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[haywirepc]

You can opt for a more standard desktop. Most people will just do that unless they are on a tablet or phone. Its just like having two window managers in linux I suppose. You can choose which ui you want to use.

Also I suppose...
And now they won't need windows mobile and seperate windows versions for desktop pcs. They are going to put this one os on everything.

Thats a smart move. They can lay off half their software developers (if they haven't already)

[Digiman]

hmmmm.......

Windows 2000....finally Microsoft release an OS worth trying....GUI looks horrible.

XP...shat GUI Fischer Price "my first GUI ages 3-6" BUT genuinely effective using SP1 OR SP2 and uxtheme patcher=1000s of GUI styles. Win2000 with more device drivers and very customisable look of GUI engine.

Vista...destructive GUI that even sitting idle will blow a real GPU inside a laptop. Looks nice for once!

Win 7 ..... looks c0ck like Win ME ie talentless pixel artist diarrhoea GUI and genuinely unusable on Netbooks (THE big thing at the time) due to that full screening if you drag windows off screen bollocks. Also apart from using less ram it is just as bad at wasting CPU cycles.

Win 8......people will buy this? Doesn't matter it will be free!

Does Win 8 play Xbox 360 game DVDs as promised??

[Digiman]

Originally Posted by haywirepc

You can opt for a more standard desktop. Most people will just do that unless they are on a tablet or phone. Its just like having two window managers in linux I suppose. You can choose which ui you want to use.

Also I suppose...
And now they won't need windows mobile and seperate windows versions for desktop pcs. They are going to put this one os on everything.

Thats a smart move. They can lay off half their software developers (if they haven't already)

Will be "free" on 80% of computers sold world wide and Joe public doesn't install different OS. This is the Microsoft trojan effect, doesn't matter if it's sh1t

[CritAnime]

I don't think I will be upgrading to this any time soon. Windows 7 had been out a while before I decided to upgrade from XP. Then again I have been using Sabayon as my main OS for a while now.

[commodorejohn]

Originally Posted by koaftder

There's nothing wrong with the video, it's just that folks here aren't the target audience.

Uh, no, there's everything wrong with the video. The music is annoying crap that doesn't have any idea what it wants to be other than "moderne," the animation is directionless, non-fluid awkward start-and-stop that moves like a newbie Flash animation, and the whole thing conveys next to no real information about what this thing is actually going to be like in daily use (i.e. the entire point of the video.) Even putting aside the question of Windows 8's actual merits, this is an ugly failure of an advertisement thrown together by soulless marketroids. Whoever their ad agency was, they should fire them.

Originally Posted by haywirepc

You can opt for a more standard desktop. Most people will just do that unless they are on a tablet or phone. Its just like having two window managers in linux I suppose. You can choose which ui you want to use.

You can't make it go away entirely, though, not without employing third-party hacks. Metro Team want you to APPRECIATE THEIR WORK, DAMMIT!

Originally Posted by Digiman

Will be "free" on 80% of computers sold world wide and Joe public doesn't install different OS. This is the Microsoft trojan effect, doesn't matter if it's sh1t

Didn't save Vista from losing the public-opinion war hard, and Vista was more palatable than this to business customers at least. Microsoft had quite a patch in the mid-2000s of learning the hard way that they aren't as unstoppable as they think they are; I expect this will be another repetition of the same lesson. Nobody had to switch to Linux or Mac to make their point, all they had to do was stick with XP...

[spirantho]

The fact that I checked out the link on my Android phone and it couldn't display the video because they used a stupid proprietary Silverlight format was fail enough for me. But then again, I am the only person in the world who uses a smartphone to browse the web, right?

[commodorejohn]

Originally Posted by spirantho

The fact that I checked out the link on my Android phone and it couldn't display the video because they used a stupid proprietary Silverlight format was fail enough for me. But then again, I am the only person in the world who uses a smartphone to browse the web, right?

And the only person in the world who doesn't have Silverlight installed because absolutely nothing uses it! Clearly!

[Digiman]

Originally Posted by commodorejohn

Didn't save Vista from losing the public-opinion war hard, and Vista was more palatable than this to business customers at least. Microsoft had quite a patch in the mid-2000s of learning the hard way that they aren't as unstoppable as they think they are; I expect this will be another repetition of the same lesson. Nobody had to switch to Linux or Mac to make their point, all they had to do was stick with XP...

Win 7 is just Vista which uses less RAM but in the corporate world forcing everyone's workstation specs up by 1gb or 1.5gb to run the same business apps was not acceptable at time of Vista launch. Same number of consumer laptops/PCs were sold so the Trojan effect works.

For me and many others XP does the same job so upgrade sales on Win 7 vs Vista reflects marketing not quality of product, and marketing bullcrap about how fast and efficient 7 was with lies like "as fast as XP" by clueless "engineers" helping sales.

Let's be honest, memory is dirt cheap these days and properly configured Vista is less annoying than 7 and looks better. Win 7 requires the same mhz to do anything as Vista (ie 50-100% more than XP which can play DVD quality xvid/divx files 24fps with Pentium II mobile @ 266mhz btw).

So all in all XP is a thorn in M$ side, hence why DX10 was made Vista only despite Crysis DX10 demos being launch on an XP rig

[koaftder]

Originally Posted by commodorejohn

Uh, no, there's everything wrong with the video. The music is annoying crap that doesn't have any idea what it wants to be other than "moderne,"

It's an up beat, catchy tune. It fits with the scheme of the video. They could have use classical music or R&B, but that wouldn't make sense would it?

the animation is directionless

It's not directionless in the least. It shows a plausable, real world usage of the setup.

Here's the flow:
Shows the intro screen

shows the stock viewer
shows the sames section
shows some games
Highlights the photos applet
Shows the picture library, browses pictures
Brings up charms bar to mail a friend a picture from the library
User gets a PM while viewing the photo roll ("where are we meeting?")
User switches over to the maps feature, finds a location in the maps
user brings up the PM side bar to say "lemme check"
user searches for a coffee joint, finds it then replies
buddy asks for a ski proposal,
user pops up the desktop environ, brings up a power point and shoots it off to friend
Video pans out to to a view showing the software stack running on a PC, a notebook and a tablet, all with the same programs and UI.

non-fluid

It was extremely fluid

awkward start-and-stop that moves like a newbie Flash animation

Wasn't awkward in the least and it didn't look anything like a "newbie" flash anim.

and the whole thing conveys next to no real information about what this thing is actually going to be like in daily use

Wrong, what it's like using the system was the entirety of the video.

Even putting aside the question of Windows 8's actual merits, this is an ugly failure of an advertisement thrown together by soulless marketroids. Whoever their ad agency was, they should fire them.

They did a fairly in depth overview and managed to fit it in a 1 minute time frame.

The video was designed to highlight an array of features to an audience of non-technical, Joe average consumers who are primarily interested in using the device for entertainment and communication. The target audience would be put off by anything longer than a minute that wasn't upbeat and looked cool.

Folks like you who foam at the mouth every time you see the word
"metro" on the screen aren't the target audience. Of course you hate it, it would never be possible for them to put together a presentation you'd find interesting.

[Tripitaka]

Same ol' same ol' Microsoft, customers say "we don't like XYB". Microsoft reply "let's add another manager for that job". The OS then degenerates into a bloated mess of files splattered about your hard drive with a million managers to handle it all. No libs folder on Windows, DLL' s all over the place instead. That documents folder that you thought was actually for documents ends up with game save files in it and so on, messy, messy, messy. With AmigaOS everything is so much tidier, we just don't need that level of management. All those Windows users asking for a "simpler" Windows, they are asking for a simplification of this mess, not another dumb manager. Why is it Microsoft doesn't understand that.

[commodorejohn]

Originally Posted by Digiman

Win 7 is just Vista which uses less RAM but in the corporate world forcing everyone's workstation specs up by 1gb or 1.5gb to run the same business apps was not acceptable at time of Vista launch. Same number of consumer laptops/PCs were sold so the Trojan effect works.

For me and many others XP does the same job so upgrade sales on Win 7 vs Vista reflects marketing not quality of product, and marketing bullcrap about how fast and efficient 7 was with lies like "as fast as XP" by clueless "engineers" helping sales.

But the marketing thing was basically my point - Vista had plenty of actual drawbacks when it came out, but it failed as bad as it did through sheer force of word-of-mouth; early adopters found out it couldn't run for squat on low-to-mid-range systems they already owned and XP ran better even on the high-end rigs, and people buying new computers that were actually designed to run Vista got the word and started demanding XP instead, so much so that Microsoft was basically forced by OEMs to extend XP's product life well beyond what they'd ever intended for it. It was bad enough that all they had to do to sell the successor was to release nearly the same damn thing but make sure they called it nothing even resembling "Vista." Even now, Vista is still an industry punchline. That's how hard they lost the battle for public opinion.

And the astonishing thing about Windows 8 is that it appears to be losing the fight before it's even released, and Microsoft are just sitting on their hands doing nothing about it except saying "hey, trust us, when was the last time we stunned and disappointed you with a steaming pile of crap?" At which point everybody laughs and says, "Vista, dumbass!"

(And I totally agree about XP - that's why I'm still using it. Got a fresh install on my new Core 2 Duo laptop, and a partition set aside to investigate alternative OSes, in case Microsoft doesn't get the hint and bring back the classic interface by the time this one wears out.)

[paolone]

How many of you are *actually* using Windows 8 and Windows Server 8 betas as main or secondary (but frequently accessed) operating systems, on a every-day basis, to claim it's useless, painful and so on? It's just different. And different doesn't necessarily mean "bad". There will be many drawbacks for people insisting to use Win 8 as it was one of its precedessors, but it won't be so bad for people accustoming to the new interface. The problem, here, is that Microsoft doesn't seem to have the right clues about targets: disabling the start menu on Server 8 is just a way to make it less useable, since servers WON'T ever have any touch interface. But going deeper in the system, you notice that they have also placed some new links here and there to access the same apps/features in a different way, sometimes even faster than before. I am confident they will do something similar also for mainstream releases.

[-BobW-]

Originally Posted by paolone

How many of you are *actually* using Windows 8 and Windows Server 8 betas as main or secondary (but frequently accessed) operating systems, on a every-day basis, to claim it's useless, painful and so on?

I am. I've been supporting Windows since 3.1.

It's just different. And different doesn't necessarily mean "bad". There will be many drawbacks for people insisting to use Win 8 as it was one of its precedessors, but it won't be so bad for people accustoming to the new interface.

It's not just different. It's bad design. Removing the start menu and replacing it with a touch interface is just plain stupid.

The problem, here, is that Microsoft doesn't seem to have the right clues about targets: disabling the start menu on Server 8 is just a way to make it less useable, since servers WON'T ever have any touch interface. But going deeper in the system, you notice that they have also placed some new links here and there to access the same apps/features in a different way, sometimes even faster than before. I am confident they will do something similar also for mainstream releases.

A touch screen interface with full screen apps just makes no sense on a desktop with a 24 inch monitor. Switching back to an old fashioned desktop with crap support for touch makes no sense on a tablet.

Windows 8 is a confused mess.

[commodorejohn]

Originally Posted by koaftder

It's an up beat, catchy tune. It fits with the scheme of the video. They could have use classical music or R&B, but that wouldn't make sense would it?

It's a scattershot attempt to hit a dozen different genres without actually going to the trouble of being any one of them, and as a result it fails at each. It's like a Seltzer-Friedberg "comedy:" it works on the theory that a cursory reference to something is just as good as understanding the real thing and incorporating it. (Hint: this is not true.) Time was they would hire Brian Eno to come up with a simple, coherent sound statement; now they're just chopping random bits together willy-nilly in FruityLoops.

It's not directionless in the least. It shows a plausable, real world usage of the setup.

I give you credit for following that; did you have to watch it more than once to piece it together? It didn't stick on any one thing long enough for me to tell what the hell was going on.

It was extremely fluid

Wasn't awkward in the least and it didn't look anything like a "newbie" flash anim.

It was awkward. The screen drags move like pulling a cinderblock across concrete; all velocity and no acceleration. It looks like what Flash newbies come up with when they first learn about motion tweening. I've never even designed a touch interface, and I know that's not how you do it, and not how you do animation in general.

Wrong, what it's like using the system was the entirety of the video.

Then they're in deeper trouble than I thought.

The video was designed to highlight an array of features to an audience of non-technical, Joe average consumers who are primarily interested in using the device for entertainment and communication. The target audience would be put off by anything longer than a minute that wasn't upbeat and looked cool.

Ah, the "viewers are goldfish" principle. I don't believe the mythical "average person with a thirty-second attention span" exists, and if they did they'd be so braindead you wouldn't need an advertisement to sell to them; all you'd need to do is have the salesman talk at them long enough for them to forget what they were talking about and then go "sign this."

Folks like you who foam at the mouth every time you see the word
"metro" on the screen aren't the target audience. Of course you hate it, it would never be possible for them to put together a presentation you'd find interesting.

I'm never going to be interested in Metro, true, but it would've been entirely possible for them to put together an in-depth, aesthetically pleasing presentation of something I'm not interested in. This isn't even trying.

Originally Posted by paolone

It's just different. And different doesn't necessarily mean "bad". There will be many drawbacks for people insisting to use Win 8 as it was one of its precedessors, but it won't be so bad for people accustoming to the new interface.

As Bob says, it's bad design, pure and simple. Tablets are not desktop/laptop computers and laptop/desktop computers are not tablets, it's as simple as that. Trying to develop a hybrid interface for both is a fool's errand, and forcing the result on desktop Windows users is a recipe for pissing people right the hell off.

[Firedawg]

Windows 8 is simply a direction for M$ to impact the mobile & touch screen markets. I have loaded their beta and found it very clumsy for a desktop OS, but can see the value on a tablet or someone who uses a large touch screen interface to move around documents, pictures, and the like. If any of you own a Xbox 360 you can see that they use a good bit of the screen interface with that console. I do not think there is enough there in Win 8 to move the majority of Win 7 users over. But, I do think M$ is chasing Apple and their approach to developer apps and the Apple Store aka "Windows Store". I can see Jobs smiling now as Apple now takes on the role of the "BORG" from Star Trek and simulate M$ to apply and share one collective conscious and to eventually takeover M$.

The Dawg