Microsoft Windows 8 Consumer Preview - Your impressions

[TDATL]

you have eight fingers and two thumbs. You don't just have one finger

It is still all effectively one "key" to the computer. There is no reliable way to tell one finger/thumb apart from another by a touch screen.

@Mirage Knight: Why in the world is waving your hand to turn a page an improvement? As it is all you have to do is click once, scroll a mouse wheel, or hit "page down." All of those are far FAR easier (and less distracting to the people around you) than waving your arm around in the air.

@Paladin: A touch screen has ZERO advantages for a desktop OS over a mouse. There is NOTHING a touch screen can do that a mouse can't do easier.

Also touch screens are far more expensive to replace than a mouse. People will be paying more, getting less functionality, and drastically raising the replacement cost for when their device stops working.

Imagine this trying to be used in an office by the common person. Monitors will be knocked off of desks left and right. Imagine what will happen when a program doesn't respond to someone touching the screen and they get frustrated. As it stands people often bang on their keyboards, click widely with their mouse, and so on. Such a thing currently only endangers a $10 piece of equipment. With a touch screen you are risking a $100-$200 piece of equipment if the touch screen didn't increase the price of the monitor.

Even if the users don't do anything wrong stuff still wears out. As it stands mice and keyboards take up very little room, are light, cheap, and are easy to swap out on the fly. A mouse or keyboard doesn't work? No problem you can store 20+ mice or 10+ keyboards in the same space you need to store a single monitor. There is also no power cables needed to hook them up and nobody needs to mess with the back end of the computer (or the computer at all if you have a USB hub.)

Touchscreens for desktops are MASSIVELY inefficient and provide less functionality than a keyboard and mouse. The only place touchscreens are useful at all is kiosks and handheld devices (tablets, phones, and so on.)

[Mirage Knight]

@TDATL

I'm not advocating the total replacement of kb + Mouse for control in a desktop scenario. As a graphic designer, I see a real problem with that at present. I do think that supplementing that control scheme with a touch-screen monitor has the potential to be beneficial and desirable to others. On that note, I think it's good that MS is providing that kind of control option to users. It's not like it's being forced on us, although I suspect one day the traditional kb + mouse will be regarded as archaic as say a 5 1/4 floppy drive as touch screen tech becomes cheaper, more accessible, and more accurate. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing - just that it probably will happen in the foreseeable future.

@Moe

The idea behind replacing the Start Menu with a Start Screen is that you have a single screen that can display all your apps and theoretically involves less clicking and navigating to get to a particular app you want to use that you don't have a shortcut for.

[Moe]

Ok, but how is that less clicking? I *could* just create a shortcut for every single program I have on my desktop under Windows 7, how is that different from Metro?

[Paladin]

I think the only way the mouse goes away completely for graphics work is if you have a combination touchscreen/electrostatic pen screen. Basically a cintiq with touch support. I can't think of anything I'd need a mouse for WRT graphics work if I had something like that.

Gaming on the other hand... It's almost impossible to do away with the mouse entirely for gamers.

[GeoffS]

I'm getting confused here, probably because I haven't looked at Metro yet. The hatred of touchscreens expressed by TDATL seems to be pretty pointless and ridiculous unless there is a proposal to do away with mouse/keyboard inputs entirely in favour of touchscreens. If this is just a way to give people more flexibility with how they interact with their computers, how is that a bad thing?

[Starblade]

It is still all effectively one "key" to the computer. There is no reliable way to tell one finger/thumb apart from another by a touch screen.

Actually, touchscreens that can discern between multiple points of contact are starting to be released, so that wouldn't really be an issue in the future.

[Gorb]

It is still all effectively one "key" to the computer. There is no reliable way to tell one finger/thumb apart from another by a touch screen.

I'm sure I wrote more than one line, but, okay. There is no way to tell a left mouse button from a right mouse button . . . wait, there is. The magic of software makes it happen.

Dragging gestures. Movement involving multiple fingers (i.e. zoom/focus on smartphones). Scroll wheel emulation (that could be separate from the actual scroll wheel, thus freeing that button up to perform other tasks). The list goes on.

I'm sorry for being facetious, but when you disregard the vast majority of what I say, only to reiterate to someone else that TOUCHSCREENS ARE BAD AND YOU SHOULDN'T USE THEM, despite me spending half of the previous page arguing against that notion, it gets somewhat disheartening.

I'm getting confused here, probably because I haven't looked at Metro yet. The hatred of touchscreens expressed by TDATL seems to be pretty pointless and ridiculous unless there is a proposal to do away with mouse/keyboard inputs entirely in favour of touchscreens. If this is just a way to give people more flexibility with how they interact with their computers, how is that a bad thing?

Precisely.

[Carl]

@TDATL: I think you tottally missed the point of touchscreens here.

Using a keyboard for many things once you get past a certian number of functions gets really arkward. There ends up being an enormous number of hotkeys to remember and for the sake of your users having an easy time you try no to re-use them. It quickly gets labrathine in nature.

If you want a gaming example, X3 Terran Conflict.

That said where not there yet. Touchscreens effectivlly let you turn your non-mouse hand into another mouse pointer, and if your key press speed is good you can work at high precision much faster than a mouse. That let a lot of commands be very precislly compressed into a small section of the UI. The problem is that right now touchscreen tend to limit your input speed and they lack tactile feedback, they also don't allow for multi-point input. You can't put an image of a keyboard on a touchscreen and speedtype on it for example. When touchscreens reach that point we'll be getting to desktop usability. That said i expect "input screens" (i just made that up), to be more common than what we think of as touchscreens. I.e. a roughly keyboards sized and shaped device onto which programmers will project their UI elements. That might sound like a programmabble keyboard, and in a way it is. The main differance is that a programable keyboard can't, (generally), be re-programmed on the fly by the app your using with the size shape and functanality of one or more UI elements changing depending on what else is happening. I still see the mouse being used with it, and probably ordinary topuchscreens will combind well too. But i don't see normal touchscreens being a main input method without a major change in basic computer ergonomics.


This is kinda what MS is going for with this new start menu thingy, the trouble is the touchscreens aren't upto it yet and their design isn't really appropriatte to a high program density enviroment, or a standard desktop enviroment.

Touchscreens come into their own in high complexity applications or situations where you may have to manipulate multipule applications at once, (where there can be a lot of overlap in application comand sortcuts on a normal keyboard). A desktop is generally asking you to manipulate one or two items at once and keyboard shortcuts aren't overly utalised.

[Croaxleigh]

Moe: Well, technically it would be less clicking... if you made shortcuts then you'd double-click them to launch them whereas Metro apps launch with a single click like Start Menu items. The Metro UI also expands the "desktop" area so you're not limited to just the icons you can fit on your screen. You can pin apps, websites and other items to the Metro Start Screen more or less indefinitely.

It's not substantially different than what you'd do now, however.

Carl: There are some interesting things being done with touchscreen keyboards, however. I can't think of which one it is, but one of the laptop companies have a model that's essentially comprised of two touchscreens. It suffers under high speeds, but it's an interesting concept nonetheless and shows how far touchscreens have come in recent years. The technology's advancing while the touchscreens themselves are becoming significantly cheaper.

[TDATL]

The hatred of touchscreens expressed by TDATL

I don't hate touchscreens at all. What I disagree strongly with is making touchscreens the default for an OS that is going to be run on desktops.

Again, it is like designing a desktop OS around using gamepads or joysticks. For a console that would be great. For a PC it would be stupid. Similarly touchscreens are great for kiosks and portable devices. For a desktop it is stupid to make them the focus.

Using a keyboard for many things once you get past a certian number of functions gets really arkward. There ends up being an enormous number of hotkeys to remember and for the sake of your users having an easy time you try no to re-use them. It quickly gets labrathine in nature

Except there is nothing close to an X3 situation when dealing with the OS. If you want to get a touchscreen to handle those rare situations then I don't have any problem at all. In fact I think the option to do so is great. But that has nothing to do with the OS.

@Gorb: I'm not responding to (which is different than disregarding) most of what you are saying because what you are saying doesn't make any sense.

Your contention that I hate touchscreens just another example of you totally missing the point. I would be acting almost the exact same way if Microsoft announce that Windows 8 was going to be designed around using the Xbox controller. I don't hate the Xbox controller at all. It is great for what it is designed for. It is not designed nor well equipped to take the place of or even supplement the keyboard and mouse for the purpose of dealing with a desktop OS.

I am not at all upset that a touch screen is being used. I am not at all upset that an OS for a portable device is being designed. I am upset that Windows 8 (an OS that is going to go on desktops) seems to be designed to be best used on a touch screen instead of with a mouse/keyboard because that is STUPID. Every tool has it's uses. I don't have to hate a tool to know that using it wrong is a bad idea.

edit: to clarify if this was "Windows 8 tablet and smart phone edition" I wouldn't have a single complaint or issue at all. At that point using a touch screen as your primary input method is the correct thing to do. Making a mouse/keyboard default for a phone would be just stupid as making a touchscreen default for a desktop. It is about choosing the right tool for the job.

[GeoffS]

I am upset that Windows 8 (an OS that is going to go on desktops)

And on tablets, and smartphones, and kiosk displays, and restaurant tabletops, and...

My question still stands, if Win8 doesn't make using a keyboard/mouse harder than it is now, why is adding touch interface a bad thing?


Edit: And it's not like "designing a desktop OS around using gamepads or joysticks" because they are not doing that. At all. Not even suggesting it.

[Mirage Knight]

I think the only way the mouse goes away completely for graphics work is if you have a combination touchscreen/electrostatic pen screen.

That could work. That could work very nicely indeed.

Gaming on the other hand... It's almost impossible to do away with the mouse entirely for gamers.

Interesting point there and I do see where you're coming from, but doesn't that kind of depend on how the game is coded, what kind of game it is, what type of control method it's designed to take advantage of? I understand you're talking about PC games, but with Windows 8, the differences between PC and console (read Xbox) games is going to seriously blur if not outright disappear: If I'm not mistaken, you'll be able to play Xbox games on your PC via an appropriate controller. And yes, the Kinect controller will be natively supported under Win 8.

Now let's get back to what you said. I can see how a touch screen control method might be used in an RTS game - draw a circle to select units and single tap an area on the map to move or double tap to attack move for instance or press on an area to open a context menu that provides added options, etc. A good FPS on the other hand...that's always been the realm of hand-held gaming controllers and kb+mouse. There's a way by which an FPS can be controlled via Kinect through gestures and voice commands (someone actually did it with Bulletstorm), but using a pure touch-screen control method? I have to admit that I have trouble seeing how that would work, outside of using a touch-pad style keyboard-like device and a touch-pad pointing surface.

Touchscreens effectivlly let you turn your non-mouse hand into another mouse pointer, and if your key press speed is good you can work at high precision much faster than a mouse. That let a lot of commands be very precislly compressed into a small section of the UI. The problem is that right now touchscreen tend to limit your input speed and they lack tactile feedback, they also don't allow for multi-point input. You can't put an image of a keyboard on a touchscreen and speedtype on it for example. When touchscreens reach that point we'll be getting to desktop usability. That said i expect "input screens" (i just made that up), to be more common than what we think of as touchscreens. I.e. a roughly keyboards sized and shaped device onto which programmers will project their UI elements. That might sound like a programmabble keyboard, and in a way it is. The main differance is that a programable keyboard can't, (generally), be re-programmed on the fly by the app your using with the size shape and functanality of one or more UI elements changing depending on what else is happening. I still see the mouse being used with it, and probably ordinary topuchscreens will combind well too. But i don't see normal touchscreens being a main input method without a major change in basic computer ergonomics..

Some nice ideas there and I think that "input screen" idea is not too far off. Add in UI themes for the touch keypad and track pad and methinks that would be almost every Star Trek fan's dream come true

With regard to feedback, it might be possible to say warm up the area you pressed or enough of an electrical charge that your fingertips could sense it.

I am upset that Windows 8 (an OS that is going to go on desktops) seems to be designed to be best used on a touch screen instead of with a mouse/keyboard because that is STUPID.

I think I see your primary concern here. It's not like you can't use Windows 8 as well with a kb+mouse combo as you can in say XP, Vista, or Win 7, because you can. On a desktop, a touch screen is not essential to get things done quickly and efficiently in Win 8. Having personally run Win 8 on a setup with ONLY a kb+mouse I can vouch for that. A touch screen would only be a potential bonus.

[Carl]

@TDATL: I happened to say that. But there's good solid programmer reasons for integrating toucghscreens into the OS. It standardizes the code base everyone’s using, which means everyone’s code is cross compatible and it's much easier for them to use touchscreens in their software since they don't have to write their own touchscreen code. It also encourages the average joe to get one. And once touchscreens get common, that’s when you'll start seeing a glut of software that truly benefits from it. It's like ye oldie CD, (and the DVD, and the double Layer DVD and the Blu-Ray), at the time there wasn't massive demand for the sheer amount of storage they offered, but once it became available various things found uses for that capacity, and what had seemed a near useless gimmick became ambiguous. By encouraging greater touchscreen uptake and easing the programming integration this allows touchscreen to stop being a novelty.

@Mirage Knight, give me a few minutes to edit in a reply to, you, hit post too quick. Oops.

Some nice ideas there and I think that "input screen" idea is not too far off. Add in UI themes for the touch keypad and track pad and methinks that would be almost every Star Trek fan's dream come true

Well Star Trek was kind of what brought the idea to mind. Whilst we never get enough detail on what their manipulating, (besides the helm which is a touchscreen version of what every spacecraft today has), to really see why they have to input so much, it's obvious their often have to adjust several aspects of their stations at once. In effect they're needing to do a type of speed typing, but with appp commands instead of text letters.

A bit of experience with certain programs, (and of course the odd game like X3), tells you that any sufficiently complicated program is going to require the ability to input commands very rapidly to allow a human to work at an efficient speed. Even many lesser games would benefit from such a thing though. So something with the ability to provide easy access to app commands even when numbers dictate they be buried in menus and sub menus is really handy. Keyboard shortcuts can do this now, but they take time to learn and memories and certainly aren't as easy on the average joe or someone who only uses the program on an ad hoc basis. This kind of programmable input board allows even the average person to easily and simply navigate to and issue a very wide range of possible commands out of an exponentially larger range of possible commands, and to do so at great speed. And for the professional sorts it allows their programs to grow even more features without them becoming unusable even to them.

I can draw you a very simple line drawing later if you want. But imagine in the place of your keyboard while playing DoW2 you've got an input board. The center 5th is for the mini-screen, (more on that in a moment). To either side are two screens holding unit cards for all your units. Each card has 2 simple lines. Line one has at the start an empty section where icons for each buff or debuff on the squad are placed, you can tap this for more info on the specifics. The middle section of that is it's unique squad name. The final section displays current squad man count and overall health. Below that is another section, this contains copies of the units ability icon, retreat icons, and probably a couple of other things. There are then 2 more cards. One to the side of each of your unit cards. 1 holds the enemy units on the main screen in unit card form, (but without the abilities section), the other can hold whatever you want, (say your HQ production tab). The mini screen holds a simple dot representation of the current situation. Basic very low res and detail terrain, then colored and numbered, (according to squad name), dots for each of yours and the enemies squad members. Aura glows to say they have a debuff/debuff effect, and a coupe of other equally basic FX for things like grenades, DoT's on the ground e.t.c. Basically it means when not looking at the screen you've got constant updates, so it's not a huge disadvantage to look away. Finally along the bottom you've got some basic commands like a shift key, (for all it's myrid multi-selection uses), a windows command key, (in case you crash and need to access things like task manager), and whatever else you can think of the shove along the bottom that might come in handy.

If that doesn’t sound so useful. Consider you now have clear displays of all your squads current numbers, current health, and current status effects at your fingertips and at a glance, you also can select and fire off their abilities without ever selecting them. you just tap the ability on the board then either click where you want it to go on the main screen with the mouse, or tap the enemy squad on the board. Your top of the leader board pro might be able to go as fast as this with mouse and keyboard ATM, but i doubt 99% of the rest of the players can. To them this would represent a huge increase in ease of use and available information. Add some arrow keys to the thing and a main touchscren for targeting stuff like grenades and they might never have to touch the mouse all game.

[Starblade]

And once touchscreens get common, thats when you'll start seeing a glut of software that truly benefits from it. It's like ye oldie CD, (and the DVD, and the double Layer DVD and the Blu-Ray), at the time there wasn't massive demand for the sheer amount of storage they offered, but once it became avalibile various things found uses for that capacity, and what had seemed a near usless gimmic became umbiguous.

You've got this backwards. As we hit the limits of the previous storage method new ones were released to meet that demand, such as the Blu-Ray and the HD-DVD. No one's going to buy something they can't actually use (unless marketing did a really, really good job), there has to be something out there to work with it first. Also nobody ever thought of "storage space" as a useless gimmick.

ui stuff

This UI sounds cluttered and clunky, and increasingly unwieldy depending on the size of the touchscreen (which may or may not be uniform across all models, which is something else to keep in mind when you're subdividing everything as much as you want). You don't need to see all information at all times, and the game now has five points of attention you have to focus on simultaneously. Half of what you described isn't even related to or something that would be unique or enhanced by touchscreens, it's just displaying the information in some other way than how it already is; you could already do it that way with a keyboard and mouse if you really wanted to. If you want to make touchscreens actually useful on a desktop, do new things with it, don't just map old controls to it 1 to 1 and call it a day.

[Carl]

You've got this backwards. As we hit the limits of the previous storage method new ones were released to meet that demand, such as the Blu-Ray and the HD-DVD. No one's going to buy something they can't actually use (unless marketing did a really, really good job), there has to be something out there to work with it first. Also nobody ever thought of "storage space" as a useless gimmick.

I wasn't in the into the computer scene when the first CD's came out, and I was just getting into it when DVD's first appeared, but I was well into things when double layer and blu ray came out, and not only where all the experts saying "we won’t make much use of this yet", but the facts bore this out, besides some larger movies and TV show distributions nobody was excessively using them, (and according to the experts this happened with CD's and DVD's as well), only a few applications, (mostly those involving large volumes of high quality video), needed the kind of extra storage they offered. In fact I’m not aware of any mainstream use of blue ray today outside of HD TV and movies TODAY, and that only seriously took off after Blu Ray came out, because HD movies and TV just wasn't available at the time outside of a few really expensive TV channels. Blu Ray actually made it more accessible and precipitated a huge HD rise.

This UI sounds cluttered and clunky, and increasingly unwieldy depending on the size of the touchscreen (which may or may not be uniform across all models, which is something else to keep in mind when you're subdividing everything as much as you want). You don't need to see all information at all times, and the game now has five points of attention you have to focus on simultaneously. Half of what you described isn't even related to or something that would be unique or enhanced by touchscreens, it's just displaying the information in some other way than how it already is; you could already do it that way with a keyboard and mouse if you really wanted to. If you want to make touchscreens actually useful on a desktop, do new things with it, don't just map old controls to it 1 to 1 and call it a day.

Since it's supposed to be a keyboard replacement it's going to be pretty big, also remember I said programmable, so I’d expect both the program and user to be able to adjust aspects of it.

That said I think you totally failed to read more than a couple of sentences in. The key point here isn't you mr pro gamer getting something out of this, or you mr professional cad designer/graphics artist/whatever, getting something out of this. You've memorized and developed an affinity to that program and you know exactly what key does what. My experience of your average Joe around me tells me that to them hotkeys are something that’s very difficult for them due to an incredible lack of commonality and the fact that they rarely dedicate the kind of time to each program a professional in their field does. To them hotkeys are totally user unfriendly and it seriously slows them down in their use of the software. By changing it so that instead of a series of confusing random letters to hit, they have a series of visually distinct icons that tell them at a glance what they do it gets vastly easier because they can far more easily see what hotkey they need, and indeed what each hotkey does. For games integrating various pieces of status data alongside this is the next logical step as it allows you to hit hotkeys while keeping up with what’s happening.

As for not being radical. Here's a hint why:

IT CAN'T BE.

Quite simply put since the GUI came along everything has been a form of the same basic thing. Click button/icon X to give a command. Hotkeys let you do it a new faster way. And touchscreens are another way of doing it. Anything you can do with a single touch on a touchscreen you will ALLLWAYS be able to do with hotkeys and mouse because all that touch is is a command to the computer, all a hotkey press or a mouse click is, is a command to the computer. Unless you come up with something radically off the wall that is just as intuitive and just as simple to use whilst providing some benefit your never going to get away from that. All touchscreen currently provide, and all they will provide for the foreseeable future is the ability to combined the user friendly nature of Graphics icons, with the much more rapid command input of hotkeys.

Lastly I choose DoW2 because of it's umbiguity around here. I doubt most players are familiar with X3 and it's 50 menus. In an environment like that you could take it a LOT further because you could move the entire clickable sidebar down onto the input board and by splitting it into segments with each covering several menus you can cram a lot of menu stuff into a form that you can access via speed typing, and where it's no longer cluttering up the main screen, (believe me when things get hairy, having all that on screen is a pain.

[Gorb]

@Gorb: I'm not responding to (which is different than disregarding) most of what you are saying because what you are saying doesn't make any sense.

Your contention that I hate touchscreens just another example of you totally missing the point. I would be acting almost the exact same way if Microsoft announce that Windows 8 was going to be designed around using the Xbox controller. I don't hate the Xbox controller at all. It is great for what it is designed for. It is not designed nor well equipped to take the place of or even supplement the keyboard and mouse for the purpose of dealing with a desktop OS.

I am not at all upset that a touch screen is being used. I am not at all upset that an OS for a portable device is being designed. I am upset that Windows 8 (an OS that is going to go on desktops) seems to be designed to be best used on a touch screen instead of with a mouse/keyboard because that is STUPID. Every tool has it's uses. I don't have to hate a tool to know that using it wrong is a bad idea.

edit: to clarify if this was "Windows 8 tablet and smart phone edition" I wouldn't have a single complaint or issue at all. At that point using a touch screen as your primary input method is the correct thing to do. Making a mouse/keyboard default for a phone would be just stupid as making a touchscreen default for a desktop. It is about choosing the right tool for the job.

I never said you hated touchscreens. Again, an issue with you not reading my posts correctly.

Your explanations here which again reiterate things already-said, and ignore the vast majority of the counterpoints brought up indicate precisely why it is futile debating on this topic with you. You keep calling it stupid, and I'll go and find someone I can have an actual discussion with.

[Octopus Rex]

Regarding the Start Screen (moe and MK):

if my current desktop could scroll ad infinitum and I could put as many shortcuts as I want on there I still wouldn't do it. The reason is that having them all in place becomes too much (hence Moe's hatred of a cluttered desktop) - it's not about extra-clicks, it's about taking longer to find things. To continue the silly tradition of broken analogies: I don't have all my books and pens and gadgets on my desk, I have them in shelves. Because shelves help keep them organised, and keeping them organised means I can find them more quickly.

But you can use search on a PC right? Sure. Then why do I need everything on one screen? If I'm already using search by default to find things, if that's the case then I don't need to see things. The things on that screen should just be exceptions that I want there (frequent usage items).

However, why do we have icons? Because they help us recognise things a lot quicker. Without a visual reference we're stuck when we forget the name of something (very old or newly installed programs etc.), so we do need some kind of visual navigational tool (other than windows explorer) for when search fails us. This brings us back to putting it all on the desktop again, with brings us back being really cluttered. Which leads us to conclude that having three different ways to access your programs while on the desktop (start menu, tool bar, desktop shortcuts) is flexible, as organised as we want it to be, and generally quite useful.

I haven't used Metro yet, but I would think the Start Screen will need a little extra oopmh to not be a pain. Having said that, I like the direction MS is taking with this in many ways, as in it's forward thinking and bold. It might turn out to be a dud play, but for a company not really known for making bold moves any more I think it's a nice change. The sooner people start seriously thinking about touchscreen desktops the quicker they'll get better.

[Starblade]

"we won;t make much use of this yet"...In fact i'm not aware of any mainstream use of blue ray today outside of HD TV and movies TODAY, and that only seriouslly took off after Blu Ray came out, becasue HD movies and TV just wasn't avalible at the time outside of a few really expensive TV channels. Blu Ray actually made it more acessiblle and precipitated a huge HD rise.

Except there were already multiple disc DVD games being released and programs available for digital release that were larger than the available space on a single DVD. As for mainstream use, the reason Blu-Rays even matter to anyone now is because the Playstation 3 uses Blu-ray discs as its primary storage medium. It's what popularized it, and won out over the 360's HD-DVD optional add-on (which was in part why it failed, incidentally).

Since it's supposed to eb a keyboard replacment it's going to be pretty big, also remeber i said programabbe, so i'd expect both the programme and user to be able to adjust aspects of it.

"You can change it so it doesn't suck" isn't really a stellar selling point. And you're not listening, you don't need to be the MLG Superstar Extraordinaire to understand these basic concepts of design. It's a bad idea to display everything at once, it's unfocused, cluttered, and makes it hard to find what you're looking for. Hotkeys have nothing to do with this, you're talking about displaying as much information as you can cram onto the screen at once instead of hiding it away behind menus and shortcuts or displaying it in a focused, meaningful way. On screen visual cues already exist. Programs and games use them. I'm looking at one right now that has them. These aren't new concepts.

Anything you can do with a single touch on a touchscreen you will ALLLWAYS be able to do with hotkeys and mouse because all that touch is is a command to the computer, all a hotkey press or a mouse click is, is a command to the computer.

It's about how the human being interacts with the machine, not how the machine interprets the commands.

[Mirage Knight]

Another interesting thing that's in Windows 8 has to do with multiple display support: The ability to not only span one's desktop over multiple displays, but span one's taskbar across them as well. Icons and shortcuts can be duplicated across all taskbars or each taskbar can be set to have icons and shortcuts corresponding to windows on the same monitor.

[roflmao]

So I've dabbled into this a bit more.

It's horrifyingly bad. It's just absolutely awful so far. I'll provide more details when I have a chance.

[Paladin]

@Mirage: Is that true span, or just extend with taskbar support?

[Moe]

Moe: Well, technically it would be less clicking...

Not even that - at least under XP (or 98?) you could set your shortcuts to behave like hyperlinks, so that a single click would launch them.

Carl, either start using a spell checker or stop posting. Your posts give me a headache.

[Carl]

@Starblade:

1. Except those kinds of things where the exception. Hence my "widely used" and "mainstream" comments. Their where a few people and items that would use it. but here was no demand for them, their just weren’t a great slew of things that made sufficient use of more than 1 ordinary DVD/1 double sided DVD to make it a sudden leap forward. Most stuck to the old method for a littlie while after. It was only once those storage mediums hit that you saw people making widespread use of them.

2. The whole point about the UI i described is to get a list of friendly squads, visible enemy entities, and their abilities and such like onto a GUI interactive interface. Thus you now have something that’s doing what all the most commonly used hotkeys did. Except that’s it's GUI elements means it's far more instinctively intuitive to your average joe as the buttons tell him at a glance what they do. The fact that you could have a copy of your HQ production queue and that selecting enemy squads precisely involve hitting two point of fair size just 6 inches or less apart is just icing on the cake.

The addition of status updates is to deal with the fact that even with this, your average joe is going to have to look away from the main screen. Putting health, men remaining, and status effect icons on there is a trivial extra that makes their life significantly easier. The addition of the mini screen is just an extra on top of that. I'd also expect these to replace some I elements, the squad list down the right hand side would be gone, and several of the bits across the bottom would probably be either gone, or more likely minimized (with an on screen or on input board button to bring them back to full).

And of course since this is a keyboard replacement by the stage of tech where talking about i would expect you to be able to configures what’s displayed on screen and on your board by default just as easily and fully as we configure hotkeys today. So if you didn't want the status updates and mini screen on the board but on the main screen, you tell it to do that, you could even bring up the default keyboard, shift everything back to the main screen and play it as now if you wanted.

In something like X3 where you already have to look away or at the least take your hand off the joystick i don't see it being such a huge issue having to take eyes of the screen. You could use just simple, expand on touch menu's there. The input board would just allow a lot more of them to be displayed and browsed simultaneously than the main screen, but there's not much point to anything else.

3. I'm not sure what your trying to say.

Yes you can make a single touch screen press work as any kind of command input, (left click, right click, e.t.c.), but what you have functionally is a standard GUI where your mouse pointer and buttons are being replaced by your fingers. The fact that you can move your fingers more precisely at high speeds, (plus have a lot more of them), allows for multiple point inputs yes, and yes you aren't restricted to one or two types of button press, (potentially anyway), but your still just manipulating the same kind of basic GUI your mouse allows you to manipulate, only faster and with greater precision.

Touch screens are about combining the multi-functionality of a keyboard with the ease of use and intuitiveness of a mouse activated GUI. Without something far more radical than anything I can conceive of I can't see what else you can do with them that is also better than what we have now, and is going to be less better on a keyboard or mouse than on a touch screen. I really don’t know what your trying to say anymore, unless you have your own radical off the wall idea.

@Moe: Sorry, I hadn’t been planning any walls of text when I started, I tend to only spellcheck the big stuff as it’s A) a hassle pasting in and out of a text editor, and B) I tend to be significantly worse with big walls as I speed type more. Sorry.

[Mirage Knight]

@Paladin

If I had an extra monitor, I'd be able to tell you for sure. However, I do believe it is true span: There are a couple of ridiculously wide desktop images available for those that want to customize their desktops...

Edit: Taken from the official product guide: "...you can display the Start screen on one monitor and the desktop on the others. Desktop backgrounds can be different on each monitor or can stretch across your screens." I'll try and dig up more info on this.

@Rofl

What's so horrible?

[Starblade]

1. Except those kinds of things where the exception. Hence my "widely used" and "mainstream" comments. Their where a few people and items that would use it. but here was no demand for them, their just weren’t a great slew of things that made sufficient use of more than 1 ordinary DVD/1 double sided DVD to make it a sudden leap forward. Most stuck to the old method for a littlie while after. It was only once those storage mediums hit that you saw people making widespread use of them.

No one had demand for what? Storage space? Larger programs? Why do you think larger storage mediums came about? But I guess I can't argue that no one used Blu-rays until they existed.

2. The whole point about the UI i described is to get a list of friendly squads, visible enemy entities, and their abilities and such like onto a GUI interactive interface. Thus you now have something that’s doing what all the most commonly used hotkeys did. Except that’s it's GUI elements means it's far more instinctively intuitive to your average joe as the buttons tell him at a glance what they do. The fact that you could have a copy of your HQ production queue and that selecting enemy squads precisely involve hitting two point of fair size just 6 inches or less apart is just icing on the cake.

Since you mentioned it, the size of individual objects on the UI and their distances from each other also matter greatly when it comes to usability. Imagine trying to scale that down for a smaller touchscreen. How easy would it be to make a precise movement without an additional tool? Just because you CAN display everything at once, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Most concepts of UI design aren't going to go out the window when it comes to touchscreens. I'm not sure what you mean by taking your eyes off the screen, though. What does looking away from the monitor/touchscreen have to do with anything anyone's talking about? I can already move a mouse a matter of less than millimeters for precise movement, why mention things in units of inches?

Also, graphical user interfaces already exist. They've existed since the 80s. Are you confusing that for something else?

3. I'm not sure what your trying to say.

I'm not sure which part of my post you're talking about. What you mention in step three isn't really related to anything I said. I haven't put forth any radical ideas except the barest basics of standard UI design and good practices (keep it clean, neat, focused, etc.), and the last line in my post referred to input devices. Most of my last couple posts have been critiquing your example UI designed for touchscreen use and bringing up things to keep in mind about them and UI design, since it was brought up.

e:

And on tablets, and smartphones, and kiosk displays, and restaurant tabletops, and...

Wait, hold on here. Windows 8 is going to be deployed on phones?

[Mirage Knight]

Wait, hold on here. Windows 8 is going to be deployed on phones?

If I'm not mistaken, that I believe is the plan. Going to be deployed on the generation of Xbox as well.

[GeoffS]

Wait, hold on here. Windows 8 is going to be deployed on phones?

Microsoft wants it to, and phone manufacturers are working on it now or are rumoured to be working on it now. That's the big thing driving the touch interface, getting phones, tablets, and PCs to converge.

[Starblade]

According to the first article that's not quite accurate GeoffS.

UPDATE: It turns out that it has all been a misinterpretation of Ballmer's words. Here is how several reports quoted his statement:

"We've got broad Windows initiatives driving Windows down to the phone with Windows 8."

And here is what he actually said:

"We've got broad Windows initiatives driving Windows down to the phone. With Windows 8, you'll..."

Sorry, folks, but Windows 8 might not be coming to smartphones after all.

I guess they could do a stripped down version of it, but that doesn't seem like it'd be that great of an idea instead of building one specifically for it instead. That super smartphone in the second article is interesting though. It almost sounds like they're trying to make a PC fit into a smartphone form factor instead of making a smartphone. I can see why you'd want an underlying platform, but generalizing it instead of playing to the strengths of each type of device sounds like a bad idea. I wonder how big Windows 8 would be if they stripped all the legacy and backwards compatibility code from it?

[Carl]

@Starblade:

1. The point I’m, making is that prior to double layer DVD's coming along or Blu ray only a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of all the uses for optical storage mediums exceeded the maximum capacity of the prior standard. the vast majority of uses and users of optical storage mediums where not using more than the old standard. Once these mediums came out the number of examples of people using more than the old standard rose dramatically.

3. Regarding your third point, I was referring to your last line.

2.

I'm not sure what you mean by taking your eyes off the screen, though. What does looking away from the monitor/touchscreen have to do with anything anyone's talking about?

Okay this explains everything, probably because of my horrible spelling. Where going down totally different tracks here.

I'm not talking about putting this interface on a touchscreen enabled monitor. That’s stupid. Unless we start seriously shrinking the average screen size back below 20" and start laying tem down star trek console style the ergonomics are all against us. The vertical position isn't comfortable to use, and the size of larger screens makes the GUI elements easily grow too large to be easily used. Hell if we start moving to wall sized screens you'd have to start walking around to reach different area's.

Any touchscreen interface that wants to supersede the humble keyboard has to have the ergonomics of a keyboard. That means roughly keyboard sized and shaped and occupying the same physical location in your house. In short the primary touchscreen interface is going to end up separate to the monitor your using. Such an object, (with supporting software), could be used with your current non-touchscreen monitor if you wanted. I coined the phrase in an earlier post of mine of "Input Board" to describe this item as it's effectively a keyboard, except the size appearance and function of every element can be altered on the fly to suit your requirements.

I also know we've had GUI's for a while, we use them everyday with out mouse pointers (Duh Huh). This whole ting came out of me confusing you with my input board. Your right, if we where putting this on the main monitor, status info would be totally redundant. When where putting it on something separate, being able to interact with that separate object without losing track of yours and the enemies stats is hugely useful, as it means you don’t lose a unit to just not knowing something bad had happened to them.

[Starblade]

Ah, I see. I was referring more to something like a tablet with a screen.

Also wrt to storage mediums (and I'm not just talking about Blu-Ray here, I mean in general), they would start out not filling to capacity, then doing so, then requiring multiple disks, like floppies. Yes, the majority stayed under or hit that limit, but many of them also had to be designed with it in mind or print on to a second disk, and compressed, and over time more would brush up against the limit. Thus the need for higher storage capacity and mediums capable of holding more information.

[Carl]

@starblade: NP. It was probably my bad spelling. I went back and spell checked them btw so if you want to re-read them and see if you missed anything else feel free. Also note to self: No more posting when I can't sleep. I forgot to spell check my last wall of text, (thanks for the heads up Moe).

As I outlined, I just don't see the current style of touchscreen ever taking off as a keyboard replacement, it's too uncomfortable to use and with ever increasing screen sizes it grows ever more impractical. It's funny you should mention tables though as it was seeing those and the new blackberry phones in operation that kicked this though of an "input board" off.

They're both simple and easy to use as touchscreens because they're very comfortable. I realized if you could do the input via something like these, but display it on a normal monitor, (and with an actual tower to hold the guts of the system for better specs like processing power, memory, and HD space), you could have the best of all worlds with a normal PC like monitor display, but the touchscreen elements and ergonomics of a tablet. It's also orders of magnitude better for the manufacturer as it's smaller size reduces material costs and makes proofing it against the kind of long term abuse it will take far easier. That translates for better lasting and cheaper end products for us the end user.

As for storage mediums. I think where sort of in the same ballpark and just miss communicating again. Yes your right we where brushing against the limits and a few where going over it and many where designing to stay under it. I'm not arguing that this didn't happen. I'm arguing that we weren’t desperately in need of it. It was a nice extra that opened up lots of new options, but it wasn't something everyone was screaming for. It as adding it and giving users the ability to exceed the old limits without issues that produced and explosion in the larger than old medium uses.

Remember we where originally discussing TDATL's claim that adding touchscreen support to a desktop OS was useless because no one used it much. I was pointing out that this was because doing so is so awkward on so many levels. By integrating it into the OS it eases the integration for everyone else enormously, and suddenly they can actually start to make active uses of these things on a widespread basis. Much like the hike in storage space suddenly allowed (and thus caused), surge in uses for that medium. So an increase in ease of programming for touchscreen interfaces will create a surge in touchscreen compatible products for desktops. I guess we where looking at this as glass half empty vs glass half full .

[roflmao]

Okay, so here's the reasons I hate Metro so far. It can be summarized in one sentence:

It's entirely designed for tablets.

That's pretty much the root source of all my frustration. All the interface decisions make sense on a tablet, but absolutely none of them make sense on a PC with a mouse. Maybe with keyboard shortcuts the interface might be more usable, but you cannot just pick it up and start using it without experiencing a headache.

First thing is first:
The promise.
The reality.

But oh, we've just begun.

1. The lack of .. windows:
The first thing you'll notice that's ironic about Windows 8 is that it seems to completely abandon the concept of windows. Or at least in its metro interface it does. The Metro applications do not run tightly on your desktop like a standard app do. Oh no, they forcefully take up your entire screen.

Want to play solitaire? Full screen!
Want to view the calendar? Full screen!
Want to view the weather? Full screen!

Makes sense on a tablet. On a computer with a massive resolution, not so much. So this right here probably means I won't ever use metro because switching between tons of full screen apps that are wasting so much space is just a pain.

2. Cornergeddon
OK. This is by far the most enraging thing I've found about Windows 8 so far. All the Metro navigation options require you to drag your mouse to one of the corners of your screen. This wouldn't be that bad if Metro was cooperative. You might be able to flick your wrist, but no, the hitboxes on these corners are about the size of a grape. So you have to absolutely make sure you exactly position your mouse where it needs to be in order to be able to access the menu items you want.

Do you want to close down some apps to save memory? Okay, here's what you got to do.
1. Drag your mouse to the very bottom-edge of your screen. You'll be presented with a totally unintuitive thumbnail
2. Wait 150-200 ms for the side-thingies on the top to appear
3. Carefully drag your mouse up for a magic black bar to appear.
4. Middle-click the thumbnails of the apps you want to close.

Doesn't sound too bad? Well, here's the catch. You have your mouse on the edge, right? Now, if you drag your mouse a single centimeter to the right, the thumbnail closes down.. This has to be by far one of the stupidest UI decisions I've experienced in the last couple of years. I find myself, on average, having to drag my mouse to the bottom-left corner a full 3 to 4 times in order to successfully bring up the magic black bar.

3. The windows-live patrol.
All the metro applications require that you sign in to your windows live account. Pretty much every single one of them. Videos, photos, music.

Yeah, that's right. If you want to add Gmail to the Metro mail client, you have to first sign in to your hotmail account just to be able to add your Gmail account. If you want to link up to your Facebook photos, you got to log in to Windows Live, log into Facebook, approve the windows live app on Facebook, and then you'll see your photos on your machine. Why you have to log into Windows Live to get to Facebook is beyond me.

It's a minor complaint in comparison to the others, because once you get all the sign-ins set up, things run smoothly. But, still annoying.


4. What the heck happened to text rendering?


I'll post more later. I have about another 6 big complaints.

[Moe]

In all fairness, this isn't a final product. I'm hoping that these things will be fixed. You'll recall that when Vista was in this design phase, the whole user account control thing was both more intrusive and not optional, meaning that it would pop up after pretty much every mouse click. They did fix that and add an option to turn it off before it shipped.

[Mirage Knight]

First thing is first:
The promise.
The reality.

You can easily unpin tiles or icons you don't want to have there. You can even unpin whole groups of tiles and icons. Right-click the offenders so that they have check marks in the upper right corner and select unpin in that bottom overlay that pops up. Done. Your Start screen can be as cluttered or as minimalist as you want it, much like your desktop or even the old Start menu. Hope that helps.

The first thing you'll notice that's ironic about Windows 8 is that it seems to completely abandon the concept of windows. Or at least in its metro interface it does. The Metro applications do not run tightly on your desktop like a standard app do. Oh no, they forcefully take up your entire screen.

By default, Metro apps are full screen. However Metro apps can be snapped to either side, meaning for example you can have the Weather app running alongside your desktop environment and other Metro apps. Also, if MS was truly abandoning the concept of windows and all, they'd probably have chucked out the traditional desktop and the ability to run traditional apps in overlapping, sized-on-the-fly windows as well.

Doesn't sound too bad? Well, here's the catch. You have your mouse on the edge, right? Now, if you drag your mouse a single centimeter to the right, the thumbnail closes down.. This has to be by far one of the stupidest UI decisions I've experienced in the last couple of years. I find myself, on average, having to drag my mouse to the bottom-left corner a full 3 to 4 times in order to successfully bring up the magic black bar.

Yeah, I'll agree that is a bit annoying but then again, I keep in mind that this is a Beta release and understand that bugs and niggly things WILL crop up - things that more than likely will be addressed / fixed either in updates to the CP or in the Release Candidate. There's a reason that MS put up the warnings and disclaimers that they did on the DL page and why you have the option to send MS feedback.

Drag your mouse to the very bottom-edge of your screen. You'll be presented with a totally unintuitive thumbnail

Unfortunately not all things in an OS are necessarily intuitive to us. In some cases, what one person thinks is perfectly natural can be completely alien to someone else. That's why manuals and product guides exist...to help users find their way around in new software. You also have the option to make your voice heard and send feedback.

Between the Developer Preview and the Consumer Preview there were something like 100,000 code changes made, more than likely with a decent portion of that based on feedback from folks that dl'ed the DP. The All Applications screen for instance is far neater and better organized now than it was in the DP.

[Croaxleigh]

Do you want to close down some apps to save memory? Okay, here's what you got to do.
1. Drag your mouse to the very bottom-edge of your screen. You'll be presented with a totally unintuitive thumbnail
2. Wait 150-200 ms for the side-thingies on the top to appear
3. Carefully drag your mouse up for a magic black bar to appear.
4. Middle-click the thumbnails of the apps you want to close.

Doesn't sound too bad? Well, here's the catch. You have your mouse on the edge, right? Now, if you drag your mouse a single centimeter to the right, the thumbnail closes down.. This has to be by far one of the stupidest UI decisions I've experienced in the last couple of years. I find myself, on average, having to drag my mouse to the bottom-left corner a full 3 to 4 times in order to successfully bring up the magic black bar.

You can skip two of those steps by just going to the upper-left corner instead of the lower one. There are a lot of people hoping that this particular feature will be overhauled to be more intuitive/easier to understand/not quite so ridiculous before the final release because there have been a LOT of complaints about the use of unlabeled minuscule reactive areas on the UI.

[Starfisher]

The text rendering looks like a bug they had in WPF, I think in 3.5.1 or 4.0. Basically, they're trying to render to a device independent pixel map, which means that depending on your layout, you might have a character between actual device pixels. The result was blurry or bizarrely uncrisp text a lot like that.

As long as I can ignore Metro, I'll be happy. Everything I've read indicates that it is NOT designed for desktop usage. We were evaluating Win8 as a risk to the project I'm working on now, since we're developing with XP/Win7 in mind, and while it's been a while the general conclusion was that since you can ignore the Metro part of the UI design stack we're ok.

[Nanaki]

I haven't used Metro yet, but I would think the Start Screen will need a little extra oopmh to not be a pain. Having said that, I like the direction MS is taking with this in many ways, as in it's forward thinking and bold. It might turn out to be a dud play, but for a company not really known for making bold moves any more I think it's a nice change. The sooner people start seriously thinking about touchscreen desktops the quicker they'll get better.

I might be different in this, but I really do not like Microsoft trying new crap just for the sake of trying new crap. An Operating system is supposed to be your interface to your computer, nothing more, nothing less. I can see improvements to make that interface more reliable, use up less resouces, have more features, and increase the capabilities to keep up with the evolving hardware while at the same time remaining as much backward compatable as possible.

It just really feels like that, in the case of Windows 8, they are basically throwing out all normal interface functionality on a bet that touchscreens are the future of everything. That is a pretty lousy bet to make considering that I dont even know of anyone who even cares about touchscreen desktops, and even touchscreen laptops are a bit iffy (from what I read, the tablet laptop market crashed because nobody wanted to buy them).

That basically means that Microsoft is throwing out functionality for mouse and keyboard desktops and laptops, their -core- market, on the off chance that they could penetrate into the tablet and phone markets and that desktop and laptop touchscreens end up becoming a fad. Its one thing if Microsoft is making a 'Windows 8 Tablet Edition' and kept the tried and true layout that has served Microsoft well since Windows 95 for the PC market. Or hell, at least give people the option to swap back to the old interface without having to install third party programs or hacks to do it.

Finally, I feel that this picture pretty much sums up everything:

[Fat_Bloke]

Reading through the posts so far in this thread there seems to be a pattern developing. Most people seem to agree that what you can do with Win 8 could be done with a conventional desktop arrangement. The problem is that if Win 8 is launched as it is at the moment, these thing will not be something that you can do but something that you have to do unless you fiddle with the interface. Older versions of the OS have been focused on user choice and customisation, Win 8 seems to curtail these freedoms and attempt to homogenise the user experience across multiple platforms. Taking a possible outcome from a large range and enforcing conformity to it is always going to be a bad step for an enformed consumer/user. Unless Win 8 runs significantly smoother than Win 7 then, for me at least, it will be another Vista, worse really as Vista at least allowed me to do what I could with older versions.

[Starblade]

Finally, I feel that this picture pretty much sums up everything:

I told Mirage not to do trollface reddit crap, that meant everyone. Besides everyone already knows that Windows follows the Star Trek rule of every other OS being good.

[Mirage Knight]

Unless Win 8 runs significantly smoother than Win 7

I can't speak for everyone out there running the CP, but the following has been my experience: It does feel snappier and more responsive than 7, Base memory and CPU usage is a bit lower, and I'm yet to run into a crash, lockup, or BSOD.

Besides everyone already knows that Windows follows the Star Trek rule of every other OS being good.

Yet Win 95 was, at the least, pretty decent for what it was - a move from command-line DOS to an OS with a fairly well-polished GUI controlled via mouse+kb where it was intended that you'd run almost all of your apps...even to a certain extent DOS ones. Despite being dismissed by critical circles as a passing fad and a glitch-ridden gimmick, it was a major success in the marketplace and had a profound influence that can still be felt to this day that cannot be argued. In contrast to its predecessor, it was a true OS (as opposed to a shell overlay for DOS) and introduced many new technologies and features we take for granted these days: Plug and Play, preemptive multitasking, 32-bit File Access and thus support for 255-character mixed-case long file names, service packs...and of course the concept of the Start menu and the Task Bar. In short, it was a quantum leap forward in terms of technological capability, stability, and user control-ability compared to 3.x.

And I'm pretty sure that, critics not-withstanding and if MS has anything to say about it, Windows 8 will do fairly well in the marketplace when it ships and more than likely will have a fairly profound influence on PC computing as well.

[Gorb]

Fat_Bloke: I would say the opposite. I would say people are going OMG CHANGE for the sake of complaining about something which could lead to a decent change in how user interfaces are designed. As far as I am aware, some of the newer Linux distros (under Gnome, I think? I don't hear many good things about KDE) have been overhauling their UI design in a very similar manner?

Older versions of Microsoft OSs have not advanced the "windows" interface design that has been present since (before) 3.1. What part of "user choice and customisation" was "not being able to reorder applications on your taskbar until Windows 7" (without using something like RocketDock, but hey if we're bringing external applications into this they're still going to be around in Windows 8)? What part of "user choice and customisation" was the ability to not extend and modify your taskbar over multiple desktop monitors?

I swear, I have never seen so much defense of older versions of Windows in my life. Does the human mind really rail against change that much? Are we that quick to get set in our ways?

[Starblade]

You must have missed the Vista launch. This is nothing.

2012 year of the Linux touchscreen on the desktop.

[roflmao]

Okay, so yes, to be fair, this is just a preview and Microsoft might fix a lot of the UI problems. But, what makes me doubtful, is the fact that all the design decisions make sense on a tablet. The fullscreen-only apps isn't an tablet issue. The corner clicking isn't a tablet issue. The side scrolling isn't a tablet issue.

So, given the fact that Windows 8 is so oriented towards tablet, they don't seem to be giving traditional PCs much of their focus. They might add in better UI support for PCs for the release version, but atm there's no promises. We'll have to wait and see.

I really shouldn't care that much anyways because I don't use Windows :P.

One more complaint:
5. Internet Explorer weirdness.
Now, I don't use IE, so this won't be so much of an issue for me, but it's still worth mentioning because the design decisions regarding Metro and IE10 are a bit on the bizarre side. Apparently, Windows8 actually ships with two different browsers with different interfaces. The Metro IE is nothing like the standard desktop IE.

So, in traditional Metro fashion, the Metro IE is forced fullscreen and generally relies on hidden shortcuts to work. The desktop IE is, well, normal IE. But their interface is actually different. Why they have two different interfaces for browsers seems strange. I don't think people are going to want to have to learn two different systems.

But the double interface just made me raise my eyebrow. The bigger problem is that if you unpin Internet Explorer from the taskbar in desktop mode, you've lost it. Since Metro replaces the standard Start menu, and since the only IE Metro link launches the full-screen version, once you unpin IE from the taskbar it's just .... gone. The only way to regain access to IE in desktop/window mode after you've done the unpinning is to actually navigate into Program Files and repin the actual EXE, or, of course, create a shortcut. I can do this because I'm a techie, but any non-techie is going to get pretty confused.

[Gorb]

You must have missed the Vista launch. This is nothing.

2012 year of the Linux touchscreen on the desktop.

Oh true, I think I just didn't get involved in Vista threads. I used Vista for four years with absolutely no issues (beyond those of my own introduction), before switching to 7 last academic term.

(7 so much better. I do have a loathing of WinXP now though, not entirely sure why. I think it's because the Control Panel options are all different/not consolidated and I'd gotten too used to Vista. Ironic, eh?)

[Mirage Knight]

@rolmao: The metro version of IE doesn't support plugins and such. The desktop version however does.

[Nanaki]

Fat_Bloke: I would say the opposite. I would say people are going OMG CHANGE for the sake of complaining about something which could lead to a decent change in how user interfaces are designed. As far as I am aware, some of the newer Linux distros (under Gnome, I think? I don't hear many good things about KDE) have been overhauling their UI design in a very similar manner?

Older versions of Microsoft OSs have not advanced the "windows" interface design that has been present since (before) 3.1. What part of "user choice and customisation" was "not being able to reorder applications on your taskbar until Windows 7" (without using something like RocketDock, but hey if we're bringing external applications into this they're still going to be around in Windows 8)? What part of "user choice and customisation" was the ability to not extend and modify your taskbar over multiple desktop monitors?

I swear, I have never seen so much defense of older versions of Windows in my life. Does the human mind really rail against change that much? Are we that quick to get set in our ways?

How many desktop users are going to have touchscreen monitors and/or multiple monitors? My biggest complaint with Windows 8 is that the changes being done are changes that negatively impact the end user experiance on your average desktop/laptop, and are largely focused towards markets that Microsoft has absolutly zero market presence in (Phones and Tablets) or niche markets (multiple monitor users). It makes no sense whatsoever.

The only way I see Microsoft's moves making sense is if they never intended Windows 8 to be a desktop/laptop OS, and fully expected those users to be sticking with Windows 7.

[Mirage Knight]

It makes no sense whatsoever.

It does if they're trying to maintain the dominance they have in desktops and expand and strengthen the rather weak presence they have in certain markets - namely phones and tablets. Whether or not MS can succeed is dependent not just on what the latest iteration of their OS can and cannot do, but also the devices that the OS will run on and the marketing force behind these things...and also to a certain extent what Apple does next.

What you seem to be suggesting is that MS should just forget about making life easier for those that have multiple-display setups for instance (which includes graphic designers, architects, engineers, and gamers to name a few) and just let Apple and Google dominate the tablet and phone markets. No thanks, I'd like to see more choices out there than just iOS and Android devices and I'm sure other people would agree.

What's wrong with supporting niche markets with specific features in your product anyway? If those added features makes consumers in those markets happy, it makes them buy your product and future versions of it and establishes and / or maintains your reputation as a company that pays attention to the wants and needs of its customers. Win-win situation.

[roflmao]

Absolutely nothing wrong with supporting niche markets. I'm all for that.

The problem is that Metro is a replacement for the standard Start menu. All this hullabaloo could be avoided by simply making metro usage optional and keeping support for the traditional start menu for those who want it that way.

[Paladin]

Honestly, I think MS is probably correct in their apparent assumption that the traditional PC with one big monitor is going to be a thing of the past for the mainstream soon. With most of the video cards on the market supporting multiple monitors out of the box, LCD monitors being cheap as dirt now, and the growing prevalence of USB touchscreens, the family PC is probably going to look a lot different in the future.

[Mirage Knight]

What's interesting is that there are concepts of laptops, notebooks and netbooks that use dual touch-displays in place of the familiar monitor and kb+touch-pad arrangement, with the bottom display acting as a reconfigurable touch-keyboard.