have you downloaded Windows 8? here's the link. (legal)

[miker00lz]

they've got the Windows 8 developer preview available for download to anybody.

http://dev.windows.com

i know many people hate Windows and MS to begin with, so hopefully this doesn't simply turn into an anti-MS thread. i love free software, but as an OS i find Windows to have it's uses. (basically, i tend to use Linux on servers and Windows on desktops but not always)

i gotta say though, i think MS is making a HUGE mistake with the interface of Windows 8. try it and see what you think. it's bloody awful, imo. the ribbon in explorer? come on, man! what??

took a screenshot of it:


it's more than that though, look at the worthless start menu: (i demand a larger clock!)




i think this, above, is what they want to push as the main interface... for a tablet, sure this works. for a desktop? HUGE MISTAKE! this is all imo of course. what do you think about this new direction? imo, this is going to crash and burn far harder than vista. i don't even think that interface is especially good for a tablet.

looks like we'll be getting advertising right on our desktop with that. i will be sticking with Windows 7 as long as possible.

[piranha]

What did you test it on? Emulator? Real hardware? I tried to get Qemu to boot it, but it failed with error code 0x000007F...
Edit: Or is that a known bug? Hmm...

-JL

[miker00lz]

What did you test it on? Emulator? Real hardware? I tried to get Qemu to boot it, but it failed with error code 0x000007F...
Edit: Or is that a known bug? Hmm...

-JL

i ran it on real hardware, an older P4 2.6 GHz. however, it booted for me in QEMU 13.something with Win 7 as the host OS.

[piranha]

Odd. What were the Qemu command options you used?

-JL

[Chandra]

i gotta say though, i think MS is making a HUGE mistake with the interface of Windows 8. try it and see what you think. it's bloody awful, imo. the ribbon in explorer? come on, man! what??

I agree. Just look at the window. Bullshit(sorry!). I'm really hoping that they'll make changes when they make official release. God! that's so annoying.

[Solar]

One thing that's in steady decline with Windows since Win2k: Window real estate handling. They add toolbars and icons, and with Vista they even started stacking them on top of each other. If I open a couple of Explorers to shuffle a couple of files around, I run out of screen space, because half of it is taken up with all this crap that has little to nothing to do with what I want to do.

Gosh I miss the Amiga Workbench / MacOS "single menu bar". Fortunately it's not (yet?) as bad with Gnome / KDE...

[Chandra]

Wait a minute....

Just installed Win7Transformer on Windows XP. Bears incredibly remarkable match with that Windows 8 thing. Is someone playing game with us?

[Chandra]

If you're wondering about the ribbon in explorer, read this.

Got a quote from that link:

Ribbon will make more people to switch to other OS. The ribbon is the worst thing that MS has come up so far.

Thanks you MS for alienating your users.

That's for sure.

[Combuster]

Fortunately it's not (yet?) as bad with Gnome / KDE...

I switched to gnome desktop when KDE4 came out - I prefer the primitive but powerful interfaces and not clicking and waiting through several menus to get what I want to do. I still mostly run KDE applications over their gnome counterparts though.

[gravaera]

Most of it is stupidness on the highest level, and I don't understand what possessed them to radically change the start menu: that has been a very standardized feature of Windows since the very start. Keeping up regular UI mechanics is one of the things that made Windows so successful. They would keep the old, and make it look trendier. That way they lock in old users with familiar mechanics and also give them the thrill of working with something "new" and more "stylish".

BUT, for the ribbon in Windows Explorer, I think they have something good there, sort of: my father cannot comprehend things like how to make selections within explorer, and manipulate multiple files, etc. I see there that they have easily accessible buttons for helping the user to make selections, manipulate selections, etc. Very handy for people who can't remember Ctl+A, CTL+C, CTL+V, etc. Click a button, and presto! I no longer need to remember complex sequences. All of the performable actions are fully viewable as buttons.

\o/

^-- The general sentiments of an older, completely inexperienced user when they see that sort of thing. My father does not use computers as a hobby; he types up his assignments for the masters program he's studying. He doesn't have time to study the ways of the computer-guru, nor does he need to; a highly explicit interface has its merits.

But for the start menu, etc I can't find a justification that will even fit users like my father. They probably have a new product designer or something, who has very revolutionary "new" ideas and is trying to go blazing a new hot career path and probably thinks he has a lot to prove, so he's thinking of "throwing out the old", and moving into the "new age" since "everybody and their grandma uses a computer nowadays". He's forgetting that there are lots of people aged 35+/40+ who use computers as part of their job, and they were "trained" to work with very fixed interfaces.

[qw]

He's forgetting that there are lots of people aged 35+/40+ who use computers as part of their job, and they were "trained" to work with very fixed interfaces.

I am one of those, and I think the ribbon sucks. Not because it has flaws, but because I used to know where all Windows and Office commands could be found. Now I am looking for commands all the time. I would have appreciated a "keep the old interface" option.

[gravaera]

Oh,

As I was washing dishes and meditating upon the ways of the Microsoftian legacy, it occurred to be that this could also be nothing more than a need to create the illusion of a new marketable product. Honestly, there is very little that MS can really revolutionize in their non-server OS: the kernel would already support all things needed to fulfill a casual user's needs. The kernel is going to be the same where supported "core" features are concerned. They most likely have some postponed security patches applied...but that doesn't make the new release a new product; it just means that the old release was an insufficient product. And for all those businesses running the old product those patches are just as critical, so MS cannot, or at least should not withhold those security fixes from businesses using the old product. That would be malicious.

The kernel would still have a scheduler, timer subsystem, memory manager, etc...these would not have changed. It is not really a new product. It's simply the marketing of the bundle of software as a new product. Windows Media Player would not function any differently; it would only look different, and have added functionality to ensure it keeps up with other current competing media software. That doesn't really make a good platform for a new product; again it just implies that the former product was inadequate, or out of date. Similar blanket analysis can be applied to their other bundled userspace software.

Now when you have a product that has already been functionally completed and all that is needed is maintenance and sparse updates to non-kernel (userspace) packages...how can you re-release that product as a new marketable item? You have to impose radical usage changes. These may not be new features or monumental improvements, or large evolutionary changes in the kernel (support for NUMA on the desktop for example), but simply large wide-scale changes in the way the user is forced to use the product; you provide a new wall for users to surmount and a new learning curve and erase some familiar features. Additionally you ensure that you make the product look as if it is really taking advantage of the user's hardware by overusing flashy graphics and bloating things up a bit here and there. Together the changes to the interface mechanics and the perceived "heaviness" of the new version, you have enough clout to push a new (old) system as new and revolutionary.

To be honest, the desktop platform has nothing really that radically different to be added to any desktop kernel. Now if you're talking about MS's server market, that would be a different story.

[Chandra]

They probably have a new product designer or something, who has very revolutionary "new" ideas and is trying to go blazing a new hot career path and probably thinks he has a lot to prove, so he's thinking of "throwing out the old", and moving into the "new age" since "everybody and their grandma uses a computer nowadays".

And how is ruining the interface supposed to bring revolution of the new ideas? I didn't suppose Microsoft was dumb enough to hire that professional. Well, I'm tempted to believe that fact now.....

[Combuster]

I didn't suppose Microsoft was dumb enough

Remember windows ME? (offtopic)

And how is ruining the interface supposed to bring revolution

The needs of the few outweigh the needs of a few. Apple is unifying their desktop and mobile user interfaces as well. But at least they seem to do much more usability testing compared to what Microsoft shows (we all know they have a reputation for stealing ideas, and on occasion, poorly. The *nix community isn't completely innocent either though).

[Brynet-Inc]

Fisher Price is still designing their user interfaces it seems.