Windows Windows 8 Marmite thread... Because you either love it or hate it.

[RichCreedy]

ed bott has done a write up about why microsoft can't provide a free dvd player, and vlc can

[Jehla]

Originally Posted by dullonien

I feel a complete re-design of WMC is needed to keep up with the competition. It functions relatively well, but the visual experience is way behind that of XBMC or what the Media Browser plugin offers. Again I feel they should take big design cues from the Zune software, which is simply stunning to look at. If they could incorporate the visualisations they use in Zune, it would look awesome on a big tv.

Unfortunately, I fear that not much will be done, and it'll provide yet another mismatched visual experience in Windows 8. Metro, Aero and whatever they call the monotonous blueness of MCE which harps back to XP.

I'd argue that it's a fine UI. I think it's about time to write WMC off though, it has been left to stagnate for years while iplayer, 4od and netflix have become mandotary and now MS are side lining it.
It seems to me that MS are putting all their media eggs in a noisy, power sucking Xbox shaped basket, which also lacks live tv & DVR.

I'll hold out hope that google tv can wrap tv, DVR & on demand services into one package...

[TehKrak3n]

Havent had time to test myself - does anyone know how the Start Screen looks on multi-monitor/eyefinity?

[dullonien]

Originally Posted by TehKrak3n

Havent had time to test myself - does anyone know how the Start Screen looks on multi-monitor/eyefinity?

Because Windows sees an eyefinity display as one big monitor (if I understand correctly), then the start screen will fill all the monitors in your configuration. On a normal multi-monitor set-up where Windows sees separate monitors, the start screen (and metro apps) is only displayed on the primary monitor.

[impar]

Greetings!

Redesigning chkdsk and the new NTFS health model

Mozilla not happy with Windows 8 ARM restrictions

[dullonien]

Anyone tried making custom metro shortcut icons (tiles) for programs and files that don't have any? The Start Screen would look a lot nicer if all programs and files had proper tiles, and not the small icon in the bottom left.

I've just had a look at the Windows Store icon (had to extract it from a dll file), and opening it in Photoshop using Telegraphics .ico plugin, shows that the .ico contains 13 icons, including a large 256x256, 24 bits/pixel PNG (RGB) icon, which must be the large icon used on the start screen I guess. I'll try extracting just this icon, and apply it to a test shortcut to see if it works. If it does it wouldn't be difficult to make some, or modify existing icons.

Edit. Nope, didn't work. That just changed the small icon in the bottom left of the tile. I don't think I've got the knowledge to work this out, so I won't waste any more time.

Further edit: Obvious that wasn't the correct icon now. Looks like the correct icons are saved in the C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\**appname**\images folder. The main tile appears to be a 150x150 pixel png, with a transparent background. Colour must be specified in the code of the app I'm guessing. Doesn't get me any closer to being able to make custom tile icons for non metro programs and folders though.

[RichCreedy]

you might want to look at this metro appx package

[Scroome]

Hi Guys

I installed the Win 8 Beta a month back, and it has been working fine until today. I had downloaded some updates for it first thing this morning and for some reason I now get an error message on startup that says JET Exception Rel. 8102.0: JET Exception: Function "jetinitex( pinstance, 0, grbit | 0x00000020 )" raised exception 0xc0000005 (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION) at address 0x6e6ec2b8 (base:0x6e670000, exr:0x0065e81c, cxr:0x0065e86c). PID:4440, TID:0xeb4

I try to close the error and select cancel to debug, but it tells me window 8 has no debugging software installed. When the error crops up my whole system just drags and I can't even get Firefox or Explorer to Run.

I've tried uninstalling the updates and downloading debugging sofware from Microsoft, but neither of these seems to have had any effect?

Any ideas people?

I can provide a screen shot of the error later, if anyone wants it.

Thanks

[3lusive]

Some better multi-monitor support afterall, but I'll probably still need 3rd party apps for proper functionality.

http://www.neowin.net/news/huge-mult...g-in-windows-8

[GoodBytes]

Originally Posted by 3lusive

Some better multi-monitor support afterall, but I'll probably still need 3rd party apps for proper functionality.

http://www.neowin.net/news/huge-mult...g-in-windows-8

Don't think so, it does all what these software does. Including showing on the running program in the proper task bar. If you drag a window to screen 2, the task bar item will move to task bar 2. Plus it locks the mouse on edges, to access the Start Screen for that screen, and charms.

[3lusive]

Just off the top of my head... it's not clear whether you can have the clock and notification area on both displays, or whether you can pin apps to each taskbar instead of just the central one. Or whether it supports snapping windows to the edges of the monitors. And that's just off the top of my head but I'll be able to think of more.

So I doubt it will negate the need for 3rd party software.

[dullonien]

Originally Posted by 3lusive

Just off the top of my head... it's not clear whether you can have the clock and notification area on both displays, or whether you can pin apps to each taskbar instead of just the central one. Or whether it supports snapping windows to the edges of the monitors. And that's just off the top of my head but I'll be able to think of more.

So I doubt it will negate the need for 3rd party software.

No you can't have the clock and notification area on both displays, just the primary. I'd like the option to choose which display they appeared on. Also you can only pin taskbar items to the primary screen taskbar, again somethign I'd like changed.

You can snap windows to all edges of both screens other than the centre two.

[3lusive]

^That's why I use displayfusion, and probably will if I ever 'upgraded' to Win8, although that's very unlikely in the near future.

[GoodBytes]

Some of the multi-monitor features I mentioned and presented on the video isn't on the consumer preview. Just saying, for those who are trying to see how it works.

[dullonien]

Just watched the video, looks promising and removes one of the problems I had with gesture corners. The snap feature on the shared edges makes sense, and could translate to windows being able to take advantage of it and snap there too.

I'm also excited to see that the start screen and metro apps will be available on both monitors. Excellent news.

Overall, it's great to see MS taking multi monitors seriously at last, can't wait for the Release Preview now to test these new features. This is one area that Windows8 will be a huge leap forwards from Windows7.

[GoodBytes]

Windows 8 new desktop layout:

A couple of the considerations we thought through:

While much of the Metro style UI uses white text on a colorful saturated background, the desktop in Windows 8 will continue to use black text on light-colored chrome, as in Windows 7. This choice was made to help preserve maximum compatibility with existing programs.

Since the release of Windows Vista (which introduced Aero Glass), many desktop programs have integrated with glass, making assumptions that they should custom draw dark text with a cloudy “blur” texture behind it to make their text readable.

Some of you may remember the substantial compatibility problems that arose when the system colors changed from light on dark (Windows XP) to dark on light (Windows Vista.) It took many years for these to be fully sorted out. We would prefer not to reintroduce these compatibility issues again in the other direction. So, “color matching” the new design on the desktop is not entirely feasible.
But at the same time, we want desktop windows to continue to feel light and airy, and we want a chrome style that doesn’t distract from the content of the app. We talk about Metro style apps as being “chromeless,” (that is, no title bar, borders, or Windows UI surrounding them.) Desktop apps, on the other hand, have a lot of chrome. When you add up the cacophony of a bunch of these windows floating on the screen, suddenly you have a lot of chrome pleading for your attention. Aero was designed to help the app’s content to be the center of attention, and for the Windows system UI to recede into the background. This is still relevant today, and while we are moving beyond Aero, we don’t want to lose sight of these goals.
Visual compatibility with Windows 7. Windows 7 is the most popular and widely-used version of Windows so far. We made a conscious effort to relate the visual appearance of the Windows 8 desktop to the visual appearance of the familiar Windows 7 desktop. This helps people who want to predominantly use the desktop feel comfortable and immediately at home in the new environment.

We have made a number of improvements to the desktop visual appearance in Windows 8. Although we wanted the desktop to feel familiar, we also wanted to take some ideas from our new design language and apply them where we could.

We applied the principles of “clean and crisp” when updating window and taskbar chrome. Gone are the glass and reflections. We squared off the edges of windows and the taskbar. We removed all the glows and gradients found on buttons within the chrome. We made the appearance of windows crisper by removing unnecessary shadows and transparency. The default window chrome is white, creating an airy and premium look. The taskbar continues to blend into the desktop wallpaper, but appears less complicated overall.

To complete the story, we updated the appearance of most common controls, such as buttons, check boxes, sliders, and the Ribbon. We squared off the rounded edges, cleaned away gradients, and flattened the control backgrounds to align with our chrome changes. We also tweaked the colors to make them feel more modern and neutral.

Two overlapping windows shown open on the Windows 8 desktop.

While a few of these visual changes are hinted at in the upcoming Release Preview, most of them will not yet be publicly available. You’ll see them all in the final release of Windows 8!


How will people learn to use Windows 8?

As people have tried the Consumer Preview, some folks have publicly asked questions about “learnability.” The new UI introduces a few new concepts to the PC: in particular, swipe from the edge (for touch) and move to the corner (for the mouse.)

Neither gesture works perfectly in the Consumer Preview—it should be expected that some things will not be perfect when we effectively design and test the product in the open like we do. The corners are too fragile to target reliably with the mouse right now, and it is too easy to frustratingly “fall away” from them. We have already significantly improved this in internal builds. And today’s touch hardware, which was designed for Windows 7, doesn’t always do a great job of interpreting swipes from the edge. The good news is that hardware designed for Windows 8 will have excellent edge detection, and our device manufacturer partners have been working on this for a long time.

So, the gestures themselves will work more consistently, and will be better-tuned than what is in the Consumer Preview. But how will people learn to use them?

We will post more about learnability soon: about how people discover and understand new concepts, and the specific steps we will be taking to make sure that people don’t feel lost the first time they sit down with a Windows 8 PC.

But fundamentally, we believe in people and their ability to adapt and move forward. Throughout the history of computing, people have again and again adapted to new paradigms and interaction methods—even just when switching between different websites and apps and phones. We will help people get off on the right foot, and we have confidence that people will quickly find the new paradigms to be second-nature.
Looking forward

The Windows 8 user experience is forward-looking, yet respectful of the past. It reimagines what a PC is capable of, the scenarios for which it is optimized, and how you interact with it. It enables tablets and laptops that are incredibly light and thin, with excellent battery life, which you can use with touch and keyboard and mouse in any combination you prefer. It is also the most capable, lean, and usable OS ever to power desktop PCs and gaming rigs.

The new Windows 8 user experience is no less than a bet on the future of computing, and stakes a claim to Windows’ role in that future. We tried to break new ground in imagining how using a PC might become a fluid and enjoyable experience, how apps might work together to simplify the tasks you do every day, and how a single screen could bring together everything you love and care about into one always up-to-date place.

Read the rest on blog post

Full article on the design, and evolution of Windows desktop:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2...xperience.aspx

[dullonien]

Interesting. Good to see that they've unified the experience a little. I think they could have gone further without destroying compatibility, but it's certainly a step in the right direction. I would have liked to see borders removed altogether, but I can understand the reason not to go that far with Windows 8, maybe Windows 9, after all gradual steps will keep most happy.

A little disappointed that it doesn't look like we'll be able to experience all the changes talked about in the Consumer Preview, but it will still be nice to test the ones that do make it in. Sounds like the Consumer Preview will introduce a lot of subtle changes to the desktop experience, while up until now we've only really been introduced to the metro side of things as far UI changes go.

Windows 8 is sounding better and better with every update imo.

[Madness_3d]

It just gets worse and worse and worse...

If they just called it Windows Tablet and got on with making a propper new OS for machines with Keyboards and Mice then I think people would see this differently.

[3lusive]

Well, with the number of tech people from within the industry already criticising the failure of metro to function adequately on a desktop, I do believe it's an indication that sales will be hurt by MS's decision to release Win8 in its current state.

If sales are hurt enough, it will compel them into 'making a proper new OS for machines with Keyboards and Mice'.

[dullonien]

I don't quite understand the problems people have with metro and the start screen. Is it just because it's different?

I didn't find the start menu all that user friendly under Windows 7, because it wasn't used for all that much any more. All my most commonly used programs are pinned to my taskbar (where they're most easily accessed), then the less commonly used programs were in my start menu. The same is still true under Windows 8, except now the start screen has become more than just a way to access less commonly used programs, but also a hub to check whether I have new mail, if anyone's sent me a facebook message or notification, the weather, and the usefulness will increase as more programs take advantage of the push notification system.

Is the fact that it takes up the whole screen an issue? Not imo, despite being used on a 24" screen (I know many have 27"+, but still). It only takes a small movement in my wrist to move across to the other side of the screen and select a program/folder/app. The start screen still looks a little messy at the moment without nice full size icons for all programs, but program updates should fix that.

Yes it takes a little time to get used to, but I don't really see any downsides other than 'it's different', but see many improvements in the form of push notifications.