News Windows 8 screenshots hit the Web

I love my copy of Windows 7, it would be such a shame to upgrade anytime in the next few years, I feel like I'm just starting to get the hang of how everything in the OS works and where all the options I use are. Unless there are some BEAST reasons for a gamer to upgrade I don't think I will be picking up a copy of Windows 8 for some time. Hope to hear more about it as time goes on so I can make a better judgement in the future.

 

I sometimes feel as if Microsoft think it's obligatory for them to change the UI in some way in each release of Windows, lest people think the latest release isn't a new OS.

I echo previous sentiments in that I fail to see why this is necessary so soon; unless it contains some significant improvements. Surely anything short of serious architectural overhaul could be included in a patch/service pack? (I know, they need to keep selling software.)

Is there anything that 7 really does *that* badly?

 

Too true. I remember showing people the RC of Windows 7 when I first installed it on my laptop and having to suffer them saying 'it's just the same as Vista' just because they kept the glass UI shell. Of course, once they'd seen Paint with the ribbon it was a whole different story

Seriously, do you people not read what Goodbytes and I have said about 100 times on these forums already?

Windows 8 isn't due out till next year, at which point it would be 3 years after Windows 7, which is in line with pretty much every other Windows release bar XP-Vista.

There.

Anyways, I pretty much upgrade Windows religiously since I'm obsessive about having as efficient a workspace as possible. The Explorer ribbon as it stands looks pretty ugly and un-nescessary at first glance, but having given it some thought it does simplify a lot of the dead simple commands that I and most of you take for granted, like selecting everthing in a folder and copying it to another location. Something that takes me 10 seconds to do takes at least a minute to explain over the phone to my grandparents who can't grasp holding down multiple keyboard buttons which seem to make no sense.

If they refine the UI and hopefuly work some nice Metro magic on it then it might actually turn out to be reasonably useful.

 

About the Ribbon Stuff, did People suddenly forget that there are usually options to customize the looks of the UI?

Anyway, as long as there aren't any major changes under the hood I'll just stick with Windows 7.

 

The ribbon should be collapsable like it is everywhere else, so that double-clicking on it will turn it into a 'show on click' overlay, not a permanantly docked one.

 

Greetings!

7 has a worse interface than Vista, and now 8 with riboon?

 

After a good 18 months of using windows 7, I am still trying to find my way around the ribbon interface on paint. The simplest of simple programs, yet every time I go to use it I find myself spending time working out where the hell zoom went to, and still forget where undo is, and just start a new canvas instead.

So more ribbons can **** right off.

 

The zoom's on the bottom, like it is on pretty much every other photo editing suite, and in Microsoft's own Live Photo Gallery and the last 2 versions of Office I thought you guys were meant to be intelligent geeks?!

 

Because MS want to make money.

 

So far it seems like Windows 8 is just a minor upgrade from Windows 7, I might end up skipping this one and wait for Windows 9 which will probably be the major upgrade.

 

I've still not quite understood the reason for ribbons as they seem to be more inefficient than what they were replacing :\

 

I resisted 7 for a good long while. I'd spent so much time tweaking XP to be just so (along with slipstreaming and automating installation discs) that I was loathe to give it up. However, I really dig 7 now. There are still some things that really annoy me (not having full control over files even when I am local admin, for one), but for the most part, it's excellent. What I don't like is Office 2010 and its stupid ribbon. The only thing it has proved good for is dredging my memory for keyboard shortcuts for simple tasks. I only use the 'Home' tab in Excel, Word, etc, if I absolutely have to. Beyond that I stick to Ctrl+P, Ctrl+S, etc. It may be the Ribbon is 'more inuitive than ever', but only if you never used previous versions of Office. At least give me the option to go back to 'Classic' menus if I want to. The Ribbon wastes an incredible amount of my time at work now, and I've been using O2k10 for 3 moths.

 

Damnit, *months*

 

You can customize the ribbon bar in Office 2010. You can even make your own tab, put it first, and have all your most used options there.

 

It is a good thing my school will get me a free copy.

 

Greetings!

http://www.getpaint.net/
The same interface as always.

 

I really hoped they'd go more in the direction of a customizable OS. I loved their modular prototype OS that basically copied from *NIX/LINUX distribution, in the sense they allow you to chose all components you think you'll need to create a slim & fast OS without all the crap.
I can't be the only person thinking that moving useless applications (Windows Movie Maker, I'm looking at you!) into the cloud or at least keep them tidy in app compilations like Microsoft Live Essentials was a smart move, right?

And I think ribbon takes some time getting used to but then it's superiour to the old-school interfaces.

 

You miss my main point though... what is going to be so revolutionary about Windows 8 that warrants an upgrade, rather than upgrading for the sake of lining Microsoft's coffers? Commonly thrown around PR terms such as "More productive", "Faster", "Better access to the Internet" will not suffice for most of the enthusiasts on this forum.

It's not like the transition from 16 to 32 bit binaries, or 64 bit in more recent times, the migration away from the frankly awful 9x series to a NT based kernel, etc...

 

Are the horizontally structured buttons what you call "Ribbon"?
(Have to ask, I don't know anybody that uses the "new" office

 

I've installed it.
They haven't added enough things to make it windows 8 yet. The Desktop and transparency on windows has changed - but nothing else. The installation is windows 7 enterprise.