6 ms·

I always use the Windows key instead of pressing the start menu button, so I didn't really care. I always thought it made more sense as a Tablet / Touch OS, and

I always use the Windows key instead of pressing the start menu button, so I didn't really care. I always thought it made more sense as a Tablet / Touch OS, and for people without a touch screen, Windows 8 was just terrible. It had good intentions, poorly executed. Apple did not even bother with touch screen laptops on the other hand. My favorite goof of Windows 8 was the most googled question: "how do I turn it off?" It required stupid mouse witchcraft and incantations to shut off if you weren't in a touch screen. Windows 8 was Microsoft thinking everyone was going to use touch screens for EVERYTHING and ruining the non-touch screen experience for most.

wolfi1 10mo ago
simply pressing ALT+F4 didn't do it? (of course you had to click the desktop first)
- giancarlostoro 10mo ago
  That still worked yes! But I don't think most people knew about this. You just gave me flashbacks to those days working at the local college, we would do this to restart all the machines in a classroom, we had them all on Deepfreeze so it would purge anything students downloaded / installed. We had other remote ways of doing it, but it was fun doing the shortcut too from time to time.
- WorldMaker 10mo ago
  It did. To some extent it seems like it was a telemetry mistake that some of the easier mouse controls (an actual button for start rather than gesture; a missing obvious power button; not having a simple mouse button to get to the Charms; etc). Windows users opted into Windows telemetry all must have seemed to be keyboard-heavy (probably because only certain types of power users, such as myself, were opting in to telemetry). All of the keyboard shortcuts still worked. Some new keyboard shortcuts were added. Windows 8 was extremely useful from a keyboard shortcut viewpoint. (The Charms made a lot more sense from the keyboard.)
dpoloncsak 10mo ago
> Apple did not even bother with touch screen laptops on the other hand. > Windows 8 was Microsoft thinking everyone was going to use touch screens for EVERYTHING and ruining the non-touch screen experience for most. Did/Does anyone actually use the touch screen on a laptop? Surfaces still ship with a touchscreen, so I assume they've done their market research.... It just seems like the trackpad/keyboard are the better ways to interface with your laptop, especially when it's already built in and not BT accessories or something. I hate to sound like an Apple fanboy but I'd assume the thought process was something along the lines of "Customers want touch screens on phones and tablets, not laptops" My laptop fills the role of "Desktop computer on the go" and I want it to emulate that as close as possible, aside from form factor. Maybe I'm in the minority there? Others do use a laptop as a primary 'daily driver' and want the touch screen?
- soco 10mo ago
  I can't imagine my working life without a touchscreen. Drag to scroll, touch to focus, pinch to zoom, just the usual stuff. I also use business style light laptops, so touch is always there and more usable/precise than the touchpad. People always get confused when they ask me for help on their machines and I reach to the screen for... nothing, usually.
  - swiftcoder 10mo ago
    > Drag to scroll, touch to focus, pinch to zoom, just the usual stuff I feel like trackpads do most of the above better than a touchscreen? Mac trackpads, at any rate (I do recall a lot of PC trackpads and/or drivers being hot garbage)
  - brendoelfrendo 10mo ago
    > People always get confused when they ask me for help on their machines and I reach to the screen Nooooo, please don't touch my screen! I can't stand fingerprints on my laptop display! Pretty much every gesture you mentioned has a touch pad equivalent that works just as well or better for a desktop OS.
  - WD-42 10mo ago
cykros 10mo ago
I think around that time was when Ubuntu switched from Gnome to Unity as well. What a mess that was. Seemed like all the UI teams had lost their minds at once.
- everdrive 10mo ago
  People don't like when I say this, but it's just another piece of evidence that mobile phones ruined everything.
- freedomben 10mo ago
  Indeed, this is the dirty secret and shame of our industry that doesn't get acknowledged enough. We are so prone to group-think and follow-the-thought-leaders that as my parents would have said, "would you follow them off a cliff?" the answer as an industry is a clear "yes." We rarely seem to learn from the lessons of the past either.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
- giancarlostoro 10mo ago
  Gnome 3 was also doing a major restructure, which forced MATE to be built. I liked some things about Gnome 3's original release, but I was insanely annoyed because a lot of it went away, I'm not sure if it was just distro specific or packages changed drastically, I don't even know how to describe the feature, but for example Gnome 3 had apps that could show / hide on the edges of your screen, so if you were logged in to MSN (or even XMPP) you could chat with someone, then it would 'hide' it was really cool how that was implemented, I was upset to never see it again on any other OS, it felt like a nice way to keep a chat window available but still out of the way.
  - RIMR 10mo ago
    It has felt quite good to be a KDE long-timer watching all this unfold.
simjnd 10mo ago
I also use the Windows key, but even then the WHOLE screen animating and changing to a different solid color was super jarring and tiring IMO. I much prefer a small popup like they have now
- keyringlight 10mo ago
  There's also the issue of distance for a mouse cursor to travel to select something. I think the general issue is imposing one interface for every mode of input instead of options, so either select an appropriate interface depending on how the start menu was invoked (even if it's just scaling it down to a confined space) or letting people select the default however it's invoked. Yes that's going to be more work, but when we're talking about the largest corporations on the planet I struggle to believe they can't afford it.
- ThrowawayB7 10mo ago
  The Windows 8 start menu is no different from Launchpad on macOS throwing up a grid of icons that takes over the screen. Except macOS doesn't have the benefit of live tiles to excuse it.
  - lproven 10mo ago
    > The Windows 8 start menu is no different from Launchpad on macOS Launchpad appeared for the first time in Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" in July 2011. Windows 8.0 launched August 2012. Personally I think both are inspired by the full-screen launchers of iOS and Android, and not by one another.
  - simjnd 10mo ago
    Yeah I never used or liked Launchpad. On macOS I only ever used Spotlight (and Raycast for the past few years). The only redeeming thing I could say about Launchpad is that it did not replace Spotlight (unlike Windows 8 Start Menu which was a replacement to the previous start menu)
- tirpen 10mo ago
  Yes. The constant full screen color flashing made Windows 8 not just unpleasant to use, I was unable to use it since I literally got migraines after using it for too long. Click on a pdf? The whole screen turns bright red for a second before loading. Click on a Word file, same but blue. It was hell to use for people sensitive to flashing lights. I got special permission at work to stick with Windows 7 longer than the rest of the company for medical reasons.
throw-the-towel 10mo ago
I had a Windows tablet at the time, and actually paid for a Windows 8 upgrade. It was a nice OS on that device!
blkhawk 10mo ago
I would never used the phrase "good intentions" in combination with Windows 8.1. Say you had a mechanic you brought your car to for an inspection and they would set it on fire in the parking lot because of "evil ghosts" since they heard a squeak that sounded like evil ghosts speaking. Calling what they did "good intentions just poorly executed" isn't really fitting is it? Microsoft got hit by a case of delusion on a corporate level where seemingly good arguments combine to create the completely wrong conclusions.

wolfi1 10mo ago

simply pressing ALT+F4 didn't do it? (of course you had to click the desktop first)

giancarlostoro 10mo ago
That still worked yes! But I don't think most people knew about this. You just gave me flashbacks to those days working at the local college, we would do this to restart all the machines in a classroom, we had them all on Deepfreeze so it would purge anything students downloaded / installed. We had other remote ways of doing it, but it was fun doing the shortcut too from time to time.
WorldMaker 10mo ago
It did. To some extent it seems like it was a telemetry mistake that some of the easier mouse controls (an actual button for start rather than gesture; a missing obvious power button; not having a simple mouse button to get to the Charms; etc). Windows users opted into Windows telemetry all must have seemed to be keyboard-heavy (probably because only certain types of power users, such as myself, were opting in to telemetry). All of the keyboard shortcuts still worked. Some new keyboard shortcuts were added. Windows 8 was extremely useful from a keyboard shortcut viewpoint. (The Charms made a lot more sense from the keyboard.)

dpoloncsak 10mo ago

> Apple did not even bother with touch screen laptops on the other hand. > Windows 8 was Microsoft thinking everyone was going to use touch screens for EVERYTHING and ruining the non-touch screen experience for most. Did/Does anyone actually use the touch screen on a laptop? Surfaces still ship with a touchscreen, so I assume they've done their market research.... It just seems like the trackpad/keyboard are the better ways to interface with your laptop, especially when it's already built in and not BT accessories or something. I hate to sound like an Apple fanboy but I'd assume the thought process was something along the lines of "Customers want touch screens on phones and tablets, not laptops" My laptop fills the role of "Desktop computer on the go" and I want it to emulate that as close as possible, aside from form factor. Maybe I'm in the minority there? Others do use a laptop as a primary 'daily driver' and want the touch screen?

soco 10mo ago
I can't imagine my working life without a touchscreen. Drag to scroll, touch to focus, pinch to zoom, just the usual stuff. I also use business style light laptops, so touch is always there and more usable/precise than the touchpad. People always get confused when they ask me for help on their machines and I reach to the screen for... nothing, usually.
- swiftcoder 10mo ago
  > Drag to scroll, touch to focus, pinch to zoom, just the usual stuff I feel like trackpads do most of the above better than a touchscreen? Mac trackpads, at any rate (I do recall a lot of PC trackpads and/or drivers being hot garbage)
- brendoelfrendo 10mo ago
  > People always get confused when they ask me for help on their machines and I reach to the screen Nooooo, please don't touch my screen! I can't stand fingerprints on my laptop display! Pretty much every gesture you mentioned has a touch pad equivalent that works just as well or better for a desktop OS.
- WD-42 10mo ago

cykros 10mo ago

I think around that time was when Ubuntu switched from Gnome to Unity as well. What a mess that was. Seemed like all the UI teams had lost their minds at once.

everdrive 10mo ago
People don't like when I say this, but it's just another piece of evidence that mobile phones ruined everything.
freedomben 10mo ago
Indeed, this is the dirty secret and shame of our industry that doesn't get acknowledged enough. We are so prone to group-think and follow-the-thought-leaders that as my parents would have said, "would you follow them off a cliff?" the answer as an industry is a clear "yes." We rarely seem to learn from the lessons of the past either.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
giancarlostoro 10mo ago
Gnome 3 was also doing a major restructure, which forced MATE to be built. I liked some things about Gnome 3's original release, but I was insanely annoyed because a lot of it went away, I'm not sure if it was just distro specific or packages changed drastically, I don't even know how to describe the feature, but for example Gnome 3 had apps that could show / hide on the edges of your screen, so if you were logged in to MSN (or even XMPP) you could chat with someone, then it would 'hide' it was really cool how that was implemented, I was upset to never see it again on any other OS, it felt like a nice way to keep a chat window available but still out of the way.
- RIMR 10mo ago
  It has felt quite good to be a KDE long-timer watching all this unfold.

simjnd 10mo ago

I also use the Windows key, but even then the WHOLE screen animating and changing to a different solid color was super jarring and tiring IMO. I much prefer a small popup like they have now

keyringlight 10mo ago
There's also the issue of distance for a mouse cursor to travel to select something. I think the general issue is imposing one interface for every mode of input instead of options, so either select an appropriate interface depending on how the start menu was invoked (even if it's just scaling it down to a confined space) or letting people select the default however it's invoked. Yes that's going to be more work, but when we're talking about the largest corporations on the planet I struggle to believe they can't afford it.
ThrowawayB7 10mo ago
The Windows 8 start menu is no different from Launchpad on macOS throwing up a grid of icons that takes over the screen. Except macOS doesn't have the benefit of live tiles to excuse it.
- lproven 10mo ago
  > The Windows 8 start menu is no different from Launchpad on macOS Launchpad appeared for the first time in Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion" in July 2011. Windows 8.0 launched August 2012. Personally I think both are inspired by the full-screen launchers of iOS and Android, and not by one another.
- simjnd 10mo ago
  Yeah I never used or liked Launchpad. On macOS I only ever used Spotlight (and Raycast for the past few years). The only redeeming thing I could say about Launchpad is that it did not replace Spotlight (unlike Windows 8 Start Menu which was a replacement to the previous start menu)
tirpen 10mo ago
Yes. The constant full screen color flashing made Windows 8 not just unpleasant to use, I was unable to use it since I literally got migraines after using it for too long. Click on a pdf? The whole screen turns bright red for a second before loading. Click on a Word file, same but blue. It was hell to use for people sensitive to flashing lights. I got special permission at work to stick with Windows 7 longer than the rest of the company for medical reasons.

throw-the-towel 10mo ago

I had a Windows tablet at the time, and actually paid for a Windows 8 upgrade. It was a nice OS on that device!

blkhawk 10mo ago

I would never used the phrase "good intentions" in combination with Windows 8.1. Say you had a mechanic you brought your car to for an inspection and they would set it on fire in the parking lot because of "evil ghosts" since they heard a squeak that sounded like evil ghosts speaking. Calling what they did "good intentions just poorly executed" isn't really fitting is it? Microsoft got hit by a case of delusion on a corporate level where seemingly good arguments combine to create the completely wrong conclusions.