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

Japan gets the best deal on the Surface Pro.
They have the Surface Pro 256GB with the touch keyboard AND Office 2013.

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/29/4375354/surface-pro-japan-256gb-model-new-touch-covers

If they offer the same thing with Haswell, and similar price as the 128GB Pro, it would be stupid to say it's not a ridiculously awesome deal, and tablet to get. Come on Surface Pro 2!

 

Greetings!

 

This is how gnome 3 rocks a full screen menu and I think it makes a big difference.

 

Not sure if this ones true but do Microsoft expect people to pay for this update?

 

From 8 to 8.1 ? No. From anything older ? Yes, like if you upgrade the OS - which is what you do in case of older OS.

 

Another interesting little tidbit: you will be able to pin website bookmarks to the Start Screen as live tiles. The way it works is that they pull data from the website's RSS feed and display that on the tile. Nice.

 

This is nice. If blue allows for a secondary dedicated metro screen I would like and use this feature.

 

Sorry I've been absent, I just know that responding here will take me a while. I'll try to keep it brief this time, because I've a habit of using 20 words when I could use 3.

Nexxo, there are two basic disagreements I have that keep nagging in the back of my mind (hence why I'm still here).

The first is the (more) concrete issue of the Metro Start's usability and design merit. I find it slower and less efficient to use than the XP-style start menu (which I still miss now on W7). With XP's start menu a huge number of installed programs - all the installed programs - were represented on a single screen without obscuring your open programs entirely. They had a folder structure where Windows 8's tiles have groups that can't be expanded or collapsed, and small text where Windows 8's tiles are very large and require extensive sideways scrolling.

The second is a separate concern about the disparaging, dismissive attitude sheltered here towards Windows 8 malcontents. I believe that their concern is legitimate and their reaction reasonable. My main reason is that people expect consistency and familiarity from products and that that's the basis of all brand loyalty; it's what even makes brands meaningful at all. I think radical inconsistency, even if it often works for many of the old customer base, is bad practice. I believe Windows versions would be better handled by staging a gradual change in design rather than sudden overhauls, and that having wildly different products with very different purposes and target audiences existing under the same product name is misleading.

As a side note, I'm not sure what point you were making by describing the typicality of the percentages of adopters and haters. Do you mean that, because a certain proportion of users will always dislike a product, their objections or concerns can therefore automatically not be valid? That because complaint is inevitable, it can't be legitimate, and can be discarded indiscriminately?

Yeah, uh, I did try to keep it brief. This is me being brief. Sorry :/

 

I was trying to illustrate that every change will have its lovers, its haters and its indifferent --regardless of the product. When OSX started to incorporate features of iOS, some people hated it. When Canonical Ubuntu was introduced, some people hated it. It's just going to happen. That does not mean that their objections have no validity, but it does mean that you simply can't please everybody all of the time.

My objection with many Windows 8 malcontents is that their objections often appear superficial and uninformed. They take a look, decide that they don't like it, and throw a hissy fit. They refuse to install a third-party fix on principle, while they find it perfectly normal to install a third-party browser, email program or any other add-on. They complain about missing features that are still there (again, uninformed) or that they never used in the first place. Others, like DVD codecs, can simply be added --for free-- but that is not good enough. All of a sudden, a community of self-proclaimed "power users" that prides itself on modding, customizing and hacking their PCs well beyond the distant horizons of default specs gets its knickers in a twist because they might have to install one simple Start Menu add-on to get it to work exactly as they were used to. C'mon, son. Their concerns may have some legitimacy, but their reactions are overblown and churlish.

Sure, customers like consistency. But as Ford said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Meanwhile people are abandoning their desktops-they-know in droves for tablets that have a GUI that is nothing at all like Windows, but that change does not seem to bother them. So perhaps the haters do not have as much as a point as they think they do.

 

Microsoft Windows 8.1 page is up.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enterprise/products-and-technologies/windows-8-1/default.aspx

 

Ugh, internet died as I was trying to post this last night, so here it is fresh off the clipboard

I admit, I never looked at it like that. An interesting point, but then, a desktop interface is far more fundamental than a browser - and in any event, most of the very vocal complainants I've encountered in our customers are the sort of people who never installed another browser, and in fact didn't know what a browser was, and thought that Internet Explorer was simply called "the internet".

So, there's that.

Do these kinds of outrageously unlearned, computer-illiterate users have any right to complain when they're unable to adjust to a change and their lack of IT learning capacity comes back to bite them? I'm not really sure. On the one hand, you should learn to drive before complaining that your car doesn't work right for you. On the other hand, computer software's task has long been to be user-friendly and intuitive, and you can't deny that most of these long-time Windows users find Windows 8 thoroughly unintuitive.

Perhaps that's just because they lack intuition, but again, better introductory instruction and guidance or a more gradual and stepped change would have averted the problem entirely, because while brittle, these people are not incapable of change - they're just very easily shocked by too much change, too fast.

(Don't call me son.)

Here I have to say, if we're talking about experienced, technically proficient PC gamers complaining about windows 8 despite the ready availability of Classic Shell - then yes. Those complaints are ridiculously exaggerated and stink of entitlement complex and a misguided sense of having authority over Microsoft's creative process simply because they're heavily invested in PC culture. I don't mind calling those complaints out as silly.

Again, though, I think you seriously underestimate the psychological importance of brand identities. (I feel intimidated using the word "psychological" against you, because that's your comfort zone and not mine, but I've talked to enough customers to have an informal idea of what I'm talking about here.)

Branded products need persistent features. They really do. If our beloved Marmite wanted to make a new Marmite with a different flavour, like BBQ Marmite, they would call it "BBQ Marmite". If it didn't resemble Marmite much at all, say, by being sweet and thinner consistency, they wouldn't even call it Marmite - they'd just call it "X from the makers of Marmite". And people would know what to expect.

Knowing what to expect is important enough with products you can choose between, but I reiterate the most important factor in their irritation: people can't choose Windows 8 or Windows 7. Windows 7 is still supported, it will be for years, but you can't buy a new laptop with it now. There is no free market between versions; the consumers can't vote with their wallets. It feels like a rigged election, and that's a very frustrating, even offensive experience.

I understand that in business terms, Microsoft are a company, Windows 8 is a product and they have sales and customers. But that's not how it feels to laptop Joe, who needs to use Publisher and Excel to catch up on his work overflow and therefore has to use a Windows laptop. He has no choice, at all. Bear that in mind before dismissing his reaction as irrational or overblown.

(But again, if we're talking about Gamer Steve with his Skyrim mods and his 3570k - yeah, dismiss his.)

 

You can buy new laptops with Windows 7 you just need to ask for them I sold several last week.

 

Greetings!

Third-parties fixes shouldnt be needed to solve basic UI problems introduced with W8.
Fullscreen starts, inability to run apps in windows (on a Windows OS!), lack of "most used", no boot to desktop ability, absence of a global search, etc. All of these problems were identified almost two years ago and Microsoft is finally correcting some.

Dont you use other peoples W8 machines? UI consistency has been lost. You can have a out-of-the-can StartScreen, a Start8 menu, a Classic Shell menu, a StartIsBack, a RetroUI, ... Its a mess, provoked by the stubborness of Microsoft not wanting to offer a StartMenu option.

So Microsoft decided to offer a horse controlled by a steering wheel... Or a car with saddles instead of seats... Makes sense.

Why should it bother them? Tablets have a proper UI model for touch. Even Metro works pretty well for touch devices (bit ugly but functional).

___________________

 

Annual update to windows server think ill run away now, unrealistic is the word I'd use. Just not worth the downtime to most companies to run the update if anything goes wrong your downtime could be a while depending on back up sizes and what's running on the hardware.

 

Greetings!

Depending on what the upgrade offers. If it is useful to the company or not. If the benefits covers the risk.

 

My impression is that it is not the computer-illiterate users who are the vocal complainers. To them, all computers are inscrutible, so from their point of view not much has changed. They also happily made the transition from Windows PCs to iPads running iOS without any issues. So ironically, they seem OK with change.

Sorry, internet meme expression, not directed at you personally.

That is a valid point. I remember the hue and cry when Twinings decided to change their Earl Gray tea a bit... (but then, that's Brits and their tea for you ). Brand identity can be especially important where tradition is important ("Since 1886" and all that stuff), to convey a sense of dependability, reliability, traditional craftsmanship or values. However does that apply to the fast moving consumer electronics world? I'm not sure people would buy a PC that prides itself on not having changed since 1986. In some markets, people expect change, improvement, refinement, things moving forward at a rapid pace. Whether Windows is such a market? Perhaps for some, and not for others. But one thing Microsoft cannot afford is to stand still. Look at iOS: hasn't changed in six years and people are actually starting to feel it is getting a bit old and stale (I know, right?). Ironically, it is Microsoft that inspires the younger crowd.

 

"Should" thinking? Really? We have always solved basic shortcomings in Windows with third-party add-ons. Why should that suddenly change now?

You mean like the consistency we'd have by some machines using Start Menu, some using Start Screen, some using Boot to Desktop and some not, and a re-introduced Start button that now you see, now you don't?

Yeah, just like your metaphors.

 

I don't think the two products (Marmite and Windows) can be compared. One is a consumption product, that you have to re-buy on a regular basis, the other is a static product, once you have it it can last forever.

Comparing Windows to a car makes more sense, because you purchase a new one every few years (varies person to person). Cars receive complete overhauls every few years in order to introduce new features and keep it looking fresh. A modern Ford Fiesta is an entirely different car to a 1980's Fiesta. If Ford didn't do this, they wouldn't survive long, even if some prefer the older models.

 

Mostly preference. I prefer a fullscreen Start Screen to a Start Menu.

I prefer that my Metro Apps run fullscreen. A good example is me using the Mail App. If I wanted it to run in a Window, I'd just install Windows Live Mail and not use Mail.

I hate most used items.

I don't care that windows doesn't boot to desktop. Although I click desktop pretty much immediately, I do like to see if I have mail/glance at headlines/see weather.

Absence of global search - not sure if you mean just searching your entire PC or PC and internet in one hit. Either way, searching the entire PC is still possible, go to My Computer and search, I rarely used the search field in the Start Menu as more often than not it failed to find what I wanted. Also if you did use it you couldn't move focus to another window as it'd close the Start Menu and lose the search.

Searching PC and web together - no thanks. I don't need one cluttering up the other.

So what you call problems that need fixes, I call non-issues that are fine.

To-may-toe, to-mah-toe.

 

what gets me is people complaining about changes, then in the next breath, they have been out and bought a kindle or iOS/android tablet, which they would have had to learn new ways of doing things for anyway.