Blogs A Week With Windows 8

The start screen is very inconsistent thematically with the desktop interface. The transition between environments is harsh. It requires manual organisation and will continue to do so as you install programs. It doesn't provide access to a shutdown/sleep. It won't tell you your commonly used programs. In fact it provides less overall functionality and poorer search functionality than the windows 7 menu. It does have live tiles which gets a giant "meh" from me in terms of usefulness. The hot corner pop-up is quite annoying. There's no nifty menu with origin and steam which gives me a list of recently played games. There's more to UI design than how many clicks it takes to do something.

 

I disagree. The Start Menu needed continuous manual organisation and I found the endless cascading menus with tiny icons hard to search visually (not to mention that if you lost focus halfway by a tiny move of the mouse, the cascade collapsed and you had to start all over again). I used RocketDock as a replacement, it was that dismal. I think that the Start Screen is far superior.

 

Welcome to 1995

What on earth were you doing that required constant reorganising. Was an alphabetical list of installed programs not organised enough?

 

I agree wholeheartedly, and it's why I added my opinion that the list of programs looks cleaner and is easier to organize. Much of what you mention has been discussed ad nauseum in the other thread. But since you mention it, a lot of people have been objecting to the new UI because it might add 1 or 2 clicks to (insert given task), e.g. shutting down.

The new start screen only really requires manual organization if you want it set up a particular way. The old start menu also required manual organization if you wanted all your programs grouped a particular way. Windows 8 is no different in that regard. Furthermore, the old start menu was a cascading list of directories that collapsed if your mouse lost focus. This is one reason I think the new start screen is cleaner. In the other thread, it was pointed out that the 'commonly used programs' list was inconsistent, and could change things around with no warning to the user. We'll have to agree to disagree about whether the 'commonly used programs' list offered much benefit - I never used it. Other members have also pointed out that you can pin your favorite Steam games to the start screen. In my opinion that's not really any different than the menu displaying your list of commonly played games (which may change without your input).

Please explain how the new start menu offers poorer search functionality and less overall functionality. I'm not sure I understand how 'just start typing' is poorer search functionality.

 

I used win 8 briefly and the fact that I couldn't even have a decent video driver put me off, although that was more to do with the manufacturer of the laptop than anything else.

Win 8 is so divisional, some like it and some don't (personally I'm not keen).

Win 7 was universally accepted because it wasn't too different from windows of old but better in every way where as win 8 changed things a little too much and it shows in the sales figures.

People seem very defensive of win 8 but I don't see the reason to upgrade from 7 to be honest, serioulsy what will I gain?

 

The thing I find most confusing about this article is why it has a date of 28th April when surely it is describing a tech journalists first experience with Windows 8...

So wasn't this written back in the Autumn?

 

I believe he has only recently purchased a laptop that had win 8 pre installed so this is his first experience of the OS.

 

On the whole clicks thing. Its not about the number of clicks, its about how much you use your mouse. So 4 clicks in a small area could be better than two clicks in opposite corners.

I'm not sure that it looks cleaner, perhaps if all icons could be metrofied.There's a huge disparity between metro icons and regular desktop icons. Also if you do use the view all apps any cleanness goes right out the window. I find persistent menus quite annoying. The calender in ubuntu was one such thing. I would click on it, it would open I would check the date, done, then click away to move focus and it was still there . I find pinning things to constant UI elements really clutters up the place. Sort of like putting postits everywhere. Where as the menu associated with the steam or origin icon has everything tucked neatly away waiting to be accessed. Adobe pdf reader has a bunch of my last read pdfs as well. I don't want all of those pinned to my taskbar or as desktop shortcuts. Also the the recently played menu again is self maintaining. Pinned icons and shortcuts are not.

Basically, no self organistion, no recent lists from applications (is there even recent functionality at all), no shutdown functionality, poorer search. There's probably more but I'm not going to be exhaustive at this time of night. The search functionality annoyingly only searches apps, you then have to manually change category if you want search for a document or other non app item. Its a step backwards.

 

I see that as a good thing. Rather than having search return everything with a given name it segregates the search results so that I can choose to view the results that are limited to programs, settings, or files, rather than lumping them all together.

 

Sub-categorisation is generally a good thing but its implemented badly in this instance. If it was done to first return all results the windows 7 menu would for the same search and then let the user choose a category if necessary (usually it wouldn't be). I would see that as an improvement over what was in windows 7. The current start screen search set up requires more interaction than is necessary.

I think this will be fixed in Windows Blue though

 

Saw winzip, laughed to myself and knew not to take the article too seriously.

You're several months behind the 'we hate windows 8' bandwagon, telling us information about windows 8 that we already know, and making the same (invalid) complaints that many, many other articles have done.

Windows 8 isn't perfect, that's obvious. It is also clearly designed with touch interface in mind, that is clear. That doesn't mean that it isn't a viable desktop OS and I actually prefer it to windows 7. The start menu/screen is really a non-issue once you go to the effort of playing around with it. Searching is exactly the same, win key + search string, however it is grouped better and you get a full screen of results, rather than needing to focus on the bottom left corner of the screen.

The only complaint I really have with windows 8 is the integration of metro apps on a dual screen. One screen is considered your main screen, and this is the one that the start screen appears on. This is also the only screen you can have metro apps running on, without moving your main screen to another screen. This is frustrating as I'd quite like to have half of my second screen using an app (skype, music or w/e), and have my main screen for whatever I'm actively doing at the time.

 

Very true; that should have been a cue.

 

Greetings!

That is expected to be fixed in 8.1, providing a global search. It also seems to have a "most used" list.

 

UI wise it's just a mess. It's 2 different ui's badly bolted together, the primary one of which is designed for a tablet, not a keyboard/mouse that it's actually being used with.

They basically developed it for the surface pro - so they sacrificed the 500 million or whatever keyboard/mouse users experience for the 5 or less million surface pro users. It doesn't even work well for a tablet because half the programmes need the desktop interface which is rubbish for a touch screen.

In that way it's the worst windows ui MS have ever managed to produce - in the past while flawed at least it was schizophrenic.

 

*was not* schizophrenic. Please add an edit button (even if it only allows editing for 1 hour or something).

 

I have no more rage left for Windows 8, Sorry.

 

If you go to your post in the forum thread for these comments (ie http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=3337312&postcount=54) you can edit it there.

 

Greetings!

Satisfied with it?
Or just dont care?

 

Can someone explain to me how Windows 8 doesn't work when using keyboard and mouse? It's one of the most common complaints I've seen but no examples of why it is a problem.

I have been using Windows 8 on my main PC since the consumer preview and not had any problems with it. I use the desktop as I did with Windows 7 with shortcuts and pinned folders to access common programs and files and for others I simply have to press the Win key and start typing the name of what I'm after, it's hardly rocket science...

 

The weird thing for me is , as an IT addict and working in IT, I'm normally all over these releases, often beta testing the OS... Windows 8, I forget its even released. Im so happy with 7 I just would not move, unless it was literally amazing.... There is nothing that would make me want to even install it to be frank, and that is the problem.. Windows 7 does everything I need it to do. Until it stops doing what I need from it, Im not going to budge. This is the first OS where i have felt quite so committed... Its the old push pull analogy and the pull for windows 8 is barely registering and the push does not exist...