Walt Mossberg's Windows 8 Review

http://allthingsd.com/20121016/windows-pushes-into-the-tablet-age/

by martingordon • 14 years ago

36 54 14 years ago

protomyth• 14 years ago

"The only major program that will run there will be a new version of Office, modified to work on these machines and lacking Outlook."

The new tablets don't have Outlook? Do they do mail and can they hook to exchange?

ghurlman• 14 years ago

Yes, the Metro apps cover email and calendaring, and connect quite easily to Exchange, Hotmail, Yahoo, and Google.

andrewmunsell• 14 years ago

There's a mail app that supports IMAP and EAS

nhebb• 14 years ago

It may be a ploy to get users to switch to Office 365, which does include Outlook. Since Office 365 is subscription based, it will be more profitable to Microsoft in the long run.

tomhschmidt• 14 years ago

This was more of a restatement of the press release than a review.

undergroundhero• 14 years ago

That was exactly how I felt reading it. Very little detail and no criticism. It was a page-long description of Windows 8 that offered no unique perspective of how it feels to use the new OS.

cjc1083• 14 years ago

Windows has always been the base OS on my home computers. I've used a separate ESXi box, or local virtual box VMs for development. Thus far windows 8 tells me that it is time for me to shift totally to Linux and just sacrifice gaming, which was the sole reason I held onto my windows 7 environment on my primary home PC's. I also dread the day I will have to deal with it at work. I have between 20-30 windows open at any given time with anything from ArcSight to multiple putty sessions running. How will that possibly translate to this blocky touch screen interface?

I can't be alone in this feeling, although I do feel a bit like the old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn..

I really can't stand this environment and

HarshaThota• 14 years ago

You know that the regular desktop interface is still there, just as it was in Windows 7, Vista, etc., right? You could be using Windows 8 and never have to see the Metro interface, save for when you are doing a search for an app.

rbn• 14 years ago

People have been saying these types of comments since Windows 95

sigkill2• 14 years ago

As someone who's been using Windows 8 since it launched on technet, I would like to politely disagree with you.

>never have to see the Metro interface

This is a total exaggeration. When you boot up, Metro. Want to go to start and launch a program (like 99% of the general public would do)? Metro. Certain PC settings not available on the control panel? Metro. Accidentally click on the corners of the screen? Metro.

My main gripe is that the computer boots into Metro with desktop as an option instead of the inverse.

throwaway64• 14 years ago

the problen with this viewpoint is that metro represents a fundamental shift in the window system. Stuff like appstore only, forced sandboxing and tons of restrictions that have never been an issue on windows before. Microsoft has made it very clear this is how they think everything windows should be moving forward.

Desktop mode might be there for now, but how comfortable should a user remain when everything that gives the system value for them just got marked "legacy"

I for one am moving away from windows as much as i can

smacktoward• 14 years ago

Yes, it's still there, in the same way that MS-DOS was still there in your shiny new copy of Windows 95. And as with DOS in Win95, the primacy of the new environment lays down a clear marker that Microsoft is going in a different direction from now on, so if the "legacy" environment is the one you prefer you should start planning to either live without it or move to a different OS.

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, etc.

eta_carinae• 14 years ago

> Thus far windows 8 tells me that it is time for me to shift totally to Linux

This is like saying you're going to sell your Toyota because Toyota just released a car that you don't like.

Why all the drama? Just stick to Windows 7, which will be supported for years to come.

randomfool• 14 years ago

If it becomes apparent that your platform is not a good fit then it's better to move sooner than later. That said, if Win8 is enough to put you off, I'm not sure what lies ahead for you on Linux.

recoiledsnake2• 14 years ago

>I have between 20-30 windows open at any given time with anything from ArcSight to multiple putty sessions running. How will that possibly translate to this blocky touch screen interface?

You have even more space on your taskbar to put your 20 to 30 windows now that the start button is gone and you can have a separate task bar per monitor. I seriously don't understand how the so called blocky touch interface changes anything about managing 20 to 30 windows.

Luyt• 14 years ago

The video shows people interacting with a vertical touch-screen. For short amounts of time, like getting money from an ATM, this works OK, but for prolonged usage like working on office documents, it leads to Gorilla Arm [1]. I'm afraid people will find out the hard way and will get desillusioned about their touchscreen user experience. Why doesn't Microsoft foresee this?

From the Jargon File:

"Gorilla Arm: The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a mainstream input technology despite a promising start in the early 1980s. It seems the designers of all those spiffy touch-menu systems failed to notice that humans aren't designed to hold their arms in front of their faces making small motions. After more than a very few selections, the arm begins to feel sore, cramped, and oversized — the operator looks like a gorilla while using the touch screen and feels like one afterwards. This is now considered a classic cautionary tale to human-factors designers; “Remember the gorilla arm!” is shorthand for “How is this going to fly in real use?”.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla_arm#.22Gorilla_arm.22

notatoad• 14 years ago

The vertical touch screen use case will really only be a factor at kiosk-type installations, which have a short usage time. Any extended use is going to be done on a laptop or desktop, which has a trackpad or mouse to fall back to if it even has a touchscreen, or a tablet, which can be held in an ergonomic manner. You seem to be inventing a form factor that Microsoft isn't promoting, just to be able to criticize it.

aggronn2• 14 years ago

I don't think that's necessarily true, though I disagree with the GP. He mentioned in the video, and they're already demoing this at places like best buy, ultrabooks will be coming out with touch screens en masse once windowes 8 is released. A lot of them pivot, but after using one briefly in a normal mode, I found that I was clicking smaller things with the trackpad, but that for big things (like the start screen), it was much more convenient to quickly flick the screen than to go and use my dexterity on the trackpad. you wouldn't use touch in office, for example, but you might use it for navigating around the operating system quickly and easily.

maxpert• 14 years ago

I totally agree they are doing a Huge mistake, and it may go bad for them, already alot of things are pretty messed up with Microsoft. They should have instead enforced a good multitouch trackpad. Microsoft is trying to sit between netbooks and tablets and there is no middle ground!

sigkill2• 14 years ago

This is an excellent point. Last week I was at the mall where I saw a new Samsung TV that had a kinect like camera thingy built in. It claimed that you could use it to play Angry birds and navigate the TV using only your palm/hands. Guess what? Thanks to being horrendously inaccurate and jumpy I got gorilla arm within just a few minute of demo usage and said "fuck it, I'm not interested anymore. Samsung should really fix their image processing quality".

My second experience is with the Asus eeePad Transformer. It's great to randomly touch the screen when using a mouse would take a few seconds extra but in the long run you'd end up using the keyboard/mouse subconsciously since your arm starts hurting.

recoiledsnake2• 14 years ago

What makes you think Microsoft doesn't foresee it?

This isn't an iPad with a bluetooth keyboard with no mouse pointer support.

The Surface keyboards even have a trackpad and they've released keyboards and mice that take gestures.

http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/windowsexperience/archive...

DeepDuh3• 14 years ago

- yet their new GUI is clearly not mouse optimized and I'd argue it's not trackpad gestures optimized either. The mouse movement to do anything is just too long.

lifeguard• 14 years ago

" it’s not just a menu, it’s a whole computing environment "

colmvp• 14 years ago

I tried out Windows 8 on a laptop a few weeks ago. I used to use Windows extensively (3.1, 95, 98, XP) before eventually switching to OSX.

Some things I like:

- Transitions between windows are super fast and smooth.

- Style is clean and lightweight. A distinctive approach.

Things that made me uncomfortable:

- No Start button (although you can download 3rd party programs to bring it back)

- Trying to have two windows next to one another felt much harder to accomplish. Using Snap! just felt way more complicated than what'd you normally do in Windows/OSX.

- Start-up screen is kind of overwhelming and inefficient. It's a cool concept but the variety of boxes just makes it hard to interpret information quickly. It reminds me of iGoogle. I just don't need all that information at once.

- Some of the features are hidden and require a lot of exploring to get it right, like remembering which corner does what when your mouse moves there. I've never found those type of mouse gestures intuitive.

But I should note that I've spent decades learning one paradigm so this could very well work with a younger generation that isn't as married to a UI concept.

mariusmg• 14 years ago

"No Start button" Great thing actually. Instead of hitting start and fumbling with the mouse to find a certain app, you just start typing the app name, press Enter and done.

"Start-up screen is kind of overwhelming and inefficient". The new start screen is basically a launcher + notification. You can always turn live tiles off and get a static screen.

"Some of the features are hidden and require a lot of exploring to get it right" Win+C to show the charms bar, win+shift+. to dock/undock app to right side. No need to even move the mouse.

gman993• 14 years ago

>>Instead of hitting start and fumbling with the mouse to find a certain app, you just start typing the app name, press Enter and done.

Isn't this exactly the same as in windows 7? Hit start button and start typing? The only real difference is that the start menu is now full screen and the small icons have been replaced with constantly updating "tiles".

I'd rather I had the choice of a traditional start menu, but then you always have the option of booting direct to desktop and pinning the common apps to the taskbar. So not really sure what the fuss is about.

HardyLeung4• 14 years ago

I have been running Windows 8 (RTM version) on my laptop for two weeks (as I am a MSDN subscriber, thanks to BizSpark). The Metro interface is cute but after a while, I am completely back to the Desktop environment. To my surprise, it is exactly like Windows 7, minus the start menu. I even wonder whether this is because I upgraded from Windows 7?

So I would say, if you are worried that it'll destroy your Windows experience as you know it, don't. It's still there. Really still there, with some minor improvements (e.g. task menu). If I didn't get this for free, I would have felt cheated (as in, this is just an UI skin over my existing Windows 7). What I miss the most is the start menu, and I guess I'll download some start-menu app to replace that.

I don't use my laptop as a tablet so I can't comment on the Metro interface, other than that it's fluid (like the Windows Phone). I don't see there is any chance I'd buy the Surface RT though... The App Store is very limiting at this point. But then, I am not their RT audience.

barrkel3• 14 years ago

For Start Menu, I've been getting along well with http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/ - but I use it in Windows 7 too.

jeswin• 14 years ago

Isn't it easier to use the keyboard (eg: Start + 'Exce.. + Enter) to launch apps, than go to the mouse?

Most ubuntu users had a similar transition, when they moved from gnome to unity. It isn't that bad; or even at all.

aik• 14 years ago

You use this in Windows 7? Mind if I ask why? I find the Win7 start menu super useful, just for the fact that I can pin very common apps on the first menu, and see recent items, and have the search. Very very rarely do I go into the "Programs".

Stratoscope2• 14 years ago

> The Metro interface is cute but after a while, I am completely back to the Desktop environment. To my surprise, it is exactly like Windows 7, minus the start menu. I even wonder whether this is because I upgraded from Windows 7?

It's not because you upgraded from Windows 7; a vanilla Windows 8 installation has the same desktop too.

In particular if you use the Windows 7 Start menu with the keyboard - typing in a name to search for it - that works much the same in the Windows 8 start screen. Some useful keyboard shortcuts:

* Windows+W to go directly to the Settings

* Windows+F to go directly to Files in the new start screen

* Windows+X to get a quick popup menu of power user tools

* Windows+I to open a panel of quick settings

If you want something more like the Windows 7 Start menu, try Start8:

http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

I've been trying it out a bit and am not sure whether I prefer it or the Metro start screen. I very much like the lack of animation in Start8 - that was the main thing I missed from Windows 7.

One other subtle thing I miss from Windows 7 is that shortcuts to apps like Notepad will start multiple instances of the app. For some unfathomable reason, the Windows 8 start screen always goes to the first instance of the app if you try to start Notepad or the like multiple times. That would be OK but I can't find any way to override it and easily start multiple instances. Start8 brings back the old behavior here.

HardyLeung4• 14 years ago

> One other subtle thing I miss from Windows 7 is that shortcuts to apps like Notepad will start multiple instances of the app. For some unfathomable reason, the Windows 8 start screen always goes to the first instance of the app if you try to start Notepad or the like multiple times. That would be OK but I can't find any way to override it and easily start multiple instances. Start8 brings back the old behavior here.

You can do that by right clicking the icon on the bottom taskbar and click the app to start. It did drive me crazy until I figured this out.

eprom• 14 years ago

The easiest way to launch a new instance of the application is to hold down the Shift key while launching. Don't remember how I stumbled upon this, but it works for both the taskbar and the start screen launchers.

gman993• 14 years ago

Middle click the icon in the taskbar to open a new instance of the app. It does mean you need to pin the app to the taskbar or open it first from the start menu, but that's what you're doing anyway. Just saves you navigating the start menu for subsequent launches.

pixie_• 14 years ago

Every rational developer at Microsoft must be screaming in their heads, but can't say anything because god knows how many levels of management have beat the will power out of them to speak out about the horrible decision of making the start menu a full screen affair. It's funny having watched this horrible design decision keep going on for a year now. It's only going to get worse once windows 8 is released. It's been like watching a train wreck in very very slow motion.

ladzoppelin• 14 years ago

I love Windows 8 and think its the best one yet because of the design and detail. If you can't recognize the good changes made to the regular desktop it's probably because you have already made up your mind to not like Windows 8. Hyper-V mode is also another reason why I am upgrading to a new laptop in a month.

Derbasti• 14 years ago

I think the defining feature of Windows 8 will be its transformability. On the go, you will use it in tablet mode, like an iPad. But at home or at work, you will put it into some kind of docking station and it will connect to your monitor, mouse and keyboard and you will use it like your desktop today.

While the contrast between those two modes (Metro vs. Desktop) is kind of jarring, the utility of having both interfaces available at all time is a major boon that no current tablet or tradional laptop can match.

The point here is that you can substitute one Windows 8 device for both your tablet and your desktop, without sacrificing either. This is something I look forward to and I am willing to pay the usability price for. That said, I don't see tablets being powerful enough for my kind of work just yet. But they will get there, eventually.

andrewfelix• 14 years ago

Windows 8 looks gorgeous. For everyday use I'm sure it works great.

However outside of email I generally only use a text editor and a large portion of the Adobe suite. At best, for me, it looks like the new Metro interface will be little more than a novelty. At worst it will be a hindrance.

Never thought I'd say it; But after 13 years with Windows, I'm switching to Mac

metatronscube• 14 years ago

As far as Windows 8 goes, I have already made up my mind. This is the 'review' that sealed the deal for me http://youtu.be/X0fsyb-ttcw

Walt Mossberg's Windows 8 Review

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