24 replies to this topic

[crp]

Windows 8 review: Yes, it's that bad

Actually, I have an issue with this type of review. I recall from msVista when it first came out and I started using it , I thought it was pretty good. After about 6 weeks I started to loath it and even SP1 did not swing me back in being on good terms with msVista.

I believe the same can work in reverse. Sometimes the infrastructure and plumbing need to be working for a few weeks to "break in" - and when it does it just might fit.

Admittedly , I doubt it in the case of W8. And my gripe might be more with the tittle than the actual content of the review, which in the end does it solid marks aside from the UI.

[crp]

from Ed Bott's quick synopsis,

Quote

The only significant (and welcome) change I noticed is in  file search results, where right-clicking an item now displays an app command that lets you jump to that file's location using Windows Ex... sorry, File Explorer.

To me, this is actually a HUGE change and quite important. It will make working with programs, files and directories easier for "power users".

On a side note, when reading it I kept on confusing RTM with win8 RT

[LilBambi]

Oh, and don't forget there's not just RTM and Win8 RT, there's also another totally different thing that's called WinRT and it's not Windows 8 RT, but many are calling it WinRT ... Microsoft should keep tabs on things like this so they do not happen.

Sigh... I am with you crp, I never liked WinME or Vista even after SP. Vista is a slug even on fast computers with 4GB RAM.

Edited by LilBambi, 15 August 2012 - 06:06 PM.

[raymac46]

My 2001 Dell Dimension 4100 came with Windows Me and to be honest I didn't have a lot of problems with it. A couple of years later I switched it over to XP after upgrading the memory. Then I ran XP on various machines until last year when I got a Win 7 notebook and recently a Win 7 desktop.
During my work years I used DOS, Windows 3.11 and NT 4. Even when I retired at the end of 2004 we hadn't upgraded. I assume my company is using Windows 7 by now.
My first exposure to Vista came when some of the seniors in my neighborhood bought new machines with it pre-installed. When they had issues and called me to help I quickly discovered that old favorite tools like Control Panel had been rejigged and I couldn't find anything I needed.
Another problem was that one or two had ordered Vista 64 which at that time was sadly lacking in legacy driver support. Printers and scanners would not work and I had to tell my "clients" to buy new ones.
The final annoyance was that with all the Vista security popups and crapware loaded on the machine by the OEMs, Vista was frustrating to launch and run even to fix something as simple as a display resolution.
I read recently that Vista needed two copies of every 2D window bitmap so that ran up memory usage and made it run like a dog.
My son-in-law's parents bought one of those "Vista Capable" PCs that had only 512 MB of RAM and then were amazed that their new computer ran worse than the Windows 98 machine it replaced. SIL and I added 2 GB of RAM and finally they were able to surf the Internet at a decent speed.
By the time I got a Windows 7 machine in 2011 most of those issues were resolved and I have enjoyed my Win 7 experience. Mind you I have never had less than quad cores, 4 GB of RAM and 64 bit Windows 7. My older machines are Linux only.

[Tushman]

raymac46, on 15 August 2012 - 06:42 PM, said:

I read recently that Vista needed two copies of every 2D window bitmap so that ran up memory usage and made it run like a dog.

I've heard a lot of stuff about Vista - never heard of such a requirement.  Also what is a "2D window bitmap"?  Did it ever exist in previous versions of Windows OS?

raymac46, on 15 August 2012 - 06:42 PM, said:

My son-in-law's parents bought one of those "Vista Capable" PCs that had only 512 MB of RAM and then were amazed that their new computer ran worse than the Windows 98 machine it replaced. SIL and I added 2 GB of RAM and finally they were able to surf the Internet at a decent speed.

The pre-installed OEM software is nothing new.  The manufacturer's have been doing that for a long time even before Vista.  The real problem was that OEMs were eager to pump up their sales and get people to adopt the new OS.  They skimped on hardware and sold them at budget prices in order to entice buyers.  When Vista first came out, there were indeed systems configured with only 512 MB RAM as you described.  However, people complained loudly enough that eventually they woke up & got the message.  I remember distinctly several months after Vista's initial release, that new PCs/laptops began coming out with 1 GB RAM at the minimum.  Still insufficient in my mind to run Vista smoothly, but definitely an improvement.  My memory of this particular time period is still lucid as I worked as a bench tech in the retail industry.

There was also deceptive marketing/advertising involved in my opinion as many OEMs slapped the "Vista Capable" or "Vista Ready" sticker on their computers when in fact they were configured with chipsets NOT capable of Aero interface, not to mention the paltry amount of RAM installed.

Edited by Tushman, 17 August 2012 - 02:21 PM.

[raymac46]

Quote

I've heard a lot of stuff about Vista - never heard of such a requirement. Also what is a "2D window bitmap"? Did it ever exist in previous versions of Windows OS?

Here's where I read the story:

http://www.tomshardw...gdi,2547-2.html

[Tushman]

raymac46, on 17 August 2012 - 03:52 PM, said:

Here's where I read the story:

http://www.tomshardw...gdi,2547-2.html

Thanks for the link to the article.  The subject of graphics rendering tickled my memory about 'Avalon' - which was the code name pre-vista days for Microsoft's new graphics rendering architecture.  It was your terminology about the 2D bitmap that threw me off a bit.  I read about all the hype (including new features planned for Vista) about a 1 or 2 before Vista came out - never paid much attention to it.  Microsoft has a bad habit of "over promising" and trying to include things they can never deliver on time.  That includes WinFS.

At any rate, from reading that article it seems they have really improved the driver for the CDD model because I've never seen anykind of sluggish slowdown of any kind since upgrading to Win 7.  It's good to know why Vista is such a dog.

Edited by Tushman, 19 August 2012 - 01:41 PM.

[ross549]

You are being Lied to: Windows 8 is NOT bad for Gaming

Some analysis from a fine publication.....

I say the above somewhat tongue in cheek.... I don't know how Gizmodo is still operating, but the authors have some interesting insights at times.

Adam

[LilBambi]

I guess we will all see soon enough.

[crp]

I installed W8 on a new regular desktop at work. The new interface design really is as bad as reviewers were complaining, though a couple of the issues are really the apps fault and not the UI. Then again , the apps are from microsoft.

But first - there were a couple of problems with the installation. When installation starts up there is a simple 'Windows' text logo that shows up. and that's it. I walked away for a few minutes and came back to just the text logo and was just about to restart the pc when the 'busy signal' showed up.
Second - when the installation is done it does the final reboot so that you can get started. Well, blank screen. The keyboard was working, the monitor had a green light but nothing showing. Switched monitors , still nothing. Rebooted to DVI interface - nope, that wasn't it. Cold booted to the VGA interface - aha, there we go, I got a Start screen.
Oh boy, the Start screen. Remember, this is a desktop setup with regular keyboard & mouse and the monitor is under 20". The first thing you notice is that despite the name, there really is no place to start. I mean, there is NO TUTORIAL on how to get really get up and going. (there is a short clip about hey if you move your mouse here you see stuff, if you move it there you see other stuff and you slide across instead of up-down and have fun)

Problem 1: the mouse hot zones were inconsistent. sometimes Charms would show , sometimes not. When going to the lower left, sometimes an icon would show , sometimes not. Doing a right click does not do anything useful. And the screen items are so freaking large. Started an app. Umm, why is this taking up the whole screen when there is so much blank space on the margins? And how do I get back to the Start ? Maybe if I hit Alt-F4 ... Okay, back to Start

Problem 2: ooh, IE, I know how to use that. hmm, full screen again - how do I see the weather live feed and IE at the same time. Oh right, IE stays in full screen there is no way to adjust size of Metro (so sue me) app. umm, so what is the point of the live feed?  and how would a Metro (so sue me) dashboard app make sense? Anyway, why is the IE screen draw taking so long? Got to the page , finally. address bar on bottom on bottom instead of top, no big deal, I'll just move the bar .... umm, nope. Okay, well let me print this page. Umm, Save the page? No menu?!?!? Fine, I'll right-click on the page --- oh my gosh, what in the world is that??

Problem 3: How do I close an app? I mean really close it? How can i tell what is running? Fine, no app or monitor or anything - lets bring up TaskManager. Ctrl-Alt-Del and --- where the heck am I? what happened to Start . oh, I'm in the desktop. hmm, the desktop seems fine. lacking a place to click to see the apps or do a search but has a taskbar and icons. lets see, i want to start wordpad how do i do that? Oh yeah, start typing and it will find the application. W-O- , umm nothing is happening. Oh right, I need to be in Start . So I should be able to hit the Windows key to get back to Start instead of trying to hit that elusive lower-left. Dang, nothing happened. Oh, hit it again and here is Start . Oh boy, going back and forth between Start and desktop is quite jarring.

At this point , I rebooted and got 2 other people to look at the W8. I didn't prejudice them, I simply asked them if they wanted to see how W8 was. First problem was figuring out how to log in. One of them figured out that the icon below the date must mean something. But both of them had terrible times with the UI (though they each mentioned more than once, 'ya know , on a tablet this might work'. Neither of them picked up that the user did not have to go down to the scroll bar to go left and right. Neither of them could figure how to close an app. None of us could figure out exactly what we should expect to happen when hitting the Windows key. All of us missed the Alt-Tab and Windows-Tab. None of us liked the way the Metro (so sue me) apps looked , or that they hogged the whole screen and that there was no way to stack apps.

Setting up the desktop would take a lot of work, but seemed doable. Desktop work went well and the desktops all seemed improved upon in either speed , features or both. We would need to test compatibility of our main applications. But that isn't going to happen now.

Using the new Metro (so sue me) UI is quite simply not worth it on a desktop system. The harddrive will be scrubbed and W7 will be installed.

[ross549]

How much of the above frustrations do you attribute to simply learning the new UI? Many of the notes I have read about Windows 8 and Metro were not that negative  once the reviewer took some time (more than a few days) to really immerse themselves and get used to it.

Also, I think everyone you find who has used Windows prior to Windows 8 will likely have a negative initial opinion. In other words, they are used to the way Windows *used* to work, so the new things, different by design and clashing against their established patterns, will seem to be bad.

Adam

[crp]

This is a work environment, some of the multitasking issues won't go away.
On a large monitor the sudden switches from desktop-Metro (so sue me) are really jarring.
The lack of knowing what hitting the Windows key will do is not good and the lack of consistency of the mouse hot zones is really bad.

Some of the problems are due to lack of knowledge of how the UI is supposed to work. But that is part of the problem with W8 - no tutorial.

In addition there is no way my boss is going to be OK with having everyone in the office take off a few days to immerse themselves in Metro (so sue me).

I have limited experience in dealing with handhelds, the other 2 did not. They were the ones that thought that the W8 would be better on a tablet though there was the concern of how to turn an app totally off. Neither of them are stuck in the mud types , in fact one of them uses KDE4.8 for his linux. I am a stuck in the mud type (though I did like Aero even on msVista) and most work environments are. Keep in mind that users who are data processing types can tell the difference if an application is taking .01 second longer to happen. And none of our apps are Metro (so sue me) capable.

Give me a way to live 90% in the desktop mode and I'll consider it. Give me Aero type capabilities on top of that and I'll be there. But this UI split and lack of a guide on how to use, what to expect and lack of consistent UI interaction - reformat harddrive time.

[LilBambi]

Might be good to try it at home first. But not everyone in the office can do that.

[sunrat]

Nice one crp. I think you have just become our No.1 OS reviewer!

[crp]

sunrat, on 27 August 2012 - 10:02 PM, said:

Nice one crp. I think you have just become our No.1 OS reviewer!

umm, no, one subject  is enough.

[ross549]

crp,

Thanks for your thoughts on the subject. Do you think someone who buys a new computer and gets Windows 8 with it for home use is going to have a problem with using it? I heard somewhere that there should be a video that plays the first time the computer boots Windows 8 explaining some of the fundamentals. Ironically, it is not known yet where that video is coming from, so there is no way that anyone knows of (yet) to pull that video up again. Did you see this video by any chance?

Let's assume that the UI inconsistency (was this for hotspots like charms?) is something that Microsoft is able to iron out in a future update, do you think the UI has the potential to be usable in a home environment?

There's a couple tricks to Metro that I think are really useful. When you are in Metro, think of it like you are in the Star Menu in Windows 7. You can simply type the name of the program you are looking for, and like Windows 7, you will be presented with a list matching what you are typing. Also, and I don't have a link handy right now, there are several guides out there with various key shortcuts to make Metro do some interesting things.

Metro is probably most useful on a tablet device and it mimics the functionality found on the Windows Phone devices. I have a really hard time thinking that Microsoft did not conduct numerous usability studies on this UI. It is a dramatic shift, for sure. But Microsoft has the resources to make sure what they are doing will work well. I predict that when Windows 8 is officially released and people start using it en masse, there will initially be some noise about the new UI, but the naysayers will eventually grow used to the new design and may grow to like it to a certain extent.

I did not like the change from XP to the Aero interface inWindows 7. However, I learned a few new tricks on the way, and now I can make it sing.

Adam

[crp]

video is run once for the login and if you don't know it is coming , well ...
It doesn't show much, just the very, very basics and 'ooh look how shiny this is'. Microsoft does not make it easy to find out the Windows key combinations since they really don't want people to use it. I think they only allowed them due to 'Ease of Access' concerns. A cheat sheet would definitely help or even better displaying list of options if WIndows key held down for more than 2 seconds.

The typing in the Start screen to get a list of matches worked okay, but they give no option to look at everything. you have to choose between  programs and two other categories. So when looking for something know if it is considered a program or something else. (When I get back to the pc I'll fill in the vagueness)

Metro (so sue me) IE is s-l-o-w compared to IE9 and the desktop IE10. In general , the apps are 'meh'. And again, on a regular pc with large monitor I don't understand the "only one thing at a time" paradigm. And the jolting difference between desktop and Start is quite real, especially if an app with a bright color scheme is in charge of Start. It is a shame because it quite the engineering feat that they got the change to happen so quickly. Great engineering, poor user experience.

The mouse hotspots are a definite problem. I was thinking that a good solution maybe having a builtin trackpad on the keyboard (like a laptop) in addition to the mouse. There is probably some rhyme and reason to what happens when the Windows key is tapped but we could not figure it out. Oh, I forgot to mention the default font. Not that easy to read the captions in Start.

According to Microsoft User Studies, hardly anyone used the Start button in W7 and users just pinned what they used. Do you believe that to be true? Most people I've come across who use W7 don't even understand what pinning is , much less use it. Bob Lewis (www.issurvivor.com/) had the great line that metrics measure what you want to see.

A home user coming from a windows phone or something similar would probably not have too much trouble with W8 except for the mouse. A pc user though? Come on Microsoft, include a guide book and a real tutorial on the system disk. And do something about the desktop-Start jolt.

Edited by crp, 28 August 2012 - 05:28 AM.

[ross549]

I knew about pinning before we migrated to Windows 7 at work. I really only use three or four things on the computer on a daily basis. Other things, like calculator, I will bring up by tapping the Windows key and typing the name. I do not find it surprising that people would not use the Sart menu much any more, especially with all the junk that ends up there. I know it can be reorganized, but most folks don't know how to do it.

I really think Microsoft was going for a fully unified experience between PC, tablet, and phone. I think the only way to do it was to sacrifice some functionality on the desktop. I don't think anyone is going to go for a true windows desktop on a tablet. Look at how dismal the sales on the windows tablet edition was over the years before the iPad came out. Now that Apple has really solidified the basic idea of a touch interface that is well thought out, the idea of putting a normal desktop interface on a tablet is essentially dead.

Adam

[crp]

More on the search in Start . The categories are Apps, Settings and Files. i see no way of getting all the results in one group. On a new pc the search is quite quick (bing technology?) . Unfortunately, it is not persistent.

More on the Charms opening: the mouse throw must hit the very corner of the right side top/bottom. Not what was expected.

Remote Desktop Connection from a non-W8 pc is a problem. The session does not understand that when the mouse is moved to the right that you want the screen to move to the right. you must use the scroll bar on the bottom. Also can not figure out how to get the Windows key recognized in the session. the fonts actually look better in the RDP session window.

OOH - just find something by accident: go to the screen filp corner and move the mouse just so and a sidebar listing of active apps shows up, from which you can really close them. lots of luck on getting the mouse correct.
oh wait! aha, a small ghost tab shows up when in the corner, move mouse towards it and you get the sidebar listing.

And there is on-line Help available - go to Desktop, click on the desktop (not the taskbar) and then F1. It is not that good but does help.

My wrists hurt    , this is really not meant for non-touch.

[ross549]

It really isn't. However, the PC as we low it is dying. Soon it will be tablets and phones for the home user.

Adam

[crp]

, W8 won't connect to a linux based NAS

[ross549]

Using any protocol? Not even samba? That seems strange.

Adam

[raymac46]

When I worked in Unilever Research, I served as the unofficial IT advisor and hand-holder for a bunch of food scientists who had to use a desktop PC as part of their jobs. I was one of them but just knew a bit more about PCs.
I remember all the angst and aggravation that went on when we switched from Windows 3.11 to Windows NT4 and the Start button showed up for the first time. I am grateful to be retired and not have to face the problems when the Start button is taken away.

[crp]

ross549, on 28 August 2012 - 06:36 PM, said:

It really isn't. However, the PC as we low it is dying. Soon it will be tablets and phones for the home user.
Adam

I can't make up my mind if you meant 'love' or 'know'

[ross549]

crp, on 29 August 2012 - 09:17 PM, said:

I can't make up my mind if you meant 'love' or 'know'

Well, both apply. I need to check my speeling before I post, eh?

Adam