Windows 8 Metro interface Blues
Summary: The new version of Windows 8 — Blue — seems to be well under way, but it appears to be coming with the same old dreadful Metro interface.
I've got a bad case of the Windows 8 Metro interface Blues. It looks like Microsoft will be releasing Windows Blue midyear, but the interface is going to be the same old Metro mess that's been giving its users the blues since day one.
(Image: WinBeta)
What gives, Microsoft? Windows 8's acceptance on the desktop has fallen even behind Vista's lousy numbers. The biggest single reason for this is the Metro interface. Sure, Metro may be OK on a smartphone or tablet — although you sure couldn't tell it by the ice-cold reception that Windows 8 Phone and RT have found in the market — but it's awful on the desktop.
Call me crazy, but really Microsoft, would it kill you to add a Start button and make the Windows 8 desktop the default interface instead of Metro? It's not that hard. Heck, as David Gewirtz pointed out, it doesn't take that much to make Windows 8 look normal.
Even then, however, you can't really avoid the Metro morass. Take Matt Baxter-Reynolds' dad, who — after double-clicking on a photo in his desktop mail app — ended up dumped in the Metro-style photo viewer: Just an image in the middle of a full-screen gray window with no trace of the decades old windows, icon, menu, and pointer (WIMP) interface metaphor for a guide.
But is Microsoft fixing its busted interface? Nope.
Instead, if the leaked Blue release is the real thing, it looks like all we'll really be getting are resizable tiles and a snap view, which will enable two or more tiled apps to be on the display at the same time. Wow, resizable and multiple windows on the screen at once. What a great idea! Gosh, we haven't seen that since, oh, Windows 7.
If Microsoft really wants to save Windows 8 with Blue (or, as I'm starting to think of it, Windows 8 Second Edition ala Windows 98 Second Edition), they're going to need to do more than update its core apps and put some WIMP-style lipstick on the Metro pig. The fix Windows 8 really needs is to dump Metro and give Windows 8 an Aero-style interface , but Microsoft seems unwilling to change its course. Oh well, if it wants people to explore Google Chromebooks and stick with Windows 7, so be it.
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Talkback
why do you care...
amazing he gets paid to write this
Microsoft's (Employee?) Troll(s) Spew(s) Vile at a Truthful Review
XP: Activation-crippled bug fix of 2K that broke, via dev tools, 2K-compatible compiler builds
Vista: Activation-crippled, security-feigning, HW-upgrade-forcing crap that never sold
7: Activation-crippled, bloated bug fix of Vista that gave businesses NOTHING they wanted over XP, except "SW Assurance" cost headaches.
8: Ugly, raped-interface OS and Office suite devised to drive online app revenue and "SW as a Service" adoption.
No one wants this crap, but that's the poison you get from a monopoly. Businesses and the general public are too timid to gang up and tell M$ to shove this garbage, so, the lack of sales (no matter how much M$ inflates the numbers) will have to do.
Oh my, standard tripe
Yes, he is paid for this, and to be honest, seeing him be constantly wrong is quite entertaining, but one tires of the foolish fans accusing anyone that disagrees with him of being on Microsoft's payroll.
First, MS is not smart enough to pull off a campaign like that, and second, and most importantly,
Steven is not that important!
Decision makers do not follow Steven, he is here for entertainment only.
I guess Steven is right on schedule as well. He had a couple decent articles with real news, or at least something to write about, but he is not getting the hits, so time for flames to get posts, so he goes after Windows.
Psychologists will tell you that some people thrive on negative attention so they do stupid things to get it. You might want to refer to the author and see if he fits the description (hint, he is a prime candidate!)
Actually, Windows 7 is not *that* terrible.
There's still "Product Activation", onerous licensing terms, network/file copying issues, and what-not. There's also the onerous, stupefyingly user-hostile licensing terms -- but people seem to accept that as a "necessary evil" (they're wrong, but as long as they don't see the alternatives as credible (Apple is "too expensive", and Linux is "too hard" or "too fringe") they're going to be easy prey for the techno-magical flim-flam of Microsoft's marketing.
As long as they have a decently powerful machine, maintaining and using Windows 7 is not going to be too onerous (also, confirmed "gamers" are still wearing Microsoft's bridle, but those with an "entry-level", consumer PC or "netbook" class system, are going to be amenable to trying Linux -- if only from sheer exasperation; they're quite surprised at the improved performance on their "clunky", "old" hardware).
But I still far prefer Linux (even Ubuntu) to any version of Windows. Once you get used to the difference, it's hard to go back.
Windows 7 is not bloated in the slightest
If they would only go back 2 or 3 years with their drivers, they could very well shave 1/3rd of the size of Windows 7 and 8.
Unfortunately, the device makers HOWL at the top of their lungs when that is considered, so it is never done.
Simply wrong (and wrong again, and again)
2) a Linux install needs less disk space than Windows does
3) a Linux system can run well in less RAM than a Windows system can even cope with.
wrong?
I agree
Your name wouldn't be
Great ability you have there. Talking through your rear end like you do. You should be on tv with a talent like that.
if you are good at something
Good advice!
SJVN is still here because ZDNet wants to pretend to be OS agnostic.
And because he put in a solid decade (more?) of yeoman work debunking MS "TCO studies" and "White Papers", "Get The Facts" propaganda, and similar garbage around the rise of Linux in the server arena, the netbook era, and the like. And some purely Windows stuff (not complimentary to Microsoft, though). He had this nasty habit of being right -- but the ad revenue is still largely Windows-centric.
Now, most of the (informed) people who appreciated his stuff have moved on -- as has Linux, itself; there are better places to keep up with Linux news and FOSS topics. But he still here, dropping off a light, easy Linux piece now and then -- just to make sure the Windows nerds don't forget that there *are* other operating systems (anybody wh's actually interested will eventually gravitate elsewhere)..
Re: you can't stand Microsoft products
SJVN has made a living....
Why has he never wrote about the successes of Windows and the great technologies that MSFT ahs produced and keeps business customers coming back over and over for decades now? Where has his Windows 7 pieces been? Does he only come out when MSFT needs to be chastised and he feels he is right for the job? Too funny.
SJVN deserves no credit for what amounts a career of MSFT bashing. He like others here is a blogger, not a writer. to be a writer involves integrity, emotional maturity and objective writing, none of which SVJN qualifies.
Re: SJVN has made a living.... from bashing Windows.
You're confusing tech-journalism with political punditry.
This is about the technology, and the business, not about which side you're on.
And SJVN has not made his career out of "bashing" Microsoft and Windows -- he's made his career out of pointing out the unfortunate facts about Microsoft and Windows that the majority of the tech press has habitually and assiduously glossed over, in pursuit of advertising revenues.
Back when there was still a vigorous market for smaller, regional and local IT/Computer magazines that catered to local computer businesses, rather than to huge, national corporations, those local journals also were also far more critical of MS/Windows, and more positive and informed about alternatives such as BeOS, OS2 and Linux, than the big, national publishers have been. And that should give you pause to think...
Baby can you realize
speaking of people
SJVN is right
If you want to jump into Metro - cage, go on.
Now he's talking about Windows 8 and the modern UI