8 ms·

Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8

42 points by smcgivern 12y ago

jagermo 12y ago
Good points and well written (not the usual troll rant). However what I dread most are the vendors and their crapware bundeling programs. Uch.
- Filligree 12y ago
  However, here's the thing: Windows are useful. An UI which pretends you shouldn't use them isn't good for anything complicated, when you use more than one application at a time. Hierarchical start menus are also useful, for that matter.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > However, here's the thing: Windows are useful. I'm increasingly convinced that overlapping Windows are not particularly useful (they are better than one-thing-maximized-is-the-only-option), but tiled windows are very useful.
    - daigoba66 12y ago
      That's a really interesting observation. Coincidentally, if you look at pre-Win3.1 it only supported tiled windows. Tiling support has always been there since, but largely ignored until Win7 gave us Aero Snap (which I love btw). I know Win10 is suppose to further improve on this feature.
    - Rusky 12y ago
      I'm torn between tiled and overlapping windows. A lot of the time I just don't have a big enough screen to go fully tiled, because it forces things to squish when I would rather just keep one partially visible underneath (e.g. a browser window, a text editor, and a terminal). One thing that makes overlapping windows infinitely nicer for me is a feature in a lot of Linux WMs where window borders "catch" on other windows and the edge of the screen when being moved or resized. That, and having a key to move windows from anywhere, rather than just the titlebar. edit: And focus-follows-mouse/x-mouse.
      - Zancarius 12y ago
        > One thing that makes overlapping windows infinitely nicer for me is a feature in a lot of Linux WMs where window borders "catch" on other windows and the edge of the screen when being moved or resized. That, and having a key to move windows from anywhere, rather than just the titlebar. I also like the feature of using the scroll wheel to change window position (above/below), especially if I'm browsing and have a few related windows open on a desktop. I didn't realize how much I missed the feature until I tried Plasma 5 on KDE briefly (it has it, too, but it didn't migrate my configuration).
        Rusky 12y ago
        Ah, yes. I should have included focus-follows-mouse, that's pretty crucial to how I work too. There's actually a registry setting to enable it on Windows, but so many things are so completely unaware of it in their design that it breaks a lot of stuff.
    - LukasMathis 12y ago
      Yes, precisely!
  - tluyben2 12y ago
    Tiles are useful. Using a tiling window manager or splitting Metro or vim with splits or emacs with splits you see what's useful. Windows is not imho; tiling very much is. Tiling with virtual desktops. Edit: To me Metro tablet size without desktop or iOS with tiling would be the best.
- ChicagoDave 12y ago
  This is why Microsoft introduced their Signature series. If you purchase any hardware with that identifier, there is no OEM bloatware. I picked up an HP Stream for my daughter and I was shocked to see it really was _just_ Windows and nothing else.
engendered 12y ago
The whole bit on loss aversion (which is a tactic to undermine people's opinions by ascribing them to unproductive emotional reactions, rather than objective evaluations that have people liking Windows 8 less than 7), and then the "I don’t really see anything positive about going back to an interaction design originally devised in 1995", undermine the piece and do make it seem more like a rant than an unbiased evaluation: Someone with a touch screen tablet likes Windows 8, and doesn't like some of the changes in Windows 10. Welcome to the party the rest of us have lived in. Windows 8 on the desktop was objectively terrible. The charm bar, the weird interactions, the gigantic click points that completely undermined the benefit of a highly precise mouse. It was a step backwards as Microsoft tried to force touch metaphors and designs on a mouse world. Now this user is complaining that they're forcing mouse metaphors on his tablet.
- izacus 12y ago
  I think you entirely missed the viewpoint of the author: He's trying to use Windows 10 as a tablet OS not as a desktop OS and from that perspective they threw away everything that made Windows UX on tablets good to reintroduce all the hideous cluttered desktop patterns. They just basically reinvented an ugly version of Windows 7 while throwing away what made Windows 8 a genuinely good OS on tablets - essentially instead of separating the desktop and tablet experience they went back to pushing desktop UI on tablet users.
  - engendered 12y ago
    I think you entirely missed the viewpoint of the author When people say that someone missed the point on HN, most of the time that means that they want you to read it the way they read it, and ignore those annoying bits that say something different. Only this author not only undermines any disagreement with Windows 8 (just loss aversion), criticizes "old" interfaces (cars had 4 wheels in the 20s....give me my new style 3 wheel car), they specifically hold up its advantages on the desktop. Not once do they mention the obvious solution -- that Microsoft should have gone separate directions on the desktop and the tablet -- but instead hold this as a cowardly backtrack.
WorldWideWayne 12y ago
In Windows 10, the only feature I'm looking for is a simple on/off switch like Android has: Allow installation of apps from sources other than the [default app store].
jqm 12y ago
I'm thinking this fellows opinion is a minority one, and his psychology degree must have come in the mail so he probably isn't licensed to diagnosis people in my state. Not a fan of Windows8. The 10 preview I played with was an absolute step in the right direction.
alyx 12y ago
I don't think he realizes that he's critiquing and reviewing a preview OS.
- ZenoArrow 12y ago
  I don't even think he's reviewing Windows 10 in its current preview form. Look at the picture he uses to show off the start menu, then compare it to the start menu in any other recent Windows 10 demonstration. Notice any differences?
  - Zancarius 12y ago
    Not only that, but he's critiquing it from the perspective of a tablet OS. The majority of the intertial pushback Windows 8 suffered was from desktop users who absolutely did not want a mobile-esque interface on their desktop computer. His usability points are good--from a tablet user's perspective--but it completely misses the point of Windows 10, which is to regain trust from desktop and enterprise users. He further complains that this sort of cultural entrenchment is very much like the pushback Microsoft received between the DOS-to-Windows era--ignoring, of course, that user interaction with a touch UI versus mouse are substantially different. Plus, like you and the poster you replied to, I highly doubt that "tablet mode" in Windows 10 is completely finished. I get that the author is probably upset with the changes coming in Windows 10 given his nearly exclusive use of a Surface (it's understandable--and also ironic that early on in the post, he mentions that "learning is uncomfortable"), but he's also forgetting that his favored use case is probably in the minority. How many Surface users are there versus enterprise/business/desktop users?
    - LukasMathis 12y ago
      Fair points, though I would say two things: 1. Touchscreen computers are in the minority now, but I don't think they'll remain in the minority. Kids are growing up on iPhones, Android phones, and iPads. A computer without a touchscreen will seem increasingly anachronistic to them, so designing against that trend is a backwards-looking strategy. 2. I don't see how the changes Microsoft has made in Windows 10 so far were necessary to make it a better desktop OS. Removing charms, for example, did nothing for desktop PCs. Microsoft could have made the charms features (e.g. search) accessible via the taskbar without removing charms for those who do have touchscreen computers, and can access it easily.
guard-of-terra 12y ago
He sounds unicorny towards Windows 8. Nobody ever uses Windows 8 in Metro mode (because no, your PC is not a tablet), and the way which you randomly fall in and out of Metro is atrocious. A lot of things they just did not bother to think about; for example, wi-fi connection dialog overlays keyboard layout indicator, ruining hope of correctly inputting password. The whole Windows 8 thing is embarrasingly make-believe.
- tluyben2 12y ago
  Exactly. I like Metro & Desktop but whenever the two mix (randomly) is just mad. It's one of the most horrible experiences I currently know in computing and I have no clue why people think this is ok. Smart people at that. It feels like they never tried it themselves after delivering their product. It drives my absolutely bonkers and keeps me from using the Surface more than my macbook air & ipad air. Yes I have to carry around 2 devices but at least I won't just go and break them in 2000 pieces out of frustration. I love the hardware of the Surface3 pro, but for me, exactly that point ruins Windows 8(.1) completely. Is 10 better?
- LukasMathis 12y ago
  I've never seen the wifi connection issue you describe on my Surface. And I know a bunch of people who, like me, use Windows 8 in Metro mode.
byuu 12y ago
Everyone loves consistency, but it really is a fools errand to try and make a universal OS experience. Desktops with keyboards and mice require different design paradigms than touch screens with no physical buttons. Vendors like Microsoft that try and cater to both will simply face an eternal tug of war, and nobody will end up happy. Very few people on a tablet want to touch-type code for eight hours a day. Very few people on a desktop want to hold their hands in the air tapping their expensive monitors for eight hours a day. What Microsoft needs to do is produce a clean "OS base" (kernel, drivers) used by both, and then produce two separate products: Windows Office (for desktops) and Windows Metro (for touch devices.) They should have never tried to merge the UIs together.
misuba 12y ago
Does 1Password not have a keyboard app for iOS 8? Keyboard apps in general are a pretty good way to get a lot of what people want from multi-window views on touch devices.
- jtth 12y ago
  No. Requires either a password to unlock the keychain or TouchID input. What the article completely misses is that there is window management in iOS. 5-finger pinch and all that. Not to mention the fact that a lot of iOS apps already have 1P integration so you don't have to leave the app.
- shadesandcolour 12y ago
  No they have an extension instead that people have been building into their apps that give one tap access to 1Password on the login screen. I suspect they stayed away from building a keyboard because it's a lot harder to get right, and to risk building a not-so-great keyboard to add one button didn't seem worth it.
tanglesome 12y ago
This article presumes that Windows 8.x was a great tablet OS. Since Windows 8 failed on mission one: Getting people to switch from Android and iOS. Objectively some people may love it--I'm not one--but from a business viewpoint it failed on tablets and it was hated on the desktop. The only real surprise isn't that MSFT is returning to an Aero style desktop, it's that it took them so long to do so.
daigoba66 12y ago
I think what this article demonstrates, more than anything, is how hard (impossible?) it is to build a single user interface for all possible form factors and keep your users happy.
higherpurpose 12y ago
I actually preferred Windows 10 in the previous build. Now everything in the desktop modem makes me uncomfortable when using it and I think it's slower as well.
Yaa101 12y ago
The biggest mistake that Microsoft made was calling it Windows, if they called it Surface instead of only their hardware that way, and kept on selling windows non crippled for the desktop, they probably would have gotten away with it. Nobody cares if they share the same engine under the hood.
ptx 12y ago
> You can design user interfaces that work for both, and mouse-driven systems profit from many of the UI changes that make for good touchscreen user interfaces — a clean, simple interaction design and large click targets, for example. I don't think this is true. With a mouse, you can easily make very precise small movements, so a tiny button positioned right next to where you already have the mouse cursor (perhaps, for example, over another tiny button) is very easy to reach. A tiny button farther away is much harder to hit because you make larger and less precise movements to get there from where you were. The size of the target is not as important as its proximity to the cursor's current position. On a touch screen, with no relative movement, the situation is pretty much the opposite: If you have tiny touch targets right next to each other, it's very hard to hit the right one, and you can't see if the cursor is positioned correctly before you click. If they're farther apart, it's easier to hit the right one, or at least harder to hit the wrong one. (And obviously larger targets are better.)
- bjmarte 12y ago
  You can't do both at the same time, true. That doesn't mean that you can't make a system that works well as both at separate times.
SlipperySlope 12y ago
Windows 8 was a failure in the enterprise desktop market. Loss aversion meant that corporations did not want to train their staff to use an unfamiliar UI, and the great majority of corporations either postponed upgrades or stayed with Windows 7. http://bgr.com/2014/02/04/windows-8-adoption-analysis/ http://bgr.com/2014/02/04/windows-8-adoption-analysis/ http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/300073591/windows-8-adoption-hits-standstill.htm http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/300073591/windows-8-... With Ballmer gone, Windows 10 can return to the familiar Windows 7 look and feel for enterprise desktop purchasers - so hopes Microsoft. When the iPad and iPhone first dominated their respective markets, Ubuntu was first to respond because Linux evolves faster than Microsoft. The Unity Desktop was the canary in the coal mine with respect to how desktop users would react at the software vendor's natural desire for UI convergence. Notably, Steve Jobs and Apple, maintained two UIs, one: MAC OS for the desktop and laptops, and two: iOS for touch/mobile. Apple routinely mocked Microsoft, and ignored Ubuntu as non-competitive. Desktop and Laptop, e.g. keyboard and mouse, multi-monitor, are better for content creation, such as writing software. Mobile - touch and voice and camera - are better for content consumption, messaging and always-with-you intelligent services, e.g. navigation. Tim Cook at Apple famously said Windows 8 was converging a ‘Toaster and a Refrigerator’. I really don't care about Windows as I am a Docker application developer, and routinely use Ubuntu Unity which I grown accustomed to. Good luck Microsoft on Windows 10.

42 points by smcgivern 12y ago

Good points and well written (not the usual troll rant). However what I dread most are the vendors and their crapware bundeling programs. Uch.

Filligree 12y ago
However, here's the thing: Windows are useful. An UI which pretends you shouldn't use them isn't good for anything complicated, when you use more than one application at a time. Hierarchical start menus are also useful, for that matter.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > However, here's the thing: Windows are useful. I'm increasingly convinced that overlapping Windows are not particularly useful (they are better than one-thing-maximized-is-the-only-option), but tiled windows are very useful.
  - daigoba66 12y ago
    That's a really interesting observation. Coincidentally, if you look at pre-Win3.1 it only supported tiled windows. Tiling support has always been there since, but largely ignored until Win7 gave us Aero Snap (which I love btw). I know Win10 is suppose to further improve on this feature.
  - Rusky 12y ago
    I'm torn between tiled and overlapping windows. A lot of the time I just don't have a big enough screen to go fully tiled, because it forces things to squish when I would rather just keep one partially visible underneath (e.g. a browser window, a text editor, and a terminal). One thing that makes overlapping windows infinitely nicer for me is a feature in a lot of Linux WMs where window borders "catch" on other windows and the edge of the screen when being moved or resized. That, and having a key to move windows from anywhere, rather than just the titlebar. edit: And focus-follows-mouse/x-mouse.
    - Zancarius 12y ago
      > One thing that makes overlapping windows infinitely nicer for me is a feature in a lot of Linux WMs where window borders "catch" on other windows and the edge of the screen when being moved or resized. That, and having a key to move windows from anywhere, rather than just the titlebar. I also like the feature of using the scroll wheel to change window position (above/below), especially if I'm browsing and have a few related windows open on a desktop. I didn't realize how much I missed the feature until I tried Plasma 5 on KDE briefly (it has it, too, but it didn't migrate my configuration).
      - Rusky 12y ago
        Ah, yes. I should have included focus-follows-mouse, that's pretty crucial to how I work too. There's actually a registry setting to enable it on Windows, but so many things are so completely unaware of it in their design that it breaks a lot of stuff.
  - LukasMathis 12y ago
    Yes, precisely!
- tluyben2 12y ago
  Tiles are useful. Using a tiling window manager or splitting Metro or vim with splits or emacs with splits you see what's useful. Windows is not imho; tiling very much is. Tiling with virtual desktops. Edit: To me Metro tablet size without desktop or iOS with tiling would be the best.
ChicagoDave 12y ago
This is why Microsoft introduced their Signature series. If you purchase any hardware with that identifier, there is no OEM bloatware. I picked up an HP Stream for my daughter and I was shocked to see it really was _just_ Windows and nothing else.

engendered 12y ago

The whole bit on loss aversion (which is a tactic to undermine people's opinions by ascribing them to unproductive emotional reactions, rather than objective evaluations that have people liking Windows 8 less than 7), and then the "I don’t really see anything positive about going back to an interaction design originally devised in 1995", undermine the piece and do make it seem more like a rant than an unbiased evaluation: Someone with a touch screen tablet likes Windows 8, and doesn't like some of the changes in Windows 10. Welcome to the party the rest of us have lived in. Windows 8 on the desktop was objectively terrible. The charm bar, the weird interactions, the gigantic click points that completely undermined the benefit of a highly precise mouse. It was a step backwards as Microsoft tried to force touch metaphors and designs on a mouse world. Now this user is complaining that they're forcing mouse metaphors on his tablet.

izacus 12y ago
I think you entirely missed the viewpoint of the author: He's trying to use Windows 10 as a tablet OS not as a desktop OS and from that perspective they threw away everything that made Windows UX on tablets good to reintroduce all the hideous cluttered desktop patterns. They just basically reinvented an ugly version of Windows 7 while throwing away what made Windows 8 a genuinely good OS on tablets - essentially instead of separating the desktop and tablet experience they went back to pushing desktop UI on tablet users.
- engendered 12y ago
  I think you entirely missed the viewpoint of the author When people say that someone missed the point on HN, most of the time that means that they want you to read it the way they read it, and ignore those annoying bits that say something different. Only this author not only undermines any disagreement with Windows 8 (just loss aversion), criticizes "old" interfaces (cars had 4 wheels in the 20s....give me my new style 3 wheel car), they specifically hold up its advantages on the desktop. Not once do they mention the obvious solution -- that Microsoft should have gone separate directions on the desktop and the tablet -- but instead hold this as a cowardly backtrack.

WorldWideWayne 12y ago

In Windows 10, the only feature I'm looking for is a simple on/off switch like Android has: Allow installation of apps from sources other than the [default app store].

jqm 12y ago

I'm thinking this fellows opinion is a minority one, and his psychology degree must have come in the mail so he probably isn't licensed to diagnosis people in my state. Not a fan of Windows8. The 10 preview I played with was an absolute step in the right direction.

alyx 12y ago

I don't think he realizes that he's critiquing and reviewing a preview OS.

ZenoArrow 12y ago
I don't even think he's reviewing Windows 10 in its current preview form. Look at the picture he uses to show off the start menu, then compare it to the start menu in any other recent Windows 10 demonstration. Notice any differences?
- Zancarius 12y ago
  Not only that, but he's critiquing it from the perspective of a tablet OS. The majority of the intertial pushback Windows 8 suffered was from desktop users who absolutely did not want a mobile-esque interface on their desktop computer. His usability points are good--from a tablet user's perspective--but it completely misses the point of Windows 10, which is to regain trust from desktop and enterprise users. He further complains that this sort of cultural entrenchment is very much like the pushback Microsoft received between the DOS-to-Windows era--ignoring, of course, that user interaction with a touch UI versus mouse are substantially different. Plus, like you and the poster you replied to, I highly doubt that "tablet mode" in Windows 10 is completely finished. I get that the author is probably upset with the changes coming in Windows 10 given his nearly exclusive use of a Surface (it's understandable--and also ironic that early on in the post, he mentions that "learning is uncomfortable"), but he's also forgetting that his favored use case is probably in the minority. How many Surface users are there versus enterprise/business/desktop users?
  - LukasMathis 12y ago
    Fair points, though I would say two things: 1. Touchscreen computers are in the minority now, but I don't think they'll remain in the minority. Kids are growing up on iPhones, Android phones, and iPads. A computer without a touchscreen will seem increasingly anachronistic to them, so designing against that trend is a backwards-looking strategy. 2. I don't see how the changes Microsoft has made in Windows 10 so far were necessary to make it a better desktop OS. Removing charms, for example, did nothing for desktop PCs. Microsoft could have made the charms features (e.g. search) accessible via the taskbar without removing charms for those who do have touchscreen computers, and can access it easily.

guard-of-terra 12y ago

He sounds unicorny towards Windows 8. Nobody ever uses Windows 8 in Metro mode (because no, your PC is not a tablet), and the way which you randomly fall in and out of Metro is atrocious. A lot of things they just did not bother to think about; for example, wi-fi connection dialog overlays keyboard layout indicator, ruining hope of correctly inputting password. The whole Windows 8 thing is embarrasingly make-believe.

tluyben2 12y ago
Exactly. I like Metro & Desktop but whenever the two mix (randomly) is just mad. It's one of the most horrible experiences I currently know in computing and I have no clue why people think this is ok. Smart people at that. It feels like they never tried it themselves after delivering their product. It drives my absolutely bonkers and keeps me from using the Surface more than my macbook air & ipad air. Yes I have to carry around 2 devices but at least I won't just go and break them in 2000 pieces out of frustration. I love the hardware of the Surface3 pro, but for me, exactly that point ruins Windows 8(.1) completely. Is 10 better?
LukasMathis 12y ago
I've never seen the wifi connection issue you describe on my Surface. And I know a bunch of people who, like me, use Windows 8 in Metro mode.

byuu 12y ago

Everyone loves consistency, but it really is a fools errand to try and make a universal OS experience. Desktops with keyboards and mice require different design paradigms than touch screens with no physical buttons. Vendors like Microsoft that try and cater to both will simply face an eternal tug of war, and nobody will end up happy. Very few people on a tablet want to touch-type code for eight hours a day. Very few people on a desktop want to hold their hands in the air tapping their expensive monitors for eight hours a day. What Microsoft needs to do is produce a clean "OS base" (kernel, drivers) used by both, and then produce two separate products: Windows Office (for desktops) and Windows Metro (for touch devices.) They should have never tried to merge the UIs together.

misuba 12y ago

Does 1Password not have a keyboard app for iOS 8? Keyboard apps in general are a pretty good way to get a lot of what people want from multi-window views on touch devices.

jtth 12y ago
No. Requires either a password to unlock the keychain or TouchID input. What the article completely misses is that there is window management in iOS. 5-finger pinch and all that. Not to mention the fact that a lot of iOS apps already have 1P integration so you don't have to leave the app.
shadesandcolour 12y ago
No they have an extension instead that people have been building into their apps that give one tap access to 1Password on the login screen. I suspect they stayed away from building a keyboard because it's a lot harder to get right, and to risk building a not-so-great keyboard to add one button didn't seem worth it.

tanglesome 12y ago

This article presumes that Windows 8.x was a great tablet OS. Since Windows 8 failed on mission one: Getting people to switch from Android and iOS. Objectively some people may love it--I'm not one--but from a business viewpoint it failed on tablets and it was hated on the desktop. The only real surprise isn't that MSFT is returning to an Aero style desktop, it's that it took them so long to do so.

daigoba66 12y ago

I think what this article demonstrates, more than anything, is how hard (impossible?) it is to build a single user interface for all possible form factors and keep your users happy.

higherpurpose 12y ago

I actually preferred Windows 10 in the previous build. Now everything in the desktop modem makes me uncomfortable when using it and I think it's slower as well.

Yaa101 12y ago

The biggest mistake that Microsoft made was calling it Windows, if they called it Surface instead of only their hardware that way, and kept on selling windows non crippled for the desktop, they probably would have gotten away with it. Nobody cares if they share the same engine under the hood.

ptx 12y ago

> You can design user interfaces that work for both, and mouse-driven systems profit from many of the UI changes that make for good touchscreen user interfaces — a clean, simple interaction design and large click targets, for example. I don't think this is true. With a mouse, you can easily make very precise small movements, so a tiny button positioned right next to where you already have the mouse cursor (perhaps, for example, over another tiny button) is very easy to reach. A tiny button farther away is much harder to hit because you make larger and less precise movements to get there from where you were. The size of the target is not as important as its proximity to the cursor's current position. On a touch screen, with no relative movement, the situation is pretty much the opposite: If you have tiny touch targets right next to each other, it's very hard to hit the right one, and you can't see if the cursor is positioned correctly before you click. If they're farther apart, it's easier to hit the right one, or at least harder to hit the wrong one. (And obviously larger targets are better.)

bjmarte 12y ago
You can't do both at the same time, true. That doesn't mean that you can't make a system that works well as both at separate times.

SlipperySlope 12y ago

Windows 8 was a failure in the enterprise desktop market. Loss aversion meant that corporations did not want to train their staff to use an unfamiliar UI, and the great majority of corporations either postponed upgrades or stayed with Windows 7. http://bgr.com/2014/02/04/windows-8-adoption-analysis/ http://bgr.com/2014/02/04/windows-8-adoption-analysis/ http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/300073591/windows-8-adoption-hits-standstill.htm http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/300073591/windows-8-... With Ballmer gone, Windows 10 can return to the familiar Windows 7 look and feel for enterprise desktop purchasers - so hopes Microsoft. When the iPad and iPhone first dominated their respective markets, Ubuntu was first to respond because Linux evolves faster than Microsoft. The Unity Desktop was the canary in the coal mine with respect to how desktop users would react at the software vendor's natural desire for UI convergence. Notably, Steve Jobs and Apple, maintained two UIs, one: MAC OS for the desktop and laptops, and two: iOS for touch/mobile. Apple routinely mocked Microsoft, and ignored Ubuntu as non-competitive. Desktop and Laptop, e.g. keyboard and mouse, multi-monitor, are better for content creation, such as writing software. Mobile - touch and voice and camera - are better for content consumption, messaging and always-with-you intelligent services, e.g. navigation. Tim Cook at Apple famously said Windows 8 was converging a ‘Toaster and a Refrigerator’. I really don't care about Windows as I am a Docker application developer, and routinely use Ubuntu Unity which I grown accustomed to. Good luck Microsoft on Windows 10.