or so early). The desktop market is disappearing in favor of laptops and tablets, and touch really is a nice option on laptops even if it's not going to be the primary modality.

But regardless, as someone who uses the keyboard a lot Windows 8 is slightly better than Windows 7 for me (e.g. Win+X for quick access to administrator tools).

Re: Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1

#62

Post by bornhuetter »

alan_cx wrote: post #55
talmand wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, people who desire the newest, latest, whizzy thing is a niche market. Most people simply want something that works.

Not with kids, no way. "People", maybe. Think fashion.

Fashion isn't about having the latest, it's about having what everyone else has decided is cool. Vintage is sometimes "in fashion".

Re: Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1

#63

Post by bornhuetter »

kabdib wrote: post #50

There's a lot of nice work under the hood in Win8. It's too bad the internal politics completely submerged it. A simple "Sorry, we screwed up" would be nice to hear, rather than the "Advancing forward into the bright future, we added a Start Button^H^H^H^H^H^H Tip" Let's put it another way: The moment that I hear the next version of Visual Studio /requires/ Win8 or its ilk to run, I'm looking hard at moving everythin…

I don't think they particularly have screwed up. Sure, removing the start button was a bad idea, but it's been blown way out of proportion. It was pretty obvious that the media and a lot of users were going to hate Windows 8 regardless of how good or bad it was, so Microsoft have to just keep pushing with the marketingspeak/bullshit. To "admit failure" would be to play into the hands of those trying to paint Windows 8 (completely unfairly) as New Coke.

That being said, why not move to Linux now? Ubuntu and many other distributions are already excellent desktop environments and are great for programming. What sort of work are you doing? You're probably either stuck in Windows, or you may as well move now.

Re: Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1

#64

Post by mikecane »

This might help but I think everyone is missing one of the reasons why desktop sales have tanked: Their screens.

People who are using tablets don't want to look at grainy big screens. These screens look blurry. Stop in any store and check out the all-in-one Win 8 touch desktops. Their screens are awful.

And yes blah blah blah higher-res NON-touchscreen with mouse -- but going back to a mouse after touch? That's another step back.

Re: Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1

#65

Post by bornhuetter »

mikecane wrote: post #64

This might help but I think everyone is missing one of the reasons why desktop sales have tanked: Their screens. People who are using tablets don't want to look at grainy big screens. These screens look blurry. Stop in any store and check out the all-in-one Win 8 touch desktops. Their screens are awful. And yes blah blah blah higher-res NON-touchscreen with mouse -- but going back to a mouse after touch? That's anoth…

Of course that's one of the big reasons, but Microsoft don't want to say it because they don't want to be too critical of OEMs in public - and the media don't want to say it because many of them want to paint Windows 8 as a failure.

Haswell reportedly has enough power in the GPU to support high res screens using just the integrated graphics - so we should see better screens in 2013 H2. Samsung and others have already announced some incredible laptop screens for upcoming devices.

Re: Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1

#67

Post by glomph »

alan_cx wrote: post #55
talmand wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, people who desire the newest, latest, whizzy thing is a niche market. Most people simply want something that works.

Not with kids, no way. "People", maybe. Think fashion.

The newest windows is NEVER in fashion :P

Re: Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1

#69

Post by NZ_Matt »

mikecane wrote: post #64

This might help but I think everyone is missing one of the reasons why desktop sales have tanked: Their screens. People who are using tablets don't want to look at grainy big screens. These screens look blurry. Stop in any store and check out the all-in-one Win 8 touch desktops. Their screens are awful. And yes blah blah blah higher-res NON-touchscreen with mouse -- but going back to a mouse after touch? That's anoth…

Does the average person buying a laptop from Bestbuy really care that much about screen resolution?

The longer lifespans of PCs and laptops combined with the popularity of smartphones and iPads is a more likely reason for the drop off in sales.

Re: Continuing the Windows 8 vision with Windows 8.1

#70

Post by darklajid »

leviathant wrote: post #29
bluedevil2k wrote: post #20

I had to get a new laptop for my wife, and I had no interest in educating her how to use Windows 8 (or figuring it out myself). The only way it's been usable for her was to install Start8. ( http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/ ). It's what MSFT should be adding into 8.1 I have no financial interest in StarDock.

The absence of a start menu was confusing to me for about three minutes, and then I figured out that the Metro screen is the start menu, just full size. Ever since you've been able to pin programs to the taskbar at the bottom (or side if you prefer) of the screen, my usage of the start menu fell to pressing start, and typing the name of the program I hadn't pinned to the taskbar. The start screen's the same for me, m…

I fully agree: The start menu was never a good idea, we just used it. As soon as you start installing and removing things, it quickly became cumbersome. Windows XP (iirc?) introduced weird ideas of how to cope with the chaos in that evergrowing, 3-4 level deep list of things you might or might not want to start: The 'personalization' feature that kind of randomly hid most of your menu. The hacks to order the menu (which never really worked reliably).

So the options today are fine, for my usecase, and I'm hard pressed to accept that the old solution was better in general.

- Pin programs to the taskbar - Use shortcuts for common/important stuff (Win+i, Win+x, Win+w, Win+f are the ones I need) - Use the type to complete thing otherwise

Most users I know moved to that workflow anyway, before Windows 8 (the start menu entry on previous Windows versions. Spotlight or maybe QuickSilver before that on OS X. Unity / Gnome Shell on Linux).

In my opinion the start menu needed constant micro-management and was a hassle.

(Disclaimer: I'm not happy with the ui formerly known as Metro, but I do like the 'type to launch' approach a lot)

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