Windows 8

[petey]

My problem with that video is that it doesn't move/shuffle the images and make him pick the same image in a different place..

That is to say he picks "tomatoes" then she changes the page - starts asking for completely different things, was screaming out for her to ask for tomatoes again.

I mean thats impressive, but show me something that removes doubt that he is indeed relating images to words.

#OT Small rant

[w00dsy]

i decided to take the plunge and install the final version as my main OS. Despite hating metro when i first tried it i quite like it now, almost embarrassingly more than i thought, because i fucking hated it as a desktop interface. But it seems to have improved since i last used it, also i understand it more. There's some really cool apps and it's actually quite fast to switch between everything once you give it a go. Not sure if i'll like it in a week but so far it's kinda cool. I feel really sorry for people who aren't overly pc savvy though, i think it'll confuse a lot of people for a while.

[DexterPunk]

Yeah I don't mind it that much anymore. When I first played around with it I felt very annoyed... It felt like change for the sake of it rather than an improvement. But after getting a little more used to it, I don't mind it. I love how you can start typing right in the metro screen and search for basically anything.


Sent from Han Solo using TK-421's phone.

[r8response]

I'm liking it.

Alot of the hate directed towards windows 8 is because of the removal of the start menu. Yet the start menu was filled with mostly shit that no one ever used. I'm not missing it.

[Shonky]

Hey guys, how customisable is the metro interface? Can you set up tiles to link to whatever you like, all this Win 8 talk lately has me thinking?

I know these days all I use is some shortcuts on the desktop, and my most used programs pinned to the taskbar, the start menu never gets used unless I want to search for something.

[Speed]

I ordered a couple of new PCs this morning after being a bit underwhelmed by the new iMac specs & design.
I wanted at least two separate HDs & I don't think with the new, stupid thin edge design that they can fit.
That & with the problem Norbs has had, I changed my mind after waiting 9 months for the iMac release....probably a bonus anyway if Windows 8 is any good.
My new PC will have 3 x SSDs & 1 standard 2TB HD. Apparently that is the best way to run Photoshop & Lightroom optimally.
One SSD for the OS, one for the application & one as a scratch disk....it's not unusual for me to have to sort through 30 to 40,000 images in LR or work on a 2 GB file in PS.

I hope I can get used to the Windows 8 design easy enough.....I've not had a look at it at all & I use the start button menu heaps at the moment.
I hate having a bunch of icons on my desktop hiding my wallpaper.

[r8response]

Hey guys, how customisable is the metro interface? Can you set up tiles to link to whatever you like, all this Win 8 talk lately has me thinking?

I know these days all I use is some shortcuts on the desktop, and my most used programs pinned to the taskbar, the start menu never gets used unless I want to search for something.

Think of the metro interface as your start menu. Whatever programs you use the most. Find them in Explorer, right click and "Pin to Start". Easy as that.

I hate having a bunch of icons on my desktop hiding my wallpaper.

You can't change the metro (modern) UI wallpaper natively You need some sort of reg hack

[Shonky]

Thanks for the reply r8.

[Speed]

Thanks for the tips.

[Shaun]

I am very tempted to give it a shot after reading this thread, i will wait a week or so and see how everyone goes

[nutty]

Yep you can chop and change it as you like
Example from reddit

[r8response]

Mine as it is right now.

[w00dsy]

i have a minor gripe, if i am running Chrome from the Metro launcher, it's different to if i run it from the desktop launcher. I even had to sign in separately to get all my bookmarks etc from each. It's like 2 totally different installations. Sometimes i'll flick between Chrome(metro mode) and Windows Explorer and it's natural to just click the launcher from the task bar and it messes things up a bit. Not a major fault just something that is slightly annoying.

[r8response]

That should change when Google make a modern ui version of Chrome.

[Shonky]

Hmmm......Office 2003 is not compatible with Win8, and if you force install it it breaks Windows update for the OS as best I can tell, not just Office 2003, I know it's old but it still works for what I need it to do.

Is there an open source office alternative that is compatible with Windows 8 because I'm not about to buy a new version of Office to facilitate a move to Win8?

[Shonky]

Ok, Open Office will do the job for Office 2k3 and is compatible with Win8 so that answers that.

[Shonky]

Well I decided to take the plunge a couple days ago, I figured $40 for the upgrade is an amount I can deal with losing if I can't stand it.

Initial impressions are not great, it feels like I now have an OS with two interfaces, neither of which is complete, maybe over time things will improve as more apps get the Metro treatment, but as it stands Metro just feels like one of those novelty shell front ends that you get sick of after a while because every time you run an app you get chucked back to the old desktop to run it.

I guess M$ had no choice but to do this because they couldn't figure out a way to run legacy apps within the metro interface, this to me will be the largest hindrance to the take up of Win 8 just because it destroys the continuity of the Metro interface, people have invested in applications over the years, and if they are run in the old desktop environment all the time, then what is the point of metro in the first place.

Rant #1. Why the fuck can't I change the "snap" size? Talk about a backwards step for multi-tasking, this one thing is driving me insane. I watch 99% of my TV on my PC these days, typically this is done while browsing websites, with the browser using about 2/3rds of the screen width, and a media player using the remaining 1/3rd, in Metro I'm stuck with a 320px wide snap size which leaves me with a tiny little video window and the rest taken up by the browser. This alone could tear it for me.

Anyway, I'll give it a week or two and keep playing to see if my impression improves.

[w00dsy]

I've pretty much ditched Metro and tend to just run it in desktop mode. And I'm really struggling to find something about it that is better than Win7. It runs fine and nothing has crashed I just don't really see any need for running it instead of 7. I'm tipping even MS worried that Win7 was that good that trying to make it better would be hard, and so they decided to make it different. It would probably be like Apple making iOS a shell over OSX.

[petey]

I won't be ugrading until there is a good enough reason, a reasonable form of improvement.
Win7 has never bluescreened/crashed or done anything silly for as long as I've used it so why upgrade.

[DexterPunk]

As far as I can work out, you can't buy a full version. At least the Microsoft rep didn't think you could without buying a developers version for hundreds of dollars (which isn't available in Australia). How do you install windows 8 on a freshly built PC?


Sent from Han Solo using TK-421's phone.

[Shonky]

You can now buy the OEM version of Windows 8 for personal use from what I've been reading, check out the link below, M$ has extended the OEM license to cover those that build their own systems.

http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensi ... As9aRJ_HXr" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[nutty]

but as it stands Metro just feels like one of those novelty shell front ends that you get sick of after a while because every time you run an app you get chucked back to the old desktop to run it.

I guess M$ had no choice but to do this because they couldn't figure out a way to run legacy apps within the metro interface, this to me will be the largest hindrance to the take up of Win 8 just because it destroys the continuity of the Metro interface, people have invested in applications over the years, and if they are run in the old desktop environment all the time, then what is the point of metro in the first place.

This at the core is the problem, I have been dealing with Microsoft on a enterprise level for the last few weeks about implementation of windows 8 into a enterprise environment and this is by far the one thing that I have walked away feeling the whole way though, and im sure they know this as well.

I can image exactly how this went down
Product Team: Ok developers, we have two main goals out of windows 8, first we are missing out in the tablet market. The next biggest thing is we want to start selling applications directly into the operating system and making some money off consumers.
Developers: Well, sure thing but this means we are going to have massive application compatibility issues with all applications that dont support the new interface
Product Team: Hmm we just went through all of this to move enterprises from XP > Vista/7.. can we keep some sorta desktop that users can access if they really want
Developers: I guess
That being said, the underlying technologies in windows 8/server 12 are FANTASTIC but the interface is just full of compromises.

[DexterPunk]

That's good. Funny the rep seems to know stuff all.


Sent from Han Solo using TK-421's phone.

[durbster]

Just got a new work PC with Win8 on it so have had a quick play. Thankfully I read up on the quirks first, particularly r8s point about considering the Metro (or Notro or whatever it's called) bit as a big start menu so that helps a lot.

The Metro version of IE doesn't seem to work too well. I downloaded Chrome (:hehe:) but after the file had downloaded, the Open Save and Cancel buttons in IE don't seem to work at all so I had to close it. I installed it on the desktop and it seems to work in both sides anyway, so not sure what's going on there.

As an interface I think the tile thing is brilliant and really shows some real thought towards useability. Using the corners for example, is brilliant - everyone can hit the corners. The big buttons of Windows Phone are a far better solution than the icons of iOS and Android too.

Obviously the main thing is to start Windows on the path to be a truly multi-platform OS; Apple seem to be doing the same but much more gradually. I do think another element to this may be to make OSX look like an outdated OS. Even my Apple loving work colleague said Win8 looks great. I'm not sure whether MS are that worried about OSX so I might be wrong, but I've seen murmurs about iOS6 starting to feel old fashioned after Android moved their design forward with ICS.

[Shonky]

I regretfully have to say I gave Windows 8 as long as I could put up with, but I have wiped my pc and gone back to Win7, in the end it's just too screwed up for my head to live with. I see the potential of the metro interface but I can't deal with it's shortcomings while everyone plays catchup. I did like the idea of using metro just like a big launcher, but to me it just complicated things and interfered with daily tasks rather than improving usability.

I found 99% of the time I spent on the desktop using old apps, and for the most part the store is full of crap apps with very few gems. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get past the desktop being it's own app, and that all other legacy programs ran within it, the lack of task switching within the desktop seemed absurd to me.

Maybe I didn't give it long enough to learn all the new ways of doing things, maybe part of the problem is I'm getting old and I didn't want to learn the new ways as well, but when I am using Win7 I don't want for anything, it is to me the pinnacle of the Windows ecosystem in usability and reliability, when I sit down to a PC running Win7 I just get shit done, Windows 8 destroyed that ability for me. Till I see some vast improvements in the way Win8 operates I won't be using it as my main OS for a long time to come.