3 ms·

Uhhh...decline? Gates stepped down in 2000, when Google was Goofy and the iPod was just an idea. Ballmer could've done worse for himself, to say the least. The

Uhhh...decline? Gates stepped down in 2000, when Google was Goofy and the iPod was just an idea. Ballmer could've done worse for himself, to say the least. The very least. XP, Xbox, yes, Vista, but also the extremely impressive full swing, timely as a motherfuck recovery from Vista to launch Win7. (And while we're here, Win8 gets way more trash than deserved. The Start Menu was overloaded. People had like 200 goddamn folders in there. Don't shit on MS for trying something new at a time when something new was needed.) --and I'm not even an MS fanboy at all. This is just bullshit writing.

deleted 13y ago
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colmvp 13y ago
I don't understand why hardcore techies wanted the start menu bad so badly. I used Windows for a long time before migrating to OSX and the usage of a 3rd party app called Alfred. Now I just type what program I want to open, which is significantly faster and easier than having to navigate through an OS. I'm sure Windows probably has an equivalent.
- dalek_cannes 13y ago
  And Office ribbons. I used to work almost entirely with keyboard shortcuts in the menu/toolbar days for word processing (I used vi for coding). I actually liked the riboons.
- cbhl 13y ago
  If you just start typing from the new start screen...
- hornetblack 13y ago
  In windows Vista and up. Opening the start menu and typing would achieve this. In windows 8 opening the start screen and typing also does this. (Both can be done by pushing Super/Windows Key). This is the same in some Linux desktops, (At least GNOME 3, Unity and KDE)
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  The new system has two major issues. First, it forces a full screen context shift - everything disappears, which is just annoying. The icons are small, so a lot of results have a goofy looking scaled icon with only the first word or so if their title. On a server, it's even more ridiculous, and even MS's own TechNet admits as much (try to shut down). Second, typing at the start screen is not the same as the start menu. It only searches some items, and you have to click or arrow down several times to select the kind of search you want. It's the opposite of unified search. It's annoying. So, MS forced an annoying thing on everyone (even on servers!), with no way around, except to install 3rd party hacks. Of course they're going to get pushback on it.
- gfodor 13y ago
  I was around in 1995, and in 1995 they hated the start menu. So it goes.
- dsuth 13y ago
  I use Spotlight to open apps the majority of the time as well. But people are fuzzy logic creatures. Sometimes they know the app by name, sometimes they need to see it in the context of a menu ("Oh, it's that program in the Productivity menu from $vendor"). Or they can't remember the name of what they need, but DO know roughly when they downloaded it, or where they put it. I do variations of all these things to find apps, documents and files. Taking any one of them away from me makes me use a less-efficient path, and that's a stupid thing for an OS to enforce on anyone.
unknownian 13y ago
>Win8 gets way more trash than deserved I just switched to Windows 8 and actually like Microsoft a bit. The hate that 8 got was somewhat warranted. There are very strange design decisions in 8. The idea that an installed program and an app store app are two totally different things to the OS is completely baffling and limits functionality. If you use Launchy (like Alfred) like I do, searching for "Twitter" does nothing. This is just one issue among a few that I've found.

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colmvp 13y ago

I don't understand why hardcore techies wanted the start menu bad so badly. I used Windows for a long time before migrating to OSX and the usage of a 3rd party app called Alfred. Now I just type what program I want to open, which is significantly faster and easier than having to navigate through an OS. I'm sure Windows probably has an equivalent.

dalek_cannes 13y ago
And Office ribbons. I used to work almost entirely with keyboard shortcuts in the menu/toolbar days for word processing (I used vi for coding). I actually liked the riboons.
cbhl 13y ago
If you just start typing from the new start screen...
hornetblack 13y ago
In windows Vista and up. Opening the start menu and typing would achieve this. In windows 8 opening the start screen and typing also does this. (Both can be done by pushing Super/Windows Key). This is the same in some Linux desktops, (At least GNOME 3, Unity and KDE)
MichaelGG 13y ago
The new system has two major issues. First, it forces a full screen context shift - everything disappears, which is just annoying. The icons are small, so a lot of results have a goofy looking scaled icon with only the first word or so if their title. On a server, it's even more ridiculous, and even MS's own TechNet admits as much (try to shut down). Second, typing at the start screen is not the same as the start menu. It only searches some items, and you have to click or arrow down several times to select the kind of search you want. It's the opposite of unified search. It's annoying. So, MS forced an annoying thing on everyone (even on servers!), with no way around, except to install 3rd party hacks. Of course they're going to get pushback on it.
gfodor 13y ago
I was around in 1995, and in 1995 they hated the start menu. So it goes.
dsuth 13y ago
I use Spotlight to open apps the majority of the time as well. But people are fuzzy logic creatures. Sometimes they know the app by name, sometimes they need to see it in the context of a menu ("Oh, it's that program in the Productivity menu from $vendor"). Or they can't remember the name of what they need, but DO know roughly when they downloaded it, or where they put it. I do variations of all these things to find apps, documents and files. Taking any one of them away from me makes me use a less-efficient path, and that's a stupid thing for an OS to enforce on anyone.

unknownian 13y ago

>Win8 gets way more trash than deserved I just switched to Windows 8 and actually like Microsoft a bit. The hate that 8 got was somewhat warranted. There are very strange design decisions in 8. The idea that an installed program and an app store app are two totally different things to the OS is completely baffling and limits functionality. If you use Launchy (like Alfred) like I do, searching for "Twitter" does nothing. This is just one issue among a few that I've found.