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[WIN8] Windows 8, Nokia gettin up in this shiz
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But same OS doesnt require the same interace.
In usage, that's almost exactly how it works (minus the windowed Metro-style apps), but would give visual cues linking the two interfaces.
You really don't see an advantage to having a single OS across device platforms?
It's a tablet OS, or more accurately, for Intel systems it's Win7 with a touch interface. Which leads to the question of whether or not MS should release separate OSs for tablet/phone versus desktops, and notwithstanding the (I figured) obvious advantages of a unified OS ecosystem across devices, I think MS learned their lesson with Windows CE/Mobile.
Anyways, I'd be really surprised if MS did not implement a workaround to launch a more traditional Start menu interface before it goes gold. Though I suppose there's always something like Start8 if they don't.
Edit: Personally I'm most interested in what are likely to be niche devices: a tablet with Bluetooth keyboard and mouse support with ultra book hardware that runs legacy Windows apps, and a handheld gaming machine for PC games.
I can see the advantage of having all of their products running branches of the same OS, and I get that they want to have a unifying user experience across multiple platforms, but that doesnt always translate into a better user experience. Personally, I dont think Metro translates well to mouse and keyboard world, and I dont think it was an improvement over the previous xbox interface (NXE?) but I think its an excellent tablet/phone interface.
And why does Metro launch app versions of full programs? If Im launching IE from Metro, why is it not the same IE I launch from the desktop? Why do I have app versions of full programs on my computer at all?
Also, get off my lawn.
The way a friend of mine explained it was that businesses are shifting towards Linux environments. Especially startup businesses. Obviously business software is the Microsoft bread and butter, so they need to somehow ensure that they can survive the continued shift of businesses towards Linux. Enter Windows 8, focussed on the tablet market which is experiencing massive growth.
Now I don't know if this information is accurate or not, but it does make sense!
aaahahahahahahahaha.
No seriously.
Linux has great penetration in server environments, but almost NOBODY uses Linux as their front facing end user OS - that is still Microsoft's absolute domain. Sure, people run old copies of Windows, but it is a deep cycle in the business world. People who bought XP SP2 are just now looking to do a big rollout of 7 across their company.
What your friend is witnessing is either an amazingly small sample size of the people he/she personally knows, or wishful thinking. It is not representative of the industry at large.
The closest to accurate thing you can draw from that is there is a growing number of businessfolks who are incorporating iPads into their workflow... but even that is a drop in the bucked compared to the "pallet of dell computers" that get ordered thousands of times every day.
Yeah. No business I've heard of gives it's users a Linux front-end. Sometimes I wouldn't mind it, though.
Yeah, for typical business use (servers aside), things are still completely dominated by Windows. Considering most businesses (locally, at least) are just now upgrading to Windows 7 from XP, I'm pretty sure Windows 8 won't really change much. If Windows 8 flops for enterprise, Microsoft will release a subsequent version that fixes it, and companies will just skip over 8 and go straight to 9... by the time 10 is coming out...
Academia is a different story, though, from what I've seen. Windows is still the norm, but, a few departments at my old university did have Linux computers exclusively in all their computer labs. A lot of the workstation-ish number crunching type tasks seemed to run almost exclusively on Linux machines.
Academics that have interest in computers also generally have people who can develop software for Linux, and can not only recognize but take advantage of distros that can be custom installed with in-house developed drivers and ensured stability. Windows is not as easily (or cost-effectively) gotten to this state, especially for some of those extremely taxing programs.
Businesses stick with their 10-15 year-old software that got made in the heyday of the dotcom haze, complete with jagged clickable buttons and shitty, grainy pictures taken on digital cameras that used 1.44mb flobby disks as memory cards... because Windows will run it. Never underestimate the power of dragging the dead corpse of bloated, god-awful in-house corporate software through the decades.
Oh, also, Microsoft Office. Despite open source and Google efforts, Office is still the best.
Oh, I know all too well how industry drags its feet with software. I'm a geologist (of the evil oil and gas variety), and basically all the software available to me is positively ancient. It's regularly updated with new content, but it really is just 15-20 years of crap piled onto the same old framework. The interfaces are old, convoluted, inefficient, and still manage to respond slowly on quad core equipped modern desktops with more 6 times as much RAM as the hard drives this same software used to run on. It's entirely because the baby-boomers in management are afraid of change and don't want to have to learn anything new. Instead, everyone is stuck using the same clumsy, inefficient workflows that they used when computers had 200mb hard drives and they just printed everything and did their work by hand...
Yeah, Office is still the best. I've used Openoffice, Libreoffice, iWork, and every version of Office since I was using Windows 3.1. Each of the alternatives do a few things better than Office, but nothing can match Office as a complete package. Pages and Keynote in iWork are superb, for instance, but Numbers is basically a toy compared to Excel.
MechWarrior Online: Khyber Pryde
There's a few things I don't like, for starters the very obvious disconnect between Metro and 'legacy' but that's kind of expected I guess. The legacy desktop interface is obviously there for desktop PCs but really, if you look at laptops & tablets as being more similar than laptops & desktops you can kind of see where Microsoft is going with this.
The reason there's no single click shutdown (it only takes 4 clicks to shutdown by the way, which is what...1 more than win 7?) is because on a laptop you just shut the lid and it goes to sleep. On a tablet you hit the power button and it goes to sleep. It's only really Desktop PC's tthat people turn off anymore... the way people use laptops and tablets doesn't require an easy to access shutdown command, so Microsoft has deprecated it.
I'd be very surprised if Microsoft was really going to leave the start menu off the desktop interface... I suspect they left it out of the CTP so people woiuld be forced to use (and try out) the Metro interface. Again, I can see the sense behind that, if they'd left the start menu in how many people would have even given the Metro interface a try?
Anyway, that's just my initial thoughts but in general I really like where Microsoft is taking windows. And, at the end of the day, they had to do something to try and move into the Large screen mobile space. This initial foray might have some rough edges, but it's a pretty good start.
Tall-Paul MIPsDroid
Tall-Paul MIPsDroid
The start button IS gone. According to Ars (relayed from people within Microsoft), Windows 8 will have a first-time-run tutorial that explains Metro and the classic desktop sans start button.
Stack Exchange | http://www.mpdevblog.blogspot.com
Of course, the Pell won't clear till around May 20th.
I don't know who told you that, but they're wrong. There's no observable difference in component lifespan from either leaving it on forever or shutting down. It's not even like you can argue about switch-on surges, because that's what power_ok is for.
People turn them off because they don't like paying for electricity for something they're not using.
My computer uses something along the line of 10 watts when in standby. That comes out to about fifty cents on the bill for the month.
Small price to pay for instant booting!
But the environment!!
Yeah, fuck that. I changed all my globes to flourescent, I favour solar hot water, gas cooking and heating, and I buy low water usage appliances.
Imma leave my shit on standby, thank you very much.
"If you don't know who Kendra is, I'm officially not speaking to you."
Upon using it, I immediately deleted it. Yes, I know that it still has the "desktop" interface, but Metro doesn't work for me on a desktop computer. Taking a mobile OS, and putting it onto your computer.
Really, it's like mixing a toaster and a fridge.
Heres the source.
If they're making an add-in anyway, it would make a lot of sense to make it a WHS2011 add-in at this point. It'd be nice if I could set up a box that backs up all my PCs and does all my TV recording too.
Upon trying it, I realize why: my computer makes exactly the same amount of noise when sitting idle as it does in sleep mode. So, no reason not to shut it down each night.
Then again, I do enjoy my $15 electric bill.
I still wonder - why force a touchscreen interface on a desktop? Its not even intuitive. It doesn't improve my workflow (yes I know about the new shortcusts). I mean you still have to switch to the Windows Desktop anyway which is required for most programs - only that it is lacking the start button (instead it takes over whole screen). They could have put in Windows Media Center as default shell in the customer preview - would have made as much sense. If they wanted to force people to use it - why not make it something that is desireable to use?
If Metro would run like an extented launcher in the background of my Windows Desktop - which is usually doing nothing on my PC besides showing a pretty background picture, this would be awesome. If I could pin a fullscreen game or multiple to Metro in order to resume them later - so I can dick around the Desktop this would be awesome. With the current implementation I feel like I am running Windows inside a VirtualMachine.
Personally I am worried about the state of Windows 8. Windows 7 appeared to be almost feature complete in its second preview form (and I used the beta several months, till the release as my main OS).
Even Apple gets it, that Desktop and touchscreen devices have unique requirements and workflows - so they ported the things from iOS that work in a Desktop environment. Currently these things are optional - and usually Apple is even less about "choice" in their OS. The default scroll direction for example can be changed, you can ignore the Launchpad, if you don't like it.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/16/3023633/windows-8-multiple-monitor-support-release-preview
I write news there. It is fun.
That didn't work in the CP? Ouch. Hopefully they'll show some new Media Center stuff, too...
The taskbar features are already available in the CP. I can't confirm that the backgrounds stuff works though.
From what others have gathered, it seems like Microsoft are trying to kill off Media Center by making it a paid upgrade. That, or they just want more money.
I think its the killing off thing since they said almost nobody uses it.
Yeah. I use it as a DVR, but the telemetry data indicates that something like less than .5% of W7 users ever enter WMC, and something like 70% of those who do immediately close it. Just hope that if Microsoft ever officially kills it someone else deals with the bullshit associated with acquiring CableLabs certification. Right now if you're on a cable provider that encrypts their streams (such as Comcast), WMC is the only way you can roll a HD DVR with a HTPC.
Id really like to, I used to back when the Windows 7 RC came out, but I didnt have an extra Windows 7 license to use on my HTPC so no WMC for me.
Im really hoping the new Windows 8 RC has it but I doubt it will