12 ms·

Reading the comments I suppose I am the only one who saw some use for them, particularly the Weather app. Farewell then I suppose.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
The Weather app and maybe News were the exceptions where these actually were nice to have. Though sometimes they updated on a significantly delay, and clicking a news item didn't even bring you to that news story. Vista's Gadgets were nicer because you didn't have to open the Start Menu to see the weather. However, the tiles largely were duplicative of... just having a desktop shortcut (if you don't want a desktop shortcut, just being in the start menu is good enough). Add the fact that Microsoft never really fully backed off pinning things like Candy Crush to this even for domain account users, and I won't really miss it much.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Even when it was "just desktop shortcuts" you could never get a desktop as clean or orderly as the tiles (without 3rd party tools like Fences). Live Tiles at their best made the Notification Center redundant. Have all your notifications in the "same place" every time and at-a-glance easy to read. > Vista's Gadgets were nicer because you didn't have to open the Start Menu to see the weather. Windows 8 had the right idea in making the Start Screen the default and making the Win32 Desktop "inside it" rather than the other way around. There just wasn't enough courage to let Windows continue to innovate after they lost the initial PR war. (Charms were a really good idea, the execution just needed cleanup. A tiling window manager by default was a really good idea, but they needed to sell the execution by better bringing Win32 applications into that world/window manager without the bulk of the rest of the desktop having to hobble along.)
- lostmsu 7y ago
  Weather, News, Mail, Finance, Skype, etc, etc
Ididntdothis 7y ago
I think the start menu is the wrong place. Desktop widgets or the notification area make more sense to me.
- nitemice 7y ago
  Windows already tried the desktop widgets thing in Vista, and apart from a few (sticky notes come to mind) people didn't seem to really like them.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago

The Weather app and maybe News were the exceptions where these actually were nice to have. Though sometimes they updated on a significantly delay, and clicking a news item didn't even bring you to that news story. Vista's Gadgets were nicer because you didn't have to open the Start Menu to see the weather. However, the tiles largely were duplicative of... just having a desktop shortcut (if you don't want a desktop shortcut, just being in the start menu is good enough). Add the fact that Microsoft never really fully backed off pinning things like Candy Crush to this even for domain account users, and I won't really miss it much.

WorldMaker 7y ago
Even when it was "just desktop shortcuts" you could never get a desktop as clean or orderly as the tiles (without 3rd party tools like Fences). Live Tiles at their best made the Notification Center redundant. Have all your notifications in the "same place" every time and at-a-glance easy to read. > Vista's Gadgets were nicer because you didn't have to open the Start Menu to see the weather. Windows 8 had the right idea in making the Start Screen the default and making the Win32 Desktop "inside it" rather than the other way around. There just wasn't enough courage to let Windows continue to innovate after they lost the initial PR war. (Charms were a really good idea, the execution just needed cleanup. A tiling window manager by default was a really good idea, but they needed to sell the execution by better bringing Win32 applications into that world/window manager without the bulk of the rest of the desktop having to hobble along.)
lostmsu 7y ago
Weather, News, Mail, Finance, Skype, etc, etc

Ididntdothis 7y ago

I think the start menu is the wrong place. Desktop widgets or the notification area make more sense to me.

nitemice 7y ago
Windows already tried the desktop widgets thing in Vista, and apart from a few (sticky notes come to mind) people didn't seem to really like them.