Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

channelregister.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 46 posts

Re: Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

#31

Post by freehunter »

elarkin wrote: post #24
jjcm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Up front warning - I work for MS. I've been using it on my desktop as my primary OS for a while now and I heavily prefer it over win7. The keyboard launching functionality is what sells it for me, and honestly I become pretty frustrated when using win7 now because of it. It's still the same OS, just with a different way of launching programs. Coming from a CLI/vim background, I really appreciate how keyboar…

I have yet to see a typical user use keyboard shortcuts. My mother, for example, will still use the mouse to click File then Quit/Exit when she wants to close a program. Your testimony tells me that Win8 may see better adoption amongst windows programmers than windows users.

I think rather his assertion is that Windows 8 has great keyboard shortcuts for power users, as well as an interface that is friendly to standard users. It's easy to look at the UI and think it will be horrible for m+k, but with keyboard shortcuts that gets better.

Re: Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

#32

Post by meaty »

elarkin wrote: post #23
jjcm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using it as my primary OS on both my home and work desktop (as well as on several tablets - I work for Microsoft) for about the last year. The biggest issue I had with it at first was my perspective on what the native environment is. If you treat the metro home screen as the native environment, and the desktop as a secondary environment, your desktop experience wont be pleasant. While it's fine and dandy to…

Isn't Microsoft pushing Metro as the primary environment and the desktop as a legacy environment?

No they are not. The two are designed to work together. When your PC is docked with a keyboard attached, it's a workstation with tablet features. When it's not docked, its a tablet with workstation features.

Re: Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

#33

Post by meaty »

gamble wrote: post #16

The problem with Windows 8 is that Microsoft built a touch-oriented operating system, but none of the OEMs are shipping machines that are notably more touch-oriented than their Windows 7 lineup. And the Metro aspects of Win8 offer no benefits to a mouse user, while being significantly less discoverable without touch. You just have to watch a few "first time using Windows 8" videos on Youtube to see how unintuitive it…

It's actually ok with a mouse - it just takes a bit of getting used to. To be honest, I use it entirely with the keyboard now (Metro included). I've forced myself to use Caret browsing in IE and the reuslt is that I've actually turned the touchpad off on my ThinkPad. This is not because I don't like the mouse interaction, but because I like the keyboard interaction.

I agree however that this is primarily touch oriented, which is why they're pushing surface. I'm grabbing a surface pro when it comes out.

I've tried it on a Sony AIO desktop PC with touch support and it was pretty good on that. Unfortunately it's the kids' PC so I don't get to meddle with it much.

Re: Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

#34

Post by spion »

freehunter wrote: post #29
spion wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because overlapping window managers are fiddly. Moving around overlapping windows feels cluttered and unclean (yes, even with the feature to snap them to the left/right half of the screen). Proper tiling+tabbed window managers (e.g. i3) are much better at organizing screen space in a clean way. You can split the screen into window holders. Each window holder can be tabbed or stacked. Essentially what you get…

I would disagree with that. My personal experience tells me that users shun multiple windows not because the WM is fiddly, but because the others windows distract them from the content of the window they're focusing on. Working tech support, I've had many users ask which window to type something into when there are multiple windows open, regardless of the fact that there is only one window we've been working with. An…

Indeed. I was actually speaking from personal experience and the experience of the few colleagues I introduced to i3. I don't really know what the average user thinks - could be very different.

Re: Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

#35

Post by mariusmg »

sixothree wrote: post #14
Maascamp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I also design software for a living and despite having used it a large number of times I still find OSX to be (for me) a usability nightmare. I just don't know how to do anything and find the interface completely counterintuitive. Windows 8 seems just like Windows 7 with an extra layer and I found Windows 7 to be extremely usable. It's all pretty subjective.

That's really the problem. Windows 7 / 2008 R2 are by far Microsoft's best operating systems yet. Going to be very tough to replace, which is what they seem to be trying to do.

Win 8 is a better OS than Win 7. Sensibly faster, proper multi monitor support, lots of cool improvements (explorer, task manager etc).

It's sad that most people can't see behind Metro. Press Winkey +D on that start screen and start enjoying a great OS.

Re: Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

#36

Post by jjcm »

freehunter wrote: post #31
elarkin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to see a typical user use keyboard shortcuts. My mother, for example, will still use the mouse to click File then Quit/Exit when she wants to close a program. Your testimony tells me that Win8 may see better adoption amongst windows programmers than windows users.

I think rather his assertion is that Windows 8 has great keyboard shortcuts for power users, as well as an interface that is friendly to standard users. It's easy to look at the UI and think it will be horrible for m+k, but with keyboard shortcuts that gets better.

Exactly. Whereas windows 7 stood firmly in the middle ground between power users and novice users, Windows 8 now has two modalities of use. The mouse driven approach is friendly/easy to use for novice users, while the keyboard driven approach will allow power users to be more productive.

Re: Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

#37

Post by r00fus »

mariusmg wrote: post #35
sixothree wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really the problem. Windows 7 / 2008 R2 are by far Microsoft's best operating systems yet. Going to be very tough to replace, which is what they seem to be trying to do.

Win 8 is a better OS than Win 7. Sensibly faster, proper multi monitor support, lots of cool improvements (explorer, task manager etc). It's sad that most people can't see behind Metro. Press Winkey +D on that start screen and start enjoying a great OS.

Metro is what they're selling. Are you blaming people for testing Microsoft on their own promises?

Re: Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

#38

Post by bane »

notatoad wrote: post #12
walru wrote: post #4

I went to go use a Windows 8 PC at Best Buy the other day and was shocked. In screenshots everything looks clean, crisp, and modern - then comes the task of using it. I don't understand who at MSFT thought it was necessary to preface every action by a splash screen and inordinately long loading times. Also, am I missing something? Does everything you do have to be full screen? Is having multiple windows open and mult…

You should watch some average users use the computer some time. Multi-tasking is very much a power-user feature, most people maximize everything - even things that have no business being maximized. Users will maximize a browser window, and then complain about all the white-space to either side of a column of text. And then they'll maximize their skype contacts list or something similarly narrow, and complain about ho…

Maximizing and multi-tasking are completely orthogonal.

Jamming more application windows on the screen does not mean you are "multi-tasking". You still have to interact with one piece of software at a time. It just means you slide your mouse over to another program and click to change contents instead of alt-tabbing or clicking on the menubar (or whatever the task switching metaphor is in the OS of choice).

In old *Nix systems before X you just hit alt and a function key to switch usage contexts, but you could still multitask in many cases on a single terminal just by dispatching a task to run in the background, and just check the result later.

Re: Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

#39

Post by mariusmg »

r00fus wrote: post #37
mariusmg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Win 8 is a better OS than Win 7. Sensibly faster, proper multi monitor support, lots of cool improvements (explorer, task manager etc). It's sad that most people can't see behind Metro. Press Winkey +D on that start screen and start enjoying a great OS.

Metro is what they're selling. Are you blaming people for testing Microsoft on their own promises?

They do NOT "sell" Metro for the desktop.

Re: Windows 8: Microsoft will declare victory, but will anyone believe it?

#40

Post by alexgaribay »

meaty wrote: post #32
elarkin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Microsoft pushing Metro as the primary environment and the desktop as a legacy environment?

No they are not. The two are designed to work together. When your PC is docked with a keyboard attached, it's a workstation with tablet features. When it's not docked, its a tablet with workstation features.

>When your PC is docked with a keyboard attached, it's a workstation with tablet features. When it's not docked, its a tablet with workstation features.

That's definitely a good way to look at it. I really enjoy how Windows 8 is the mixture of the two and compliment each other very well.

Post reply on HN