News Windows 8.1 could allow for Start Screen bypass

Windows CE was a disaster because the desktop was the wrong GUI paradigm for a small touch screen device (basically the opposite problem of what people are complaining about now). Apple's Newton GUI (a grid of icons each of which launch into a full-screen app with big, easy to hit touch elements) was the right paradigm. It was the basis for iOS.

Microsoft is not playing 'catch up' with iOS. It is obvious from WP7/8 that it is very much going its own way --and doing so very well. The problem is that people are used to iOS and the iOS-alike Android (in fact, most muggles couldn't tell you the difference) and they don't like change, so WP8 has a job ahead of itself. But everyone who has actually tried WP7/8 --even Apple users-- praise its inventiveness and sheer usability of the paradigm. As Steve Jobs once said: the user does not know what he wants until he gets it.

Microsoft doesn't focus on a desktop-only GUI because it has learned from Windows CE that this is not a useful GUI for anything else but desktop and laptop PCs, and that is a shrinking market (even for Apple) while mobile touch devices are a growing one. It has to come up with something that works on ALL the devices, and integrates seamlessly so that it can just be as you say: desktop for the heavy lifting, mobile devices as thin clients and storage in and syncing via the cloud.

Linux is going the same way. Remember the outcry when the touch-friendlier Ubuntu Unity was released? Mark Shuttleworth said: ‘We Didn’t Want Ubuntu To End up Like Windows 8′. Ironically it did just that: People did not like the change at all. But they are starting to embrace it. Now Ubuntu Touch is underway --like Windows 8 one OS for all devices, albeit attempting somewhat different solutions. If it works, well, competition is good for the user.

Apple OSX is also starting to incorporate features of iOS. Again, users don't like it at all. Steve Jobs was right. Like him or loathe him, the guy was a visionary who understand how people use computers.

 

I thought CE was for small embedded applications, for running single programs that don't require the full O/S and industrial applications. Not for Joe consumer, or even really Joe enthusiast.

 

Strictly speaking we're talking about Pocket PC, which is a version of Windows CE 2.0 or higher. The first devices were launched in 1999.

 

I just don't see any reason to keep pushing mobile style on a desktop. There is no reason for this, it dosen't work just like desktop style was piss poor on a mobile. Making one OS for both is just likely to make it poor for either. They can share the same core OS, but the users of each type of computer have different usage and needs and need the environment tailored as such.

Also I absolutely hate the entire mobile/tablet push anyway. I find them wholly useless.

 

And what about hybrid devices? Those that can function as laptop and tablet? Is it not better to have an OS that can cater for all uses?

All the desktop user has to do is click Desktop. It's no hardship.

 

And how about displays like the Wacom Cintiq, which transforms from a up right standard monitor, to a flat, angled drawing board with the digitize pen and multi-touch?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LHkHAHWEPk

I expect the desktop to have such similar monitor later on. Where you still have a keyboard and mouse (the monitor, when put in "flat" mode to draw, is above your keyboard. Pen and touch will complement keyboard and mouse. I expect even games to incorporate such thing:

When the above video pop-up, everyone wanted this, is what I recall. Well with Windows 8 opening door for monitors like the Wacom Cintiq (possibly just less fancy, to make it more affordable), it can be.

 

I don't want touch screen on my desktop. It is not useful to me. Sure it is fine, I can select desktop... but when I am on desktop it should be the default, and I should be able to get rid of all the touch and mobile oriented crap I don't need or use, or better yet it is not installed by default at all. That is what I have issue with.
They need to make it more modular and the user can decide what they want. How hard would it be to have a question at install, or first boot in case of store bought system, that ask the user what environment do you want to use. If they change thier mind they could go to add remove windows features and switch.
I want them to stop telling me how I should use my computer. I don't like what they think I should like.

 

And how is what you propose simpler and better than just clicking the Desktop tile?

This is the Dell XPS One 27 all-in-one PC with touch screen:



The times, they are a-changin'.

 

Ooouu nice! About time!

 

Yes times change, but not always for the best.

 

Starting to embrace it because they have little option and it has improved. However, don't confuse using Ubuntu with using Unity, there are tutorials all over on how to dump it (quite easily I might add), and even forks of Ubuntu without it. There is still a lot of backlash going on over it.

This.

 

All because just clicking the Desktop tile is just too complicated.

Why not just use Start8 or something? In the days of Windows 95/98 I replaced the entire shell with things like Litestep. On Vista I used Rocketdock because I just didn't like Start Menu. Surely a geek like you can manage a little add-on?

Unity is controversial but it is also improving. And with Ubuntu Touch it is going over to the dark side even further. Perhaps it is on to something here.

 

Not to mention that what is the first thing you do when on your are on the desktop mode? Oh yea, open the start menu to open your program. Might as well have the Start Menu already open for you.

 

Yup, some people must turn their computers on and just stare at their wallpaper all day.

There is absolutely no problem with Windows booting to the start screen. When I start my computer, I first have a quick glance at the mail and the messaging live tiles to see if there's anything new, if there is I'll quickly open each one in turn and check them before closing them which returns me to the start screen. Then I click on the Chrome tile which launches the desktop browser (with a few tabs set to open at startup) and I continue my day using almost exclusively desktop programs, which I have pinned to my taskbar.

In what way has the start screen hindered my use of my desktop computer? None at all. In fact I'd say it's helped because I haven't had to open dedicated programs to check my e-mails or facebook messages (and I wouldn't know before opening if it was worth my while without the push notification system).

Everyone has to open a program after turning on their system, so why not combine this task with getting to the desktop from the start screen?

 

I don't use the start menu or screen, I pin everything I use frequently to the taskbar so I don't have to click though a bunch of sh!t to do what I wanted.

I would be more than glad to use alternate shell, but they are all either old and no longer working on recent Windows or are somehow worse than Explorer or most often both.

It's apparent some are big fans of the direction it's going, and having a differing opinion makes me wrong or something. Whatever.
There is two distinct camps of computer users. Desktop and mobile and neither one wants the same things. Forcing either side is not going to work. Why it is complicated to understand it? Keep your mobile geo locating integrating social updateing cloud touch **** off my PC!

 

I completely understand that you may not like the metro side of things, but you've already admitted that you don't use or encounter it, because you pin everything to the taskbar. So what are you complaining about exactly? Is it just the mere fact that it's there? I don't see the problem with something you don't use being there in the background, especially when Windows 8 is more responsive than any other version of Windows.

You're acting as though MS has removed the desktop and is trying to force you to work exclusively in metro, but this isn't the case. If anything MS has improved the desktop experience for power users with better multi-monitor support, speed increases, and many, many more features that I'm not going to bother listing.

I'm just struggling to understand your complaints. As I said, I spend 90% of my time in the desktop, using the same programs I did in W7 in just about the same way. Windows 8 hasn't prevented me from doing this and I can't see how W8 would preventing you or anyone else from doing the same? Or am I missing something?

 

But you are not just saying that you have a differing opinion. You are saying that Microsoft is wrong. Same thing.

 

Greetings!

Click on several shortcuts available in the QuickLaunch\TaskBar.

 

For me the problem definitely comes with something im not going to use being there.

You only have to look at the security holes in previous versions from features you either didn't know were running or never used.
PC's have always been know for there flexibility and openness, but Microsoft is attempting force its vision of the future onto people.